|
|
Article: Bluesman John Jackson Dies; Gained World Fame
- Article from:
- The Washington Post
- Article date:
- January 22, 2002
- Author:
CopyrightThis material is published under license from the Washington Post. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Washington Post. (Hide copyright information)
|
John Jackson, 77, one of the last masters of the so-called
Piedmont-style blues singing and guitar picking, who was recognized
in 1986 as a National Heritage Fellow by the National Endowment for
the Arts, died of kidney failure Jan. 20 at his home in Fairfax
Station. He had liver and lung cancer.
Mr. Jackson never completed first grade while growing up in rural
Rappahannock County, Va. But he learned a library's worth of music by
ear and recorded nine albums from 1965 to 1999.
His emergence as a performer coincided with a movement to preserve
the unwritten repertoire of Delta and Piedmont blues songs, which had
long been played by gifted itinerant or uneducated musicians.
"I don't read and ...