John Jackson

John Jackson (February 24, 1924 – January 20, 2002) was born into a musical family in Woodville, Virginia, and learned to play the guitar at an early age. He moved to Fairfax, Virginia, in his twenties, where he worked as a gravedigger, among other jobs.

His first recordings were released in the early 1960s by Arhoolie Records.

Jackson died in 2002 of liver cancer in Fairfax Station, Virginia, at the age of 77.

Musical style Reviewing Jackson's 1978 record Step It Up and Go in Christgau's Record Guide: Rock Albums of the Seventies (1981), Robert Christgau said, "His guitar style is eclectic, as befits a man who got his best songs from Blind Boy Fuller and Blind Blake 78s but who also played in a country band in the early '40s. His voice is guttural yet well-defined. No innovator, and not as arresting through a whole side as he is at the outset, he's nevertheless responsible for the most pleasing (and well-recorded) new country blues record I've heard in years."

Discography

Albums Blues and Country Dance Tunes from Virginia (1965, Arhoolie) John Jackson (1966, Arhoolie) More Blues and Country Dance Tunes from Virginia: Vol. 2 (1968, Arhoolie) In Europe (1970, Arhoolie) Don't Let Your Deal Go Down (1970, Arhoolie) Step It Up and Go (1979, Rounder) Deep in the Bottom (1983, Rounder) Country Blues & Ditties (1999, Arhoolie) Front Porch Blues (1999, Alligator) Rappahannock Blues (2010, Smithsonian Folkways)

Awards and honors Jackson was a recipient of a 1986 National Heritage Fellowship awarded by the National Endowment for the Arts, which is the United States government's highest honor in the folk and traditional arts.

In January 2011, Jackson's album Rappahannock Blues was nominated in the categories Blues Album and Live Performance Album at the 10th annual Independent Music Awards.