Mance Lipscomb

Beau De Glen "Mance" Lipscomb (April 9, 1895 – January 30, 1976) was an American blues singer, guitarist and songster.

Biography Lipscomb was born April 9, 1895, near Navasota, Texas. His father had been born into slavery in Alabama; his mother was half African American and half Native American. As a youth, Lipscomb took the name Mance (short for emancipation) from a friend of his oldest brother, Charlie.

Due to his father's early departure from home, he was compelled to end his schooling after the third grade and work in the fields with his mother.

For most of his life, Lipscomb supported himself as a tenant farmer in Texas. His mother bought him a guitar and he taught himself to play by watching and listening. He became an accomplished performer then and played regularly for years at local gatherings, mostly what he called "Saturday night suppers" hosted by someone in the area. He and his wife regularly hosted such gatherings for a while. Until around 1960, most of his musical activity took place within what he called his "precinct", the area around Navasota, Texas.

He was discovered and recorded by Mack McCormick and Chris Strachwitz in 1960, during a revival of interest in the country blues. He recorded many albums of blues, ragtime, Tin Pan Alley, and folk music (most of them released by Strachwitz's Arhoolie Records),

In 1961 he recorded the album Trouble in Mind, released by Reprise Records. In May 1963, he appeared at the first Monterey Folk Festival, (which later became the Monterey Pop Festival) alongside other folk artists such as Bob Dylan, and Peter, Paul and Mary in California.

Unlike many of his contemporaries, Lipscomb had not recorded in the early blues era. Michael Birnbaum recorded interviews with Mance in 1966 at his home in Navasota about his life and music. These recordings are in the Ethnomusicology library at University of California, Los Angeles. His life is well documented in his autobiography, I Say Me for a Parable: The Oral Autobiography of Mance Lipscomb, Texas Bluesman, narrated to Glen Alyn (published posthumously). He was the subject of a short 1971 documentary film by Les Blank, called A Well Spent Life.

Film A Well Spent Life (1971). Documentary directed by Les Blank and Skip Gerson. El Cerrito, California: Flower Films. Released on videotape in 1979. . The Blues Accordin' to Lightnin' Hopkins (1970). Directed by Les Blank.

Honors

An annual Navasota Blues Festival is held in his honor. On August 12, 2011, a bronze sculpture of him was unveiled in Mance Lipscomb Park in Navasota. The statue was sculpted by the artist Sid Henderson of California and weighs almost 300 pounds. It portrays Lipscomb playing his guitar whilst seated on a bench, with room for fans to sit beside him and play their own guitars at his side.