John Jackson Piedmont Blues Festival honors music icon
The Piedmont Blues are back!
The music will echo once again in the hills of Eldon Farms in Woodville when the John Jackson Piedmont Blues Festival returns on Saturday, Sept. 30.
The event is designed to honor the Rappahannock native who became a world-renowned performer, and to keep alive the music he celebrated.
“It was great to revive this festival last fall after missing two years because of the pandemic,” said Kenner Love, the county’s agricultural extension agent who heads the team of volunteers behind the event. “Now we want it to keep growing and make sure this part of the region’s past is kept alive.
“House parties were a big part of the local culture, and the Piedmont Blues was the music of those house parties,” he added. “That’s where John Jackson mastered the music that made him an artist who performed all over the world.”
One of the highlights of this year’s show will be the return of Phil Wiggins, the blues harmonica player who, like Jackson, has been named a National Heritage Fellow, the highest honor bestowed on traditional and folk artists in the United States. Last year, Wiggins performed solo, but this time he’ll be joined by guitarist and banjo player Hubby Jenkins and violinist Marcus Moore.
Also coming back to the stage in Woodville is the Erin Harpe Country Blues Duo and Jeffrey Scott, who learned acoustic blues guitar from Jackson, who was his grand-uncle. Rounding out the returnees are the popular local blues band, Bobby G and Friends, and the Unity Choir, comprising gospel singers from area churches.
New additions to the festival are Frank Fotusky, a top acoustic blues guitarist who played with Jackson, and guitarist Justin Golden and harmonica player Andrew Alli, two blues standouts in the Richmond music scene.
At the heart of the show is the legacy of John Jackson. Born in Rappahannock in 1924 as the seventh of 14 children, he didn’t make it past the first grade because he had to help on the family’s tenant farm. But at a young age, he taught himself how to play on his father’s guitar the songs he heard on the family’s old record player.
As a young man, he played his guitar and banjo, and sang for friends and neighbors until a violent confrontation at a house party convinced him to stop performing in public. That lasted until 1964 when he had a fluke encounter at a gas station in Fairfax. Jackson was giving his mailman a guitar lesson in a back room when music folklorist Chuck Perdue happened to stop for gas. That’s when he heard Jackson’s playing.
Before long, Jackson had become a regular at the Smithsonian Folklife Festival and started performing all over the world, including at the White House for two presidents, Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan. Although he never gave up his day job as a cemetery caretaker, Jackson kept playing up until a few months before his death in 2002.
“There was no pretense about John’s playing,” remembered Fotusky, who performed with Jackson and became his friend. “When you met John, his persona pulled you in. His playing did the same. What you heard through John’s music was John himself.”
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Festival namesake John Jackson passed away in 2002.
Visitors to the festival will be able to learn more about Jackson through a display of photos and articles, and storytelling from people who knew him. Also on site will be two food trucks serving the country favorites of the house parties where Jackson learned his trade.
Admission is $20. For details on buying tickets and more information, go to the John Jackson Piedmont Blues Festival Facebook page.
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