Celebrate John Jackson’s legacy at Saturday’s Piedmont Blues Festival

When John Jackson was born 100 years ago, the seventh of what would become 14 children in a family in Woodville, he was the unlikeliest of legends. His parents were tenant farmers, struggling to get by, and everyone in the family had to pitch in, including John as a young boy. 

But a combination of storybook serendipity and unique natural talent set Jackson on a path that would put him on festival stages around the world, and even in the White House Rose Garden. And, it brought him recognition as a master of the musical style that became known as the Piedmont Blues.

To purchase tickets to Saturday’s festival, go here.

The centennial of his birth and his childhood in Rappahannock County will be celebrated on Saturday, Sept. 28, at the annual John Jackson Piedmont Blues Festival at Eldon Farms in Woodville from 10:30 a.m. – 8 p.m. The Rappahannock County Board of Supervisors recently proclaimed Sept. 28 as John Jackson Day in his honor.

Jackson’s remarkable story includes getting his first guitar lessons from a man he knew only as “Happy” and, decades later, his “discovery” in a Fairfax gas station. 

As Jackson told it, he met Happy, a convict working on a prison road crew nearby, when the man stopped to get a drink from a spring near Jackson’s home. They struck up a conversation, and Happy mentioned that he could play guitar, then offered to teach young John. The next time they met, Jackson brought his father’s guitar with him, and soon he was learning songs.

By the time he was a young man, Jackson was playing at house parties all around the Rappahannock area. But a particularly violent fight at a party convinced him to stop playing in public, and he stayed away from performing for 20 years.

Then came another twist of fate. In 1964, while giving a guitar lesson to his mailman in the back room of a Fairfax gas station, Jackson was heard by a man who had stopped for gas. His name was Chuck Perdue and he was an expert on folk music and blues. He couldn’t believe what he was hearing. 

Perdue was so impressed he encouraged a skeptical Jackson to start performing in clubs in and around Washington, D.C. He also arranged for him to begin recording the many songs Jackson learned from listening to records his parents had bought from a traveling salesman.

From there, his reputation as a talented acoustic blues musician continued to grow. He became a regular at the Smithsonian Folklife Festival, and in 1986, Jackson was named a National Heritage Fellow by the National Endowment for the Arts. It’s the nation’s highest honor awarded to folk and traditional artists.

But through it all, he never gave up his regular job as a cemetery caretaker and gravedigger in Fairfax County. 

“I think he would be surprised that people are making such a big deal in his name,” said blues harmonica virtuoso Phil Wiggins during an interview at last year’s festival. “But I don’t think there’s any reason he should be surprised. He was an incredible musician and an amazing human being who made a gigantic contribution to American music.”

Sadly, Wiggins, a headliner at past John Jackson Piedmont Blues festivals, won’t be returning. He died of cancer earlier this year.

Most of those who will be performing this year, such as Erin Harpe, who’s coming from Boston, and Frank Fotusky, who’s coming from Maine, also knew Jackson. Two others, Bobby Glasker and Jeffrey Scott were related to him.

Also on the bill are the legendary D.C.-based blues band, The Nighthawks, and the Richmond blues duo of Justin Golden and Andrew Alli.