"Sleepy" John Estes

 

It's hard to do "Sleepy" John Estes justice when talking about the old Delta Blues.  We talk about Son House, Robert Johnson, Charlie Patton and others, but John Estes is likely the best of them all.  His voice is cleaner and purer than all of them, and the instrumental backup is second to none.  The song content is pure regional and an excellent listen.  When many people think of old Delta Blues, they automatically think of west Mississippi along the Mississippi River.  But the Mississippi Delta extends up through West Tennessee, and that is where John Estes made his mark.

John Adams "Sleepy John" Estes was born 25 January 1899 in Ripley, Lauderdale County, Tennessee.  One of 16 children born to a sharecropper family, "Sleepy John" taught himself how to play using a homemade cigar-box guitar and crafted a highly personal repertoire of songs.  Singing with a depth of feeling and emotional impact  that Big Bill Broonzy once described as "crying the blues", he earned his place in the country blues pantheon with pre-war standards like “Someday Baby” and “Dropdown Mama.”

He got the nickname "Sleepy" from the fact that he would frequently doze off, often at the most inopportune times.  This is said to have been caused by either a blood pressure disorder or narcolepsy that affected him all his life.

"Sleepy" John Estes suffered a stroke and died on June 5th, 1977.

'I Ain't Gonna Be Worried No More 1929–1941'

This is today's first freeload, it was released in 1992 on the Yazoo label.

"Sleepy" John made his debut as a recording artist in Memphis in 1929, at a session organized by Ralph Peer for Victor Records.  Always a prolific songwriter, by the mid 1930s he had matured as a composer and a storyteller, contributing a wealth of material that has become a part of the collective blues repertoire.  As for topic matter, he drew from his own everyday experiences, and many of his best songs are really vignettes of his life.

Though only modestly skilled as a guitarist, he was frequently teamed with more capable musicians, like Yank Rachell, Hammie Nixon, and pianist player Jab Jones.  He later recorded for the Decca and Bluebird labels, with his last pre-war recording session taking place in 1941.

Except for two short recording sessions in 1950 for the Ora Nelle label in Chicago and Sam Phillips Sun label in Memphis, "Sleepy" John was out of the music business for the next 20 years.

'The Legend Of Sleepy John Estes'

Today's second freeload, is a Japanese vinyl pressing, ripped at 24-bit/192kHz for your dinning and dancing pleasure.  The album was recorded in March 1962 and released in 1963 on the Delmark label.  This was the first of several recordings Sleepy John Estes made in the 60s, and remains a cornerstone in his catalog.

"Sleepy" John sounded so much like an old man, even on his early records, that blues revivalists reportedly delayed looking for him because they assumed he would have to be long dead, and also because Big Bill Broonzy and other fellow musicians mistakenly believed that "Sleepy" John had died.

As a young boy, "Sleepy" John lost the sight of his right eye in an accident and, over the years, his other eye deteriorated until he became totally blind by 1950.  When he was eventually tracked down, by Robert G. Koester and Samuel B. Charters in 1962, he was living in abject poverty.

"Sleepy" John was promptly signed to a contract with Delmark records and subsequently recorded for several other labels over the next 15 years, including Vanguard, Adelphi, Fontana and Folkways. This allowed him to live in comfort for the rest of this life.

The first concert he played after his reentry into music was at the University of Illinois, followed by one at Harvard.  So began a new career for the 52-year-old "Sleepy" John Estes, playing colleges, and coffeehouses and folk festivals.  His old friend Hammie Nixon accompanied him as a companion, guide and musical partner.  Sleeping in comfortable hotels and a traveling by airplane certainly was quite a contrast to their first musical career.

Don'tcha just love a happy ending?

For the freeload, tell us about a recent musical discovery you've made.