Pedro Mendes 5 months ago
ActivityRank: 64

Yeah, that's right. I've never thought it would be like that, since each of these guy's blues sound a bit different. But on this amazing blog I recently discovered, we see a Son House early recording called Mississippi Country Farm Blues, very similar to Lemon Jefferson's See That My Grave is Kept Clean.
See for yourself:
http://prewarblues.org/files/country_farm_blues.mp3

therailroadguy 5 months ago
ActivityRank: 60

This is a great find pedrorm2000 and a big thanks your way for sharing it here.

I know that Blind Lemon Jefferson had a direct influence on a young Lightnin Sam Hopkins and T-Bone Walker,along with Jefferson being friends with Huddie Ledbetter.But never knew of Jefferson's influence on Son House,with this mp3 providing some direct recorded evidence of this influence

Pedro Mendes 5 months ago
ActivityRank: 64

This just adds to the importance of Lemon Jefferson in the whole blues scenario. I'm reading this great book The Land Where The Blues Began, by Alan Lomax, and there's a part a related discovery is made.
From the book:

(Son House being interviewed)
"How it come about that he [Robert Johnson] played Lemon's style is this -- Little Robert learnt from me, and I learnt from an old fellow they call Lemon down in Clarksdale, and he was called Lemon because he had learnt all Blind Lemon's pieces off the phonograph."
Now I felt like shouting. Son House had laid out one of the main lines in the royal lineage of America's great guitar players -- Blind Lemon of Dallas to his double in Clarksdale to Son House to Robert Johnson.

Jamian 3 months ago
ActivityRank: 4

I actually just recently read the origin of that song. Art Laibly of Paramount Records had asked House, Charlie Patton, and Willie Brown to write a song to the beat of See That My Grave is Kept Clean. House wrote it in his hotel room and played it for Patton.

House talks about it here: http://paramountshome.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=112 on-house-interview-1965-&catid=47:new-york-recording-laboratoriesoral-histories&Itemid=54
Dan Beaumont talks about it somewhere around the middle: http://stream.publicbroadcasting.net/production/mp3/wxxi/local-wxxi-841661.mp3

jrewald 47 days ago
ActivityRank: 136

Jamina,

Thanks for letting us know! That's pretty cool stuff!