John Adam “Sleepy John” Estes, was born in Ripley, Tennessee, around A highly skilled blues musician, Estes played a pivotal role in reestablishing rural blues within the American music canon during the folk blues revival of the s. His well-crafted songs, bolstered by a personalized lyricism that combined local flavor with individual feeling, left an indelible mark on fans and musicians. Prominent scholars in the s referred to Estes as a true original and a primary influence on subsequent blues musicians throughout the South.
Estes first learned to play guitar from his sharecropper father at age twelve. Soon thereafter, while working in the cotton fields with his family, he crafted his own cigar-box guitar and began to hone his skills at local house parties and fish fries. Around , the Estes family moved to Brownsville, Tennessee, which served as Sleepy John’s base residence periodically for the rest of his life. Brownsville was also home to “Hambone” Willie Newbern, an important early influence, as well as Yank Rachell and Hammie Nixonmusicians with whom Estes partnered at local venues and on professional recordings. In the late s, Estes and Nixon moved to Memphis and playe
Estes, Sleepy John
Country blues singer
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Sleepy John Estes was one of the most individual of all recorded blues singers. He sang with phrasing that fairly dripped with expressiveness in a high crying tone that seemed often like he was speaking to the listener. The songs he wrote were well suited to this treatment, dealing frequently with his and his neighbors lives in Brownsville, Tennessee. Estes recorded from the late s through the s when he was one of the most popular artists on the Decca label, until when his brand of country blues, the down-home music of rural blacks, had become something of an anachronism. His discovery by the fold revivalists of the s rescued him from poverty and gave him a second musical career that lasted nearly 15 years, during which he again became one of the most popular and best-loved bluesmen.
John Adam Estes was born near Ripley, Tennessee on January 25, His parents were sharecroppers who had sixteen children. Like his brothers and sisters, Estes grew up working his parents fields. There was little time for school. The most traumatic event of his childhood occurred during a baseball g
Sleepy John Estes
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Sleepy John Estes - Blues Singer, guitarist ( - ) The history of the blues has been so vaguely and haphazardly set down that it is difficult, if not impossible, to separate fact from legend. In the veiled and colorful world of the blues-singer this is true to such an extent that many bluesmen extend poetic license from their song lyrics into their everyday life. The story of John Adam Estes has especially been one clothed in the rich trappings of legend. For years, students of jazz and folk music have been listening to Sleepy John Estes records in awe of his unique singing style. They often were willing to pay premium prices for his old recordings on the Victor, Champion, Decca and Bluebird labels at a time when the only serious attention paid blues records was accorded those that featured accompaniments by noted jazz artists. When Big Bill Broonzy was interviewed by Yannick Bruynoghe for the book Big Bill's Blues (Grove Press, New York), he recalled running away from home "about " to work on the railroad just to hear John Estes howling the songs that lightened the workload of the swe
Born John Adams Estes, January 25, , in Ripley, TN, (died June 5, ); one of about sixteen children; parents were poor sharecroppers; married with five children.
Sleepy John Estes was one of the most individual of all recorded blues singers. He sang with phrasing that fairly dripped with expressiveness in a high crying tone that seemed often like he was speaking to the listener. The songs he wrote were well suited to this treatment, dealing frequently with his and his neighbors' lives in Brownsville, Tennessee. Estes recorded from the late s through the s when he was one of the most popular artists on the Decca label, until when his brand of country blues, the down-home music of rural blacks, had become something of an anachronism. His discovery by the fold revivalists of the s rescued him from poverty and gave him a second musical career that lasted nearly 15 years, during which he again became one of the most popular and best-loved bluesmen.
John Adam Estes was born near Ripley, Tennessee on January 25, His parents were sharecroppers who had sixteen children. Like his brothers and sisters, Estes grew up working his parents' fields. There was little time for school. The most t
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