Perhaps the first country blues star and indisputably the father of Texas style blues, the unique guitar stylist and impressive singer Lemon Henry Jefferson (aka "Blind Lemon Jefferson") was born without sight to a sharecropping family from Texas. He began playing guitar at 19 and soon after he befriended and played a bunch with Lead Belly in Dallas.
In 1917 he hired young T-Bone Walker as a guide and it was Jefferson who was his guitar teacher. (He also taught Josh White). He made his first recordings in '25, gospel sides released as by "Deacon L.J. Bates". In '26 he first released tunes under his own name ("Booster Blues" / "Dry Southern Blues") and he became quite popular.
He cut over 100 records and toured via his own car with a hired chauffeur all over the South and up to Chicago. A major blues and gospel songwriter, his tunes have been covered countless times by the Beatles, Bob Dylan, Carl Perkins, Grateful Dead, BB King, Counting Crows, Laibach and many, many, many more. His death at 36 remains a suspicious mystery. "See That My Grave Is Kept Clean", the song states.