house and when the furniture dealers returned every six

house and when the furniture dealers returned every six weeks or so to collect their installment, the kids picked out records, spending 10 cents . 15 cent on recordings by the giants of the blues—people tied to the earth, whether black or white. Jackson refined his style listening over and over again to their hard luck, down-and-out songs. “Rappahannock County was just full bf good guitar players, fiddle players, narmonicas back in those days,” John recalled. In addition to local musicians, other bluesmen from the big cities of Fredericksburg and Richmond stopped often at the Jackson home on their way down country. “They used to come to see my mother and father. I remember seeing them and hearing them but I never knew who they really were ‘til my mother told me a few years before she died.”

In his teens and early 20s, John was proficient enough to join his family and friends. "We played for parties and dances all over the place and every which way around,” he laughed. “There was a lot of music here in those times.”

But music wasn’t enough to keep him in the county. At 24, John joined the outmigration from Rappahannock, moving to Fairfax and a job as chauffeur-caretaker on the fringes of the sprawling metropolitan area of D. C. He left hi$ music behind in the mountains, abandoning his guitar for almost two decades. “I quit playing in ’46," Jackson stated without elaboration.

When his employer’s estate was sold, Jackson became a gravedigger, a trade he still follows, and moved to his current home at Fairfax Station.

Walk Right In

“It’s funny how I started | again. The kids were out in the yard playing ball. They’d gotten tired of it and kept | after me to play a song so they could dance.”

They wanted to hear the popular 1964 remake of an old, traditional number, “Walk right in, sit right down, Baby, let your mind roll on.” After more wheedling and pleading, Jackson recalled, he agreed