By Gerald Ochs

By Gerald Ochs

Rappahannock News Writer

Rappahannock County and the world's music community will mourn the passing of John Jackson, who died last Sunday of kidney failure at the age of 77. Bom in the County on Feb. 2, 1924, John Jackson was the seventh son of fourteen children of Woodville tenant farmers Suttie and Hattie Jackson.

Mr. Jackson is a legend, not only for the breadth and virtuosity of his guitar play and song, but for the "rags-to-riches" flavor of his life's story.

He picked up his father's guitar at the age of four, and taught himself enough by age eight to accompany his parents when they played at County parties and other events. He grew up on the blues and country of artists like Blind Boy Fuller, Uncle Dave Macon and Jimmie Rodgers, and absorbed those sounds and techniques until he mastered them and created his own unique style.

The need to work to help4he family ended his education in the first grade, but he continued his music schooling by working with his family's ensemble though the 1940’s. He then quit music for a time, feeling that it encouraged violence.

He moved to Fairfax with his wife and family in 1950 to work on a dairy farm and did not play again until he bought a guitar from a friend in the early 1960's. Then he renewed his love for music and started playing again, and worked as a gravedigger to support his family- lyThings

changed rapidly for John Jackson after he was discovered in 1964 by Chuck Perdue, President of the Folklore Society of Greater Washington, while playing for a friend at a gas station. Mr. Purdue, hearing him play, knew that John Jackson was unique and a musical treasure.

In just a few weeks, John was playing at coffeehouses in : the D. C. area, and that led to his first record in 1965 ("Blues

Correction

The film Monsters,

Inc. will be shown on

March 8 at The Theatre

and not March 1 as listed

in last week’s issue.

We regret the error.