Instrument(s): guitar, vocals
Lifespan:25 June 1899 - 5 June 1977
Style synopsis: An exponent of the 'this is life no wonder I'm blue' school of lyricists writing from his own experiences eg. going blind (Stone Blind) or the reality of living in a sharecropper's shack (Rats in my Kitchen).
Representative Recordings:
Complete Recorded Works 1929-1941 Vols 1-2 (Document)
The Legend of Sleepy John Estes (Delmark)
Broke and Hungry, Ragged and Hungry Too (Delmark)
Brownsville Blues (Delmark)
Down South Blues(Delamrk
Contributor:Phil Wood (Phil_Wood@compuserve.com)
Contributor's Comments: From the brief description of Sleepy John's style above you might think that it is too depressing to listen to his music - to the contrary he wrote wonderful blues. Not all his experiences were as traumatic as these, he certainly knew about liquor and women and was happy to sing about the good as well as the bad.
Sleepy John's songs offer glimpses into the life of the poor black community in which he lived and worked for most of his life. As an example Fire Department Blues (Martha Hardin - "she's a hard working woman you know her salary is very small ... then when she pay up her house rent that don't leave anything for insurance at all ... you know little Martha's house done burned down she done moved over on Grafton Street" - a neighbourhood event summed up in the blues.
Another feature of his career his is long term working relationships with Yank Rachel (mandolin) and Hammie Nixon (harmonica). While he didn't work exclusively with them they keep appearing throughout his career. Another bluesman associated with Sleepy was John Lee Williamson who gained his nickname 'Sonny Boy' while hanging around with Sleepy and his friends as a teenager in Tennessee - a place Sleepy can be heard hankering after in Easin' Back to Tennessee
Like many of the pre-war bluesmen his early career died of during the war (Shellac rationing and a ban on recording in 1942 curtailed many a career) only to be restarted when discovered living in poverty in 1962. Together with Yank and Hammie again for the 1964 Newport Folk Festival (and for several recordings for Delmark) though completely blind since 1950 he demonstrated that he was still writing as well as ever though the performances don't match his earlier career.
Interestingly we almost missed out on his later career as the common belief was that he was born around 1870 and must therefore be dead - thus no one went looking for him even after Big Joe Williams had told them where Sleepy was living. Only the chance event of a documentary film being made in the area lead the filmmaker (Dave Blumenthal) to check out the rumour. Ironically when Sleepy was brought to Delmark's offices in Chicago in turned out that his brother Sam worked in the shop next door!