John Adam Estes (January 25, 1899 or 1900June 5, 1977),
known as Sleepy John Estes, was an American

blues Blues is a music genre and musical form which originated in the Deep South of the United States around the 1860s. Blues incorporated spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts, chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads from the Afr ...

guitarist, songwriter and vocalist. His music influenced such artists as The Beatles, Bob Dylan and Led Zeppelin.

Life and career

Estes was born in Ripley, Tennessee, either in 1899 (the date on his gravestone) or 1900 (the date on his World War I draft card). In 1915, his father, a

sharecropper Sharecropping is a legal arrangement with regard to agricultural land in which a landowner allows a tenant to use the land in return for a share of the crops produced on that land. Sharecropping has a long history and there are a wide range ...

who played guitar, moved the family to Brownsville, Tennessee. Not long after, Estes lost the sight in his right eye when a friend threw a rock at him. At the age of 19, while working as a field hand, he began to perform professionally, mostly at parties and picnics, with the accompaniment of Hammie Nixon, a harmonica player, and James "Yank" Rachell, a guitarist and

mandolin A mandolin ( it, mandolino ; literally "small mandola") is a stringed musical instrument in the lute family and is generally plucked with a pick. It most commonly has four courses of doubled strings tuned in unison, thus giving a total of 8 ...

player. Estes continued to work on and off with both musicians for more than fifty years. He also performed in medicine shows with

Willie Newbern William "Hambone Willie" Newbern (probably 1901 – April 15, 1965) was an American guitar-playing country blues musician. Life and career Few details are known of his life. He is believed to have been born in Haywood County, Tennessee, clos ...

. At the suggestion of Jim Jackson, Estes made his debut as a recording artist in Memphis, Tennessee, in 1929, at a session organized by Ralph Peer for Victor Records. He recorded the tracks "Drop Down Mama" and "Someday Baby Blues" with Nixon in 1935. He later worked with

Son Bonds Abraham John Bond Jr., known as Son Bonds (March 16, 1909 – August 31, 1947), was an American country blues guitarist, singer and songwriter. He was a working associate of Sleepy John Estes and Hammie Nixon. He was similar to Estes in his ...

and Charlie Pickett. He went on to record for

Decca Records Decca Records is a British record label established in 1929 by Edward Lewis (Decca), Edward Lewis. Its U.S. label was established in late 1934 by Lewis, Jack Kapp, American Decca's first president, and Milton Rackmil, who later became American ...

and Bluebird Records, with his last prewar recording session taking place in 1941. He made a brief return to recording at Sun Studio in Memphis in 1952, recording "Runnin' Around" and "Rats in My Kitchen", but otherwise was out of the public eye in the 1940s and 1950s. Estes sang with a distinctive "crying" vocal style. He frequently teamed with more capable musicians, such as Yank Rachell, Hammie Nixon, and the piano player Jab Jones. Estes sounded so much like an old man, even on his early records, that blues revivalists reportedly delayed looking for him because they assumed he would have to be long dead (and because the musician Big Bill Broonzy had written that he was dead). By the time he was tracked down by the blues historians Bob Koester and

Samuel Charters Samuel Barclay Charters IV (August 1, 1929 – March 18, 2015) was an American music historian, writer, record producer, musician, and poet. He was a widely published author on the subjects of blues and jazz. He also wrote fiction. Overview Cha ...

in 1962, he was completely blind and living in poverty. He resumed touring with Nixon and recording for Delmark Records. Estes, Nixon and Rachell appeared at the Newport Folk Festival in 1964. Many of Estes's original songs were based on events in his life or people he knew in his hometown, Brownsville, such as the local lawyer ("Lawyer Clark Blues"), the local auto mechanic ("Vassie Williams' Blues"), or an amorously inclined teenage girl ("Little Laura Blues"). In "Lawyer Clark Blues", about the lawyer and later judge and senator Hugh L. Clarke, whose family lived in Brownsville, Estes sang that Clark let him "off the hook" for an offense. He also dispensed advice on agricultural matters ("Working Man Blues") and chronicled his own attempt to reach a recording studio for a session by hopping a freight train ("Special Agent ailroad Police Blues). His lyrics combined keen observation with an ability to turn an effective phrase. Some accounts attribute the nickname Sleepy to a

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disorder or narcolepsy. Bob Koester, the founder of Delmark Records, said that Estes simply had a "tendency to withdraw from his surroundings into drowsiness whenever life was too cruel or too boring to warrant full attention". Estes himself explained that the nickname was born of his exhausting life as both musician and farmer. "'Every night I was going somewhere. I'd work all day, play all night and get back home about sunrise. I'd get the mule and get right on going. I went to sleep once in the shed. I used to go to sleep so much when we were playing, they called me Sleepy. But I never missed a note.'"

Death

Estes had a stroke while preparing for a European tour and died on June 5, 1977, at his home of 17 years in Brownsville, Haywood County, Tennessee. He is buried at Elam Baptist Church Cemetery in Durhamville, Lauderdale County, Tennessee. His grave marker reads:

Sleepy John Estes
"..ain't goin' to worry Poor John's mind anymore"
In Memory
John Adam Estes
Jan. 25, 1899
June 5, 1977
Blues Pioneer
Guitarist – Songwriter – Poet

The epitaph "..ain't goin' to worry Poor John's mind anymore"Inscription on the grave marker of John Adam Estes (Sleepy John Estes), in Elam Baptist Church Cemetery, on Durhamville Road in Durhamville, Lauderdale County, Tennessee. is derived from his song "Someday Baby Blues." "I Ain't Gonna Be Worried No More" was recorded in 1935, and in his song "Drop Down Mama", also recorded in 1935, Estes referred to himself as "Poor John". His grave is located off a country road and at the far end of the cemetery, adjacent to a small grove of trees, secluded but not hidden. In 1991, Estes was posthumously inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame.

Legacy

Led Zeppelin's lead singer,

Robert Plant Robert Anthony Plant (born 20 August 1948) is an English singer and songwriter, best known as the lead singer and lyricist of the English rock band Led Zeppelin for all of its existence from 1968 until 1980, when the band broke up following the ...

, named Estes as one of his earliest influences.100 Greatest Singers of All Time: Robert Plant
'' Rolling Stone''. Retrieved 30 June 2015. Bob Dylan mentioned Estes in the sleeve notes for his album '' Bringing It All Back Home'' (1965). In an interview in 1970 published in '' Lennon Remembers'', John Lennon recalled of The Beatles' early days that "We were all listening to Sleepy John Estes and all that in art school, like everybody else." Estes's former two-room home is on display in Brownsville, Tennessee, USA alongside Tina Turner's

Flagg Grove School Flagg Grove School (or Flaggs' Grove School) was a school south of Nutbush in Haywood County, Tennessee, now part of Brownsville. The school was established in the late 19th century and now operates as the Tina Turner Museum. History An area o ...

and museum.

Recordings

Albums

* ''The Legend of Sleepy John Estes'' ( Delmark, 1963) * ''Broke and Hungry (Ragged and Dirty, Too)'' (Delmark, 1964) * ''Electric Sleep'' (Delmark, 1968) * ''Brownsville Blues'' (Delmark, 1965) * ''Down South Blues'' (Delmark) * ''Sleepy John Estes in Europe'' (Delmark, 1999)

Compilations

* ''Sleepy John Estes, 1929–1940'' (RBF Records) * ''Complete Recorded Works 1929–1941'', vols. 1 and 2 ( Document) * ''I Ain't Gonna Be Worried No More 1929–1941'' ( Yazoo)

References

External links

Illustrated Sleepy John Estes discography

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Estes, Sleepy John Year of birth uncertain 1977 deaths People from Brownsville, Tennessee African-American guitarists American blues guitarists American male guitarists Memphis blues musicians Country blues singers American blues singer-songwriters Blind musicians Singer-songwriters from Tennessee Bluebird Records artists Sun Records artists Delmark Records artists People from Ripley, Tennessee 20th-century American guitarists Guitarists from Tennessee African-American male singer-songwriters 20th-century African-American male singers