Mance Lipscomb was from Navasota Texas and like Lightnin' Hopkins had early exposure to farm work. Lightnin' told the story about how he was working one day and he just started walking & then just kept on going. From what I have read, Mance's dad was the one to walk away in his family and left Mance (Derived from eMANCipation) to support the family. He would work all day and play in the evenings at Barnyard dances & such.
I first learned about him from a book of Song Transcriptions by Stefan Grossman called Texas Blues which is part of a 5 book series that also includes Mississippi Blues, Rev Gary Davis Blues, Ragtime Blues, & Country Blues. If you are interested in learning fingerpicking style blues, I would highly recommend the series. Stefan has a catalog and a web page which you can find by doing an internet search.
Mance played blues but also played other types of music and was know as a "Songster" He knew over 600 Songs and was an excellent guitar player and musician and was basically huge.
When I played the gig last Friday which did happen to be in a barn near Navasota, I did throw in a Mance Lipscomb tune called Charlie James. It is kind of cool to me to think that he probably played at some point in a barn not to far from where I was.
2 comments:
HEY MARK WHEN ARE YOU GOING TO PLAY NEAR MASON ROAD AGAIN? ME AND MY WIFE SAW YOU AT DUKES 2 TIMES. I DON'T LIKE TO DRIVE FAR WHEN I AM DRINKING. IF NOT WE ARE GOING TO TRY TO BRING MY BROTHER NEXT SATURDAY SO HE CAN DRIVE.
I was at that "Barn Dance" and that song really hit home with a number of the locals. One lady had just been saying how she needed to get you to come to the Navasota blues festival since it was home to Mance Lipscomb and then right after she said that, you did that tune. It was so Coooool. Keep it up Bro. That gig was awesome!
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