Mance Lipscomb

At some point during next Sunday's Round Bend Hour, I plan to play part of Mance Lipscomb's "Pure! Texas Country Blues, Vol. 5." I saw this widely influential Texas blues player in Eugene in 1974. He played outside on the lawn of the UO music building, and quite honestly the performance defined one of those life moments I now revere, an educational moment as such, a breakthrough in my understanding and deepening appreciation of roots music.

Mance Lipscomb's hometown of Navasota, Texas, became one of the focal points of the blues revival movement of the sixties. In the summer of 1960, Mack McCormick and Chris Strachwitz drove deep into Grimes County, Texas and began quizzing the locals regarding the best musicians in the region. They were repeatedly referred to Lipscomb. They found him, heard him, and recorded him on the first day of their meeting. The label was Arhoolie and the first recording was called "Texas Songster," the guitarist/singer's chosen handle.

Lipscomb was born in 1895, the son of a former slave from Alabama and his half-Choctaw Native American wife. Sixty-five at the time he made his first recordings with Arhoolie, he was invited to Barry Olivier's Berkeley Folk Festival the next summer and thus began a recording career and touring schedule that often brought him to the west coast, including Eugene.

Lipscomb played the Dobro the day I watched him, sitting in awe on the lawn of Oregon's music school. At 78, his voice was yet remarkably resilient, his Texas drawl and elucidation in order, his love of performance obvious.

Lipscomb died in 1976, age 80.


TS