Being a fan of the Blues, growing up when I did in Southeast Texas was just about as good as it gets. I had the opportunity to see giants of the genre perform – men like Lightnin’ Hopkins, Jimmy Reed (both before and after he did time in Huntsville), Zydeco /Blues great Clifton Chenier – I even got to see Whistlin’ George Nelson play his oil drums down on the Galveston seawall.
One of the very best of the bluesmen lived up the road in Navasota, Texas. His father was a black man who had been born a slave, and his mother was a Choctaw Indian. His name was Mance Lipscomb.
His mama named him Beau De Glen, but he took the name Mance (short for emancipation) as a teenager. Born in 1895, he seemed older than Brazos-bottom dirt when I first saw him in 1959 or 60, but his music left me entranced.
Just watch the video below, and you’ll see what I mean. With a bandaged finger on his picking hand and an old jack-knife for a slide, he makes that guitar sing.
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