John Jackson

• Step It Up and Go [Rounder, 1979] B+

Consumer Guide Reviews:

Step It Up and Go [Rounder, 1979]
Jackson is a fifty-six-year-old gravedigger who's been on the folk blues circuit since 1964 and has three albums on Arhoolie, though I'd never heard of him till this one. His guitar style is eclectic, as befits a man who got his best songs from Blind Boy Fuller and Blind Blake 78s but who also played in a country band in the early '40s. His voice is gutteral yet well-defined. No innovator, and not as arresting through a whole side as he is at the outset, he's nevertheless responsible for the most pleasing (and well-recorded) new country blues record I've heard in years. B+