Garfield Akers was a blues

Blues

Blues is the name given to both a musical form and a music genre that originated in African-American communities of primarily the "Deep South" of the United States at the end of the 19th century from spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts and chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads...

 singer and guitarist

Guitarist

A guitarist is a musician who plays the guitar. Guitarists may play a variety of instruments such as classical guitars, acoustic guitars, electric guitars, and bass guitars. Some guitarists accompany themselves on the guitar while singing.- Versatility :The guitarist controls an extremely...

. He sometimes performed under the pseudonym

Pseudonym

A pseudonym is a name that a person assumes for a particular purpose and that differs from his or her original orthonym...

 "Garfield Partee."

Akers' extant recordings consist of four sides, which are nonetheless historically significant. His most well-known song was his debut, "Cottonfield Blues", a duet

Duet (music)

A duet is a musical composition for two performers. In classical music, the term is most often used for a composition for two singers or pianists; with other instruments, the word duo is also often used. A piece performed by two pianists performing together on the same piano is referred to as...

 with friend and longtime collaborator Joe Callicott on second guitar, based on a song performed by Texas Bluesman Henry Thomas

Henry Thomas (blues musician)

Henry Thomas was an American pre-World War II country blues singer, songster and musician. He was often billed as "Ragtime Texas".-Life and career:Thomas was born in Big Sandy, Texas, United States....

 a few years prior.

Akers lived in Hernando, Mississippi

Hernando, Mississippi

Hernando is a city in central DeSoto County, Mississippi. The population was 6,812 at the 2000 census. The 2006 census estimate reflects a population of 10,580. Hernando is the county seat of DeSoto County, the second-most-populous county in the Memphis metropolitan area. US Hwy 51 and the I-55...

 most of his life, working as a sharecropper and performing during off-hours at local house parties and dances. He toured with Frank Stokes on the Doc Watts Medicine Show. Akers was reportedly active on the south Memphis circuit throughout the 1930s. Akers and Callicott played together for more than twenty years, parting in the mid-1940's. Akers briefly resurfaced in the early 1950s, shortly before his death at a historically undetermined date. No photographs of Akers are known to exist.

Historic impact of recordings

Jason Ankeny, in the [ AllMusic Guide], notes that Akers' recorded performances "reflect a distinctively insistent guitar style, and also reveal a high-pitched, almost otherworldly voice." Ankeny claims that Akers "was a primary influence on subsequent generations of Mississippi bluesmen, with the likes of John Lee Hooker

John Lee Hooker

John Lee Hooker was an American blues singer-songwriter and guitarist.Hooker began his life as the son of a sharecropper, William Hooker, and rose to prominence performing his own unique style of what was originally closest to Delta blues. He developed a 'talking blues' style that was his trademark...

 and Robert Wilkins

Robert Wilkins

Robert Timothy Wilkins was an American country blues guitarist and vocalist, of African American and Cherokee descent....

 citing him as an influence."

Blues historian

Historian

A historian is a person who studies and writes about the past and is regarded as an authority on it. Historians are concerned with the continuous, methodical narrative and research of past events as relating to the human race; as well as the study of all history in time. If the individual is...

 Don Kent praised "Cottonfield Blues," saying "only a handful of guitar duets in all blues match the incredible drive, intricate rhythms and ferocious intensity." Kent also called Akers "one of the greatest vocalists in blues history." Author/historian Michael Gray

Michael Gray (author)

Michael Gray is a British author who has written extensively about popular music.Gray grew up on Merseyside, attended Birkenhead School, and read History and English Literature at the University of York. Gray subsequently lived and worked in North Devon, Birmingham, West Malvern, London and North...

 called this recording "the birth of rock ’n’ roll … from 1929!"

Known discography

• "Cottonfield Blues, Part 1" / "Cottonfield Blues, Part 2," (1929), (Vocalion Records
  Vocalion Records
  Vocalion Records is a record label active for many years in the United States and in the United Kingdom.-History:Vocalion was founded in 1916 by the Aeolian Piano Company of New York City, which introduced a retail line of phonographs at the same time. The name was derived from one of their...
  
   1442)
• "Jumpin And Shoutin’ Blues" / "Dough Roller Blues," (1930), (Vocalion Records 1481)

"Dough Roller Blues" was reportedly based on "Roll and Tumble Blues"

Rollin' and Tumblin'

"Rollin' and Tumblin" is a blues song that has been recorded hundreds of times by various artists. Considered as a traditional, it has been recorded with different lyrics and titles...

 by Hambone Willie Newbern

Hambone Willie Newbern

Hambone Willie Newbern was an American guitar-playing country blues musician. His home community was in the Brownsville, Tennessee area along Tennessee State Route 19. He was reported to have played with Yank Rachell and Sleepy John Estes in the 1920s and 1930s...

 (Okeh Records

Okeh Records

Okeh Records began as an independent record label based in the United States of America in 1918. From 1926 on, it was a subsidiary of Columbia Records.-History:...

8679)

Sources

• Robert Santelli, The Big Book Of Blues – A Biographical Encyclopedia, 1993, ISBN 0140159398, p. 5
• Bio of Akers and Callicott at The Blues Trail

External links

• Garfield Akers Discography