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Photo: <a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Grabstein_von_Mance_Lipscomb.jpg">Waileo</a> via Wikimedia Commons, <a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0">CC BY-SA 4.0</a>
ADDRESS & CONTACT
Address
Oakland Cemetery (Rest Haven section), 801 6th St, Navasota, TX 77868
GPS
30.39006, -96.10107
Web
Most bluesmen chase a record deal in their twenties. Mance Lipscomb waited until he was 65. The Mance Lipscomb gravesite sits in Navasota’s Oakland Cemetery, in the old Rest Haven section. Look for the smaller gate marked with two pillars. His grave lies about 20 yards in, just right of the gravel path.
Lipscomb came into the world near Navasota in 1895. His family worked the cotton land along the Brazos River. He farmed there for most of his long life, as a tenant and a sharecropper. Yet every Saturday night, he played for country suppers and dances. So he knew hundreds of songs before anyone pointed a microphone at him.
A Songster, Not a Bluesman
Lipscomb never called himself a bluesman. Instead, he preferred the older word: songster. He played blues, of course. But he also played rags, reels, ballads, waltzes, and spirituals. His fingers worked the guitar like a farmer working a hoe, steady and patient and sure.
Then, in 1960, two record men drove into Navasota. Chris Strachwitz and Mack McCormick heard Mance play on his porch. Strachwitz founded Arhoolie Records around that first session. Texas Sharecropper and Songster became Arhoolie’s very first album.
After that, everything changed. Lipscomb played folk festivals from Berkeley to the East Coast. Young musicians crowded around to study his thumb-picking style. Still, he always came back home to Grimes County.
The Blues Capital of Texas
Lipscomb died in Navasota in January 1976. He was 80. Then, in 2005, the Texas Legislature named Navasota the Blues Capital of Texas in his honor. In 2011, the town unveiled a bronze statue of him in Mance Lipscomb Park downtown.
His music links the old Texas songsters to the blues revival that followed. Compare his story with Lightnin’ Hopkins, who grew up just up the road near Crockett. Read more about Mance Lipscomb and his Arhoolie recordings.
Drive down Washington Avenue, cross the tracks, and find the Rest Haven gate. Mance spent his life close to this land. He still is.
Photo: Waileo via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
