April 9
Today is the birthday of Mance Lipscomb. He would be 131 today.
Beau De Glen Lipscomb was born in Navasota, Texas on April 9, 1895 — the son of a sharecropper and a former slave. He spent sixty years as a farmer and part-time musician in Grimes County, playing dances and picnics for his neighbors. He called himself a “songster” rather than a blues musician, because his repertoire ran from field hollers to spirituals to ragtime to whatever the crowd needed. He was not discovered. He was simply found — in 1960, by a musician and folklorist named Mack McCormick.
Famous at Sixty-Five
McCormick brought Lipscomb to the 1961 Berkeley Folk Festival. The audience had never heard anything quite like him — fingerpicking guitar with a conversational grace that made virtuosity look effortless. He began recording for Arhoolie Records and toured the college folk circuit into his seventies. His song “Ella Speed” had been in the Texas tradition for generations. He made it live again for a new audience. Lipscomb died January 30, 1976, in Navasota, having never left Grimes County for long. The farm held him. The music kept traveling. Learn more at the Texas State Historical Association.