Jim Jackson (c.1884 - 1937) was an African American blues and hokum singer, songster and guitarist, whose recordings in the late 1920s were popular and influential on later artists. Jackson was born in Hernando, Mississippi, and was raised on a farm, where he learned to play guitar. Around 1905 he started working as a singer, dancer, and musician in medicine shows, playing dances and parties often with other local musicians such as Gus Cannon, Frank Stokes and Robert Wilkins. He soon began travelling with the Rabbit Foot Minstrels, featuring Ma Rainey and Bessie Smith, and other minstrel shows. ...show more

Jim Jackson (c.1884 - 1937) was an African American blues and hokum singer, songster and guitarist, whose recordings in the late 1920s were popular and influential on later artists. Jackson was born in Hernando, Mississippi, and was raised on a farm, where he learned to play guitar. Around 1905 he started working as a singer, dancer, and musician in medicine shows, playing dances and parties often with other local musicians such as Gus Cannon, Frank Stokes and Robert Wilkins. He soon began travelling with the Rabbit Foot Minstrels, featuring Ma Rainey and Bessie Smith, and other minstrel shows.

He also played clubs on Beale Street in Memphis, Tennessee. His popularity and proficiency secured him a residency at Memphis's prestigious Peabody Hotel in 1919. Like Leadbelly, Jackson knew hundreds of songs including blues, ballads, vaudeville numbers, and traditional tunes, and became a popular attraction. In 1927, talent scout H.

C. Speir signed him to a recording contract with Vocalion Records. On October 10 1927, he recorded "Jim Jackson's Kansas City Blues", which became a best-seller, and in the melody and lyrics of which can be traced the outline of many later blues and rock and roll songs, including "Rock Around The Clock" and "Kansas City". Following his hit Jackson recorded a series of 'Kansas City' follow-ups and soundalikes.[2] He moved to Memphis in 1928, and made a series of further recordings, including the comic medicine show song "I Heard the Voice of a Pork Chop". ...show less