Born: 1904 Died: 1977 In the loose lore of early country blues music there is not a lot that is certain.  Not only were early blues musicians often quick to help build their own legends, they were also quick to laugh at the people that believed the stories.  So it's not unusual that, in 1961, when someone claimed to have found one of the original Memphis / Chicago blues legends alive and well and living in Brownsville, TN that many people's first reaction was to put their hand on their wallet.

One of the great legends of the Memphis / Chicago blues scene is that Memphis Minnie won a guitar playing contest with Big Bill Broonzy shortly after relocating to Chicago.  The story is told in a collection of anecdotes dictated by Broonzy in the 1950s.  According to his account the contest was judged by one “John Estes“.  Broonzy's account of his experiences with Estes was one of the reasons it was hard to believe that Estes would ever turn up alive.  Broonzy's accounts seemed to paint Estes as a man who would be in his 90s by 1961.

The truth is that John Adams Estes was born circa 1904 (or 1903 by one account) on a farm near Ripley, Tennessee.  He was one of 16 children (although accounts vary) and first had vision problems when someone hit him in the eye with a rock during a baseball game.  He continued into adulthood with the use of the other eye and stuck as closely as he could to music.  His dedication to a broomstick attached to a cigar box with one string on it led his father to believe he had music in him.  When Estes was old enough to pick cotton his father took some of the money and bought him a real guitar.

When you are one of 16 children (or whatever the real number was) there is little doubt that you are not meant to live at home forever.  As soon as he could John Estes started trying a little at a time to make his own way with music.  For the most part he played around the Brownsville, Tennessee area where his family now lived.  These were small jobs usually just for food and a good time.  He would play at “cotton pickings“, an unusual social event that consisted of partying and pulling cotton out of the bowls that had been pulled in hasted the day before.  Partying in this case was food and lemonade mostly, but John occasionally made a little money on the job.  On weekends John would travel about with some of the other local musicians, initially with Brownsville guitarist Willie Newbern.

Later his circle expanded to include James “Yank“ Rachel on mandolin, Jab Jones on piano, Son Bonds on guitar, Noah Lewis on harmonica as well as the original Sonny Boy Williamson who would later become a radio star on the King Biscuit Flour show.  This loose confederation played in and around the Ripley, Jackson and Brownsville area.  Eventually Estes was hooked up in a regular circuit of these jobs and completely on his own.  It was sometime after this, in the 1920s when he first met a young Hammie Nixon.  Hammie was still just a boy, but he could blow the harmonica and had the desire to get out on the road, so they did.  Telling Hammie's parents he wanted to borrow Hammie for one night, Estes ran off with the boy for six months.

Although Hammie complained of being homesick on the road he was ready to go back out almost as soon as he returned home.  Hammie and John formed a partnership that would last the rest of their lives.  Of the original group of circuit musicians only the mandolin player, Yank Rachel would re-emerge with John and Hammie.

“Sleepy“ John Estes got his name from the fact that he was wont to fall asleep at unusual times.  It has been said that he was narcoleptic, that he seemed narcoleptic because a chronic blood pressure problem and that he earned the name from his ability to sleep standing up.  I suppose there is room for all of those things to be true, in any case John spent a lot of time “sleepy“. 

Meanwhile Hammie and Sleepy John started to ride the rails.  Hammie was a master of grabbing a train with all of his gear in tow while Estes struggled to keep up.  They regularly ran afoul of the railroad security that often threw them off the train as soon as they got on.  They also traveled a lot of dirt roads doing the business of music as it was done before radio became widespread.  All music was live in those days and the same musicians that played a church social on Sunday might have played a house party the night before.

Yank, Sleepy & Hammie

Although John and the boys were just another act around Memphis, things changed when Victor Records came to town scouting for talent.  The year was 1929 and Memphis acts such as Memphis Minnie recording up in Chicago had started to turn profits that were hard to ignore.  Victor came to town and auditioned a number of acts.  Among the acts that impressed them enough to move forward with a recording was the lonesome, howling voice of Sleepy John Estes.  Sleepy John brought in his most trusted sidemen; Hammie Nixon, Jab Jones and Yank Rachel to cut a number of sides which included “Milk Cow Blues“, “My Black Gal Blues” and “The Girl I Love, She Got Long, Curly Hair“.

The recording success was the beginning of trips to Chicago.  Although Memphis was the southern magnet for a bluesman, Chicago was the national magnet because of opportunity, financial and professional.  In Chicago they played for Al Capone both in person and as hired musicians.  For a while Hammie ran on his own, and with other musicians in the area.  In time though he came back to Estes, and the team became a lifelong friendship.

While in Chicago, Sleepy John Estes caught the ear of talent scout Mayo Williams.  Williams offered to record John and rented him a guitar.  That night Sleepy and Hammie ended up in a church session while trying to pick up some girls.  Although they played for the congregation, John stormed out when he did not get the sort of reaction he wanted from a young lady.  He further fell down the stairs, smashing his guitar and sending Hammie into a fret, rubbing his neck and trying to apply more liquor as a balm.

They did make the next day's session.

After cutting six successful songs for Chess Records in Chicago, Sleepy was invited to New York to record for Decca Records.  This would be the first of three New York sessions that included songs such as “Hobo Jungle Blues“, “Floating Bridge“, “Government Money“ and “T-Model Blues“.  In 1940 John was paired with younger guitarist Robert Nighthawk by Delta Records to jazz up his sound with the more modern, electric string-bending style that was invading Chicago.  Before he left Chicago he had played on at least one jazz record, When the Saints Go Marching In.

Although the blues lasted through the depression, the 1940s spelled it's demise.  For a number of reasons the demand for blues diminished.  John and Hammie went back to working the rails and roads until 1949 when John married and settled down in Memphis.  The following year he lost the sight in his one good eye.  Although doctors tried to repair the eye, his sight was gone for good.  John, his new family and Hammie moved back up to Brownsville where they were duly forgotten until the 1960s.

In 1961 a film maker named David Blumenthal, was in Southwest Tennessee shooting a documentary about the migration of Southern blacks to the north.  While speaking with some local bluesmen he learned from Big Joe Williams that Estes was still alive and living near Brownsville.  It took some time to confirm this story as it was widely believed that Sleepy John would have to be over 90 to still be alive.  He was actually only 58 years old.  When he played and sang for the Blumenthal all doubt of his authenticity was removed.  The following year Delmark Records brought John up to Chicago to do a few exploratory sessions.

The result was the recording of an album called “The Legend of Sleepy John Estes“.  From that moment on John was a fixture alongside such younger men as Howling Wolf and Muddy Waters.  In 1964 John was asked to perform with the American Folk Blues Festival tour of Europe which yielded the “Live in Europe“ album.  These tours gave Estes (and Hammie) a taste of the appreciation other parts of the world had for their music.  Between hoboing with their music and remaining settled in the squalid poverty of the rural deep South, John and Hammie must have never dreamed they would taste this type of acclaim before they died.

The lonesome, high pitched wail of Sleepy John Estes stands out among of field of contemporaries that often tend to run together in our minds.  His later, limited success enabled us to hear quite a lot more of his repertoire than had been previously available.  These songs give a rare and often understated glimpse into the world of the poor, southern sharecropper, as well as the observations of a traveling musician, who had seen and heard a bit of everything including, maybe, a guitar contest between Memphis Minnie and Big Bill Broonzy.

Sleepy and Hammie

Although he made a bit more money in the last 15 years of his life, he didn't make a lot.  At the end of his days Sleepy John Estes was still living in poverty.  Cheated out of many of his royalties and without the guidance and connections that might have helped him to establish publishing rights to his own material, John reached the end of his life impoverished financially, but appreciated openly. Just before departing for another tour of Europe Sleepy John Estes took ill and died on June 5, 1977.  He was followed in death seven years later by his beloved Hammie.

 Sleepy John Estes is buried at Durhamville Baptist Church in Durhamville, Tennessee.