A Piedmont Blues Festival honoring local legend, John Jackson and his unique Piedmont Blues style of music.

Come and enjoy a day of Piedmont Blues music in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains in Rappahannock County, Virginia. Food and drinks available for purchase. Picnics allowed. Bring your own chair. Bring your instruments for Jam sessions. There will be book signings, historical and cultural exhibits and more.

Join us as we pay tribute to one of Piedmont Blues most beloved songsters, John Jackson. Most of the featured performers honed their musical skills under the tutelage of Mr. Jackson.

FEATURED PERFORMERS

Frank Matheis MC ~ Phil Wiggins ~ Jeffrey Scott ~ Rick Franklin ~ Erin Harpe ~ The Unity Choir ~ Rev. Williams & The Praise Team ~ Bobby G & Friends

ABOUT JOHN JACKSON

John Jackson was born in 1924 in Woodville, Virginia, to a tenant farming family who was also extremely musically talented. He was the seventh of fourteen children, and they all played some combination of guitar, banjo, ukulele, mandolin, harmonica, accordion, autoharp, and even homemade penny whistles. John’s father was left handed, and played the guitar in an upside down position that John found impossible to learn. But that didn’t stop him, he began playing with his father’s guitar when he was four, soaking up the musical influences around him and received his first guitar from his older sister when he was nine.

Some of his most influential lessons came from a convict who visited regularly to get water from the Jackson's spring, and from the family's large collection of records. As John came of age, he began playing the local party circuit. But when these parties turned repeatedly violent, and John's life was threatened, he decided to put the guitar down for nearly twenty years.