Sleepy john estes biography of michael jackson

Born John Adams Estes, January 25, 1904, in Ripley, TN, (died June 5, 1977); one of about sixteen children; parents were poor sharecroppers; married with five children.

Sleepy John Estes was one of the most individual of all recorded blues singers.

He sang with phrasing that fairly dripped with expressiveness in a high crying tone that seemed often like he was speaking to the listener. The songs he wrote were well suited to this treatment, dealing frequently with his and his neighbors' lives in Brownsville, Tennessee.

Estes recorded from the late 1920s through the 1930s when he was one of the most popular artists on the Decca label, until 1941 when his brand of country blues, the down-home music of rural blacks, had become something of an anachronism.

His discovery by the fold revivalists of the 1960s rescued him from poverty and gave him a second musical career that lasted nearly 15 years, during which he again became one of the most popular and best-loved bluesmen.

John Adam Est