Joe Callicott, a Nesbit native born in 1899, is often regarded as one of Mississippi’s finest early bluesmen, despite having only two songs issued in 1930 from his early recording career. His guitar work also appeared with local bluesman Garfield Akers on the classic 1929 single Cottonfield Blues, which illustrated how blues developed from field hollers. Noted for his delicate guitar style and rich vocals, Callicott spent most of his life in Nesbit, began playing blues as a young boy, and for many years performed with fellow guitarist Garfield Akers at informal local gatherings in a distinctive local style similar to that of Memphis blues pioneer Frank Stokes and Hernando’s Jim Jackson. In 1929, after Jackson arranged for the pair to record for the Brunswick-Balke-Collender corporation of Chicago at a temporary recording unit in Memphis’s Peabody Hotel, Callicott’s Mississippi Boll Weevil Blues from that session went unissued, but he played on Akers’ two-part Cottonfield Blues, which Vocalion released. The following year, the two again recorded in Memphis, with Vocalion issuing Dough Roller Blues and Jumpin’ and Shoutin’ Blues by Akers, while Brunswick released Callicott’s Fare Thee Well Blues and Traveling Mama Blues, using the spelling Calicott on the label and Callicutt in company files. Although Callicott gave up performing in the 1940s, Akers remained active on the down-home Memphis blues scene of the early 1950s but never recorded again. In 1967 folklorist George Mitchell met and recorded Callicott, and Callicott’s return to performing brought a booking at the 1968 Memphis Country Blues Festival and travels as far as New York City. Recordings made by Mitchell and British producer Mike Vernon of the Blue Horizon label revealed the impressive range of Callicott’s early repertoire, including songs about World War I and the boisterous nightlife of Beale Street. During this period Callicott also taught guitar to Kenny Brown, who lived next door with his family and later became well known in the blues world through his long association with R. L. Burnside and through his own recordings. On his 2003 Fat Possum CD Stingray Brown recorded three of Callicott’s songs. Another young student of older blues artists in the area was Bobby Ray Watson of the nearby Pleasant Hill community, who often performed with local harmonica player Johnny Woods of nearby Looxahoma. The area’s most famous resident, Jerry Lee Lewis, included many blues songs in his repertoire, and the Nesbit ranch he purchased in 1973 became a tourist attraction with a piano-shaped pool.
