Mudbone Jackson

A little bit of background is in order here. About a year and a half ago, a bunch of us were goofing off one night on another computer forum. And the wuestion was asked where one of the regulars was, since he hadn't posted in about a week or so. Well, one thing led to another and among the rude replies to why the guy wasn't there, the idea came up to have a fundraiser, sort of a "Live Aid" type of concert.

One of my friends suggested that he would help raise money by assuming his alter ego as "Mudbone Jackson" a crusty old Mississippi delta bluesman, and play music for money in hos home town i n Pennsylvania. Mudbone was a spectacularly unsuccessful bluesman, usually found in alcohol rehab, threatening his manager, and so on. When he played on the streetcorner for a day, accompanied by his 7 year old daughter wearing a fake leg cast and on crutches, his open guitar case would usually end up with about $1.37 in loose change, some cigraette butts, a couple of Milky Way wrappers, and a citation for creating a public nuisance.

Soon, the legend of Mudbone spread, and you can find references to him on at least 3 trucking forums that I know of. There are lists of his albums, like "Mudbone Jackson: The Las Vegas Years" and "101 Strings Plays Mudbone".

So, one day I decided that we needed to tell the tale of how a middle aged white guy from Pennsylvania became a full fledged Mississippi bluesman. So I wrote out the story of Mudbone Jackson, stealing from Mr Bojangles, Robert Johnson at the crossroads, and any other source that struck my fancy.

So here's the story of Mudbone Jackson.........



As many of you know, Gary, aka Fattystools, has an alter ego of an old crusty Mississippi blues man named Mudbone Jackson, from way down deep in the Delta region. Now how a resident of the rural countryside of Pennsylvania became a certified Mississippi bluesman is a story that not many people know. But through diligent research, I have worked my way through the mists of time and the myths of the blues to arrive at the full story.


The time was the early 1990's, and a young truckdriver was hauling a load from Pennsylvania, heading down to the deep south regions of the country. He stopped at a truckstop along the way for dinner, just as daylight was starting to fade into velvety dark night. After he ate his customary 3 plates from the all you can eat buffet, and drank several pitchers of iced tea, he waddled back out to the backrow of the truckstop, where his faithful steed had sat awaiting him, idling away in the cool night air.

This Knight Of The Open Road pulled out of the truckstop, belching both unburned diesel fuel and garlic mashed potato fumes in equal amounts. As he entered the onramp leading back to the highway, he saw a frail old black man, wearing a battered fedora, clutching a battered guitar case and patiently attempting to hitch a ride on the south bound side of the highway. Resisting his usual urge to edge a tire over into the dirt and spray the old man with mud from the roadside puddles, the driver pulled over and offered the old gentleman a ride, just as large raindrops started to pelt the windshield.

As they drove on through the night, rain streaking the dirty windshield, the silence in the cab was only broken by the steady sound of the windshield wipers screeching across the windshield. After a while, the driver asked the old man where he was heading. The old man spoke for the first time, and said "South to Mississippi, I'm goin' home."

A comfortable silence grew in the cab, punctuated only by the sound of the tires on the wet pavement, the relentless pounding of raindrops beating on the cab, and the uneasy rumblings sounding from the driver's engorged midsection.

Over the growl of the big diesel engine, the old man spoke.

"My name is Mudbone Jackson, and I reckon I'm about the last of the ol time Mississippi blues men. I was born in south Mississippi back in the year nineteen hundred and ought four. When I was just a wee child, late at night after all the field work was done, the adults would sit around the fire and play ole timey Mississippi blues songs. I learnt the songs back then. In a few years, when I was about 10-11 years old, a man that had been staying with my mother left in a right big hurry, and left behind a guitar and a harmonica. I taught myself to play the guitar some, and learned how to accompany myself on the harmonica.

When I was about 17 year old, the great war had just ended, and I decided that I didn't want to live a life of farming. I had heard me some legends about a crossroads in Mississippi where you could make a deal to be a bluesman. So, I slung my guitar over my back, put my harmonica in my pocket, and started hitchhiking until I caught enough rides to get to those crossroads.

When I got to the crossroads, I picked up my guitar and started playing every blues song I knew, for three days and for three nights. People driving by would stare, but I didn;t say nothing and I didn't stop playing. Little children from the shanties down the street would bring me cups of water, and they helped me keep going. I just kept on playing them blues, for three solid days and nights, best I knew how.

Late in the evening of the 3rd day, I seen a man come walking up the road towards me. He had a look about him, looked like no man I had ever seen before, a look of pure evil and a fire glowing in his eyes. He had his hair all slicked back, and had on fine clothes and shiny shoes. and when he walked up to me, I asked him if he was ole Lufcifer hisself. He just smiled and said no. Turned out to be a recruiter for New Prime, and wanted to know if i had ever thought about coming to work there. Promised to send me to school and give me a big ole shiny truck to drive, but I said no, I just wanted to play the blues.

A little bit later, just as daylight was fading away, another man walked towards me in the dying evening light. This time I knew who he was, cause he looked like no man who had ever walked the face of this earth. He asked me what I was doing playing the blues at this old crossroads, and I told him I had heard that I could make a deal there. He gave me a smile, and told me that he did make some deals now and then, and had even made a few at this very crossroads. But he said that he didn't make those kinds of deals anymore. Turns out he had a new kind of deal, even better than the old ones that he could make with me.

So I signed a lease purchase with the devil, and he promised me that I would do real good. At first I played the blues all over and traveled lots of miles. I played for the troops during the war years, and I played wherever I found an audience.

I played for those at minstrel shows and country fairs, throughout the south. For fifteen years my dog and I traveled about. The dog up and died, and after twenty years I still grieved. I play now at every chance in honky tonks, for drinks and tips. But most the time I spend behind those county bars, cause I drinks a bit.

But as the years went by and I got further and further into the lease purchase with the devil, the shows started tapering off and I seemed to do less miles on the road.

So now, I'm going back to Mississippi, back to that old crossroads, and I'm gonna find that devil and tell him that the deal is off."

Well, by the time the old man finished his story, the night was almost gone, and daylight was starting to break on the far distant horizon. The driver swung the truck in at a cafe, and told the old man that he would treat him to breakfast. After they entered the cafe, the old man excused himself to use the bathroom. The driver waited for him to return, and finally went in and checked the bathroom. But there was no sign of the old man. Showing an unusual concern for his passenger, the driver asked the waitress if she had seen the old man. She said she had seen him getting onboard another truck, this one too heading south. So the driver returned to his table and finished his stack of pancakes.

When he returned to his truck, he was surprised to see the old man's guitar case and fedora hat sitting in the bunk. The driver figured that next time he parked in the back row at his hometown truckstop, he could get on the CB and sell the guitar for some extra income. When he opened the case, there was a note inside, which the driver read.

"My time on this old evil world is just about done, but the blues, they go on forever. This is my gift to you. You take this guitar, and this harmonica and this hat, and you take the blues to a new place, to somewhere where the blues have never been before. I'm going home, and I want to meet that old devil one on one, no guitar, just me and him. Then we'll see what it takes to end this lease purchase I'm in, and I can walk away and meet my maker as a free man"

Well, the young driver took the guitar, the harmonica, and the hat, and devoted himself to the practice of the blues. He's a major celebrity in his mid Pennsylvania hometown, where he is often seen playing streetcorner blues, frequently accompanied by a small child faking a major injury or disease.

So if you have ever wondered about the Mudbone Jackson story, and how the blues made it to the middle of Pennsylvania, this is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.