Lipscomb was born April 9, 1895 to an ex-slave father from Alabama and a half Native American (Choctaw) mother. Lipscomb spent most of his life working as a tenant farmer in Texas and was "discovered" and recorded by Mack McCormick and Chris Strachwitz in 1960 during the country blues revival. He released many albums of blues, ragtime, Tin Pan Alley and folk music (most of them on Strachwitz' Arhoolie label), singing and accompanying himself on acoustic guitar. He had a "dead-thumb" finger-picking guitar technique, and an expressive voice. Lipscomb often honed his skills by playing in nearby Brenham, Texas, with a blind musician, Sam Rogers. His debut release was Texas Songster (1960). Lipscomb performed old songs like "Sugar Babe," the first song he ever learned, to pop numbers like "Shine On, Harvest Moon" and "It's a Long Way to Tipperary".[4]
Trouble in Mind was recorded in 1961, and released on a major label, Reprise. In May 1963, Lipscomb appeared at the first Monterey Folk Festival in California.
Unlike many of his contemporaries, he did not record in the early blues era, but his life is well documented thanks to his autobiography, I Say Me for a Parable: The Oral Autobiography of Mance Lipscomb, Texas Bluesman, narrated to Glen Alyn, which was published posthumously, and also a short 1971 documentary by Les Blank, A Well Spent Life.
He began playing guitar early on and played regularly for years at local gatherings, mostly what he called "Saturday Night Suppers" hosted by someone in the area. These gatherings were hosted regularly for a while by himself and his wife. The majority of his musical activity took place within what he called his "precinct", meaning the local area around Navasota, until around 1960.
Following his "discovery" by McCormick and Strachwitz, Lipscomb became an important figure in the folk music revival of the 1960s. He was a regular performer at folk festivals and folk-blues clubs around the United States, notably the Ash Grove in Los Angeles, CA.
He died in his hometown of Navasota in 1976, two years after suffering a stroke.
A Well Spent Life (1971). Documentary directed by Les Blank and Skip Gerson. El Cerrito, California: Flower Films. Released on video in 1979. ISBN 0-933621-09-4.
He also appeared in Blank's The Blues Accordin' to Lightnin' Hopkins (1970)
An annual Navasota Blues Festival is held in his honor, and on August 12, 2011, a bronze sculpture of him was unveiled in Mance Lipscomb Park in Navasota. The statue was sculpted by artist Sid Henderson of California and weighs almost 300 pounds. It portrays Lipscomb playing his guitar whilst seated on a bench, with room for fans to sit beside him and play their own guitars "with" him.
Mance Lipscomb (1895-1976), guitarist and songster, was born to Charles and Jane Lipscomb on April 9, 1895, in the Brazos bottoms near Navasota, Texas, where he lived most of his life as a tenant farmer.
Lipscomb represented one of the last remnants of the nineteenth-century songster tradition, which predated the development of the blues.
Though songsters might incorporate blues into their repertoires, as did Lipscomb, they performed a wide variety of material in diverse styles, much of it common to both black and white traditions in the South, including ballads, rags, dance pieces (breakdowns, waltzes, one and two steps, slow drags, reels, ballin' the jack, the buzzard lope, hop scop, buck and wing, heel and toe polka), and popular, sacred, and secular songs. Lipscomb himself insisted that he was a songster, not a guitarist or "blues singer," since he played "all kinds of music." His eclectic repertoire has been reported to have contained 350 pieces spanning two centuries. (He likewise took exception when he was labeled a "sharecropper" instead of a "farmer."
Between 1905 and 1956 he lived in an atmosphere of exploitation, farming as a tenant for a number of landlords in and around Grimes County, including the notorious Tom Moore, subject of a local topical ballad. He left Moore's employ abruptly and went into hiding after he struck a foreman for abusing his mother and wife. Lipscomb's own rendition of "Tom Moore's Farm" was taped at his first session in 1960 but released anonymously (Arhoolie LP 1017, Texas Blues, Volume 2), presumably to protect the singer. Between 1956 and 1958 Lipscomb lived in Houston, working for a lumber company during the day and playing at night in bars where he vied for audiences with Texas blues great Sam "Lightnin'" Hopkins,qv whom Lipscomb had first met in Galveston in 1938. With compensation from an on-the-job accident, he returned to Navasota and was finally able to buy some land and build a house of his own. He was working as foreman of a highway-mowing crew in Grimes County when blues researchers Chris Strachwitz of Arhoolie Records and Mack McCormick of Houston found and recorded him in 1960.
Arhoolie Records (El Cerrito, California) has released seven albums of material by Lipscomb: Mance Lipscomb: Texas Songster and Sharecropper (Arhoolie 1001); Mance Lipscomb Volume 2 (Arhoolie 1023); Mance Lipscomb Volume 3: Texas Songster in a Live Performance (Arhoolie 1026); Mance Lipscomb Volumes 4, 5, and 6 (Arhoolie 1033, 1049, and 1069); and You'll Never Find Another Man Like Mance (Arhoolie 1077). Trouble in Mind was released by Reprise (R-2012). Individual pieces are included in other anthologies.
Texas Blues
Mance Lipscomb Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
I won’t let you woman make a fool out of me.
Late Last winter when it was chillin’ cold. x2
My woman put me out didn’t have nowhere to go.
I didn’t have no money, my shoes had done worn thin. x2
I didn’t have a decent pair of pants to go to Sunday school in.
That’s alright things about to come my way. x2
Take me back baby I’ll tell you what I’ll do. x2
I’ll steal and beg, baby bring it home to you.
She looks and me, she give me one sweet smile. x2
I’ll take you back for your low down dirty lie.
Oooh-eee I feel alright today. x2
My woman come back says she’s going to stay.
One of these days baby and it won’t be long. x2
You gonna call me baby, yes and I’ll be gone.
Mama told me when I was a child. x2
Son Whiskey and women gonna kill you after awhile.
Good bye (baby) if I don’t see you no more. x2
Remember my footprints tramping around your door.
Mance Lipscomb's song "Texas Blues" is a classic blues tune that tells the story of a man who has been left by his woman and left with nothing but his wits and a few scraps of clothing. The song begins with the singer stating that he was raised in Texas but received his education in Tennessee. However, despite his upbringing and education, his woman has managed to make a fool out of him. The tone of the lyrics suggests that he is feeling defeated and at a loss for where to turn.
As the song continues, we learn that his woman has put him out in the cold weather and that he has nowhere to go. He is down on his luck and does not have any money or decent clothing. However, despite his difficult situation, the singer remains optimistic that things are about to change for the better. He claims to have a change in his pocket and a change of clothes every day, suggesting that he has found a new way of life.
In the final verses of the song, the singer asks his woman to take him back, promising to do whatever it takes to make things right. She seems to be receptive to the idea, and the singer is feeling better than ever. However, the last lines of the song suggest that things may not be quite as they seem. The singer's mother warned him that whiskey and women would be the death of him, and there is a sense of foreboding in his final words as he says goodbye to his woman.
Line by Line Meaning
I was raised in Texas, schooled in Tennessee. x2
I grew up in Texas, but went to school in Tennessee.
I won’t let you woman make a fool out of me.
I won't let my woman make me look foolish.
Late Last winter when it was chillin’ cold. x2
Last winter, when it was very cold.
My woman put me out didn’t have nowhere to go.
My woman kicked me out and I had nowhere to go.
I didn’t have no money, my shoes had done worn thin. x2
I was broke and my shoes were worn out.
I didn’t have a decent pair of pants to go to Sunday school in.
I didn't have any good pants to wear to church.
That’s alright things about to come my way. x2
But it's okay, things are about to get better for me.
Got change in my pocket, change of clothes every day.
I have some money and enough clothes to wear every day.
Take me back baby I’ll tell you what I’ll do. x2
If you take me back, I'll do anything for you.
I’ll steal and beg, baby bring it home to you.
I'll steal and beg to get you what you want.
She looks and me, she give me one sweet smile. x2
She gives me a sweet smile when she sees me.
I’ll take you back for your low down dirty lie.
I'll forgive you for lying to me.
Oooh-eee I feel alright today. x2
I feel good today.
My woman come back says she’s going to stay.
My woman came back and said she's going to stay.
One of these days baby and it won’t be long. x2
But one day soon, I'm going to leave you.
You gonna call me baby, yes and I’ll be gone.
And when you call me baby, I'll already be gone.
Mama told me when I was a child. x2
My mother warned me when I was young.
Son Whiskey and women gonna kill you after awhile.
She said that drinking and women would be my downfall.
Good bye (baby) if I don’t see you no more. x2
Goodbye, baby, if I never see you again.
Remember my footprints tramping around your door.
But remember that I was once here.
Contributed by Matthew A. Suggest a correction in the comments below.