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GARFIELD AKERS /
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Garfield Akers was born in Brights, Mississippi in 1901 and was already performing locally when he moved to Hernando as a teenager. He stayed in that area most of his life and worked as a sharecropper, playing at weekends at house parties and dances, although he toured with Frank Stokes on the Doc Watts Medicine Show. Akers met up with Joe Callicott in the 1920's and they became lifelong friends and partners, the two of them taking turns to play lead and second guitar as they sang blues. Garfield made his first and best known recording, "Cottonfield Blues Parts 1 & 2", in Memphis in 1929 with Callicott on second guitar. The pair were taken to Memphis by Jim Jackson, a Hernando resident and neighbour of Callicott, and already a recording star. Akers and Callicott played together for more than 20 years finally going their own ways in the mid 1940's. Nothing is known about Akers after the pair split as a performing duo although it is believed that he died around the end of the 1950's or the beginning of the 1960's, possibly in Memphis.
Garfield Akers - Cottonfield Blues
Joe Callicott - Travelling Mama Blues |