Bluesman from Nesbit, Mississippi born October 11, 1900 who died in 1969. Callicott recorded two sides for Alan Lomax in the mid 30's, and then dropped into obscurity until the folk revival in the 60's. Music buffs searching for the creator of the two Lomax field recordings, found Callicott on a tiny farm 20 miles from where Lomax had recorded him.

In the interim Callicott and his partner Garfield Akers had played thousands of fish fries and juke joints in the Nesbit area. Akers died in 1959 and Callicott retired until some folkies tracked him down and badgered him to return to playing. Callicott apeared at the Memphis Blues Festival in 1968 which led to an album on the Blue Horizon label. The bluesman was to tour Europe in 1969, but he died just as he was beginning to get national acclaim for his authentic country blues.

That's a bluesman's life for ya.

Callicott's one album contains eight country blues songs of the "old black man on a porch" variety. He could be the source for the In Living Color gag about the bluesman on the park bench ("And so I wrote a song about it" and then always plays the same song). Unintelligible lines about suffering, piercing guitar, hoots and hollers -- it is all wonderful of course.

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