Lonesome Blues @ Circle Theatre

Photo by TayStan Photography

—Jan Farrington

Singing the blues? It’s not like singing a church song, says roots music legend Blind Lemon Jefferson in Alan Govenar and Akin Babatundé’s compelling Lonesome Blues, the season-opener for Circle Theatre. The blues isn’t a call for help to the “Boss Man” up there. No, the blues is the sound of a man “crying out how he feels.” Sometimes in a howl, sometimes in a whisper, pushing back in song against the relentless moments of everyday life.

Played by J. Dontray Davis in a larger-than-life performance, the Jefferson of Lonesome Blues is a country boy, a street-smart player, and a ladies man who flirts, pleads, and grumbles his way through love. He’s a loner with loyal friends, a poor man who gets a taste of the posh life. And in a flash, Davis can flip into one of a dozen other characters onstage, growling like Lead Belly, or shimmy-ing low with a ladies’ hanky.

Lemon Henry Jefferson was born south of Dallas in the 1890s, the blind seventh son of sharecroppers. By his early teens, he was a musician moving from place to place, planting himself in front of barber shops and on street corners, collecting tips in a cup as he sang old songs and new ones he made up. He had a high-pitched voice and a fast way of pickin’ his guitar.

By 1915 (or so), he’d turned up in “Deep Ellum,” the rough, vibrant neighborhood along Elm Street near downtown Dallas where he and others made some music history. (“When you go down in deep elem,” he sang, “keep your money in your socks.”) Jefferson hung out with Lead Belly, a friend he recalls being good for whiskey and “laughs.” He knew T-Bone Walker, who learned a lot from Blind Lemon’s guitar style (as did country guitar player Chet Atkins, one of many who called Jefferson a major influence). He was “discovered” in Deep Ellum and taken up to Chicago to record with the Paramount and Okeh studios, becoming one of the best-selling blues artists of the late 1920s, famous for “Matchbox Blues,” “Black Snake Moan,” “Long Distance Blues,” and many other songs. He died in Chicago at age 36, on his way to catch a train home to Texas. It was the last of many, many trips between Dallas and Chicago.

Lonesome Blues is the latest stage version to rise out of Govenar and Babatundé’s passionate interest in Blind Lemon’s life and work. It’s a “distillation,” as one of the notes puts it—and if you aren’t familiar with the biography, you may wish you’d understood more of the references and details as they whizzed past.

But musically, I don’t thing there’s much more to wish for. This is great stuff, from Blind Lemon’s raw early songs to his more commercial (even gospel-like) later ones. Dontray creates an engaging and vital character; his strong voice can go big in a field holler, soft in a spiritual, or gravelly in a “she done me wrong” song. And even if we don’t catch as many of Jefferson’s background details as we’d like, it’s easy to absorb the feel of his world and the emotions of his life—in the songs. They are the history.

As the show’s director, Babatundé makes things flow, and it’s his music direction for the list of songs arranged and recorded by Davis Weiss. Nikki DeShea Smith’s lighting, falling on Bob Lavallee’s nicely tabula rasa set, is eloquent in its shifts of mood and focus, and the clarity and balance of sound (both spoken-word and music) is a credit to designer Jason Johnson-Spinos. Designer Amanda Capshaw’s costuming of the character—a fedora here, a silk scarf there—gives the man some quiet style.

Blind Lemon Jefferson died too young, but the strands of his influence have lived on, weaving into musical styles ever since: jazz, R&B, folk-rock, hip hop and more. The Elvis line “That’s all right, Mama” was a fragment of lyric, pulled from one of Jefferson’s songs, that took on a life of its own. Blind Lemon had a way of putting things—and a century later, we’re still listening:

Mama, if I clean up, can I go home with you?

Standing here wonderin’, will a matchbox hold my clothes? / I ain’t got so many matches, but I got so far to go…

There’s just one kind favor I’ll ask of you / See that my grave is kept clean.

WHEN: Through February 11

WHERE: Circle Theatre, downtown Fort Worth

WEB: circletheatre.com