f six, limiting further athletic endeavors. His interest in music prompted him to build crude guitars from cigar boxes, which he played at local house parties as a child. His nickname "Sleepy" stemmed from a chronic blood pressure disorder that gave him fits of narcolepsy. In 1915, Estes moved with his family to Brownsville, Tennessee, where he met mandolinist James "Yank" Rachell. Estes teamed with Rachell to play house parties, picnics, and the streets in the Brownsville area from 1919 to 1927. He also partnered with local harmonica player Hammie Nixon, hoboing Arkansas and southern Missouri with him from 1924 to 1927. At this time jug band music was wildly popular, so Estes started the Three J's Jug Band with Rachell and jug player Jab Jones. The Three J's played Memphis, where they competed for exposure in a competitive scene dominated by the Memphis Jug Band. Other rivals included Jack Kelly's South Memphis Jug Band, which played the prestigious Peabody Hotel weekly, and Robert Wilkins's troupe. Estes's band worked Beale Street, vying with Memphis denizens Furry Lewis, Gus Cannon, and Delta bluesman Son House for tips and houseparty jobs. When Memphis jobs were scarce the Three J's traveled north, playing the streets and parties in Paducah, Kentucky. Sleepy John Estes and Hammie NixonWhen the Victor recording company sent a field recording unit to Memphis in September 1929, Estes recorded several sides backed by the Three J's, with Jones playing piano instead of the jug. Other acts to record for Victor on this trip included the Memphis Jug Band, Frank Stokes, and Cannon's Jug Stompers. Victor deemed the four songs Estes recorded during these sessions worthy of release. His stature as a Memphis bluesman was assured when he was invited to record again for Victor in May 1930. This session yielded the uptempo "Milk Cow Blues," a tune Robert Johnson would later record as "Milkcow Calf Blues." In "Milk Cow Blues," Estes's clear, warbling vocals are propelled by his insistent guitar strumming. Jones pounds his piano in double time while Rachell's mandolin trills echo the vocals. Record label for Sleepy John Estes' "Special Agent (Railroad Police Blues)Pursuing their musical careers, Estes and Nixon moved to Chicago in 1931 where they played parties and the streets. Arkansas bluesman Big Bill Broonzy recalled in his memoirs that in 1933, Estes judged a guitar contest that Broonzy lost to Memphis Minnie. The Depression had racked the recording industry, and the Estes/Nixon team did not record until a July 1935 date with the Champion label. Among the sides recorded were "Drop Down Mama" and "Some Day Baby Blues," tunes that became staples for a later generation of bluesmen. Estes's plaintive vocals were ably accompanied by Nixon's mournful harp, creating a subtle shade of blues. They left Chicago in the late 1930s to travel the country playing lumber camps, parties, and street corners for four years. Sleepy John EstesThe Decca label brought Estes to New York City to record in 1937 and again in 1938. Backed by his cousin Charlie Pickett on guitar and Nixon on harmonica, Estes again waxed fine blues but his sound remained rooted in an older Memphis style. He was paired with younger guitarist Robert Nighthawk, perhaps to modernize his sound, for his last Decca session in 1940. A year later he recorded for the Bluebird label backed by kazoos and a tub bass in a swinging session with the Delta Boys, who echoed Estes's jug band sensibilities. Estes returned to sharecropping in Brownsville in 1941.In 1948, he and Nixon recorded again for the Ora Nelle label but the work went unreleased. Estes went completely blind in 1950 and elected to try his hand at recording again. A 1952 session for Sam Phillips's Sun Records was held at 706 Union Avenue, but the result did not approach his earlier work. Estes was rediscovered in 1962 during the blues revival that revived the careers of Mississippi John Hurt, Son House, and Skip James. He cut several albums for Delmark and returned to touring with Hammie Nixon before health problems confined him to Brownsville. Sleepy John Estes died June 5, 1977, and is buried at Durhamville Baptist Church in Durhamville, Tennessee. LIKE WHAT U HEARD? SUBSCRIBE IF YOU WILL FOR MORE EXCELLENT MUSIC

Estes, "Shake 'Em On Down" by Bukka White, "I Want Some Of Your Pie" by Blind Boy Fuller and "Custard Pie Blues" by Brownie McGhee. The song contains somewhat difficult-to-comprehend lyrics, but, like several other songs on the album, they are full of sexual innuendo. In this case, "Custard Pie" refers to a woman's sexual organs and the song is rife with references to oral sex: "Your custard pie, yeah, sweet and nice / When you cut it mama, save me a slice", as well as "chewin' a piece of your custard pie". "Custard Pie" contains a wah-wah solo by guitarist Jimmy Page, which was played through an ARP synthesizer. It also features an electric clavinet played by John Paul Jones and a mouth harp by vocalist Robert Plant. Some observers have pointed out that it displays some similarities in sound to "Whole Lotta Love" from Led Zeppelin II, which was itself heavily influenced by the blues song "You Need Love" written by Willie Dixon. Despite being rehearsed for Led Zeppelin's 1975 US Tour, this track was never completely played live at Led Zeppelin concerts. However, on 21 May 1977 in Houston, Texas, Robert and Jimmy did very briefly perform Custard Pie during the acoustic set.

t, born in Ripley, Tennessee In 1915, Estes's father, a sharecropper who also played some guitar, moved the family to Brownsville, Tennessee. Not long after, Estes lost the sight of his right eye when a friend threw a rock at him during a baseball game. At the age of 19, while working as a field hand, he began to perform professionally. The venues were mostly local parties and picnics, with the accompaniment of Hammie Nixon, a harmonica player, and James "Yank" Rachell, a guitarist and mandolin player. He would continue to work, on and off, with both musicians for more than fifty years. Estes made his debut as a recording artist in Memphis, Tennessee in 1929, at a session organized by Ralph Peer for Victor Records. His partnership with Nixon was first do#@!&ented on songs like "Drop Down Mama" and "Someday Baby Blues" in 1935; later sides replaced the harmonica player with the guitarists Son Bonds or Charlie Pickett. He later recorded for the Decca and Bluebird labels, with his last pre-war recording session taking place in 1941. He made a brief return to recording at Sun Studio in Memphis in 1952, recording "Runnin' Around" and "Rats in My Kitchen," but otherwise was largely out of the public eye for two decades. Though only modestly skilled as a guitarist (he was frequently teamed with more capable musicians, like Rachell, Nixon, and the piano player Jab Jones), Estes was a fine singer, with a distinctive "crying" vocal style. He sounded so much like an old man, even on his early records, that blues revivalists reportedly delayed looking for him because they assumed he would have to be long dead, and because fellow musician Big Bill Broonzy had written that Estes had died. By the time he was tracked down, by Bob Koester and Samuel Charters in 1962, he had become completely blind and was living in poverty. He resumed touring and recording, reunited with Nixon and toured Europe several times and Japan, with a clutch of albums released on the Delmark Records label. Though his later records are generally considered less interesting than his pre-war output. Nevertheless, Estes, Nixon and Rachell also made a successful appearance at the 1964 Newport Folk Festival. Bob Dylan mentions Estes in the sleevenotes to Bringing It All Back Home (1965). Many of Estes's original songs were based on events in his own life or on people he knew from his home town, such as the local lawyer ("Lawyer Clark Blues"), local auto mechanic ("Vassie Williams' Blues"), or an amorously inclined teenage girl ("Little Laura Blues"). He also dispensed advice on agricultural matters ("Working Man Blues") and chronicled his own attempt to reach a recording studio for a session by hopping a freight train ("Special Agent (Railroad Police Blues)"). His lyrics combined keen observation with an ability to turn an effective phrase. Some accounts attribute his nickname of Sleepy to a blood pressure disorder and/or narcolepsy. Others, such as blues historian Bob Koester, claim he simply had a "tendency to withdraw from his surroundings into drowsiness whenever life was too cruel or too boring to warrant full attention." Estes suffered a stroke and died on June 5, 1977 and is buried at Durhamville Baptist Church in Durhamville, Tennessee. In 1991 Estes was posthumously inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame.