Louisiana bluesman known for his lonesome style and hard hard luck, a folk festival favorite by the 1970s.
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Blues singer and harmonica player, born December 18, 1911 in Jonesville, SC, died October 27, 1977 in same location. He toured with carnivals and medicine shows from 1933 into the 1950s, with Chief Thundercloud Medicine Show from 1950s to 1972. A performance with the Chief Thundercloud show was recorded in 1972 (released by Flyright). He also recorded for Trix the same year and with Louisiana Red for Blue Labor in 1975.
More detail:
Arthur Jackson, known as Peg Leg Sam (b. December 28, 1911 in Jonesville, SC, d. October 27, 1977 in Jonesville, SC) was a country blues harmonicist, singer and comedian. He recorded "Fox Chase" and "John Henry" and worked in medicine shows. He gained his nickname following an accident whilst hoboing in 1930.
Arthur Jackson was born in Jonesville, South Carolina, the fourth of six children of David Jackson, a farmer and native of Virginia, and Emma Jackson. His paternal great-grandmother, Racheal Williams, was born 1810 in Virginia and was commonly referred to as a mulatto. She may have had a white mother or father (more likely a white father, as would have been more typical of the period). Peg Leg Sam taught himself to play harmonica as a small child. He left home at the age of 12 and never stopped roving. He shined shoes, worked as a houseboy, cooked on ships, hoboed, and then made a living busking on street corners. He lost his leg in 1930, trying to hop a train but made a peg out of a fencepost, bound it to his stub with a leather belt, and kept moving. He joined the medicine show circuit in 1937, often performing with Pink Anderson. His ability to play two harmonicas at once (while one went in and out of his mouth) made him an attraction; he could also play notes on a harmonica with his nose. Peg Leg Sam married Theo S. Jackson, who was 18 years his senior and the mother of Herbert Miller and Katherine Miller, both natives of Tennessee. Peg Leg Sam gave his last medicine-show performance in 1972 in North Carolina but continued to appear at music festivals in his final years. In 1973, his childhood friend, Henry "Rufe" Johnson, supplied both guitar and vocals, as did Baby Tate, to a couple of tracks on Peg Leg Sam's album, Medicine Show Man.
He died in Jonesville in October 1977, at the age of 65, and was buried at Thompson Chapel Baptist Church Cemetery in Jonesville, Union County, South Carolina.
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By Jim O'Neal
Peg Leg Sam was a performer to be treasured, a member of what may have been the last authentic traveling medicine show, a harmonica virtuoso, and an extraordinary entertainer. Born Arthur Jackson, he acquired his nickname after a hoboing accident in 1930. His medicine show career began in 1938, and his repertoire -- finally recorded only in the early '70s -- reflected the rustic nature of the traveling show. "Peg" delivered comedy routines, bawdy toasts, and monologs; performed tricks with his harps (often playing two at once); and served up some juicy Piedmont blues (sometimes with a guitar accompanist, but most often by himself). Peg Leg Sam gave his last medicine-show performance in 1972 in North Carolina and was still in fine fettle when he started making the rounds of folk and blues festivals in his last years.