During the early decades of recorded blues, crossing paths with Blind Joe Taggart could prove hazardous without the presence of Blind John Henry Arnold, according to the recollections of famed folk singer and blues performer Josh White. White maintained that Arnold stood alone as the sole individual tougher than Taggart, a judgment informed by firsthand experience of mistreatment at the hands of both figures, as well as the legendary Blind Lemon Jefferson. In that era when sightless blues masters navigated city streets performing for spare change, young guides were essential companions, and White emerged as the best-known member of this vanished group of lead boys whose apprenticeship once linked them to artists such as Taggart. The harsh conditions of such an existence often fostered hardened temperaments among those who endured them.
A representative traveling musician of the 1920s, Taggart left behind limited biographical details, most of which reached later generations through White’s interviews; the two first encountered each other in Greenville, SC, when the older man still went by the name Joel Taggart. White’s characterization of the contrasting natures of the two domineering figures gained lasting currency: Arnold was “mean, honest mean,” whereas Taggart proved “tricky, nasty mean.” White further observed that Taggart retained partial vision because of cataracts and could “see a little,” placing him among the subset of ostensibly blind blues musicians who possessed limited sight.
Recognition arrived for Taggart in 1926 when the Brunswick-Balke-Collender company of Chicago, then launching its Vocalion imprint, took note of the brisk sales of competing “race” record series. The label sought to broaden its offerings by capturing singing evangelists, the sacred counterparts to secular country blues artists, and Taggart became the first full-time guitar evangelist to commit performances to disc late that year. His sessions yielded vocal duets with Emma Taggart, widely presumed to have been his wife, and the subsequent release of alternate takes from those dates prompted blues researchers to reassess his abilities. Unlike Blind Lemon Jefferson, Taggart escaped widespread attention during the folk revival of the 1960s and only received comprehensive documentation through the exhaustive reissue program of the Document label on compact disc, which revealed the resourcefulness and originality evident in every performance. Additional duets paired him with James Taggart, believed to be his son.
To navigate recording agreements or to shield his gospel work from divine disapproval, Taggart employed several aliases, among them Blind Joe Amos, Blind Jeremiah Taylor, Blind Tim Russell, and Blind Joe Donnel. His repertoire is frequently cited for preserving some of the earliest strands of country blues, incorporating melodic and stylistic elements traceable to the Civil War period, an interval when exchanges between Black and white musical traditions reportedly faced fewer barriers than in subsequent years.
