Biography
The throbbing guitar sound of Garfield Akers left a deep mark on later Mississippi blues players, as John Lee Hooker and Robert Wilkins both named him among their key inspirations. Born near 1902 in Bates, Mississippi, Akers stayed an elusive character throughout his life; after sharpening his technique at neighborhood dances and house parties, he settled in the Hernando region and spent his days working the fields as a sharecropper. Once he reached Memphis, Akers cut his debut sides for the Vocalion label at the Peabody Hotel in 1929, backed by guitarist Joe Callicott. Across that date and a follow-up Brunswick session the next year, just four of his performances survive: the two-part signature piece “Cottonfield Blues,” “Jumpin’ and Shoutin’ Blues,” and “Dough Roller Blues,” an early reworking of Hambone Willie Newbern’s landmark “Roll and Tumble.” These tracks display his sharply driving guitar approach and expose a piercing, nearly spectral vocal delivery. Akers continued performing regularly on the south Memphis club circuit through the 1930s, returned briefly to public view in the early 1950s, and then slipped once more into anonymity; he is thought to have passed away around 1959.