Biography
Graham Jackson entered a musically rich world at birth and soon revealed his own melodic and rhythmic gifts while most youngsters were still learning to ride tricycles. His mother, already an established singer, provided an early environment steeped in performance. After finishing high school, he launched his professional life in Atlanta, where his abilities secured an immediate post with the house band at The Royal Theater; before long he took charge of his own ensemble there, naming it the Seminole Syncopaters.
Although the bulk of his work remained centered in Atlanta, Jackson paused his activities to study organ at a Chicago college. Returning from the mid-1920s onward, he settled back into the city, where his group became a regular fixture at The 81 Theater. Daytime hours found him teaching at Booker T. Washington High School and Morris Brown College. Throughout the 1930s and 1940s he received repeated invitations to play for President Franklin D. Roosevelt at the Little White House in Hot Springs, Arkansas, and a widely circulated photograph captured him weeping while performing on accordion at Roosevelt’s 1945 funeral.
Bandleading engagements kept a steady tempo through the 1950s, frequently alongside Ray Snead. In the following decade Governor Lester Maddox named Jackson to the state Board of Corrections—an appointment that stood out for a Black musician in Georgia at the time and that originated with a politician widely known for racist views. By the mid-1970s Jackson had withdrawn entirely from the stage; he died in 1983, two years before his posthumous induction into the Georgia Music Hall of Fame.
Although the bulk of his work remained centered in Atlanta, Jackson paused his activities to study organ at a Chicago college. Returning from the mid-1920s onward, he settled back into the city, where his group became a regular fixture at The 81 Theater. Daytime hours found him teaching at Booker T. Washington High School and Morris Brown College. Throughout the 1930s and 1940s he received repeated invitations to play for President Franklin D. Roosevelt at the Little White House in Hot Springs, Arkansas, and a widely circulated photograph captured him weeping while performing on accordion at Roosevelt’s 1945 funeral.
Bandleading engagements kept a steady tempo through the 1950s, frequently alongside Ray Snead. In the following decade Governor Lester Maddox named Jackson to the state Board of Corrections—an appointment that stood out for a Black musician in Georgia at the time and that originated with a politician widely known for racist views. By the mid-1970s Jackson had withdrawn entirely from the stage; he died in 1983, two years before his posthumous induction into the Georgia Music Hall of Fame.
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