Home of the "All About The Blues Series"™ Blues in the Schools Program and Fruteland Jackson's Music
Fruteland Jackson
His Life - Part II
Fruteland extended his guitar training by learning folk songs and listening to the Motown sounds. "Back then I liked the blues alright but I did not become consumed until later." His formal musical training, however, began in high school where he played the bugle and trombone in the school band and learned music theory. He later attended Columbia College as performing arts major (theatre and music) and Roosevelt University in Chicago where he studied voice. Marriage would later put the arts in the background, when he became a father. He worked as a licensed Private Investigator and later an investigator with the State of Illinois Department of Human Rights.
The first concrete symptoms of his blues calling surfaced in the mid- eighties when he returned to Mississippi this time settling in Biloxi, he opened a wholesale seafood company specializing in high quality shrimp and oysters. At about this juncture in his life, Fruteland began strumming blues rhythms and listening to the Blues Doctor, Bill Ferris out of the University of Mississippi. His business the Camel Seafood Company would, after four years, become a casualty to hurricane Elena. With this hurricane, came the blues. "The blues was a comforter for me always my healer during difficult times." Nearly stranded on the Gulf Coast with family he did what it took to survive while imbibing daily on blues music. "I dug up old records. My fathers old seventy eight’s." He began to reclaim his past, putting names with faces. He began to immerse himself in blues music. From the wail of field-hollers to B. B. King Fruteland was rediscovering what he knew as a child. The music spoke loudly, and this time Fruteland was listening. He was moved and shaken. "My father, grandfather and uncles all had the blues and brought them home daily... it wasn’t no festival either." Fruteland had heard Robert Johnson, Howling Wolf and his guru Johnny Shines, Little Walter, Muddy Waters and his uncle Woodrow, but now, for the first time he was listening.
His grandmother’s prophecy was now undergoing contractions. The "crossroads would beckon" "I thought of my uncle". For the first time in forty years Fruteland figured out where he was suppose to be and doing what he was suppose to be doing. He had found his pulpit to champion the downtrodden and those who dare to listen through blues education. He would assert himself. He now could communicate with peers and oppressors. "The blues is the recognition of a tragedy and an optimism to deal with it."
Copyright 2003 Fruteland Jackson