John H Jackson[1] was born into a musical family in Woodville, Virginia, and learned to play the guitar at an early age.

[2] He also appeared around Washington, D.C., with the Travelling Blues Workshop, which included Jackson, Archie Edwards, Flora Molton, Mother Scott, and Phil Wiggins and John Cephas.

His daughter, Cora Elizabeth (Beth) Johnson, and his son James Edward Jackson still live in the Fairfax area.

[4] Reviewing Jackson's 1978 record Step It Up and Go in Christgau's Record Guide: Rock Albums of the Seventies (1981), Robert Christgau said, "His guitar style is eclectic, as befits a man who got his best songs from Blind Boy Fuller and Blind Blake 78s but who also played in a country band in the early '40s.

No innovator, and not as arresting through a whole side as he is at the outset, he's nevertheless responsible for the most pleasing (and well-recorded) new country blues record I've heard in years.