(slurps coffee)
Gangster.
(sniffs nose)
(groans)
That's the sound of a good interview starting.
(lively fiddle music)
Trouble started with my eyes when I was 16, 17
and by the time I was 18, I had to stop driving.
Doctor said, "You legally blind, you got 10/600 vision,
“you can't be behind no wheel and be safe."
I have visual imparities, but Legally Blind Boy Paxton
is the stupidest stage name I could come up with,
so I just omitted the 'legally'.
(chuckles)
(mandolin picking music)
- [Chris] I'm Chris Funk.
I'm a musician in a band called The Decemberists,
and I'm on a journey looking for the most
surprising and extraordinary people in music.
My next stop takes me to New York City.
There, I will meet a virtuoso in his 20's
whose genius is playing music that's 100 years old.
You wanna play some piano?
- [Jerron] Alright.
(rolls keys on keyboard)
(lively piano music)
My name is Jerron Paxton.
Born South Central Los Angeles,
currently of New York City and a world traveler.
I'm a music physician.
Dr. Feelgood of music as it was.
- [Chris] Jerron is a master of forgotten music.
The first time I heard him play,
I thought I was listening to some old, obscure 45's.
He can pick up almost any instrument
and it sounds like he just stepped off
the Mississippi Delta.
(lively piano music)
(men chuckle)
I play guitar, banjo, harmonica, piano, fiddle.
(fiddle music)
And some other instruments that are
reserved for private pleasure.
(man chuckles)
What?
Get your mind out of the gutter.
(fiddle music)
People call this traditional music
and lot of people tend to think of me as a revivalist.
I don't tend to think of things in those terms
because I'm a musician.
This is music I always played and I always
played it for my family.
It's not old or traditional or throwback,
I'm just a dude that plays music that
my folks and I wanna listen to.
Play the melody with the right side.
No way.
And you play the harmony with the left side.
I've got insane oral skills.
(man laughs)
- [Chris] One of my favorite things about Jerron
is that he's on a historical mission of sorts,
rediscovering for the rest of us
the original black music of America.
People don't associate the banjo
with black people anymore and, you know, 200 years ago
that's all you associated with 'em.
(picks banjo)
Oh, baby.
(tunes down)
That's my direction, to find a music
that relates to my culture I had to go back.
I had to go back past recording history,
had to go back to the 1840s to hear
what that kind of music sounded like.
And seeing as their ain't no records of it,
I have to recreate it, you know?
I'm one of a handful of black banjo players
left in the world.
I figured to represent black banjo music
all I had to do was just act natural.
♪ It may rain, it may snow, ♪
♪ It may rain a whole lot more ♪
Back home in South Central, I'd play the music
like my grandma taught me from the cotton field.
It don't have too much European overtones and influences.
The techniques and a lot of the melodies
are made out of whole cloth by the builders of America.
(laughs)
(crowd cheers and applauds)
Thank you so much, my gangster brothren and sistren.
- [Chris] After watching Jerron
at the Jalopy Theater in Brooklyn
play songs that are 100 years old,
it's easy to see why he can captivate an audience.
(guitar picks jovially)
It takes me.
You know, it's my music, it's my culture and it's my passion.
And I don't watch TV and I don't have
too many other hobbies, so this is what I get into.
And I get into the history of it.
(harmonica cries)
It seems to be more entertaining than
any book and any story that you could read
because it's all real and there's more of it
to be discovered.
(crowd cheers and applauds)
Thank you, friends.
(gentle music)
(electronic beep)