It’s tempting to argue that before James “T-Model” Ford began recording for the blues revivalists at Fat Possum Records — home of R.L. Burnside and Junior Kimbrough — he had already seen it all. At age 6, he worked the fields behind a mule, and as a boy, he’d been beaten so badly he lost a testicle. He left home at 22, spent two years on a chain gang for knifing a man, and later still, drove a log truck in the Mississippi delta. At last count, he’d been married five times and sired 26 children.
Despite this perfect résumé for singing the blues, T-Model Ford hasn’t really seen everything. For one thing, Ford was barely out of his home state before starting his musical career; for another, he didn’t pick up a guitar until he was 58. That guitar was the only thing his wife at the time left him some 22 years ago.
“I could see the moon shining,” Ford remembers, “and I could see her and the kids through that back window. They was driving away, and it was like they thought I was going to come out and try and stop them, but I just stood there. Then I went back into the house, and something told me to take a look at that guitar.”
Between a bottle of moonshine and some Muddy Waters tunes, Ford began to bang out a rhythm on the guitar. He went from playing house parties to juke joints, and eventually Fat Possum founder Matthew Johnson convinced Ford to lay down some tracks. The latest offering, She Ain’t None of Your’n, is rocking testimony to the fortitude of a man who if not for his innate talent and Johnson’s encouragement might have disappeared, leaving barely a trace.
Today, the 80-year-old Ford happily proclaims, “I thank the Lord I got a rhythm-beat sound in my guitar. It’s who I is, and it’s what I do. There’s not a man living who can play like I can. I’m ready anytime. I’m ready to play.” T-Model Ford and other Fat Possum artists are featured in the documentary film You See Me Laughin’, playing Saturday, March 16, at the Alamo Drafthouse at 7:45 pm.
This article appears in March 15 • 2002.