Born LF Nelson, Jack Owens' mother was Celia Owens, but his father, who bore the Owens surname, abandoned his family when Jack was 5-6 years old. After that time, he was raised by the Owens family, with his maternal grandfather the patriarch of 8 children according to the 1910 Census, and of them, two other children officially shared the Nelson name. (This does not account for two more children born after the census.) While very young, Owens learned some chords on the guitar from his father, and an uncle, and learned to play the fife, the fiddle, and piano while still a child, but his chosen instrument remained the guitar.[3] As he matured, Owens didn’t seek to become a professional recording artist, but he farmed, bootlegged and ran a weekend juke joint in Bentonia for most of his life. His peer, Skip James, had left home and traveled until he found a talent agent and a record label to sign him, but Owens had preferred to remain at home, selling potliquor and performing only on his front porch. He was not recorded until the blues revival of the 1960s, being rediscovered by a musicologist, David Evans, in 1966, who had been taken to meet Owens by either Skip James or Cornelius Bright. Evans noted that while James and Owens had many elements in common, and a sound peculiar to that region, referred to as "Bentonia School", there were also strong differences in Owens' delivery. Both James, Owens, and others from the area, (including Bukka White), shared a particular guitar <b>...</b>