Ike Zimmerman
American blues guitarist (1907–1967
Isaiah "Ike" Zimmerman (April 27, 1907 – August 3, 1967) was an American blues guitarist, who is now known to have been musician Robert Johnson's main guitar teacher.
Zimmerman (sometimes spelled Zinnerman) was born in Grady, Alabama. He married Ruth Sellers in the late 1920s, and lived with her and their children near Beauregard, Mississippi. He played guitar and harmonica in local juke joints, often practicing at night in local cemeteries where he would not disturb others. He became known for his guitar skills, and gave guitar lessons. Robert Johnson, who had been born in nearby Hazlehurst, came back to the area, probably around 1931, and was hoping to find his father, Noah Johnson. Johnson stopped to visit a local juke joint, where he saw Zimmerman perform.
Background
According to one of Zimmerman's daughters, interviewed by blues researcher Bruce Conforth:He [Robert].. he fitted in our family, and he had to be nice, because my daddy was a strong man and ...a good man, my daddy was, and so he wouldn’t have taken up no time with someone who wasn’t a good person. That’s the reason that I believe that he [Ike] took [Robert] under his arm.
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This entry incorporates text from “Ike Zimmerman” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.