Judge Jackson

American scared harp composer, songwriter and educator. Born March 12, 1883 in Bryhill, Montgomery County, Alabama. Died April 7, 1958 in Ozark, Alabama. Father of Pauline Jackson Driggs and Henry Japheth Jackson. Father-in-law of Lillie M. Jackson. In 1904, Jackson began composing lyrics to shape note songs. By the early 1920s, he had moved on to teaching and composing Sacred Harp music, in addition to organizing conventions for the music in the southeast United States. In 1934, Jackson self-published a 77-song compilation publication "The Colored Sacred Harp", which included 18 of his own compositions (17 both words and music, and one music only) and 24 pieces he altered or arranged. Among the pieces in this collection is the Jackson composition "My Mother's Gone," which was eventually adopted into the Cooper revision in the late twentieth century.