“I don’t smoke crack, I don’t get high, I ain’t into sports. Music is what I do. The core of it is what I got from my grandmother and my grandfather.”

Sitting on the couch of his studio in Hattiesburg, fifth-generation Mississippi musician and A-list guitarist Vasti Jackson is discussing the main impetus behind his life-long, world-wide journey in the blues.

“Some people can say, well, Lightnin’ Hopkins, but I say Sammy Jackson, ’cause that’s my reference point. My grandfather is my reference point.”

Vasti heard his grandfather’s gritty blues and the gentler gospel of his grandmother, Mary, all through his childhood in McComb, Mississippi. His grandparents’ individual musical leanings reflected their divergent lifestyles. Sammy Jackson was a hard-living Delta bluesman with a taste for worldly pleasures while Mary, still alive and writing songs at 85, is dignified and devout. Their respective approaches to music were not only shaped by their values systems, by also by cultural differences. Sammy was short and dark-skinned, Mary was tall and fair, partly of Irish descent.

“She of course fell more into the gospel and spiritual aspect of the music,” recalls Vasti. “Because of her heritage it always had this waltz-like thing where when he played it was much more groove and just intense. Her thing was almost like an Irish jig, her phrasingº So I had that in my family. I always had that combination of Europe and Africa.”

Vasti, whose name means to will or to command in Sanskrit, also counts African-Americans of Arabic descent, Native Americans and even a Jewish rabbi amongst his blood relatives. The breadth of his bloodline is matched by the wide spectrum of music that he has been called upon to play since his late teens. At 45, he has worked in the top tier of the blues world for over two decades. He has toured or recorded with B.B. King, Little Milton, Bobby Bland, Katie Webster, Latimore, Philip Bailey, C.J. Chenier and Cassandra Wilson and has acted as bandleader or musical director for Johnnie Taylor, Bobby Rush, and Z.Z. Hill. He has played on and produced more recording sessions than he can possibly recall. Recently he helped produce Henry Butler’s Homeland CD and has been appearing frequently in New Orleans as a member of Butler’s band.

Jackson’s professional career began at age 14 in south Mississippi juke joints playing with Big Moody and the Royals. Coming from such a musical family, he had a good ear and natural understanding of music, but a tough lesson at age 15 would show him that raw talent would only take him so far.

A relative arranged for Jackson to play for the stage band director at McComb High School. When  he plugged in the band director gave him a chord chart. He didn’t even know the names of chords, let alone how to read a chart. The band director then counted off a jazz tune with more complex chord changes than Jackson could decipher on the fly.

“ After about 20 seconds he stopped the band, about 19 or 20 musicians, and told me to unplug my guitar and not to come back and play for him until I could read music.”

Humiliated but not discouraged, Jackson threw himself into the formal study of music, learning not only to read, but to transcribe, transpose and arrange music. He would eventually attend college on a percussion scholarship, and his wide range of skills would help open the doors to a very productive career with Malaco Records as a musician, arranger, and producer before he was 20.

Along the way Jackson would often sing to open shows for the artists he worked for. With much prodding from the legendary, but vastly under-rewarded, guitarist Wayne Bennett, as well as pianist Katie Webster, Jackson released a solo album, Vas-Tie Jackson. His current, self-produced release, No Borders to the Blues lives up to its title by touching on many facets of music. It’s all over the map stylistically, and often lyrically ambitious.

“I think that’s one of the things that are lacking in modern blues writing,” asserts Jackson. “Stories, subject matter, you know what I mean?”

The subject matter of the songs on No Borders to the Blues is as varied as the musical approach Jackson applies to make his statement. Some of the songs seem to present contradictory messages, such as the biting political critique of “Monkey Di Doo” and the overtly patriotic “America, Proud and Strong.” While some might see the sentiments of each of these songs as in conflict with one another, Jackson sees them as two sides of his personal feelings.

“When I did that song [‘America, Proud and Strong’], some people said ‘Don’t put it on this record.’ Maybe they thought the song was right wing, but it’s not. I’m glad to be an American and I love this country. It’s like your kids. Do I like everything about America one hundred percent? No, but I don’t like everything my sons do either. Am I going to cast my sons away? No.”

Jackson’s feelings about the importance of music, and the difference between the art of making music and the business of making a living, are as strong as the conviction behind his lyrics.

“Whatever you pay me I’m going to work harder than what the dollar is,” he asserts, “because I don’t equate music with money. I mean, there’s business and money and I have to survive, but whether it’s a hundred dollars or a thousand dollars, I’m not going to play less. That’s not gonna happen because music is too important, too much of a gift to me.”

That being said, Jackson’s spirit of giving doesn’t mean he’s willing to lay down and be a blow-up doll for the powers that be. When his performance of an original song made the final cut of Martin Scorsese’s documentary series The Blues, Jackson held his ground when he was offered barely any compensation for his original work.

“We fought like hell over the publishing and all that with Scorsese,” says Jackson with a hint of disbelief. “I didn’t give it up. I got mechanicals. I fought like a fucking dog, man. They wanted not only publishing but writer’s for all the original stuff, they wanted total ownership. It was like the release from hell. I was amazed.

“But still in all, all of this is a blessing. I think once we deal with the art, then we deal with the business. Those are two separate things. I believe that in all things if you don’t have something worth stealing you don’t have anything.”

With his youngest son’s high school graduation (both of his sons are musicians, as is his cousin, who is a widely respected classical cellist), and the resulting relaxation of his child-rearing responsibilities, Jackson is able to spend more time playing in New Orleans.

“New Orleans affords me the opportunity to speak with a broader voice. If I want to stretch the boundaries harmonically, within a blues form or structure, the audiences,their ear is a little more receptive to that, which is great. Whereas in Mississippi it’s based more on the story and a consistent groove and feel that actually is better served with that underlying or even overt gospel thing. I’m very conscious here [in Mississippi] of being very lyrical with solos. I can be lyrical in New Orleans, but when you’re playing with people like Henry Butler, then it’s a different language, and I love it. I’m inspired by the great musicians in New Orleans.

“It was so good to reconnect with Little Freddie King, my mother’s first cousin. When I hear Freddie I hear my grandfather. There are vocal phrases that sound like my grandmother when Freddie sings, and there are things that he plays on the guitar that are my grandfather.”

In talking to Jackson about his music, it becomes obvious that his grandmother has always been a guiding force in his life, musically and personally. This naturally brings up the question of how she, as a pious and religious woman, has reacted to his choice to live the blues life.

“My grandmother would joke about it actually”, says Jackson, smiling. “Because my grandmother is tall and she always wished I would be taller. So she’s very thankful that God graced me with the gift to do music because it meant I didn’t have to work manual labor.”

Vasti Jackson will perform at the Blue Nile on Thursday, June 2, and at the Old Point Bar on Monday, June 13.