The brother of Texas bluesman Willard "Ramblin'" Thomas, Jesse "Babyface" Thomas never had the success of his more famous sibling. Born in the hamlet of Logansport, LA, near the Texas border in 1911, Jesse Thomas and his brother were personally close growing up, often working in the fields together, and he also aspired to a music career -- the two performed together. He moved to Dallas in 1929, at a time when Blind Lemon Jefferson and Lonnie Johnson were in their heyday; Thomas made his first recordings that year, at age 18, for Victor. He cut four sides, but found little success coming from those efforts. Whether by design or a simple process of selection, he decided not to emulate his more famous brother's slide guitar-based sound, instead playing in a fingerpicking style closer to that of Blind Blake, Lonnie Johnson, or Blind Lemon Jefferson himself.