Haitians mourn legendary Joe Jack, blind musician who helped them see stories through song

CAP-HAÏTIEN — Singer Sheila Degraff was casually scrolling on Facebook while she sat shotgun in her friend’s car on Friday, April 11, around 5:00 p.m. They were on their way to a fashion show in Brooklyn, New York. Degraff suddenly stopped scrolling on one of the posts and read it with a heavy heart. Shocked!

“This morning, Haitian music lost one of my favorite artists, Mr. Joe Jacques,” the post’s first sentence from legendary pianist Fabrice Rouzier read.

Joseph Jacques, a blind accordionist, pianist and singer better known as Joe Jack, was also one of Degraff’s favorite singers since she was a child in the 1970s. She shared the news with her friend and the two listened to one of Jacques’ most famous hits together in the car, “Pwofesè Lekòl,” Creole for School Teacher.

“A legend left, but he was someone who completed his mission,” Degraff told The Haitian Times in a phone interview on April 13. 

“I reminisced on how much of an enormous talent Joe Jack was [while listening to the song],” Degraff added. “I’m listening to the way he put his verses, the way he transitioned, the way he told stories. I learned all over again how big of an artist he was.”

Jacques died in Montréal on April 11. His family and loved ones have yet to announce the cause of his death. He was 88.

The death of the Haitian Konpa singer has left many artists and fans from the older generation with heavy hearts. Jacques was a sensation in Haiti’s musical scene during the 1970s and 1980s. His music was often played on the radio, mesmerising young women and men with his soothing voice and heartfelt lyrics. He often told a touchy story that resonated with the audience.

For instance, in “Pwofesè Lekòl,” he sings about a woman he was interested in who lost interest because he didn’t make much money as a teacher. Later in the song, after becoming a star, he tells her he could now introduce her to someone even more attractive thats interested in him. 

Jacques captured the attention of his audience with his talent, even though he had been blind since he was one. Jacques’ artistry and perspective left a legacy rivaled by only a few, with his blindness offering a unique lens into his storytelling.

“His voice, his sensitivity, his humor, and his touch, despite his blindness, remain brilliant, Rouzier writes on Facebook. “How many times have I listened to his recordings, how many times have I reread his autobiography, ‘The Blind Man with a Thousand Destinies’? Thank you, thank you, thank you.”

From escaping death to rocking Haiti

Jacques hails from Gonaïves, the capital city of the Artibonite Department. He moved to Boston in 1955 to attend Perkins School for the Blind. In Boston, depressed because he was going through many hardships simultaneously, such as suffering from racism and his mother’s breakup with his stepfather, Jacques attempted to commit suicide by drinking four razor blades rolled up in a piece of tissue, according to his autobiography, “The Blind Man with a Thousand Destinies.”

After moving back to Haiti, Jacques taught English at École Saint-Vicent, a school for children with disabilities, and in 1965, he recorded his first song, “Les Quatres Cloches,” French for “The Four Bells.” He later moved to Montréal during the 1980s. 

Nicknamed the One-Man Band, Jacques produced some of his most famous hits between the 1970s and 1980s, including “Pwofesè Lekol,” “Timidité” (or “Shyness”), “Love Story,” “Simplement Joe” (“Simply Joe”) and Live in New York, among others, as reported by Le Nouvelliste.

While Jacques is mostly remembered for his music, he was also known for his righteousness and often advocated for human rights. Most millennials, including Haitians born in the 1980s and early 1990s, are unfamiliar with Jacques’s music and first heard about him as the music community has been discussing his career after his death. Some had heard his songs before but did not know who the singer was.

A 2000’s baby unexpected love for Joe Jack’s music 

Ritchy Jean, a content creator in between jobs in Port-au-Prince, is one of the few born in the 2000s who was a fan of Jacques before his death. Jean first heard about Jacques when he went to the Alliance Française library in Jérémie in April 2024. The title of Jacques’ autobiography caught his attention, so he borrowed it to read it.

“I wanted to see what destinities the blind man had because a lot of the time when you’re blind, people think it’s over,” Jean, 24, said. 

Jean started listening to Joe Jack’s music while reading the book. His father and aunt were surprised because Jacques was not part of his generation. After hearing about Jacques’s death, Jean was devastated, particularly because he felt that the late singer had unaccomplished dreams, such as building schools for people with disabilities, a dream Jacques shared in his autobiography.

“He had a lot of dreams,” Jean said. “He made a lot of them come true, but a lot of them didn’t turn into reality… I like his audacity. If he, as a blind man, did all this, us who can see can do the same or even more.”

To many of Jacques’s die-hard fans, it will be a long time before Haiti can witness such a talented man again, so he must be remembered.

“Those people don’t come on earth like that,” Degraff said. “He was a pillar, one maybe every thousand years. He was a complete man, a great man.”

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