By Lance Lawrence
[As of December 1, 2017 under the new regime of Greg Green, formerly of the on-line American Film Gazette website, brought in to shake things up a bit after a vote of no confidence in the previous site administrator Peter Markin was taken among all the writers at the request of some of the younger writers abetted by one key older writer, Sam Lowell, the habit of assigning writers solely to specific topics like film, books, political commentary, and culture is over. Also over is the designation of writers in this space, young or old, by job title like senior or associate. After a short-lived experiment by Green designating everybody as “writer” seemingly in emulation of the French Revolution’s “citizen” or the Bolshevik Revolution’s “comrade” all posts will be “signed” with given names only. The Editorial Board]
[Although I am a much
younger writer I today stand in agreement with Bart Webber and Si Lannon, older
writers who I admire and whom I have learned a lot from about how to keep it
short and sweet but in any case short on these on-line sites. Originally I had
agreed with both men as far as Phil Larkin’s, what did, Si call them, yes,
rantings about heads rolling, about purges and would have what seems like
something out of Stalin’s Russia from what I have read about that regime were dubious at best. Now I am not so sure as I
have heard other younger writers rather gleefully speaking around the shop
water cooler about moving certain unnamed writers out to pasture-finally in the
words of one of them.
In any case the gripe
the former two writers appropriateness of this disclaimer above or whatever it
purports to be by the "victorious" new regime headed by Greg Green
and his so- called Editorial Board is what I support. As Bart first mentioned,
I think, if nothing else this disclaimer has once again pointed told one and
all, interested or not, that he, they have been “demoted.” That I too as
Si pointed out while I chafed as an Associate Book Critic and didn’t like it am
now just another Everyman. Although this is the first time I have had the
disclaimer above my article I plead once should be enough, more than enough.
In the interest of
transparency I was among the leaders, among the most vociferous leaders, of
what has now started to come down in the shop as urban legend “Young Turks” who
fought tooth and nail both while Alan Jackson (aka Peter Paul Markin as blog
moniker for reasons never made clear, at least to me) was in charge and
essentially stopping young writer developing their talents and when we decided
that Allan had to go, had to “retire.” (I am sure Phil Larkin will take those
innocent quotation marks as definite proof that Allan was purged although maybe
I should reevaluate everything he has said in a new light.) But I agree with
Bart and Si’s sentiment that those on the “losing” end in the fierce no-holds
barred internal struggle had taken their "beating" and have moved on
as far as I can tell. That fact should signal the end of this embarrassing and
rather provocative disclaimers. Done. Lance Lawrence}
Sometimes
a picture really can be worth a thousand words, a thousand words and more as in
the case Howlin’ Wolf doing his Midnight creep in the photograph above taken
from an album of his work but nowadays with the advances in computer technology
and someone’s desire to share also to be seen on sites such as YouTube where
you can get a real flavor of what that mad man was about when he got his blues
wanting habits on. In fact I am a little hesitate to use a bunch of words
describing Howlin’ Wolf in high gear since maybe I would leave out that drop of
perspiration dripping from his overworked forehead and that salted drop might
be the very thing that drove him that night or describing his oneness with his
harmonica because that might cause some karmic funk. So, no, I am not really
going to go on and on about his midnight creep but when the big man got into
high gear, when he went to a place where he sweaty profusely, a little ragged
in voice and eyes all shot to hell he roared for his version of the high white
note. Funny, a lot of people, myself for a while included, used to think that
the high white note business was strictly a jazz thing, maybe somebody like the
“Prez” Lester Young or Duke’s Johnny Hodges after hours, after the paying
customers had had their fill, or what they thought was all those men had in
them, shutting the doors tight, putting up the tables leaving the chairs for
whoever came by around dawn, grabbing a few guys from around the town as they
finished their gigs and make the search, make a serious bid to blow the world
to kingdom come. Some nights they were on fire at blew that big note out in to
some heavy air and who knows where it landed, most nights though it was just
“nice try.” One night I was out in Frisco when “Saps” McCoy blew a big sexy sax
right out the door of Chez Benny’s over in North Beach when North Beach was just
turning away from be-bop “beat” and that high white, I swear, blew out to the
bay and who knows maybe all the way to the Japan seas. But see if I had, or
anybody had, thought about it for a minute jazz and the blues are cousins,
cousins no question so of course Howlin’ Wolf blew out that high white note
more than once, plenty including a couple of shows I caught him at when he was
not in his prime.
The
photograph (and now video) that I was thinking of is one where he is
practically eating the harmonica as he performs How Many More Years (and
now like I say thanks to some thoughtful archivist you can go on to YouTube and
see him doing his devouring act in real time and in motion, wow, and also
berating father Son House for showing up drunk). Yes, the Wolf could blast out
the blues and on this one you get a real appreciation for how serious he was as
a performer and as blues representative of the highest order.
Howlin’
Wolf like his near contemporary and rival Muddy Waters, like a whole generation
of black bluesmen who learned their trade at the feet of old-time country blues
masters like Charley Patton, the aforementioned Son House who had his own
personal fight with the devil, Robert Johnson who allegedly sold his soul to
the devil out on Highway 61 so he could get his own version of that high white
note, and the like down in Mississippi or other southern places in the first
half of the twentieth century. They as part and parcel of that great black
migration (even as exceptional musicians they would do stints in the sweated
Northern factories before hitting Maxwell Street) took the road north, or
rather the river north, an amazing number from the Delta and an even more
amazing number from around Clarksville in Mississippi right by that Highway 61
and headed first maybe to Memphis and then on to sweet home Chicago.
They
went where the jobs were, went where the ugliness of Mister James Crow telling
them sit here not there, walk here but not there, drink the water here not
there, don’t look at our women under any conditions and on and on did not haunt
their every move (although they would find not racial Garden of Eden in the
North, last hired, first fired, squeezed in cold water flats too many to a
room, harassed, but they at least has some breathing space, some room to create
a little something they could call their won and not Mister’s), went where the
big black migration was heading after World War I. Went also to explore a new
way of presenting the blues to an urban audience in need of a faster beat, in
need of getting away from the Saturday juke joint acoustic country sound with
some old timey guys ripping up three chord ditties to go with that jug of Jack
Flash’s homemade whiskey (or so he called it).
So
they, guys like Howlin’ Wolf, Muddy Waters, Magic Slim, Johnny Shines, and
James Cotton prospered by doing what Elvis did for rock and rock and Bob Dylan
did for folk and pulled the hammer down on the old electric guitar and made
big, big sounds that reached all the way back of the room to the Red Hat and
Tip Top clubs and made the max daddies and max mamas jump, make some moves. And
here is where all kinds of thing got intersected, as part of all the trends in
post-World War II music up to the 1960s anyway from R&B, rock and roll,
electric blues and folk the edges of the music hit all the way to then small
white audiences too and they howled for the blues, which spoke to some sense of
their own alienation. Hell, the Beatles and more particularly lived to hear
Muddy and the Wolf. The Stones even went to Mecca, to Chess Records to be at
one with Muddy. And they also took lessons from Howlin’ Wolf himself on the
right way to play Little Red Rooster which they had covered and made
famous in the early 1960s (or infamous depending on your point of view since
many radio stations including some Boston stations had banned it from the air
originally).Yes, Howlin’ Wolf and that big bad harmonica and that big bad voice
that howled in the night did that for a new generation, pretty good
right.
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