This space is dedicated to the proposition that we need to know the history of the struggles on the left and of earlier progressive movements here and world-wide. If we can learn from the mistakes made in the past (as well as what went right) we can move forward in the future to create a more just and equitable society. We will be reviewing books, CDs, and movies we believe everyone needs to read, hear and look at as well as making commentary from time to time. Greg Green, site manager
Click on the title to link to "The New York Times" obituary for legendary Chicago Blues Queen Koko Taylor.
Markin comment:
This is a belated tribute to Koko, although I have done a review of her work in thi space previously. The raw energy that she brought to a blues song probably will not be equaled again. She is also probably the last of that incredible crowd, like Muddy Waters and Howlin' Wolf, that headed north out of the South and gave Chicago, and Chess Records, that great 1950s blues sound. They will be crying on Maxwell Street on this one. Hell, I am crying too.
Wang Dang Doodle Howlin' Wolf, Koko Taylor
Tell Automatic Slim , tell Razor Totin' Jim
Tell Butcher Knife Totin' Annie, tell Fast Talking Fanny
A we gonna pitch a ball, a down to that union hall
We gonna romp and tromp till midnight
We gonna fuss and fight till daylight
We gonna pitch a wang dang doodle all night long
All night long, All night long, All night long
Tell Kudu-Crawlin' Red, tell Abyssinian Ned
Tell ol' Pistol Pete, everybody gonna meet
Tonight we need no rest, we really gonna throw a mess
We gonna to break out all of the windows,
we gonna kick down all the doors
We gonna pitch a wang dang doodle all night long
All night long, All night long, All night long
Tell Fats and Washboard Sam, that everybody gonna to jam
Tell Shaky and Boxcar Joe, we got sawdust on the floor
Tell Peg and Caroline Dye, we gonna have a time
When the fish scent fill the air, there'll be snuff juice everywhere
We gonna pitch a wang dang doodle all night long
All night long, All night long etc.
Click On Title To Link To YouTube's Film Clip Of Memphis Slim Doing "Beer Drinking Woman".
DVD REVIEW
Memphis Slim: Live At Ronnie Scott’s, Memphis Slim, 1986
If you listen to enough blues. If you watch enough films about the blues. If you read enough blues liner notes you not only will become “educated” about this genre but will be able to separate the wheat from the chaff. In other words who’s paid the dues to the blues, and who hasn’t. I have spilled plenty of ink in this space discussing the various personalities, who formed that great post-World War II electric blues explosion centered on Chicago and its environs. I have extolled Howlin’ Wolf, Muddy Waters, Magic Slim, John Lee Hooker and the like. And rightly so. However, every once in a while one needs to freshen up the list as one reviews more material. That was the case with my recent “discovery” of the legendary country blues master, Bukka White. I now add Memphis Slim to the electric blues side.
It is not as if I did not know the name Memphis Slim. And heard his work in various blues compilations, especially from his Chess Record days and on the American Folk Blues series from the 1960's. As noted above once you are immersed in the blues genre and begin to find out who the blues greats acknowledge as their own these things get sorted out quickly. I kept hearing the name Memphis Slim uttered from their lips, as companion and influence. Strangely, after the golden age of the barrel house piano player in the 1920’s and 1930’s there was something of a hiatus in the blues piano as the electric guitar began to dominate. Memphis Slim carries that blues piano tradition forward to the “new age”.
Frankly, every once in awhile a blues piano is the kind of thing that you need to while away your own blues. It provides a more evocative, cleaner sound that the hyper-energetic electric guitar of late Saturday nights. As Memphis Slim himself mentions in between songs in the film, when discussing what he believes the blues are all about, the blues are about hunger, sorrow, longing for love, lost loves and the like. But they are also about happier events as well. Both lyric renditions and piano styles are on display here as Memphis goes through his paces to an appreciative British audience (Ronnie Scott’s is, or was, a famous night spot in London) in 1986. So if you want to watch a master at the blues piano and no mean blues vocal stylist this is your address.
"Rack 'em Back Jack"
You know I'm gonna pray Lord, never let me love, again I'm gonna pray Lord, never let me love, again They tell me love is a gamble But I've never been able to win
Blue an' disgusted That's the way I feel Feel like a broken spoke In some farmer's wagon wheel My baby walked out on me You know she gave me a raw, raw deal (piano &
I come home ev'ry night My baby goes out about ten Come home ev'ry night My baby goes out about ten An' when I go to work ev'ry mornin' My baby, she's just comin' in
That's why I'm blue an' disgusted An' that's the way I feel So blue an' disgusted People, that's the way I feel Feel like a broken spoke In some farmer's wagon wheel
"Beer Drinking Woman"
(piano 'Dragnet' intro)
Spoken:
The story's true ladies and gentlemen. All the names have been changed to protect the innocent. The year 19 hundred and forty. The city, Chicago. The place, Rubin's Tavern The story goes something like this:
I walked into a beer tavern To give a girl a nice time I had forty-five dollars when I enter When I left I had one dime
Wasn't she a beer drinkin' woman? Don't ya know, man don't ya know? She was a beer-drinkin' woman And I don't want to see her no more
Now, when I spend down to my last dime She said, 'Darlin' I know you're not through' I said, 'Yes, baby doll And the trophy belongs to you'
Wasn't she a beer drinkin' woman? Don't you know, man don't you know? She was a beer-drinkin' woman And I don't wanna see her no more
Now she'd often say, 'Excuse me a minute I've got to step around here' And ev'ry time she came back She had room for another quart of beer
Wasn't that a beer drinkin' woman? Don't ya know, man, don't ya know? She was a beer drinkin' woman And I don't want to see her no mo'.
"I.c. Blues"
(harmonica & piano)
Gonna catch that Illinois Central Gonna ride around the bend I'm gonna catch that Illinois Central I'm gonna ride around the bend Well, and the Lord only know Just when I'll be back again I'm goin' back home Where I know I have a friend Well, I'm goin' back home Where I know I have a friend They'll be so glad to see me They won't even ask me where I've been
Conductor, raise your hand So the engineer can ring the bell Conductor, raise your hand So the engineer can ring the bell When those wheels start turnin' over I wanna be at the north, farewell
(harmonica & piano)
This time, tomorrow There's no tellin' where I'll be This time, tomorrow There's no tellin' where I'll be, Lord But you can bet your bottom dollar I'll be somewhere down on the I. C.
"Baby Doll"
What's wrong, baby doll? We can't get along What's wrong, baby doll? We can't get along We'll have fun together Now baby, tell me what's wrong Have your mind made up Before you walk out that door Have your mind made up Before you walk out that door Because one woman, one chance You don't get back no mo'
(guitar & instrumental)
I've been good to you As I intend to be I've been good to you As I intend to be Now, it seem like, baby doll You tryin' to run out on me.
"Blue And Disgusted"
You know I'm gonna pray Lord, never let me love, again I'm gonna pray Lord, never let me love, again They tell me love is a gamble But I've never been able to win
Blue an' disgusted That's the way I feel Feel like a broken spoke In some farmer's wagon wheel My baby walked out on me You know she gave me a raw, raw deal (piano &
I come home ev'ry night My baby goes out about ten Come home ev'ry night My baby goes out about ten An' when I go to work ev'ry mornin' My baby, she's just comin' in
That's why I'm blue an' disgusted An' that's the way I feel So blue an' disgusted People, that's the way I feel Feel like a broken spoke In some farmer's wagon wheel.
"When Your Dough Roller Is Gone"
Did you ever wake up an' find Your dough roller, gone? Did you ever wake up an' find Your dough roller, gone? Well, an' you hang your head You cry all night long
I've got the blues so bad It hurt my feet to walk I've got the blues so bad It hurt my feet to walk People, I've got the blues so bad It hurt my tongue to talk (piano)
Lord, I told my dough roller Before I left that town Well, I told my dough roller Before I left that town 'Baby, don't let nobody Tear my playhouse down.
Cadillac Records, starring Adrian Brody as Leonard Chess, Jeffrey Wright as Muddy Waters, Mos Def as Chuck Berry and Beyonce Knowles as Etta James, Sony Music Film, 2008
It seems almost anti-climatic to be reviewing this particular film, Cadillac Records, about the rise of Chess Records and its driving force, owner Leonard Chess, in the maelstrom of the Chicago blues explosion of the 1940's and 1950's. Why? Over the past year or so, along with the usual left wing political books by the likes of Leon Trotsky and James P. Cannon that are the core items that I review in this space, I have been fervently doing a personal search for, and reflection on, the roots of American music. And nothing is more central to an exploration of the American songbook than the various expressions of the blues from its roots in the black quarters of plantation society down South, through to the immense process of black urbanization in the mid-20th century and with it the electrification of the blues and further on the use of that genre to form the basis for Rock `n' Roll that was central to much of the musical history of the last half of that century.
Muddy Waters, Little Walter, Jimmy Reed, Howin'Wolf, Chuck Berry and the divine Ms. Etta James are all names that should be familiar to knowledgeable blues fan and whose fame and fortune, rises and falls form the core of this film. They are also names prominent among those that have been reviewed in this space so this is a real treat. The Chess Record saga is narrated by the actor who plays the producer, "talent hunter", songwriter and musician Willie Dixon, a huge force in the expansion of Chess Records and Chicago blues in general. And this is as it should be. Willie Dixon wrote for both Muddy Waters (the classic "Hoochie Coochie Man", among others) and Howlin' Wolf (the most famous being "The Red Rooster", a song later covered by The Rolling Stones, enthusiastic blues aficionados, and one of my first exposures to the raw electric blues sound. Thanks, Willie). He was also at Chess when the music shifted away from the Chicago blues to the `jump' of rock `n' roll driven by the likes of Chuck Berry who could "crossover" to all those white teenagers like me trying to break out of the music of our parents' generation. He was also there when Ms. Etta James came on the scene with her R&B style that also was an attempt to do that same crossover with a black woman singer.
According to the notes to this film it is based on a true story, that of Leonard Chess and the blues stars mentioned above. How much truth there actually is included in the script is beyond the scope of this review. I would note that one of the segments of Martin Scorsese's PBS multi-part Blues homage in 2003 dealt with the role of Chess Records as part of the total blues picture and featured Leonard Chess's son, Marshall, a record producer in his own right. Some of his comments do not exactly jibe with the presentation of the facts in this film. That is a subject for further research and discovery.
Some important themes, nevertheless, are explored in the film, even if obliquely. The relationship between a young hustling Jew (and his brother, not noted in the film) from Poland trying to make a buck in America and young blacks trying to get out from under the rural "Jim Crow" South in mid-20th century America. The question of interracial sex, both male and female when that was very, very taboo. Martial infidelity, a constant problem in the music industry (and elsewhere). Exploitation of blacks, both financially and musically, by the white-dominated music power structure, including Leonard Chess. The touchy question of black identity and self-respect, addressed very nicely in the tensions between Muddy, as a representative "Uncle Tom", and Howlin' Wolf (or Chuck Berry), as the "New Black Man", coming out of new black consciousness of the civil rights struggle blazing away during that period. Addressing those issues should keep us busy for a while.
Let's finish up with a few kudos, though. A musical tribute to a record company and a famous record producer could have been a piece of fluff. While, as noted above, the film raised a number of questions about what really went on back then the heart of the movie is driven by the blues and the need to express oneself in that genre, whether as a job or a way of life. The performers carried the day. The camaraderie and falling out between Muddy and Little Walter is worked nicely. The struggle's of Etta James (Beyonce is rather fetching here, by the way, as Etta) to break through as an artist works. And so on.
The Cadillac automobile formed a symbol for Americans, black and white, back in these days. The artists presented here deserved their Cadillacs. More enduring though, as noted at the end of the film, all the main players here have been inducted into the Rock And Roll Hall of Fame. I challenge anyone to argue against those inclusions. Watch this film and then get on the Internet and download the music. Yes, that's the ticket.
"The Red Rooster" by Willie Dixon
I have a little red rooster, too lazy to crow for day
I have a little red rooster, too lazy to crow for day
Keep everything in the barnyard, upset in every way
Oh the dogs begin to bark, and the hound begin to howl
Oh the dogs begin to bark, hound begin to howl
Ooh watch out strange kind people, cause little red rooster is on the prowl
If you see my little red rooster, please drag him home
If you see my little red rooster, please drag him home
There ain't no peace in the barnyard, since the little red rooster been gone
Wang Dang Doodle Howlin' Wolf, Koko Taylor
Tell Automatic Slim , tell Razor Totin' Jim
Tell Butcher Knife Totin' Annie, tell Fast Talking Fanny
A we gonna pitch a ball, a down to that union hall
We gonna romp and tromp till midnight
We gonna fuss and fight till daylight
We gonna pitch a wang dang doodle all night long
All night long, All night long, All night long
Tell Kudu-Crawlin' Red, tell Abyssinian Ned
Tell ol' Pistol Pete, everybody gonna meet
Tonight we need no rest, we really gonna throw a mess
We gonna to break out all of the windows,
we gonna kick down all the doors
We gonna pitch a wang dang doodle all night long
All night long, All night long, All night long
Tell Fats and Washboard Sam, that everybody gonna to jam
Tell Shaky and Boxcar Joe, we got sawdust on the floor
Tell Peg and Caroline Dye, we gonna have a time
When the fish scent fill the air, there'll be snuff juice everywhere
We gonna pitch a wang dang doodle all night long
All night long, All night long etc.
by Willie Dixon
SPOONFUL
Could fill spoons full of diamonds,
Could fill spoons full of gold.
Just a little spoon of your precious love
Will satisfy my soul.
Men lies about it.
Some of them cries about it.
Some of them dies about it.
Everything's a-fightin' about the spoonful.
That spoon, that spoon, that spoonful.
That spoon, that spoon, that spoonful.
That spoon, that spoon, that spoonful.
That spoon, that spoon, that spoonful.
Could fill spoons full of coffee,
Could fill spoons full of tea.
Just a little spoon of your precious love;
Is that enough for me?
Chorus
Could fill spoons full of water,
Save them from the desert sands.
But a little spoon of your forty-five
Saved you from another man.
Click on the headline to link to a "YouTube" film clip of Taj Mahal performing his "Mail Box Blues."
CD Review
Shoutin’ In Key; Taj Mahal and the Phantom Blues Band, Taj Mahal and various musicians, Kan-Du Records, 2000
Okay, okay about a year or so ago when I was reviewing every possible blues artist that ever hit the pavements in the 20th century I mentioned, in a review of an old film documentary of country blues artists, including Son House and Bukka White, that was hosted by Taj Mahal that I needed to do a separate review on his important blues contribution. Well here I finally get around to putting paid on that pledge, although this CD with his one time Phantom Blues Band represents only one aspect of his work.
The important thing to note about Taj is that although he is well-versed in the old country tunes, witness the cover of the country blues classic "Corrina, Corrina" here, and of the electric blues long identified with Chicago, witness his own “Mail Box Blues,” he is also one of the exemplars of the Carib blues beat that is closely associated with the New Orleans blues tradition. Check out his “Every Wind In The River” on that score. Of course, given his West Indian roots this is to be expected but it also means that he is not easily categorized. This mix comes out more fully in other albums that I will review later but I will just alert the reader to that influence here.
Note: I have seen Taj Mahal in concert on many occasions and in many venues; folk, blues, and rock. Sometimes he will blow you away with his musical energy. Other times he has seemed to lack direction and clarity about what he was trying to present. That is not true here and I believe that his band composed of well thought of musicians is the key to keeping things tight.
Lyrics to Corrina :
I got a bird what whistles, baby got a bird Honey got a bird ... it would sing, baby got a bird Honey got a bird ... it would sing Without my Corrina, sure don't mean ..., sure don't mean a natural thing
I learned to love you baby, honey for I call Baby for I call your name, baby for I call Honey for I call your name, I love you Corrina It sure don't mean, it sure don't mean a natural thing
Have mercy, have mercy, baby on my hard luck Honey on my hard luck soul, baby on my hard luck Honey on my hard luck soul
I got a rainbow round my shoulder Looks like silver, shines like Klondike1 gold
Well I love you honey, honey tell the world, baby tell the world I do Honey tell the world I do, baby tell the world I do Ain't no woman in fourteen counties, love me baby like the way I do
I got a bird what whistles, baby got a bird Honey got a bird ... it would sing, baby got a bird Honey got a bird ... it would sing Without Corrina, sure don't mean, sure don't mean a natural thing
Click On Title To Link To Studs Terkel’s Web Page.
BOOK REVIEWS
American Dreams: Lost and Found, Studs Terkel, The New Press, New York, 2004
As I have done on other occasion when I am reviewing more than one work by an author I am using some of the same comments, where they are pertinent, as I did in earlier reviews. In this series the first Studs Terkel book reviewed was that of his “The Good War: an Oral History of World War II".
Strangely, as I found out about the recent death of long time pro-working class journalist and general truth-teller "Studs" Terkel I was just beginning to read his "The Good War", about the lives and experiences of, mainly, ordinary people during World War II in America and elsewhere, for review in this space. As with other authors once I get started I tend to like to review several works that are relevant to see where their work goes. In the present case the review of American Dreams: Lost And Found serves a dual purpose.
First, to reflect on the lives of working people (circa 1980 here but the relevant points could be articulated, as well, in 2008): the recent arrivals to these shores hungry to seek the “streets of gold”; those Native Americans, as exemplified in Vince DeLoria’s story, whose ancestors precede our own and who continue to bring up the rear; those blacks and mountain whites who made the internal migratory trek from the South and, in some cases, found more in common than in difference; and, others who do not easily fit into any of those patterns but who nevertheless have stories to tell. And grievances, just, unjust or whimsical, to spill. Secondly, always hovering in the background is one of Studs’ preoccupations- the fate of his generation- ‘so-called “greatest generation”. Those stories, as told here, are certainly a mixed bag. Thus, there is no little irony in the title of this oral history.
One thing that I noticed immediately after reading this book, and as is true of the majority of Terkel’s interview books, is that he is not the dominant presence but is a rather light, if intensely interested, interloper in these stories. For better or worse the interviewees get to tell their stories, unchained. In this age of 24/7 media coverage with every half-baked journalist or wannabe interjecting his or her personality into somebody else’s story this was, and is, rather refreshing. Of course this journalistic virtue does not mean that Studs did not have control over who got to tell their stories and who didn’t to fit his preoccupations and sense of order. He has a point he wants to make and that is that although most “ordinary” people do not make the history books they certainly make history, if not always of their own accord or to their own liking. Again, kudos and adieu Studs.
The blues is, praise be… He had just barely gotten done with his work for the day, his sun up to sun down work helping Brother Barnes shoe the plow horses, a job he had held since his older brother, Ben, had gotten back from the war, the Great War, the war to end all wars, the war for so-called democracy, World War I, if anybody was asking and upon returning had decided to move on to Clarksville and later Memphis, on Mister’s cotton boll massive ten thousand acre delta plantation, than his father took him aside and asked him , really ordered, to wash up and get ready to go over to Lancer Lane. The words Lancer Lane made him jump for joy inside, for this night, this verySaturday night he would finally, finally, get to play his new guitar, well not really new for that instrument had been passed down to his father from who knows when, maybe back to pharaoh times when those old pyramid slaves needed something to take their minds off their back-breaking work on their relax minute, in front of a real crowd at the Lancer Lane juke joint and not just before his father, his siblings, and a few stray cats at Mister’s company store over in Lancersville.
No, he was stepping up in the world, the world that mattered, the world of those rough-hewed, hard drinking walking daddies (and their clinking dressed to the nines, dressed to the soft kitten pillow tumble nines, walked- around women, praise be) that populated the Lancer Lane juke joint on Saturday night (and paid penance, serious penance, at nearby Lancer Lane Lord’s Work Baptist on Sunday morning, many times sliding directly from one site to the other, smoothly if stinking a little of sweat, hard, hard Sonny Boy’s golden liquor, and mussed up pillow tumble sex ), who would decide whether he had the stuff his father thought he had. And decide it in the only way such things were decided, by throwing dollars, real dollars, at him if he was good and broken whisky bottles (or, if tight for dough, as was often the case with tough times as just then, and so bought their whisky by the jar, jars) if he panned. He had asked his father repeatedly since he had turned sixteen to let him accompany him on his journeys to Lancer Lane (the latter as performer and as a, ah, imbiber), but his father maybe knowing the wisdom of sheltering the boy from those whisky bottles and jars if things didn’t work out just like his father, bless him, before him had held off until he was sure, or fairly sure of the night’s outcome.
What sonny boy did not know was that father had relented as much because he was in need of an extra pair of hands in case Big Nig Fingers showed up that night as that he was ready to have dollars thrown at his son. The nature of the dispute between Big Nig Fingers and his father was simply enough explained, a woman, a dressed to the nines pillow tumble woman, Sonny Boy’s woman, Lucille, and her roving eyes, roving eyes that landed, allegedly landed, on his father. Alleged by Sonny Boy although denied, vehemently denied by his father, who had secretly a couple of years back had had an affair with Lucille when Big Nig was trying to take over, well take over something, booze, dope, women, numbers, something in Memphis. So yes, yes indeed, his small-framed father most assuredly and vehemently denied those roving eyes.
A couple of hours later, washed up, dressed up in a clean work shirt and pants he and his father having walked the two dusty miles from their Mister’s plantation-provide quarters, arrived at the juke house, really nothing but a cabin, a log cabin, belonging to Sonny Boy Jackson who used the place as a front for his golden liquor sales as well. (Yes, that Sonny Boy in the days before he went to Clarksville and began the road to some local fame as the best harmonica in 1920s delta Mississippi, even getting a record contract from Bee Records when he was “discovered” by one of the agents that they had sent out scouring the country for talent for their race record division after Mame Smith set the world, the black world and a few hip whites on recorded blues fire.) Now, like most cabins in those parts then, maybe now too, who knows, there was no electricity, hell, nobody practically except Mister (and the Captain, that deduction crazy Captain, docking everybody for his version of not a full bale, for sassing back, for breaking tools, hell, one time for some asthmatic picker just breathing ) had electricity, or a reason to use it just a few chairs, tables, a counter to belly up to for whiskey jar orders (bottles were sold out back away from prying eyes, moneyless prying eyes looking for some cadges swigs), and for the occasion Sonny Boy had a small stage jerry-rigged in the back so the entertainment would not get pushed around too much when things got rowdy, as they always did, later in the evening.
That night he had a surprise coming, or rather two. His father, taking no chances, had arranged to have a few members of the Andersonville Sheiks from up the road, who would later in the decade, some of them anyway, go on to form the Huntsville Sheiks and also get that coveted record contract from Bee Records when sheiks replaced harmonica players and barrelhouse mamas as blues fire among blacks and those few hip whites, to back his son up. So he was going to have a real ensemble, a jug player, a harp player (harmonica, okay) and a washboard man, his father to play banjo (if he was sober enough, and while that was in question most of the night he held up, held up well enough to slide over to Lord’s Work Baptist for the eight o’clock service even if stinking of sweat and liquor). Papa had done right by him, Big Nig Fingers and his Lucille (to his father’s dismay) had decided to take a night off so he would need no cut knife help, and he blasted the place with his strange riffs, riffs going back to some homeland Africa time. Proof: twenty- seven dollars as his share of the house. And no whisky bottles (or jars).
Oh, the second surprise. Miss Lucy, Miss Lucy Barnes, Miss Lucy Barnes, a sweet sixteen going on thirty, and no one needed to explain what that meant when a girl, hell, woman had her wanting habits on, a dark- skinned beauty, all cuddles and curves, the daughter of his” boss,” the plantation blacksmith, had taken notice of him and kept sending small jars of Sonny Boy’s golden liquor his way which just made him play more madly, hell, let’s call it by its right name, he played the devil’s music like he was the devil himself. By the end of the night she was sitting, table sitting, just in front of him, waiting for that last encore. Suddenly she jumped up and started to dance, dance to his encore riff blasted version of Mean, Mistreatin’ Mama shaking her head back and forth furiously indicating that one Miss Lucy Barnes’ was not in that category, at least for that night. They too were seen sneaking into that eight o’clock service at Lord’s Work’s Baptist a little sweaty and stinking of liquor, having spent the previous few hours in the back room of Sonny’sjoint, just in case you wanted to know.
***************
The blues ain’t nothing, nothing at all but a good woman on your mind, all curves and cuddles, all be my daddy, daddy, be my walking daddy, build for comfort not for speed just like your daddy, your real daddy, not your long gone daddy (met as you came up river from Lancersville via Memphis and he, he returned from another war to end all wars, this time World War II) just now serving a stretch, a nickel’s worth for armed robbery up in Joliet for some Southside (Southside Chicago, natch)heist that went sour, hell, you told long gone daddy that guns didn’t make the play any better but long gone was just a little too long gone on that twinkle dust and so when Danville Slim called the shots, long gone was long gone, told you about when you were knee high and needing instruction about who, and who not, to mess with when you got your wanting habits on.
Hence, stay away from big women, big-legged, big bosomed, big- lusted, hell, just big everything, like the song, the blue blue blue song says, don’t forget, they will wear you out, wear you out for other women, ditto, long thin gals, hungry girls who have learned man trap tricks in lieu of big appetites , with wanderlust eyes, and twinkle dust noses, itching, checking out every daddy, every daddy that came by her eyes, flashing five dollars bills and another twinkle line,ditto, god’s girls, Sunday morning moaners, smelling of gin, washtub gin, and carrying juke joint slashes, some mean mama cut her up when she wrong- eyed mean mama’s daddy, now Sunday looking for, can you believe it, forgiveness, and trick, getting it, stick with curves and cuddles, an easy rider, a low love easy rider, she’ll treat you right and no heavy overhead, and no damn where have you been daddy questions.
She, Miss Lucy she, all cuddles and curves she, an easy rider, yah, a sweet and low easy rider, to make a man, well, to make a man get his own wanting habits on, so far away, so far from uptown downtownChi town, far down in sweaty delta Mississippi, maybe still in Clarksville like he left her that night, that moonless 1942 night, when he had to break-out from delta sweats, from working sunup to blasted sundown for no pay, for chits, Christ what are you supposed to do with company chits when you had your Miss Lucy wanting habits on, needed, no craved, some of Sonny Boy’s honey liquor, from the Mister on his ten thousand acre cotton boll plantation (selling every last boll too, good or bad, to the U.S. Army, for, for what else, uniforms), and those damn deductions from the Captain, for, for sassing, and grab that bus, that underground bus, out on Highway 61, and head, yah, head north following the north star, following the migrant trail up-river. A quick stop at Memphis to see if any of the guys, B.B. (no, not the one you are thinking of), Harmonica Slim, Delta Dark, Bobby Be-Bop, Big Joe, Muddy (yes, that Muddy slumming down river and on the low from some Chi town wench whose man was looking, knife looking, for the guy who messed with his baby and left her blue, real blue. True Muddy story.) needed a guitar max daddy player.
Then straight to Chi town and work, work in the hog butcher to the world, work in the Casey steel driving hammering foundry to the world , work in the grain elevator to the world, work in the farm machinery equipment factory to the world , good, steady, sweaty work, five day work and done, five day work, maybe overtime, glad-handed overtime on Saturday,and done, no Captain’s noise , except maybe some rough Irish cop night stick but, mainly, just hell work, and then off to bumbling squalid three- decker hovel, overcrowded, over-priced, under heated, damn, nothing but a cold water flat with about six different nationalities chattering on the fetid Maxwell- connected streets.
Home, home long enough to turn overalls, sweated blue overalls, into Saturday be-bop blues master, all silk shirt, about five colors, blue blue, green green sun yellow, deep magenta, some violent purple, all fancy dance pants, all slick city boy now shoes (against that po’ boy Lancersville no shoe night to make daddy, real daddy cry, and mama too), topped by a feathered soft felt hat, de riguer for Saturday prances. For a while singing and playing, he, mainly playing that on fire(electric)guitar first learned from daddy, real daddy, down the delta when he was from hunger and he and daddy Saturday juked for whiskey drinks (for daddy) and sodas and ribs for him, for nickels and dimes with his long gone daddy (gone daddy previously mentioned tired of nickels and thus plugging an ironic nickel’s worth) out behind Maxwell Street, only the prime guys, the guys Chess, or Ace, or Decca, or, some race label were interested in, for a while, got to play the big street, the big attention, the big sweep, everybody else behind for nickels and maybe an off-hand stray piece, a joy girl they called them,hell he called them when he had his wanting habits on, not all black or mixed either, a few white joys looking for negro kicks, looking for kicks before Forest Lawn stockbrokers, or futures traders made their claims, looking over the new boys in order to say that they had that, had that before they headed out to Maxwell Street glare or sweet home, yah, sweet home Joliet. And Miss Lucy waited, waited down in some lonesome Clarksville crossroad, dust rolling in, sun beginning to rest, watching the daily underground bus heading north, north to her Johnny Blaze, Johnny quick on that amped up guitar and the stuff of dreams.
The blues ain’t nothing, nothing at all but a bad woman on your mind, a woman walking in your place of work, your stage, your Carousel Club, you just trying to get that damn guitar weapon, baby, mama, sugar, main squeeze, in tune, the one just off of Maxwell Street, mecca, with her walking daddy, eyeing you that first minute, big blond blue eyes, and even walking daddy can feel the heat coming off her, animal heat mixed up with some Fifth Avenue perfume bought by the ounce , feel that he was going to spend the night on a knife’s edge. The Carousel Club got a mix, got a mix on Friday nights when the be-bop crazy white girls, not all big blond blue eyes but also mixed, decided that be-bop jazz, their natural stomping grounds, over at places like the Kit Kat Club was just too tame for their flaming 1950s appetites and so they went slumming, slumming with a walking daddy, a black as night walking daddy, make no mistake, in tow just in case, in case knives came into play.
She had her fix on him, her and that damn perfume that he could smell across the room, that and that animal thing that some woman have, have too damn much of like his daddy, his real daddy, told him to watch out for back when he was knee-high and working the jukes for cakes and candies (and daddy for Sonny Boy’s honey liquor). Just what he needed, needed now that he had worked his way up from cheap street playing for nickels and dimes (and, okay, an off-hand piece once the joy girls, some of them white like this girl, looking for negro kicks, badass negro kicks and then back to wherever white town, heard him roar up to heaven on that fret board) to backing up Big Slim, yah, that Big Slim who just signed with Chess and was getting ready to bring the blues back to its proper place now thatit looked like that damn rock and roll, that damn Elvis who took all the air out of any other kind of musichad run its course. Then it started, she sent a drink his way, a compliment to his superb playing on Look Yonder Wall according to Millie the waitress who played the messenger, then another, ditto on The Sky Is Crying and a Millie watch out remark. Walking daddy was not pleased and she looked like she was getting just drunk enough to make her move (hell, he had seen that enough, and not just with these easy white girls). No sale tonight girlie that bad ass negro really does look bad ass, bad ass like long gone daddy whom he started on these mean streets with and was still finishing up another nickel at Joliet. She made her way to the stage as the first set ended. Pleasant, hell they are all pleasant, in that polite way they have been brought up in for about four or five generations, but still with that come hither perfume and that damn hungry look. No sale, no sale girlie, not with bad ass looking daggers in his eyes. And that night there wasn’t. Next Friday night she came in alone, came in and sat right in front of him. Didn’t say a word at intermission, just sent over a drink for a superb rendition ofMean Mistreatin’Mama , and left it at that.
After work she was waiting for him out in back, he nodded at her, and she pointed at her car, a late model, and they were off. They didn’t surface again for a week.
**************
The blues ain’t nothing but…He, Daddy Fingers (strictly a stage front name, with a no will power Clarence Mark Smith real name needing, desperately needing, cover just like a million other guys trying to reach for the big lights, trying to reach heyday early 1950s Maxwell Street, hell, maybetrying get a record contract, a valued Chess contract, and that first sweet easy credit, no down payment, low monthly payments Cadillac, pink or yellow, with all the trimming and some sweet mama sitting high tit proud in front), had to laugh, laugh out loud sometimes when these white hipsters asked him what the blues were.
He, well behind the white bread fad times, having spent the last twenty years mostly hidden down South, the chittlin’ circuit down South, from Biloxi to Beaumont, working bowling alleys, barbecue joints (the best places where even if the money was short you had your ribs and beer, a few whisky shots maybe, some young brown skin with lonely eyes woman lookin’ for a high-flying brown skin man in need of a woman’s cooking , or at least a friendly bed for a few nights), an odd juke house now electrified, some back road road-side diner converted for an evening into a house of entertainment, hell even a church basement when the good lord wasn’t looking or was out on an off Saturday night had not noticed that these kids asking that august question were not his old Chi town, New Jack City, ‘Frisco Bay hipstersbut mostly fresh-faced kids in guy plaid short shirts and chinos and girl cashmere sweaters and floppy skirts were not hip, not black-hearted, black dressed devil’s music hip. For one thing no hipster, and hell certainly no wanna-be hipster, would even pose the question but just dig on the beat, dig on the phantom guitar work as he worked the fret board raw, dig on being one with the note progression. Being, well, beat.).
Plaid and cashmere sweater crowding around some makeshift juke stage, some old corner barroom flop spot or like tonight here on this elegant stage with all the glitter lights at Smokin’ Joe’s Place, Cambridge’s now the home of the blues, the 1970s reincarnation ofhomeland Africa, sweated pharaoh slave plantations, Mister and Captain’s jim crow plantations, juke joints, sweet home Chicago, for all who were interested in the genealogy of such things came around looking, searching for some explanation like it was some lost code recently discovered like that Rosetta Stonethey found a while back to figure out what old pharaoh and his kind said (hell, he couldhave deciphered that easy enough for those interested- work the black bastards to death and if they slack up, whip them, whip them bad, whip them white, and ain’t it always been so).
So he told them, plaid guy and cashmere bump sweater girl, told them straight lie, or straight amusing thing, that like his daddy, his real daddy who had passed down the blues to him, and who got it from his daddy, and so on back, hell, maybe back to pharaoh times when those slave needed something to keep them working at a steady death-defying pace, that the blues wasn’t nothing but a good woman on your mind. And if some un-cool, or maybe dope addled wanna-be Chi town hipster, or some white bread all glimmering girl from Forest Hills out for negro kicks, had been naïve enough to ask the question that would have been enough but plaid and cashmere wanted more.
Wanted to know why the three chord progression thing was done this way instead of that, or whether the whole blues thing came from the Georgia Sea Islands (by way of ancient homeland Africa) like they had never heard of Mister’s Mississippi cotton boll plantation, Captain’s lashes, broiling suns, their great grandfathers marching through broken down Vicksburg, about Brother Jim Crow, or about trying to scratch two dollars out of one dollar land. Wanted to know if in Daddy Finger’s exalted opinion Mister Charley Patton was the sweet daddy daddy of the blues, wanted to know if Mister Robert Johnson did in fact sell his soul to the devil out on Highway 61, 51, 49 take a number that 1930 take a number night, wanted to know if Mister Mississippi John Hurt was a sweet daddy of an old man (also“discovered” of late) like he seemed to be down in Newport, wanted to know if black-hearted Mister Muddy really was a man-child with man-child young girl appetites, wanted to know if Mister Howlin’ Wolf ever swallowed that harmonica when he did that heated version they had heard about of How Many More Years (not knowing that Wolf was drunk as a skunk, high- shelf whisky not some Sonny Boy’s home brew, when he did that oneor that, he Daddy Fingers,had backed Wolf up many a night when Mister Hubert Sumlin was in his cups or was on the outs with the big man). Wanted to know, laugh, if Mister Woody Guthrie spoke a better talking blues that Mister Lead Belly, or Mister Pete Seeger was truer to the blues tradition that Mister Bob Dylan (like he, Daddy Fingers, spent his time thinking about such things rather than trying to keep body and soul together from one back of the bus Mister James Crow bus station to the next in order to get to some godforsaken hidden juke joint to make a couple of bucks, have some of Sonny Boy’s son’s golden liquor, and maybe catch a stray lonesome Saturday woman without a man, or if with a man, a man without the look of a guy who settled his disputes, his woman disputes,at the sharp end of a knife, wanted to know, wanted to know, wanted to know more than the cold hard fact that, truth or lie, the blues wasn’t nothing but a good girl on your mind. Nothing but having your wanting habits on. But that never was good enough for them, and thus the fool questions. And always, tonight included, the fool Hey Daddy Fingers what are the blues. Okay, baby boy, baby girl, the blues is …
Click on the headline to link to a YouTube film clip of Howlin’Wolf performing Killing Floor.
The blues is, praise be… He had just barely gotten done with his work for the day, his sun up to sun down work helping Brother Barnes shoe the horses on Mister’s cotton boll massive ten thousand acre delta plantation, than his father took him aside and asked, really ordered, him to wash up and get ready to go over to Lancer Lane. The words Lancer Lane made him jump for joy inside, for this Saturday night he would finally, finally, get to play his new guitar, well no really new for that instrument had been passed down to his father from who knows when, maybe back to pharaoh times when those old pyramid slaves needed something to take their minds off their back-breaking work on their relax minute, in front of a real crowd at the Lancer Lane juke joint and not just before his father, his siblings, and a few stray cats at Mister’s company store.
No, he was stepping up in the world, the world that mattered, the world of those rough-hewed, hard drinking daddies (and their clinking women, praise be) that populated the juke house on Saturday night (and paid penance, serious penance at nearby Lancer Lane Lord’s Work Baptist on Sunday morning, many times sliding directly from one site to the other, smoothly if stinking a little of sweat and hard, hard Sonny Boy’s golden liquor), who would decide whether he had the stuff his father thought he had. And decide it in the only way such things were decided, by throwing dollars, real dollars, at him if he was good and broken whisky bottles (or, if tight for dough and so bought their whisky by the jar, jars) if he panned. He had asked his father repeatedly since he had turned sixteen to let him accompany him on his journeys (as performer and as, ah, imbiber) to Lancer Lane, but his father maybe knowing the wisdom of sheltering the boy from those whisky bottles and jars if things didn’t work out just like his father, bless him, before him had held off until he was sure, or fairly sure of the night’s outcome.
What sonny boy did not know was that father had relented as much because he was in need of an extra pair of hands in case Big Nig Fingers showed up that night as that he was ready. The nature of the dispute between Big Nig Fingers and his father was simply enough explained, a woman, rather Big Nig’s woman, Lucille, a luscious light- skinned mulatto (many though through grapevine, the who belonged to who grapevine, that she was Mister’s daughter, or granddaughter, who had an eye for dark as night black men like Big Nig, and his darker than night father, to atone for some miscegenation sin, in any case she stirred men, black as night men, and also through the grapevine the white as white Captain who oversaw Mister ‘s plantation) and her roving eyes, roving eyes that landed, allegedly landed, on his father (and he, he when Big Nig wasn’t looking or had had one or two jars too many had taken his own eyeful).
A few hours later, washed up, dressed up in a clean work shirt and denim pants he and his father having walked the two dusty miles from Mister’s plantation arrived at the juke house, really nothing but a cabin, a log cabin, belonging to Sonny Boy Jackson who used the place as a front for his golden liquor sales as well. (Yes, that Sonny Boy before he went to Clarksville and began the road to some local fame as the best harmonica in 1920s delta Mississippi, even getting a record contract from Bee Records when he was “discovered” by one of the agents that they had sent out scouring the country for talent for their race record division.) Now, like most cabins around those parts, there was no electricity, hell, nobody practically except Mister (and the Captain, that deduction crazy and Lucille-whipped Captain) had electricity, or a reason to use it just a few chairs, tables, a counter to belly up to for whiskey jar orders (bottles were sold out back away from prying eyes), and for the occasion Sonny Boy had a small stage jerry-rigged so the entertainment would not get pushed around too much when things got rowdy, as they always did, later in the evening.
That night he had a surprise coming, or rather two. His father, taking no chances, had arranged to have a few members of the Andersonville Sheiks from up the road, who would later in the decade, some of them anyway, go on to form the Huntsville Sheiks and also get that coveted record contract from Bee Records, to back his son up. So he was going to have a real ensemble, a jug player, a harp player (harmonica, okay) and a washboard man, his father to play banjo (if he was sober enough, and while that was in question most of the night he held up, held up well enough to slide over to Lord’s Work Baptist for the eight o’clock service even if stinking of sweat and liquor). Papa had done right by him, Big Nig Fingers and his Lucille (to his father‘s dismay) had decided to take a night off so he would need no cut knife help, and he blasted the place with his strange riffs, riffs going back to some homeland Africa time, some primordial time when mankind heard sound made by men to stir their unending longing. Proof: twenty seven dollars as his share of the house.
Oh, the second surprise. Miss Lucy, Miss Lucy Barnes, Miss Lucy Barnes, a sweet sixteen going on thirty, a dark- skinned beauty, all cuddles and curves, the daughter of his boss, the plantation blacksmith, had taken notice of him and kept sending small jars of Sonny Boy’s golden liquor his way which just made him play more madly, hell, let’s call it by its right name, he played the devil’s work like he was the devil himself. They too were seen sneaking into that eight o’clock service at Lord’s Work’s Baptist a little sweaty and stinking of liquor, just in case you wanted to know.
****** The blues ain’t nothing, nothing at all but a good woman on your mind, all curves and cuddles, all be my daddy, daddy,build for comfort not for speed just like your daddy, your real daddy, not your long gone daddy just now serving a stretch, a nickel’s worth for armed robbery up in Joliet for some Southside heist that went sour, hell, you told long gone daddy that guns didn’t make the play any better but long gone was just a little too long gone on that twinkle dust and so when Danville Slim called the shots, long gone was long gone, told you about when you were knee high and needing instruction about who, and who not to, mess with when you got your wanting habits on. (Stay away from big women, like the song, the blue blue blue song says, don’t forget, they will wear you out, ditto, long thin gals with wanderlust eyes, and twinkle dust noses, itching, checking out every daddy, every daddy that came by her eyes, flashing five dollars bills and another twinkle line,ditto, god’s girls, Sunday morning moaners, smelling of gin, washtub gin, and juke joint slashes, some mean mama cut her up when she wrong- eyed mean mama’s daddy, now Sunday looking for, can you believe it, forgiveness, and trick, getting it, stick with curves and cuddles, an easy rider, she’ll treat you right and no heavy overhead, and no damn where have you been daddy questions.
She, Miss Lucy she, all cuddles and curves she, an easy rider, yah, a sweet and low easy rider, to make a man, well, to make a man, so far away, so far from uptown downtownChi town, far down in sweaty delta Mississippi, maybe still in Clarksville like you left her that night, that moonless 1942 night, when you had to break-out from delta sweats, from working sunup to blasted sundown for no pay, for chits, (Christ what are you supposed to do with company chits when you had your Miss Lucy wanting habits on, needed, no craved, some of Sonny Boy’s honey liquor), from the Mister on his ten thousand acre cotton boll plantation (selling every last boll too, good or bad, to the U.S. Army, for, for what else, bustling war uniforms), and stripes from the Captain, for, for sassing (really for seeing him and Lucille laughing as they were coming out of Mister’s barn all sweaty and straw-filled. He guessed she decided she wanted her progeny to “pass” after all), and grabbed that bus, that underground bus, out on Highway 61, and headed, yah, head north following the north star, following the migrant trail up-river.
Maybe a quick stop at Memphis to see if any of the guys, B.B. (no, not the one you are thinking of), the Slim, Delta Dark, Bobby Be-Bop, Big Joe, Muddy (yes, that Muddy slumming down river and on the low from some Chi town wench whose man was looking, knife-looking for the guy who messed with his baby and left her blue, real blue. True Muddy story.) and if not straight to Chi town and work, work in the hog butcher to the world, work in the Casey Jones steel driving hammering foundry to the world , work in the grain elevator to the world, work in the farm machinery equipment factory to the world , good, steady, sweaty work, five day work and done, five day work, maybe overtime, glad-handed overtime on Saturday,and done, no Captain’s stripes, except maybe some rough Irish cop night stick but, mainly, just hell work, and then off to bumbling squalid three- decker hovel, overcrowded, over-priced, under heated, damn, nothing but a cold- water flat with about six different nationalities chattering on the fetid Maxwell connected streets.
Home, home long enough to turn overalls, sweated blue overalls, into Saturday be-bop blues master, all silk shirt, about five colors, blue blue, green green, sun yellow, deep magenta, some violent purple, all fancy dance pants, all slick city boy now shoes (against that po’ boy Clarksville no shoe night to make daddy, real daddy cry, and mama too), topped by a soft felt hat, de riguer for Saturday prances. For a while singing and playing, he, mainly playing that on fire guitar (electric) first learned from daddy, real daddy, down the delta when he was from hunger and he and daddy Saturday juked for whiskey drinks (for daddy) and sodas and ribs for him, for nickels and dimes with his long gone daddy (gone daddy previously mentioned tired of nickels and thus plugging an ironic nickel’s worth) out behind Maxwell Street(only the prime guys, the guys Chess, or Ace, or Decca, or, some race label were interested in, for a while, got to play the big street, the big attention, the big sweep, everybody else behind for nickels and maybe an off-hand stray piece, a joy girl they called them,hell he called them when he had his wanting habits on, not all black or mixed either, a few white joys looking for negro kicks, looking for kicks before Forest Lawn stockbrokers, or futures traders make their claims, looking over the new boys in order to say that they had that, had that before they headed out to Maxwell Street glare or sweet home, yah, sweet home Joliet. And Miss Lucy waited, waited down in some lonesome Clarksville crossroad, dust rolling in, sun beginning to rest, watching the daily underground bus heading north, north to her Johnny Blaze, Johnny quick on that amped- up guitar and the stuff of dreams.
The blues ain’t nothing, nothing at all but a bad woman on your mind, a woman walking in your place of work, your stage, your Carousel Club, you just trying to get that damn guitar weapon, baby, mama, sugar, main squeeze, in tune, the one just off of Maxwell Street, mecca, with her walking daddy, eyeing you that first minute, big blond blue eyes, and even walking daddy can feel the heat coming off her, animal heat mixed up with some Fifth Avenue perfume bought by the ounce , feel that he was going to spend the night on a knife’s edge. The Carousel Club got a mix, got a mix on Friday nights when the be-bop crazy white girls, not all big blond blue eyes but also mixed, decided that be-bop jazz, their natural stomping grounds, over at places like the Kit Kat Club was just too tame for their flaming 1950s appetites and so they went slumming, slumming with a walking daddy, a black as night walking daddy, make no mistake, in tow just in case, in case knives came into play.She had her fix on him, her and that damn perfume that he could smell across the room, that and that animal thing that some woman have, have too damn much of like his daddy, his real daddy, told him to watch out for back when he was knee-high and working the jukes for cakes and candies (and daddy for Sonny Boy’s honey liquor). Just what he needed, needed now that he had worked his way up from cheap street playing for nickels and dimes (and, okay, an off-hand piece once the joy girls, some of them white like this girl, looking for negro kicks, badass negro kicks and then back to wherever white town, heard him roar up to heaven on that fret board) to backing up Big Slim, yah, that Big Slim who just signed with Chess and was getting ready to bring the blues back to its proper place now thatit looked like that damn rock and roll, that damn Elvis who took all theair out of any other kind of music,had run its course.
Then it started, like it was started back to Miss Lucy times, she sent a drink his way, a compliment to his superb playing on Look Yonder Wallaccording to Millie the waitress who delivered the drink, then another, ditto on The Sky Is Crying, walking daddy was not pleased and she looked like she was getting just drunk enough to make her move (hell, he had seen that enough, and not just with these easy white girls). No sale tonight girlie that bad ass negro really does look bad ass, bad ass like long gone daddy whom he started on these mean streets with and was still finishing up his nickel at Joliet. She made her way to the stage as the first set ended. Pleasant, hell they are all pleasant, in that polite way they have been brought up in for about four or five generations, but still with that come hither perfume and that damn hungry look. No sale, no sale girlie, not with bad ass looking daggers in his eyes. And that night there wasn’t. Next Friday night she came in alone, came in and sat right in front of him. Didn’t say a word at intermission, just sent over a drink for a superb rendition ofMean Mistreatin’Mama,and left it at that.
After work she was waiting for him out in back, he nodded at her, and she pointed at her car, a late model, and they were off. They didn’t surface again for a week.
******* The blues ain’t nothing but…He, Daddy Fingers (strictly a stage front name, with a no will power Clarence Mark Smith real name needing, desperately needing, cover just like a million other guys trying to reach for the big lights, trying to reach heyday back in early 1950s Maxwell Street, hell, maybetrying get a record contract, a valued Chess contract, and that first sweet easy credit, no down payment, low monthly payments Cadillac, pink or yellow, with all the trimming and some sweet mama sitting high tit proud in front), had to laugh, laugh out loud sometimes when these white hipsters asked him what the blues were. He, well behind the white bread fad times, having spent the last twenty years mostly in the hidden down South, the chittlin’ circuit down South, from Biloxi to Beaumont, working bowling alleys, barbecue joints (the best places where even if the money was short you had your ribs and beer, a few whisky shots maybe, some young brown skin with lonely eyes woman lookin’ for a high-flying brown skin man in need of a woman’s cooking , or at least a friendly bed for a few nights), an odd juke house now electrified, some back road road-side diner converted for an evening into a house of entertainment, hell even a church basement when the good lord wasn’t looking or was out on an off Saturday night had not noticed that these kids asking that august question were not his old Chi town, New Jack City, ‘Frisco Bay hipstersbut mostly fresh-faced kids in guy plaid short shirts and chinos and girl cashmere sweaters and floppy skirts were not hip, not black-hearted, black dressed devil’s music hip. For one thing no hipster, and hell certainly no wanna-be hipster, would even pose the question but just dig on the beat, dig on the phantom guitar work as he worked the fret board raw, dig on being one with the note progression. Being, well, beat.
Plaid and cashmere sweater crowding around some makeshift juke stage, some old corner barroom flop spot or like tonight here on this elegant stage with all the glitter lights at Smokin’ Joe’s Place, Cambridge’s now the home of the blues for all who were interested in the genealogy of such things came around looking, searching for some explanation like it was some lost code recently discovered like that Rosetta Stonethey found a while back to figure out what old pharaoh and his kind said (hell, he couldhave deciphered that easy enough for those interested- work the black bastards to death and if they slack up, whip them, whip them bad, whip them white, and ain’t it always been so). So he told them, plaid guy and cashmere bump sweater girl, told them straight lie, or straight amusing thing, that like his daddy, his real daddy who had passed down the blues to him, and who got it from his daddy, and so on back, hell, maybe back to pharaoh times when those slave needed something to keep them working at a steady death-defying pace, that the blues wasn’t nothing but a good woman on your mind. And if some un-cool, or maybe dope addled wanna-be Chi town hipster, or some white bread all glimmering girl from Forest Hills out for negro kicks, had been naïve enough to ask the question that would have been enough but plaid and cashmere wanted more.
Wanted to know why the three chord progression thing was done this way instead of that, or whether the whole blues thing came from the Georgia Sea Islands (by way of ancient homeland Africa) like they had never heard of Mister’s Mississippi cotton boll plantation, Captain’s lashes, broiling suns, their great grandfathers marching through broken down Vicksburg, about Brother Jim Crow, or about trying to scratch two dollars out of one dollar land. Wanted to know if in Daddy Finger’s exalted opinion Mister Charley Patton was the sweet daddy daddy of the blues, wanted to know if Mister Robert Johnson did in fact sell his soul to the devil out on Highway 61, 51, 49 take a number that 1930 take a number night, wanted to know if Mister Mississippi John Hurt was a sweet daddy of an old man (also“discovered” of late) like he seemed to be down in Newport, wanted to know if black-hearted Mister Muddy really was a man-child with man-child young girl appetites, wanted to know if Mister Howlin’ Wolf ever swallowed that harmonica when he did that heated version they had heard about of How Many More Years (not knowing that Wolf was drunk as a skunk, high shelf whisky not some Sonny Boy’s home brew, when he did that oneor that, he Daddy Fingers,had backed Wolf up many a night when Mister Huber Sumlin was in his cups or was on the outs with the big man).
Wanted to know, laugh, if Mister Woody Guthrie spoke a better talking blues that Mister Lead Belly, or Mister Pete Seeger was truer to the blues tradition that Mister Bob Dylan (like he, Daddy Fingers, spent his time thinking about such things rather than trying to keep body and soul together from one back of the bus Mister James Crow bus station to the next in order to get to some godforsaken hidden juke joint to make a couple of bucks, have some of Sonny Boy’s son’s golden liquor, and maybe catch a stray lonesome Saturday woman without a man, or if with a man, a man without the look of a guy who settled his disputes, his woman disputes,at the sharp end of a knife, wanted to know, wanted to know, wanted to know more than the cold hard fact that, truth or lie, the blues wasn’t nothing but a good girl on your mind. Nothing but having your wanting habits on. But that never was good enough for them, and thus the fool questions. And always, tonight included, the fool Hey Daddy Fingers what are the blues. Okay, baby boy, baby girl, the blues is …
Click on the headline to link to an article on the passing of blues great Etta James.
From the American Left History blog:
Thursday, July 02, 2009
"Come To Mama"- The Blues Of Etta James
This is a little quick entry for a blues queen that I will write more, much more, about later in connection with a review of "Cadillac Blues", a film based on the history of Chicago's Chess Records that gave Etta her start. Feast on.
********
Here is a little tribute to a kindred spirit that the old time blues singer, Sippy Wallace, would call "sister".
"Come To Mama”- The Blues Of Ms. Etta James
Etta James And The Roots Band: Burning Down The House, Etta James and various artists, NTSC, 2001
The name Etta James goes back in my memory to associations with my first listening to rock music on the old transistor radio in the late 1950’s. At that time, I believe, her music was in the old doo wop tradition of the late 1950’s, a music that I was fairly soon to dismiss out of hand as the ‘bubble gum’ music that was prevalent in that period between the height of Elvis/Jerry Lee/Carl Perkins classic rock & rock and the Beatles and The Rolling Stones. That is where things were left until a dozen years ago or more when Etta ‘stole the show’ at the Newport Folk Festival. Well, we live and learn.
Here we have Etta, in a 2001 concert being recorded for this album, doing all the songs that she is justly famous for like “Born Blue” and “I Rather Be A Blind Girl” as well as some nice covers in her own style of the likes of Steppenwolf’s “Born To Be Wild”. Just a nice solid performance with a good back up band, including a couple of her sons.
******
Etta James- "Come To Mama" Lyrics
If the Sun goes behind the clouds
And you feel it's gonna rain
And if the moon ain't shinin bright
And the Stars, the Stars
Won't shine for you tonight
If your life is hard to understand
And your lovelife is out of hand
Oh, Come to Mama
Come on to Mama
If you need, if you need a satisfyer
Let me be, let me be your pacifyer
And if you feel, feelin like a horse
Chompin at the bit
Call my number 777-6969, I'll give you a fix
Cause I've got your favorite toy
Guaranteed to bring you joy
Come to Mama
Come on to Mama
Lead Solo
If your soul is on fire
Let me take you to the corner of the sky
Hey - Come to Mama
Come on to Mama
Come to Mama
Come on come on to Mama
COME ON TO MAMA.....
Click on the headline to link to a YouTube film clip of Muddy Water's performing his classic Chicago blues tune, Mannish Child. CD Review
The Best Of The Chicago Blues, various artists, Vanguard Records, 1987
Johnny Prescott daydreamed his way through the music that he was listening to just then on the little transistor that Ma Prescott, Martha to adults, had given him for Christmas after he has taken a fit when she quite reasonable suggested that a new set of ties to go with his white long-sleeved shirts might be a better gift, a better Christmas gift and more practical too, for a sixteen year old boy. No, he screamed he wanted a radio, a transistor radio, batteries included, of his own so that he could listen to whatever he liked up in his room, or wherever he was, and didn’t have, understand, didn’t have to listen to some Vaughn Monroe or Harry James 1940s war drum thing on the huge immobile radio downstairs in the Prescott living room. Strictly squaresville, cubed.
But as he listened to this the Shangra-la by The Four Coins that just finished up a few seconds ago and as this Banana Boat song by The Tarriers was starting its dreary trip he was not sure that those ties wouldn’t have been a better deal, and more practical too. Ya, this so-called rock station, WAPX, had sold out to, well, sold out to somebody, because except for late at night, midnight late at night, one could not hear the likes of Jerry Lee, Carl, Little Richard, Fats, and the new, now that Elvis was gone, killer rocker, Chuck Berry who proclaimed loud and clear that Mr. Beethoven had better move alone, and said Mr. Beethoven best tell one and all of his confederates, including Mr. Tchaikovsky that rock ‘n’ roll was the new sheriff in town. As he turned the volume down a little lower (that tells the tale right there, friends) as Rainbow (where the hell do they get these creepy songs from) by Russ Hamilton he was ready to throw in the towel though .
Desperate he fingered the dial looking for some other station when he heard this crazy piano riff starting to breeze through the night air, the heated night air, and all of a sudden Ike Turner’s Rocket 88 blasted the airwaves. But funny it didn’t sound like the whinny Ike’s voice so he listened for a little longer, and as he later found out from the DJ it was actually a James Cotton Blues Band cover. After that performance was finished fish-tailing right after that one was a huge harmonica intro and what could only be mad-hatter Junior Wells doing When My Baby Left Me splashed through. No need to turn the dial further now because what Johnny Prescott had found in the crazy night air, radio beams bouncing every which way, was direct from Chicago, and maybe right off those hard-hearted Maxwell streets was Be-Bop Benny’s Chicago Blues Radio Hour. Be-Bop Benny who started Chuck Berry, Little Richard, and Fats Domino on their careers, or helped.
Now Johnny, like every young high-schooler, every "with it" high schooler in the USA, had heard of this show, because even though everybody was crazy for rock and roll, just now the airwaves sounded like, well, sounded like music your parents would dance to, no, sit to at a dance, some kids still craved high rock. So this show was known mainly through the teenage grapevine but Johnny had never heard it because, no way, no way in hell was his punk little Radio Shack transistor radio with two dinky batteries going to have even strength to pick Be-Bop Benny’s live show out in Chicago. So Johnny, and maybe rightly so, took this turn of events for a sign. And so when he heard that distinctive tinkle of the Otis Spann piano warming up to Spann’s Stomp and up with his Someday added in he was hooked. And you know he started to see what Billie, Billie Bradley from over in Adamsville, meant when at a school dance where he had been performing with his band, Billie and the Jets, he mentioned that if you want to get rock and roll back you had better listen to blues, and if you want to listen to blues, blues that rock then you had very definitely had better get in touch with the Chicago blues as they came north from Mississippi and places like that.
And Johnny thought, Johnny who have never been too much south of Gloversville, or west of Albany, and didn’t know too many people who had, couldn’t understand why that beat, that da,da, da, Chicago beat sounded like something out of the womb in his head. But when he heard Big Walter Horton wailing on that harmonica on Rockin’ My Boogie he knew it had to be in his genes.
From Out Of The Blues In The Night- The Centenary Of Blue Master Robert Johnson's Birthday- Ya, Hellhound On His Trail
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3UVgH9JqSnQ
Click on the headline to link to a YouTube film clip of blues master and birthday boy Robert Johnson performing his classic Hellhound On My Trail.
Markin comment:
I have noted in previous entries that I, unlike many others, am not a particular devotee of Robert Johnson. I prefer the likes of Skip James, Son House and Bukka White nevertheless I understand and support the notion of Robert Johnson as a key blues master. No question. Just personal preferences. Happy Birthday Brother Robert.
***** Reposts On Robert Johnson
Wednesday, March 25, 2009
*The "Mac Daddy" Of Modern Blues- Robert Johnson
DVD REVIEW
Hell Hounds On His Heels- The Legendary Robert Johnson’s Story
Can’t You Hear The Wind Howl?: The Life And Music of Robert Johnson, Robert Johnson and various artists, narrated by Danny Glover, 1997
I have recently spent some little effort making comparisons between old time country blues singers. My winners have been Skip James and Son House. Apparently, if the story behind the Robert Johnson story presented here is right I am in a minority compared to the like of guitarists Eric Clapton and Keith Richards. So be it. After viewing this very informative bio, complete with the inevitable “talking heads" that populate these kinds of film efforts I still have that same opinion, except I would hold Johnson’s version of his “Sweet Home, Chicago” in higher regard after listening to it here. Previously many other covers of the song, including the trendy Blues Brothers version seemed better, a lot better.
The producers of this film have spend some time and thought on presentation. The choice of Danny Glover as expressive and thoughtful narrator was a welcome sign. Having Johnson road companion and fellow blues artist, Johnny Shines, give insights into Johnson’s work habits, traveling ways, womanizing, whiskey drinking and off-center personality make this a very strong film. Add in footage of Son House (an early Johnson influence) and various other Delta artists who met or were met by Johnson along the way and one gets the feeling that this is more a labor of love than anything else. For a man who lived fast, died young and left a relatively small body of work (some 20 odd songs)this is a very good take on Robert Johnson. I might add that if Johnson is your number one blues man this film gives you plenty of ammunition for your position.
Note: As is almost universally true with such film endeavors we only get snippets of the music. I would have liked to hear a full “Preacher’s Blues”, “Sweet Home, Chicago”, "Terraplane Blues” and “Hell Hounds On My Heels” but for that one will have to look elsewhere.
"Terraplane Blues" lyrics-Robert Johnson
And I feel so lonesome
you hear me when I moan
When I feel so lonesome
you hear me when I moan
Who been drivin my terraplane
for you since I've been gone
I'd said I flashed your lights mama
your horn won't even blow
I even flash my lights mama
this horn won't even blow
Got a short in this connection
hoo-well, babe, its way down below
I'm on hist your hood momma
I'm bound to check your oil
I'm on hist your hood momma mmmm
I'm bound to check your oil
I got a woman that I'm lovin
way down in Arkansas
Now you know the coils ain't even buzzin
little generator won't get the spark
Motors in a bad condition
you gotta have these batteries charged
But I'm cryin please
please don't do me wrong
Who been drivin my terraplane now for
you-hoo since I've been gone
Mr Highwayman
please don't block the road
Puh hee hee
ple-hease don't block the road
Casue she's restrin (?) a cold one hindred
and I'm booked I gotta go
Mmm mmm
mmmm mmmm mmm
You ooo oooo oooo
you hear me weep and moan
Who been drivin my terraplane
for you since I've been gone
I'm on get deep down in this connection
keep on tanglin with your wires
I'm on get deep down in this connection
hoo-well keep on tanglin with your wires
And when I mash down your little starter
then your spark plug will give me a fire.
****** Wednesday, March 25, 2009
*The "Mac Daddy" Of Modern Blues- Robert Johnson
CD REVIEW
Martin Scorsese Presents; The Blues, Robert Johnson, Sony Records, 2003
I have heard the name Robert Johnson associated with country blues as long as I have been listening to the blues, and believe me that is a long time. I would venture to guess that if an average blues (or just music) fan was asked to name one blues artist the name that would, more probably than not, come up is Robert Johnson. Partially that is because his influence on later artists has been nothing short of fantastic, particularly the English blues aficionados like Eric Clapton. That said, Brother Johnson’s work leaves me cold. While I can appreciate some of his lyrics his guitar playing is ordinary, his singing can be tedious and his sense of momentum over the course of an album is very mundane.
His contemporaries, or near contemporaries like Charlie Patton, Howlin’ Wolf or Son House, to name just a few, are better in one or all these categories . Needless to say there is an element of subjectivity here but when the occasion arises I am more than willing to gush over a talent that makes me jump. Brother Johnson just does not do so. The source of his fame as an innovator is centered on his role of breaking the pattern of country blues established by Son House and other and giving the first hints of a city blues idiom, particularly as a forerunner to the Chicago blues. Okay, we will give the ‘devil’ his do on that score. Still, on any given day wouldn’t you give your right arm to see and hear Howlin’ Wolf croon "The Red Rooster" (and practically eat the microphone) or any of his other midnight creeps rather than Johnson on "Sweet Home, Chicago"? Here I will rest my case.
So what do you have to hear here? Obviously, “Sweet Home, Chicago". Beyond that “32-20 Blues” is a must listen as is his version of “Dust My Broom” (but isn’t Elmore James’ slide guitar souped-up version much better?) and “Hellhound On My Trail”. Keb’ Mo' (who I will review separately at a later time) does a nice cover here of “Last Fair Deal Gone Down”.
Lyrics to "Dust My Broom"
I'm gonna get up in the mornin',
I believe I'll dust my broom (2x)
Girlfriend, the black man you been lovin',
girlfriend, can get my room
I'm gon' write a letter,
Telephone every town I know (2x)
If I can't find her in West Helena,
She must be in East Monroe, I know
I don't want no woman,
Wants every downtown man she meet (2x)
She's a no good doney,
They shouldn't 'low her on the street
I believe, I believe I'll go back home (2x)
You can mistreat me here, babe,
But you can't when I go home
And I'm gettin' up in the morning,
I believe I'll dust my broom (2x)
Girlfriend, the black man that you been lovin',
Girlfriend, can get my room
I'm gon' call up Chiney,
She is my good girl over there (2x)
If I can't find her on Philippine's Island,
She must be in Ethiopia somewhere
