*A Mixed Bag Musical Potpourri-Jazz, Blues, Gospel, Rock And Rockabilly-Great Blues Guitarists

Click On Title To Link To YouTube's Film Clip Of Lonnie Johnson Doing "Another Night To Cry".

Acoustic Blues Extravaganza

Great Blues Guitarists: String Dazzlers, various artists, Sony Music, 1991

Sometimes a review, especially a review of old time blues guitar artists, is a very easy chore. That is certainly the case here with this Columbia Legacy series production highlighting most of the known names from the early days of the genre. I have spilled some ink here previously discussing the impact of the early acoustic blues artists on the post-World War II explosion of electric blues, most notably the Chicago blues sound. Well, here they are all together in one place for the beginner and for the aficionado. The CD is weighted heavily toward the instrumental side to show virtuosity, although most of the performers here were well known for their vocals as well. A role call of honor here tells the tale. A young Lonnie Johnson, Blind Willie McTell, Blind Willie Johnson and his religiously oriented blues, the well-traveled Big Bill Broonzy, the legendary Blind Lemon Jefferson, Tampa Red, Joshua White at home in the “juke joint” as well as the New York café, and so on. I think I have made my point. Right?

Jelly Roll Baker Lyrics

She said, 'Mr. Jellyroll Baker
Let me be your slave
When Gabriel blows his trumpet
Then I'll rise from my grave

For some-a your jellyro-oll
Yes, I love a good jellyroll'
It is good for the sick
Yes, and it's good for the old'

I was sentenced for murder
In the 1st degree
*The judge's wife called up and says
'Let that man go free'

He's a jellyroll baker
He's got the best jellyroll in town
He's the only man can bake jellyroll
With his damper down

Once in a hospital
Shot all full-a holes
The nurse left the man dyin'
An says he's got to get her jellyroll

His good old jell-e-e-y
She says, 'I love my good jellyroll'
She says, 'I ruther let him lose his life
Than to miss my good jellyroll'

Lady asked me who learnt me
How to bake good jellyroll?
I says, 'It's nobody, Miss
'It's just a gift from my soul'
To bake good jellyro-oll
Mmm-mmm, that good ol' jellyroll

She says, 'I love your jellyroll
It do's me good deep down in my soul
She says, 'Can I put in a order
For two weeks ahead?
I'd ruther have your jelly-roll
Than my home-cooked bread'

I love your jell-e-e-y
I love your good jellyroll
It's just like Maxwell House Coffee
It's good, deep down in my soul.


*(he was a brown eyed handsome man)

*A Mixed Bag Musical Potpourri-Jazz, Blues, Gospel, Rock And Rockabilly-Jimmie Rushing

Click On Title To Link To YouTube's Film Clip Of Jimmie Rushing Doing "Good Morning Blues". Wow.

Jimmy Rushes In

The Essential Jimmy Rushing, Jimmy Rushing, Vanguard Records, 1974

I admit to a very spotty interest in jazz over my life time and while I have always loved those 1940’s swing bands, like that of Benny Goodman, it was only with the celebration of the centennial of Duke Ellington’s birth in 1999 that I got a little more serious about this genre. Ken Burns’ “Jazz” series for PBS gave me another boost. Still and all there are huge gaps in my knowledge and appreciation of the classic jazz tradition. This is a little odd in that there is a certain convergence between jazz and my favorite musical genre, the blues. The artist under review here, Jimmy Rushing, exemplifies both those traditions. All I know is I like what I hear here.

And what is that? Well, how about a very comfortable version of the classic “See See Rider”. And of course one must pay attention to his work with Count Basie on “Boogie Woogie”, “Goin’ To Chicago” and “Take Me Back Baby” an association which formed the center of Rushing’s achievements musically. And how about a very nice finale with “If This Ain’t The Blues”. I also note that this album was produced by John Hammond, the master musicologist. I might add as well that Jimmy Rushing is the kind of artist that it takes a while to warm up to, and then you don’t want to turn him off. That, my friends, is a high compliment.

Going To Chicago Lyrics

You keep your New York Joys
I'm going to Illinois
Just as fast as I can

You New York women think
You'll make a fool of any man
Play all kinds of games
And you'll cheat if you can

Use love like a tool
Make a man a fool
What a beautiful motto

Got my money, that's it
How can you mind if I split

Going back where a woman
Really knows the way to treat a man
And people are friendly
Without no hidden plan

It's the best in the midwest
It's a real darn city full of
Good folks who come from home

And when I get back
I'll never roam far
From my little Chitown
Goodbye, farewell
I might see you later

Going to Chicago
Sorry but I can't take you
I come from Chitown
Going back to my town

Going to Chicago
Sorry but I can't take you
No use in crying
Tired of your lying

There ain't nothing in Chicago
That a monkey woman can do
I got to quit you
Can't make it with you

When you see me coming, baby
Raise your window high
Hide your window to the sky, yeah

When you see me coming, baby
Raise your window high
Catch me passing on the fly, yeah

But when you see me passing, baby
Hang your head and cry
search your soul and
Wonder why, yeah

Hurry, hurry down sunshine
And see what tomorrow brings
Tomorrow, tomorrow
Hurry, hurry, hurry down sunshine
And see what tomorrow brings
Tomorrow, tomorrow

Well, the sun went down
And tomorrow brought us rain
Tomorrow brought sorrow
Lyrics courtesy Top40db.

You're so mean and evil
You do things you ought not do
My, you're a mean one
first time I've seen one

You're so mean and evil
You do things you ought not do
You used to be cool
Now find a new fool

Got my brand of honey
But I won't have to
Put up with you

Hate you and your town
That's why I got
To put you down
Goodbye

*A Mixed Bag Musical Potpourri-Jazz, Blues, Gospel, Rock And Rockabilly-Dinah Washington

Click On Title To Link To YouTube's Film Clip Of Dinah Washington Doing "Stormy Weather".

Nothin’ Could Be Finah Than Dinah

Dinah Jams, Dinah Washington and various artists, Polygram Records, 1990

I admit to a very spotty interest in jazz over my life time and while I have always loved those 1940’s swing bands, like that of Benny Goodman, it was only with the celebration of the centennial of Duke Ellington’s birth in 1999 that I got a little more serious about this genre. Ken Burns’ “Jazz” series for PBS gave me another boost. Still and all there are huge gaps in my knowledge and appreciation of the classic jazz tradition. This is a little odd in that there is a certain convergence between jazz and my favorite musical genre, the blues. The artist under review here exemplifies both those traditions, although she was not known as a jazz singer, as such. All I know is I like what I hear here.

And what is that? Well, how about a very salacious “Lover Come Back To Me”, a heartfelt turn on the Johnny Mercer tune “Come Rain Or Come Shine”, a seemingly created for her style Cole Porter classic “ I’ve Got You Under My Skin” and a knock out “You Go To My Head”. Hell, even if you don’t a thing about jazz you know Dinah has got that “thing”.

I've Got You Under My Skin Lyrics

Ive got you under my skin
Ive got you deep in the heart of me
So deep in my heart, that youre really a part of me
Ive got you under my skin

Ive tried so not to give in
Ive said to myself this affair never will go so well
But why should I try to resist, when baby will I know than well
That Ive got you under my skin

Id sacrifice anything come what might
For the sake of having you near
In spite of a warning voice that comes in the night
And repeats, repeats in my ear

Dont you know you fool, you never can win
Use your mentality, wake up to reality
But each time I do, just the thought of you
Makes me stop before I begin
cause Ive got you under my skin

*From The Pages Of “Workers Vanguard”-Lessons of the 1934 Minneapolis Strikes

Markin comment:

As almost always these historical articles and polemics are purposefully helpful to clarify the issues in the struggle against world imperialism, particularly the “monster” here in America.


Workers Vanguard No. 940
31 July 2009

Lessons of the 1934 Minneapolis Strikes

Seventy-Fifth Anniversary

The worsening condition of the working class, and the waning strength of the unions, is not the first such crisis faced by the American labor movement. In the early years of the Great Depression, the ranks of the unemployed soared while membership in the AFL craft unions had fallen precipitously. With the partial revival of industry in 1933, workers regained confidence in their ability to fight. A great strike wave erupted, concentrated in the unorganized mass production industries, only to end in a series of bitter defeats. The efforts of the workers were frustrated by the pro-capitalist AFL leaders on the one hand and by brutal government repression on the other.

The breakthrough came in 1934, 75 years ago, when three citywide strikes led by avowed socialists shook America and paved the way for the great class battles in 1936-37 that built the CIO. In Toledo, Ohio, supporters of radical labor organizer A.J. Muste’s American Workers Party were in the forefront of the Auto-Lite strike. On the West Coast, dock workers and seamen, led by Communist Party (CP) supporters and other militants, fought pitched battles with the police in a three-month-long strike that included a four-day general strike in San Francisco. And in Minneapolis, Trotskyist union militants, supporters of the Communist League of America (CLA), organized and led mass strikes in the spring and summer that won union recognition for the Teamsters. Workers seeking to revitalize the labor movement today would do well to learn the lessons of these great struggles of the past.

In Minneapolis, the effective participation of a revolutionary Marxist group in actual strike organization and direction was demonstrated. Every detail of the strikes was meticulously organized in advance, proceeding from the standpoint of class war. No reliance was placed in any government agent or agencies, including Floyd B. Olson, the Farmer-Labor Party governor, and the National Labor Board of Democratic president Franklin D. Roosevelt. Above all, workers were prepared for the inevitable confrontations with the capitalist state.

For many years, Minneapolis had been a notoriously open shop town ruled by the Citizens Alliance, an organization of anti-union employers. An initial blow was delivered to the bosses in February 1934, when workers paralyzed the coal yards for three days and won union recognition for Teamsters Local 574. The organizers were a group of Trotskyists and their sympathizers who happened to work in the yards: the Dunne brothers (Vincent, Grant and Miles), Carl Skoglund and Farrell Dobbs.

Unlike the craft-minded bureaucrats of the AFL who aspired to build isolated job-holding trusts as a dues base and little more, the Dunne brothers and Skoglund set out to organize every truck driver and every “inside” warehouse worker industry-wide in Minneapolis. On 15 May 1934, after the bosses refused to negotiate with the growing local of 5,000 members, Local 574 went on strike. Only one of the existing union officers at the time, local president Bill Brown, actively supported the strike, which was organized and led through an elected Organizing Committee.

The Citizens Alliance had not anticipated the Trotskyists’ class-struggle tactics. “Flying squads” of pickets, later widely adopted in the great CIO strikes of the late ’30s, were sent rolling about town to intercept scabs. All trucking in the city was halted except union-permitted urgent services. The entire working-class population of the area was called on to support the strike. The unemployed organization, where CLA members had long been active, aligned itself with the union, and a Women’s Auxiliary went into action. On May 20, 35,000 building trades workers initiated a sympathy strike, and even the conservative Central Labor Union felt obliged to vote its support. Other workers, many unorganized, stayed off their jobs and joined the pickets.

The strike was decided on May 22 when a mass mobilization of the union and its supporters sent fleeing virtually the entire city police force, as well as its 2,200 “special deputies,” in what became known as “The Battle of Deputies Run.” With the defeat of this attempt by the bosses’ thugs to run scabs through pickets at the City Market, the companies quickly settled the strike, recognizing the union.

But the bosses would continue to stall and ignore the union, provoking another strike in July, which lasted for five weeks. The employers were given aid in their anti-union crusade by Teamsters president Daniel Tobin, a reactionary craft unionist and Roosevelt supporter who red-baited the strike leadership. Meanwhile, the CLA sent its leaders James P. Cannon and Max Shachtman to Minneapolis to help produce a daily strike newspaper, The Organizer, to combat the lies of the bourgeois press.

On “Bloody Friday,” July 20, the cops lured picket trucks into an ambush and opened fire on the strikers, killing two and wounding 67, most of them shot in the back. Within 20 minutes of the massacre, the National Guard rolled into the area. Four days later, some 40,000 union supporters marched in the funeral for Henry Ness, Local 574’s first martyr. In response, the cops promptly arrested Cannon and Shachtman as part of an orchestrated red scare, and Governor Olson declared martial law. In a pre-dawn raid, the National Guard seized the strike headquarters and arrested strike leaders, including Bill Brown and Vincent and Miles Dunne.

These actions by the “friend of labor” governor exposed Olson’s capitalist loyalties for the workers to see. The Teamsters defied Olson’s troops and maintained mobile picketing while organizing protests against the arrests, including another 40,000-strong demo. The union members and leaders were released within a few days. Meanwhile, Local 574 successfully navigated the artifices and tricks practiced by federal mediators, agents of the class enemy, in negotiations. After a war of attrition, on August 22 the bosses gave in to the union’s main demands, including union membership for “inside” workers. Minneapolis became a solid union town.

Sparked by the tremendous gains won in the 1934 strikes, workers in the basic industries were soon flocking to union organizing meetings. With the AFL craft unions refusing to organize the unskilled, workers joined mass industrial unions, frequently under radical leadership. These unions later formed the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) after breaking away from the ossified AFL.

Despite repeated attempts by the ruling class to split and defeat the militant Teamsters, the Trotskyists remained leading union organizers, helping to build the Teamsters into a powerful, national industrial union. Even James Hoffa, who was sent back to Minneapolis in 1941 as Tobin’s hatchet man against the Trotskyist union leaders, acknowledged that he had earlier learned effective union organizing from the Trotskyists. Having worked under Dobbs, Hoffa said, “I was studying at the knees of a master.” It was not until the early 1940s, during World War II, that the Trotskyists were driven out of the union leadership when Roosevelt, spurred on by Tobin and the Stalinist CP, jailed 18 Trotskyist and Minneapolis Teamster leaders under the Smith Act for their opposition to U.S. imperialism in the war.

The Trotskyists’ success in Minneapolis in 1934 vindicated their general policy of calling on revolutionists to enter the mainstream of the labor movement, as against the ultraleft dogma of building separate “red unions,” voiced by the CP during its 1928-34 “Third Period.” It also pointed to the crucial role of leadership in any class battle. In a 1942 lecture that he gave on Minneapolis, available in The History of American Trotskyism (1944), Cannon observed:

“In Minneapolis we saw the native militancy of the workers fused with a politically conscious leadership. Minneapolis showed how great can be the role of such leadership. It gave great promise for the party founded on correct political principles and fused and united with the mass of American workers. In that combination one can see the power that will conquer the whole world.”

We reprint below two articles from the Militant, the newspaper of the CLA. The first, “Learn from Minneapolis!” (26 May 1934), was written by Cannon after the May strike. The second, “The Strike Triumphant” (25 August 1934), was published at the conclusion of the July-August strike.

* * *

“Learn From Minneapolis!”

(Militant, 26 May 1934)

Today the whole country looks to Minneapolis. Great things are happening there which reflect the influence of a strange new force in the labor movement, an influence widening and extending like a spiral wave. Out of the strike of the transport workers of Minneapolis a new voice speaks and a new method proclaims its challenge.

It was seen first in the strike of the Coal Yard Drivers, which electrified the labor movement of the city a few months ago and firmly established the union after a brief, stormy battle of unprecedented militancy and efficiency. Now we see the same union moving out of this narrow groove and embracing truck drivers in other lines.

Behind this, as was the case with the Coal Drivers, there are months of hard, patient and systematic routine work of organization. Everything is prepared. Then an ultimatum to the bosses. A swift, sudden blow. A mass picket line that sweeps everything before it. The building trades come out in sympathy. The combined forces, riding with a mighty wave of moral support from the whole laboring population of the city, take the offensive and drive all the bosses’ thugs and hirelings to cover in a memorable battle at the City Market.

The whole country listens to the echoes of the struggle. The exploiters hear them with fear and trepidation. Weaving the net around the automobile workers, with the aid of treacherous labor leaders, they ask themselves in alarm: “If this spirit spreads what will our schemes avail us?”

And the workers in basic industry, vaguely sensing the power of their numbers and strategic position, can hardly help asking themselves: “If we should go the Minneapolis way could anything or anybody stop us?” The striking transport workers are a mighty power in Minneapolis today. But that is only a small fraction of the power of their example for the cheated and betrayed workers in the big industries of the country.

The Message of Minneapolis

The message of Minneapolis is of first rate importance to the American working class. A careful examination of the method from all sides ought to be put as point one on the agenda of the labor movement, especially of its most advanced section. A study of this epic struggle, in its various aspects, can be an aid to their application in other fields, and, by that, a rapid change of the position of the American workers.

There is nothing new, of course, in a fight between strikers and police and gunmen. Every strike of any consequence tells the old, familiar story of the hounding, beating and killing of strikers by the hired thugs of the exploiters, in and out of uniform. What is out of the ordinary in Minneapolis, what is more important in this respect, is that while the Minneapolis strike began with violent assaults on the strikers it didn’t end there.

In pitched battles last Saturday and again on Monday, the strikers fought back and held their own. And on Tuesday they took the offensive, with devastating results. “Business men” volunteering to put the workers in their place and college boys out for a lark—as special deputies—to say nothing of the uniformed cops—handed over their badges and fled in terror before the mass fury of the aroused workers. And many of them carried away unwelcome souvenirs of the engagement. Here was a demonstration that the American workers are willing and able to fight in their own interests. Nothing is more important than this, for, in the last analysis, everything depends on it.

Here was a stern warning to the bosses and their hirelings, and not only those of Minneapolis. Transfer the example and the spirit of the Minneapolis strikers to the steel and automobile workers, for example, with their mass numbers and power. Let the rulers of America tremble at the prospect. They will see it! That is what the message of Minneapolis means first of all.

Mass Action

A second feature of the fight at the City Market which deserves special attention is the fact that it was not the ordinary encounter between individual strikers and individual scabs or thugs. On the contrary—take note—the whole union went into action on the picket line in mass formation; thousands of other union men went with them; they took along the necessary means to protect themselves against the murderous thugs, as they had every right to do. This was an example of mass action which points the way for the future victorious struggles of the American workers.

It is not a strike of the men alone, but of the women also. The Minneapolis Drivers’ Union proceeds on the theory that the women have a vital interest in the struggle, no less than the men, and draws them into action through a special organization. The policy, employed so effectively by the Progressive Miners [a 1932 splinter from the United Mine Workers], is bringing rich results also in Minneapolis. To involve the women in the labor struggle is to double the strength of the workers and to infuse it with a spirit and solidarity it could not otherwise have. This applies not only to a single union and a single strike; it holds good for every phase of the struggle up to its revolutionary conclusion. The grand spectacle of labor solidarity in Minneapolis is what it is because it includes also the solidarity of the working class women.

The Sympathetic Strike

The strike of the transport workers took an enormous leap forward and underwent a transformation when the building-trades unions declared a sympathy strike last Monday. In this action one of the most progressive and significant features of the entire movement is to be seen. When unions begin to call strikes not for immediate gains of their own but for the sake of solidarity with their struggling brothers in other trades, and when this spirit and attitude becomes general and taken for granted as the proper thing, then the paralyzing divisions in the trade union movement will be near an end and trade unionism will begin to mean unity.

The union of the truck drivers and the building trades workers is an inspiring sight. It represents a dynamic idea of incalculable power. Let the example spread, let the idea take hold in other cities and other trades, let the idea of sympathy strike action be combined with militancy and the mass method of the Minneapolis fighters—and American labor will be a head taller and immeasurably stronger.

Those who characterize the A.F. of L. unions as “company unions” and want to build new unions at any price will derive very little consolation from the Minneapolis strike. We have always maintained that the form of a labor organization, while important, is not decisive. Minneapolis provides another confirmation, and a most convincing one, of this conception. Here is the most militant and, in many respects, the most progressively directed labor struggle that has been seen for a long time. Nevertheless it is all conducted within the framework of the A.F. of L.

The Drivers’ Union is a local of one of the most conservative A.F. of L. Internationals, the Teamsters; the building trades, out in sympathy with the drivers, are all A.F. of L. unions; and the Central Labor Union, backing the drivers’ strike and the possible organizing medium of a general strike, is a subordinate unit of the A.F. of L. The local unions of the A.F. of L. provide a wide field for the work of revolutionary militants if they know how to work intelligently. This is especially true when, as in the Minneapolis example, the militants actually initiate the organization and take a leading part in developing it at every stage.

The Bolshevik Militants

Further development of the union, and perhaps even of the present strike, on the path of militancy may bring the local leadership into conflict with the reactionary bureaucracy of the International and also with conservative forces in the Central Labor Union. This will be all the less apt to take the local leaders of the militant union by surprise, since most of them have already gone through the school of that experience. In spite of that, they did not turn their backs on the trade unions and seek to set up new ones artificially.

Even when it came to organizing a large group of workers hitherto outside the labor movement, they selected an A.F. of L. union as the medium. The results of the Minneapolis experience provide some highly important lessons on this tactical question. The miserable role of the Stalinists in the present situation, and their complete isolation from the great mass struggle, is the logical outcome of their policies in general and their trade union policy in particular.

The General Drivers’ Union, as must be the case with every genuine mass organization, has a broad and representative leadership, freely selected by democratic methods. Among the leaders of the union are a number of Bolshevik militants who never concealed or denied their opinions and never changed them at anybody’s order, whether the order came from [AFL head William] Green or from Stalin.

The presence of this nucleus in the mass movement is a feature of the exceptional situation in Minneapolis which, in a sense, affects and colors all the other aspects of it. The most important of all prerequisites for the development of a militant labor movement is the leaven of principled communists. When they enter the labor movement and apply their ideas intelligently they are invincible. The labor movement grows as a result of this fusion and their influence grows with it. In this question, also, Minneapolis is showing the way.

* * *

“The Strike Triumphant”

(Militant, 25 August 1934)

The stirring news of the victory of the Minneapolis strike will give heart and hope to every class conscious and union conscious worker in the United States. It comes as a beacon light on the dark sea of defeats that have engulfed the labor unions in the second strike movement under the NRA [National Industrial Recovery Act of 1933]. The thrilling outcome of the battle will give confidence to the doubting worker that labor need not lose and capitalism can be defeated. It will strengthen the conviction in the minds of every revolutionist that the policies of consistent class struggle are the only method of crowning the struggles of the working class with success.

But the working class has little time to rejoice. Bigger and fiercer battles are ahead. It must forge its weapons and prepare. Let the workers learn and assimilate the lessons of Minneapolis and they will have gained an invaluable addition to the arsenal of class weapons against capital. And Minneapolis is rich in lessons, so rich that if but a part of them are digested the proletariat will take a huge stride forward.

With hardly an exception practically all of the major problems of strike strategy were telescoped in the battle of 574. Lack of space does not permit us to deal with all of them, but to mention them in part: maintaining a picket line to cope with scabs, feeding five thousand strikers and their families, providing relief to the more destitute of the workers, holding high the morale of the strikers for the long weeks of the struggle, answering the lies, the calumnies and the slanders of the boss press and radio, conducting negotiations with the employers and federal arbitrators, gaining the support of workers in other unions, combating the police and the city officials.

These are the customary problems faced by the workers when they rebel for better conditions. But the Minneapolis strike was complicated with other and far more perplexing matters. From the very word go, the strike was faced with a vehement “red” scare of the bosses, kept alive for its entire duration. This was joined in by the International President of the Teamsters, Tobin, who declared the strike illegal at the very outset. Then, to make confusion worse confounded, a farmer-labor governor, having the confidence of the overwhelming majority of the workers, dealt some deadly blows at the strike while pretending friendship. A backward rank-and-file, fighting mad, but steeped in all the prejudices that the bosses had inculcated into them for years, finishes the picture.

Any other leadership than the one in Minneapolis would have foundered on the rocks of this stupendous problem. This is not because of the personal qualities or the integrity of the men, although that contributed heavily, but rather because the tactics they pursued were Marxian from beginning to end. They were thoroughly fused with the workers in the ranks. They carried on their work in the trade union not with the purpose of some sensational stunt. Building on organization, leading it to victory and helping the workers learn from their own experiences in the class struggle—that was their aim.

Previous issues of the Militant have commented on the military-efficient organization of the strike apparatus. But it does not hurt to repeat some of them, for it was on this very thing that success was founded. To enumerate: the picket line on wheels ready to move at a moment’s notice, in contact at every step with strike headquarters—the commissary serving five thousand strikers daily on the solid assumption that an army travels on its belly—the Ladies Auxiliary giving the women a direct interest in the struggle, making them an encouragement and an aid instead of a drag on the strikers—the mobilization of the unemployed for support—and finally the daily strike bulletin, which we can safely say is one of the greatest contributions to strike strategy in recent times. Here was a paper that inspired the strikers, answered the lies of the boss press day in, day out, fanned their flagging enthusiasm, warned them of traps set by the bosses and arbitrators, showed the class lines of the struggle and performed a thousand and one other services. This was the unshakeable foundation of the strike.

Yet all of this would have been wrecked by the “red” scare had the union leaders not been prepared to meet it. In Frisco the cry of “Communist” tore a deep hole into the strike front. In Minneapolis it was a complete dud. The leaders faced the issue squarely. They did not rush into print denying the accusations. Nor did they shout their opinions to the wide world. They explained to the men that this was part of a plot of the bosses to evade the issues, sow confusion and division in the ranks and thus smash the strike. The results are known. The red-scare fell on deaf ears.

Quite as important, if not more so, was the role of Governor Olson. With a cunning play of demagogy and harmless attacks on the employers he established himself as the “friend” of the strikers. So much so, that when he called the troops onto the streets and declared martial law, opinion was general among the drivers that it was done in their interest. Pickets began to rely on Olson’s soldiers. Knowing the class nature of the state, the leaders saw how fatal such an attitude would be for the strike. They were quick to act. The Organizer, at the risk of incurring the displeasure of the union men, pointed out the real purpose of the troops—to break the strike. But they did not confine themselves to denunciation. Only experience would teach the strikers. A test of the right of picketing was decided upon. And then… by raiding the strike headquarters, imprisoning the leaders and the best pickets, Olson taught the strikers more about Olson than all the editorials in the world could have done. A different opinion of the Governor of Minnesota and the purpose of the state now pervades not a few members of 574.

The unions saw to it that the struggle against Olson be further pushed by exerting the severest pressure on Olson’s men, the conservative leaders of the Central Labor Union. The biggest barrier to Olson’s game was the support of the drivers by the entire Minneapolis labor movement. By adroit and skillful tactics the leaders of 574 forced the heads of the C.L.U. to give their assistance to the drivers and not to condemn them. When the union called upon the officials to declare a general strike in answer to the raid on the headquarters, they resisted but they were on the carpet. They brought pressure to bear on Olson and he released the strike leaders and restored the hall. While the officials of the C.L.U. and the Minnesota State Federation of Labor were successful in preventing a general strike, their answer was a living demonstration to the workers of Minneapolis of the stuff these “leaders” are made. A general strike is not an end in itself. It is a means to an end. And the conservatives at the head of the Minneapolis labor movement deprived 574 of this powerful means. The rank and file will draw the proper conclusions!

In the gratifying conclusion of the battle there lie the features that distinguish the Minneapolis strike from all others in recent times. For the first time in years militants, indigenous to the industry, have entered an A.F. of L. union; converted it from a craft to an industrial union; built it up patiently and quietly; prepared carefully and struck at the proper moment; combined organization with militancy and political wisdom, and emerged from a five week’s strike against insuperable odds with victory in their laps. And on top of all this, what is almost unprecedented in such strikes—not only is the union intact but the leadership is still in the hands of the genuine militants.

The example of the Minneapolis leadership will be an inspiration everywhere!

It can and will be repeated!

*As We Gear Up Our Opposition To Obama's Afghan War A Song To Lift Our Spirits- Stepphenwolf's "The Monster"

Click On Title To Link To YouTube's Film Clip Of Steppenhwolf Performing "Monster". Ah, Those Were The Days.

This is a repost of an entry dated:

Thursday, March 19, 2009

*As We Gear Up Our Opposition To Obama's Afghan War A Song To Lift Our Spirits- Stepphenwolf's "The Monster"
Guest Commentary/Lyrics by John Kay and others

Every once in a while I NEED to listen to that song just to keep balance in the uphill struggle we have to deal with in fighting against the monster of American imperialism in all its various disguises. Here is the chorus that kind of says it all:

Chorus

America where are you now?
Don't you care about your sons and daughters?
Don't you know we need you now
We can't fight alone against the monster

Hell, there is not much more that I need to say, the lyrics tell it all. Obama- Immediate Unconditional Withdrawal Of U.S./Allied Troops From Afghanistan!-Markin



Words and music by John Kay, Jerry Edmonton, Nick St. Nicholas and Larry Byrom

(Monster)

Once the religious, the hunted and weary
Chasing the promise of freedom and hope
Came to this country to build a new vision
Far from the reaches of kingdom and pope
Like good Christians, some would burn the witches
Later some got slaves to gather riches

But still from near and far to seek America
They came by thousands to court the wild
And she just patiently smiled and bore a child
To be their spirit and guiding light

And once the ties with the crown had been broken
Westward in saddle and wagon it went
And 'til the railroad linked ocean to ocean
Many the lives which had come to an end
While we bullied, stole and bought our a homeland
We began the slaughter of the red man

But still from near and far to seek America
They came by thousands to court the wild
And she just patiently smiled and bore a child
To be their spirit and guiding light

The blue and grey they stomped it
They kicked it just like a dog
And when the war over
They stuffed it just like a hog

And though the past has it's share of injustice
Kind was the spirit in many a way
But it's protectors and friends have been sleeping
Now it's a monster and will not obey

(Suicide)

The spirit was freedom and justice
And it's keepers seem generous and kind
It's leaders were supposed to serve the country
But now they won't pay it no mind
'Cause the people grew fat and got lazy
And now their vote is a meaningless joke
They babble about law and order
But it's all just an echo of what they've been told
Yeah, there's a monster on the loose
It's got our heads into a noose
And it just sits there watchin'

Our cities have turned into jungles
And corruption is stranglin' the land
The police force is watching the people
And the people just can't understand
We don't know how to mind our own business
'Cause the whole worlds got to be just like us
Now we are fighting a war over there
No matter who's the winner
We can't pay the cost
'Cause there's a monster on the loose
It's got our heads into a noose
And it just sits there watching

(America)

America where are you now?
Don't you care about your sons and daughters?
Don't you know we need you now
We can't fight alone against the monster

© Copyright MCA Music (BMI)
All rights for the USA controlled and administered by
MCA Corporation of America, INC

--Used with permission--

*Once Again- Immediate Uncondtional Withdrawal From Afghanistan Mr. Obama

Click On Title To Link To United For Justice With Peace (UJP) Poster Of Obama And His Afghan War Policy. Now I Have Made Clear, Very Clear I Hope My Differences With UJP and Other Coalitions That Want To Treat These People Who Run The American Imperial State As Fellow Rational Human Beings But This Poster Kind Of Says It All (For Now)About The Need To Oppose Obama "The Charma's" War Policy.

*Nothing But The Truth, Maybe -The Film Version

Click On Title To Link To Trailer For Film "Nothing But The Truth".

DVD Review

Nothing But The Truth, starring Kate Bakendale, 2009

In the normal course of my work in this space I don’t generally review current commercial films, except when they provide some kind of political or social comment that is in line with my aims. Or I have an ax to grind. The latter turns out to be the case here. The plot of this film revolves around a First Amendment freedom of the press question of a high profile, Type-A newspaper women protecting a source at least that is the way it unfolds, although it is done in a somewhat ham-handed and obviously benignly liberal way.

On the face of it, a film about the praiseworthy efforts of a doggedly determined print reporter bound, seemingly beyond reason, to protect her source of knowledge about why the President of the United States called in a patently erroneous retaliatory strike on Venezuela (you can see where the problem is already, I assume) seem to be tailor –made for praise from this reviewer. Except everything is wrong here. That includes everything, from the source the reporter is protecting to her refusal to divulge her source under very trying circumstances, to say the least, (I won’t give that source up here either. I am not tattle-tale and moreover that revelation provided the only real twist in this whole sorry plot line.) to the nasty twist and turns of the federal special prosecutor who is trying to nail her in the interest of “national security”.

Don’t get me wrong, or at only get me wrong a little. We better fight tooth and nail to maintain a free press and other forms of expression against governmental interference. But one must pick and choose one’s battles. Off of this plot line and off the moral dilemmas the reporter willingly placed herself in there is certainly a question about her political acumen, to say nothing of her common sense.

But the real issue here, aside from the liberal bend of putting up the good fight to maintain the free press that drives the film, is that the vaunted “forth estate”, of late, has been pretty sorry in real life when it comes to opposing the American government’s propaganda lines. A medium that was asleep at the wheel, in many cases willingly so, during the lead up to the Bush portion of the Iraq War, and for a long time after, is hardly worthy, as the people associated with this production seem to think, of positive treatment, even when one could admire the tenacity if not the common sense of the reporter in this drama. While we desperately need to protect free expression this film did not add much to our real life knowledge about how to defend it. Certainly not the way it played out in this film, that is for sure.

***The American Songbook Pantheon- The Music Of Irving Berlin.

Click On Title To Link To An Irving Berlin Lyrics Website.

CD Review

Irving Berlin: A Hundred Years, Irving Berlin compositions as performed by various artists, Columbia Record Company, 1988

I have been running through the legends of folk music, the blues, rock and assorted other genres over the past period. Not intentionally, at least I do not think that this was my intention at the start, I have reviewed a number of musicians, composers and recording artists who have been influential in the preservation of American roots music. You know, names like Pete Seeger, The Lomaxes, Bob Dylan, Woody Guthrie, Willie Dixon, Sam Phillips and, probably, a dozen more who have sung, recorded produced or preserved parts of what is termed “the American Songbook”. These names, however, are hardly all-inclusive, as this review will try to make clear. The American Songbook is a “big tent” operation that extends back to the times of Stephan Foster in the 19th century, if not before, and is brought up to date by the likes of Mr. Seeger and Mr. Dylan. Along the way, including a significant part of the 20th century, Irving Berlin did more than his fair share of helping to fill that book.

We could go on and on about who should be or not be, beyond the names mentioned above, included in the American Songbook pantheon. However, there is no question, whether you tastes run to Tin Pin Alley tunes or not that Irving Berlin is up on that first level. This little compilation by Columbia Records put out some years ago both honors him on his 100th birthday and can serve as a primer for those unfamiliar with Mr. Berlin’s work. Although if you have been the least bit conscious, or are very, very young, you already ‘know’ many of these songs, if not their author.

A Berlin biography is beyond the scope of this little review but needless to say this son of immigrants caught at least a portion of what America meant to both immigrant and native alike at a time when assimilation into American society, its manners and mores was a more pressing issue than today. Berlin’s hey days were in the 1930’s and 1940’s and he is forever tied in memory to such Great Depression/World War II Broadway music as “Putting On The Ritz”, “Cheek To Cheek”, “How Deep Is The Ocean”, “’I've Got My Love To Keep Me Warm” and a slew of other classics included here. And done by the likes of Fred Astaire, Judy Garland, Billie Holiday, Etherl Merman, Ethel Waters and a host of others, all famous in their time for singing whatever Mr. Berlin put before them, gladly. This is the music your parents or grandparents hummed back in the days. On this compilation it seems that Columbia has gone out of its way, way out of its way to get the best renditions by the most definitive artists to present these tunes.

Irving Berlin is also, whether the fact is well-known now or not, closely associated with popular American patriotic songs like “God Bless America”. He is also associated with novelty songs like “White Christmas”, “Easter Parade”, “Alexander’s Ragtime Band” and “Let’s Have Another Cup Of Coffee”. Now some of this is not to my taste and, perhaps, not to yours. Some of the patriotic stuff is way overblown. And a few tunes have not aged well. Those are separate, more political questions, that can be more properly addressed elsewhere. But hear me out. The next time some asks Irving who? Or I don’t know his work? Just start humming “White Christmas”, or the like. Berlin may not be my top candidate for Number One composer in the American Songbook but he belongs in the select company of that pantheon.

*Be Still My Heart The New Federal Minimum Wage Has Gone Into Effect-For A Living Wage For All!

Click On Title To Link To NPR Story On The Recent Increase In The Federal Minimum Wage Rate Including A Compelling Story About One Woman's Struggle To Keep Herself And Family Above Water At That Rate.


Commentary

Do the math (approximately). 7x40=280x50=14,000 plus. Nothing more needs to be said about this absurdly inadequate minimum wage increase. We need to fight fora living wage for all. Better yet isn't it about time to get rid of this increasingly disparate capitalist system. As the story details- no mother should have to worry feeding and clothing their kids. And no kid should have to feel bad about not having enough to eat and something nice to wear. In the end that is what our struggle for socialism is all about.

*U.S. Troops Back On Patrol In Iraq On The Low- Immediate Unconditional Withdrawal Of All Allied Troops From Iraq- Loudly

Click On Title To Link To BBC Story About The Situation With The So-called "Incredibly Shrinking U.S. Troop Presence" In Iraq. Miracle Or Myth? Let Me Just Say We Had Better Start Getting Our Grandchildren Ready To Face The Music In Iraq When Their Time Comes. John McCain and Before Him One George W. Bush Said It Would Take A Generation Or More To Stabilize The Situation In Iraq. They May Have Not Been Far Off The Mark. But Just To Be On The Safe Side- Obama-Immediate Unconditional Withdrawal Of All U.S./Allied Troops From Iraq!

*"The Blues Is Dues" Story, Again-Down The Backroads Of The Blues

Click On Title To Link To YouTube's Film Clip Of Charlie Patton Doing "Shake It And Break It".

DVD REVIEW

The Blues Is Dues Story, Again

The Blues Story, 2003

I have written by now seemingly countless reviews of old time acoustic and electric blues artists, male and female alike. I have "toured" the Delta, the Texas Panhandle, the streets of small town Southern cities, Memphis and the "Mecca", Chicago, to give my take on the blues story. I have "been" on the plantation Saturday night, the "juke joints", the blues clubs, Chicago's Maxwell Street and on any street corner where a blues artist could set up shop. My thumbs are sore from giving thumbs up and down to the various blue artists that I have known about since my teenage years a long time ago. All of the above is by way of saying if you want to do some one- stop shopping for what the blues was, is and will be this is your destination. A better primer, especially for the novice complete with some great blues riffs, done in a couple of hours would be hard to find.

All the traditional blues "hot spots" like Memphis and Chicago are given due time. All the blues greats get at least a passing nod from Charley Patton and Robert Johnson in the old days to Howlin' Wolf, Muddy Waters and B.B. King in the modern age. In fact that is what is most impressive about this production. The producers have seemingly gathered, at the time of production, every still living blues artist who could still hold an instrument and speak a few words to talk about their work and those that they knew who "taught" them the blues. Why is this important? The likes of Ruth Brown, Honeyboy Williams, Gatesmouth Moore, Gatesmouth Brown, Buddy Guy and a host of others showcased here are the transmission belt from the older tradition of Charley Patton, Son House, Blind Blake, Ma Rainey and the others who created the sounds of the blues. Ruth Brown said it best- the young (and here I think she was including me-thanks Ms. Brown) don't need to learn the blues; they need to learn about the blues. Yes, ma'am. So to answer one of the questions posed in and by the documentary; will the blues ever die? Never.

"Shake It And Break It" by Charlie Patton

You can shake it, you can break it,
you can hang it on the wall
Throw it out the window, catch it 'fore it roll
You can shake it, you can break it,
you can hang it on the wall
...it out the window, catch it 'fore it falls
My jelly, my roll, sweet mama, don't let it fall
Everybody have a jelly roll like mine, I lives in town
I, ain't got no brown, I, an' I want it now
My jelly, my roll, sweet mama, don't let it fall
You can snatch it, you can grab it, you can break it,
you can twist it, any way that I love to get it
I, had my right mind since I, I blowed this town
My jelly, my roll, sweet mama, don't let it fall
Jus' shake it, you can break it,
you can hang it on the wall
.. it out the window, catch it 'fore it falls
You can break it, you can hang it on the wall
...it out the window, catch it 'fore it...
My jelly, my roll, sweet mama, don't let it fall
I ain't got nobody here but me and myself
I, stay blue all the time, aw, when the sun goes down
My jelly, my roll, sweet mama, don't let it fall
You can shake it, you can break it,
you can hang it on the wall
... it out the window, catch it 'fore it fall
You can break it, you can hang it on the wall
...it out the window, catch...
My jelly, my roll, sweet mama, don't let it fall
You can snatch it, you can grab it,
you can break it, you can twist it,
any way that I love to get it
I, had my right mind, I, be worried sometime
'Bout a jelly, my roll, sweet mama, don't let it fall
Just shake it, you can break it,
you can hang it on the wall
... it out the window, catch it 'fore it falls
You can break it, you can hang it on the wall
...it out the window, catch it 'fore it falls
My jelly, my roll, sweet mama, don't let it fall
I know I been to town, I, I walked around
I, start leavin' town, I, I fool around
My jelly, my roll, sweet mama, don't let it fall
Just shake it, you can break it,
you can hang it on the wall
... it out the window, catch it 'fore it falls
You can break it, you can hang it on the wall
...it out the window, catch it 'fore it...
My jelly, my roll, sweet mama, don't let it fall
Jus' shake it, you can break it,
you can hang it on the wall
... it out the window, catch it 'fore it...
My jelly, my roll, sweet mama, don't let it...

*Defend The Cuban Revolution- Hands Off The Myers!

Click on title to link to "Workers Vanguard" article about the Myers, who have been charged with aiding the Cuba revolution (from our perspective, the actual legal charges that the couple are confronted with by the U.S. government, as usual, read differently). I echo the sentiments of the article- Hands Off The Myers!-Defend The Cuban Five!-More on this as the case unfolds.

*Musings On The Struggle Against Imperialist War- On The Question Of How To Call For The Defeat Of U.S. Imperialism Today

Click On Title To Link To V.I. Lenin's late 1914 Article "The Position And Tasks Of The Socialist International" For A "First Draft" Of Leninism On The Question Of Opposition To Imperialist War In The Throes Of The Opening Salvos Of World War I. This Entry Is Merely A First Look At What Should Be An On-Going Appraisal Of His Work On Revolutionary Defeatism.

Markin Commentary

The following is a response to the blogger Trotskyist’s comments (posted immediately below) on another entry on July 17, 2009, "Once Again, The Slogan Is...", and reflects, perhaps, better than the unwieldy headline of this entry some thoughts in what should be an on-going struggle to find a way to effectively battle the Obama Iraq/Afghan war policies.

******

2 Comments:

Trotskyist said...
Markin: What is the difference between your slogan now and "Out Now" from the reformist SWP during the Vietnam war (or the anti-war popular front today)?

Didn't Lenin insist that revolutionaries must call for the defeat of their own imperialist ruling class in a war?

8:30 AM
Renegade Eye said...
Revolutionary defeatism was a slogan, for a particular audience, at a particular time. It was not a principle. In addition Trotsky opposed that slogan.


Regards

*********

Trotskyist in his comment posted above from the July 17, 2009 entry mentioned above is actually right, in a formal sense. There is no qualitative difference between the Socialist Workers Party’s (SWP) slogan (and that of others, many others during that time) “Out Now” raised in the 1960s during various phases of the Vietnam War and my formulation now of “Immediate Unconditional Withdrawal Of All U.S. /Allied Troops From Iraq’ (or, for that matter, Afghanistan).

Nevertheless that old SWP slogan was a supportable one, if barely, as an anti-imperialist slogan. When, toward the middle of that war every even mildly leftist (and some not so leftist) bourgeois politician on the make was calling for some variation of that very slogan it was hard to differentiate the SWP’s position. However, the SWP’s (and those same bourgeois politicians on the make) equally prevalent social-patriotic slogan “Bring The Boys Home” (and its variants) on the other hand was not supportable at all. Except for my slightly more algebraic formulation on withdrawal from Iraq then what makes me any more than another run-of-the mill reformist of the SWP ilk posing as a revolutionary? The not inconsiderable one of context.

The SWP raised their slogan, in fair weather or foul, all throughout their anti-war work as they pursued the main chance-staying chummy with bourgeois politicians and suburban housewives (okay, and househusbands too). They raised it in 1965 when it was just barely acceptable to the anti-communist liberal/ labor left that dominated the early anti-war struggle. They raised in 1969 when many of us were calling for “Victory To The NLF (National Liberation Front Of South Vietnam)” in the aftermath of Tet 1968 and they raised it in 1975 as the helicopters were lifting the remnants off the Americans personal off the United States Embassy in Ho Chi Minh City (then Saigon) with the advances of the DNV/NLF forces entering the city.

I believe that today , as an anti-imperialist militant standing in opposition to the escalating Obama-driven American military presence in Afghanistan (and previously during the height of the long and continuing American presence in Iraq that was the focus of Trotskyist’s comment), my slogan represents ONE of the tasks that we have to fight around. In an America that has thus far, except a few malcontents on the left-wing of the Democratic Party and those few, too few, of us to the left of that organization, significantly backed off from the anti-war opposition that drove the initial period of opposition to the Bush portion of the Iraq War this slogan creates an axis to struggle around. A little class struggle in America around this issue (and for that matter any issue given the current economic circumstances) would go a long way toward breaking through on this problem of the Obama “honeymoon”.

As for the question of revolutionary defeatism, an important concept to those who stand in the Leninist anti-war tradition, let me make my position clear. Since somewhere about the middle of the Vietnam War I have, on more occasions that I care to count, called for the defeat of the American imperialist in whatever military adventure they were up to at the moment. That is my policy in regard to the American military presence in the world under any and all foreseeable circumstances while this country remains in the hands of the imperialists.

In practice, in Iraq and Afghanistan, that has meant calling for, in the best Leninist tradition, the military defense of the Taliban regime in Afghanistan and Hussein’s regime in Iraq when confronted with the American onslaught. Naturally this precluded any political support to those wretched regimes. Thus, an additional slogan is the call for the Iraqi and Afghan peoples to overthrow those regimes (while we are committed to do likewise with our own). I have raised those points many times in this space, including a call to form soldiers and sailors committees in the U.S. military in order to end the Iraq war. What I do not believe is appropriate for today (meaning in the short term) is to make that policy the center of our anti-war work. In practice today such an approach would mean something like raising a slogan of “Military Victory To The Taliban”, or some such thing. To state the proposition that starkly tells the tale. Sometimes in politics, especially left-wing politics, one finds oneself between a rock and a hard place. That, my friends, is the case here.

That situation is also where things today are different from Vietnam where we did have a side, the DRV/NLF forces, we wanted to see win. There were some forces I did want to see win in Afghanistan- the Soviet Union and their Afghan governmental allies before 1989. Of course then many Western leftists were screaming their version of “Out Now”, anti-Soviet-style. But a review of that fight is for another time. This is hardly the last word on this issue but I’ll be damned if I will take a back seat to anyone on my adult life time of opposition to American imperialism just because today I want to line up forces behind a variation of the “out now” axis of opposition to imperialist war.

Note: I slightly disagree with Renegade on the weight of the policy of revolutionary defeatism. It is not merely a question of its being a tactic but is rather an important strand in the anti-imperialist struggle especially here in the heartland of world imperialism, although the practical application now may take a variety of forms.

*Voodoo Blues From The Bayou- The "Voodoo Daddy" Lonnie Brooks Is On Stage

Click On Title To Link To YouTube's Film Clip Of Lonnie Brooks.

CD Review

Lonnie Brooks: The Voodoo Daddy, Lonnie Brooks (and son Ronnie Baker), Alligator records, 1997

When reviewing various blues artist over the past year in this space I have spilled much ink on places like the Mississippi Delta, Chicago, Memphis and Texas. I have spent very little time talking about Cajun country, the bayous of Louisiana or the Mississippi port town of News Orleans as sources of the blues tradition. When one thinks of the bayous one tends to think of the Cajun-centered accordion or Zydeco music. New Orleans brings to mind jazz more than the blues, except maybe some barrel house influence. That omission seems now to have been flat out wrong as the artist under review, ‘The Voodoo Daddy” Lonnie Brooks, amply demonstrates.

Sure, Lonnie (and on this album his son Ronnie Baker as well) has mastered basic blues lines as any successful electric blues guitarist must but his music has that little extra “funky” edge that one gets when listening to better New Orleans jazz and Zydeco music, especially that big old sax blaring out to beat the band. That is what the Voodoo Daddy brings to the table. Here it starts right out with the first track “Jealous Man” carries through to “Hoodoo She Do” the aptly named “Zydeco” and finishes up nicely with “Rolling Of The Tumbling Dice”. More on this kind of bayou-derived music, especially under the influence of Clifton Chenier who was instrumental in jump starting Lonnie’s career, later. For now listen here- you can heard those swamp sounds from those Lake Charles and environs boys now, can’t you?


"Got Lucky Last Night"

Pretend you're mean as a lion
Wild like a tiger cat
Been lovin' mem so good last night
I almost had a heart attack

chorus:
I got lucky last night
I got lucky last night
Played your little game and I got lucky last night

Pretend you're mean and evil
Stubborn like a Georgia mule
Been lovin' me so good last night
You had me on private school
(chorus)

Pretend you can be sweet
Pretend you can be kind
But when it come to lovin' girl
You don't draw the line
(chorus)

I got lucky last night
I got lucky last night
I got lucky last night
I got lucky last night
Played a little game and I got lucky last night

I got lucky last night
I got lucky last night
I got lucky last night
I got lucky last night
I got lucky last night, tryin' to get lucky tonight


"Wife For Tonight"

Is is that string bikini?
Or the sun that's makin' me hot?
Whatever thing to cool me with baby
They gonna take a hell of a lot
I feel the need for some down home lovin' tonight
Oh I could gonna pretend that I'm your husband
If you'd only pretend you'll be my wife tonight
Yeah

I'll build us a playhouse
Into my bedroom
So you can play the bride baby
While I play the groom
I feel the need for some down home lovin' tonight
Oh I could gonna pretend that I'm your husband
If you'd only pretend you'll be my wife tonight
All right...

You can come on over
There'll be no strings attached
If you like what I'm doin' to you baby
You can always come back
I feel the need for some down home lovin' tonight
Oh I could gonna pretend that I'm your husband
If you'd only pretend you'll be my wife tonight

*The Hoodoo Man Is In The House- The Harmonica Blues Of Junior Wells

Click On Title To Link To YouTube's Film Clip Of Junior Wells Doing "Hoodoo Man".

DVD REVIEW

Don’t Start Me Talking: The Junior Wells Story, Junior Wells, Buddy Guy and various artists and commentators, Sony, 2005

The last time that the name Junior Wells was mentioned in this space was when he was referenced in a review of the work of legendary Chicago blues guitarist and his long time musical companion, Buddy Guy. Starting in the late 1950's those names, more often than not, were linked together as among the hottest sounds to come out of clubs and other venues during that fantastic period of the reemergence of the Chicago blues. Well today is Junior's turn in the spotlight in this informative hour and one half review of the ups and downs of his musical and personal life.

The personal part of Junior's life is not an unfamiliar one when detailing the life stories of many of the great black blues musicians who made a name for themselves in Chicago, the "Mecca" of the electric blues. Born down South on the farm, enduring a hard scrabble childhood, coming up North, hungry. Sound familiar? And, as in many other cases concerning the hungry part including Junior's case, almost literally so. But these guys and gals (think of Koko Taylor, an interviewee here) ready to do anything to get out of the South of the hard luck farms and the plantations, to speak nothing of Jim Crow. Chicago-bound was Junior's cry, as well. But there were a million guys trying to work Maxwell Street and get the bright light attention of the likes of Muddy Waters and Howlin' Wolf in the late 1950's. Somehow, through thick and thin and some toying around the edges of the criminal life, sheer talent and energy, Junior survived and got his big chance with Muddy. The rest, as they say, is history.

Junior's story is told here in a number of ways. Mainly there are personal interviews with him about his sometimes rocky way to blues stardom. Then there are personal and musical testimonials from the likes of the above-mentioned Buddy Guy and long time Wells band member Lonnie Brooks (worthy of his own separate review in his well-travelled blues career). Finally, there is the seemingly inevitable roundtable group of commentators who throw out various tidbits about Junior's life, his recording career and his character, including important information for the blues archivist about the Delmark Records production of the album "Hoodoo Man" and from his first manager, the ubiquitous Dick Waterman. The results are an inside look into one of the key Chicago blues figures who carried on the tradition from the post-World War II blues giants like Muddy, Howlin' Wolf, and Willie Dixon. Nice.



"Hoodoo Man"

Lord, I wonder what's the matter, I'm crying all the
time
The minutes seem like hours, everything's the same
But I'm holding my hand, Lord I'm trying to make my
baby understand
Somebody done tell me, Junior, somebody done
hoodoo
the hoodoo man
I buzzed your bell this morning, elevator running
slow
I buzzed your bell this morning, take me up to your
third floor.
But I'm holding my hand, Lord I'm trying to make my
baby understand
I'm gonna tell you one time, ain't gonna tell you no
more
If I have to tell you again, I'm gonna let you go
But I'm holding my hand, Lord I'm trying to make my
baby understand

"Checkin' On My Baby"


Checkin' on my baby, see what she puttin' down
So many days and nights I been out of town
I wouldn't call home, and I wouldn't even write
I bought me a plane and flew back the same night
Checkin' on my baby, find out what she puttin' down
Checkin' up on my baby, find out what she puttin'
down
So many nights and days I been out of town



"Good Mornin' Lil' Schoolgirl"


Good morning, little schoolgirl, can I go home with
you?
Tell your mother and your poppa, I'm a little
schoolboy too
Lord, I love you baby, just can't help myself
Don't care how you treat me, baby, I don't want nobody
else
Good morning, little schoolgirl, hey hey hey!
Oohweeh, I'm gonna leave you baby, one of these old
days
On account of how you treat me, baby, I'm gonna stay
away
Good morning, little schoolgirl, can I go home with
you?
Come on now, pretty baby, come one home with me
Good morning, little schoolgirl, hey hey hey!
Ooh, oohweeh, I'm gonna buy an airplane, fly all over
your town
Tell everybody, baby, Lord knows you're fine
I can't stand it, baby, just can't help myself
You're so young and pretty, you love somebody else
Good morning, little schoolgirl, hey hey hey!
Ooh, oohweeh!



"My Baby She Left Me"


When my baby she left me, she left me with a mule to
ride
When my baby she left me, she left me with a mule to
ride
When her train left the station that old mule laid
down and died
Man I sent this woman a brand new twenty dollar bill
Lord I sent that woman a brand new twenty dollar bill
Now if that don't bring her back, I'm sure this old
shotgun will
Lake Michigan ain't no river, Chicago ain't no hill
town
Lake Michigan ain't no river, Chicago ain't no hill
town
If I feel like this tomorrow I'm gonna clear out be
back down Memphis bound
I'll be standing down on the landing when the big boat
pull off and roll
I'll be standing on the landing when the big boat pull
off and roll
I'll be hopin' I'll be prayin' I don't see your face
no more
When my baby she left me, she left me with a mule to
ride
When my baby she left me, she left me with a mule to
ride
When her train left the station that old mule laid
down and died
Lord I sent this woman a brand new twenty dollar bill
Man I sent my baby a brand new twenty dollar bill
Now if that don't bring her back, I'm sure my shotgun
will



"Messin' With The Kid"


What's this a-here goin' all around town
The people they say they're gonna put the kid down
Oh no, oh look at what you did
You can call it what you want to, I call it messin'
with the kid
You know the kid's no child, and I don't play
I says what I mean and I mean what I say
Oh yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah, oh look at what you did
You can call it what you want to, I call it messin'
with the kid
You know the kid's no child, and I don't play
I says what I mean and I mean what I say
Oh yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah, oh look at what you did
You can call it what you want to, I call it messin'
with the kid
We're gonna take the kid's car and drive around town
Tell everybody you're not puttin' him down
Oh yeah yeah yeah yeah, oh look at what you did
You can call it what you want to, I call it messin'
with the...

*Harmonica Heaven- The Blues Harp Of "Jazz" Gillum

Click On Title To Link To Wikipedia's Entry For "Jazz" Gillum".

CD REVIEW

Bill “Jazz” Gillum: The Bluebird recordings, 1934-38, Bill Gillum, BMG Records, 1997

Sonny Boy Williamson (either artist who went by that name), James Cotton, Brownie McGhee all made their marks with some very smoking harmonica. Hell, even Bob Dylan enhanced much of his earlier folk work using that instrument. Here one of the early masters of the instrument gives it a full work out and some very nice blues/jazz tunes. As the title of the album indicates, although he had a longer somewhat checkered career that ended in personal tragedy in some dark alley, Gillum hits his high notes best in the period of the Bluebird recordings. Together with some fine back up musicians and a voice that while not memorable is serviceable this album shows why that statement is true.

Remember though you are getting this album for the harmonica work, that is the strong suit here. For this reviewer the top song is the New “Sail On Little Girl” (that Big Joe Turner made a huge hit on later). Others to listen for are “Sarah Jane”, “Alberta Blues”, “Reefer Head Woman” (you know what that one’s about, right?) and the seemingly obligatory (for any black musician in that time coming out of the Mississippi Delta and heading North to Memphis or Chicago) “Good Old 51 Highway”.

Lyrics to "Reefer Head Woman" (a song covered bu Aerosmith, by the way)


I got a reefer headed woman
She fell right down from the sky
(Good Lord)
Woh...I got a reefer head a woman
She fell right down from the sky

Well, I gots to drink me a two fifths of whiskey
Just to get half as high

When the good Lord made that woman
He sure went to town
Oooh...when the good Lord made that woman
He sure went to town

Well, when he was feelin' high
Oooh...he sure should have been feelin' low

Oh Mr. Perry!

I got a reefer headed woman
Lord...she fell right down from the sky
Uuum...got a reefer headed woman
She fell right down from the sky

Lord, I gots to drink me two fifths of whiskey
Just to get, just to get, half as high

*Stinging Electric Blues Guitar-Otis Rush Is In The Room

Click On Title To Link To The Otis Rush Website.

CD Review

All Your Love I Miss Loving: Live At The Wise Fool Club, Otis Rush, Delmark, 2005

Okay, okay I have been talking about doing a review of the legendary electric blues guitarist Otis Rush ever since I saw him on some DVDs in the “American Folk Blues “series from the 1960’s that I have reviewed earlier in this space. Arguably, the 1950’s and 1960’s were the heroic age of electric blues guitar with the likes of Muddy Waters, Hubert Sumlin (from Howlin’ Wolf’s band), Elmore James, the incredible T-Bone Walker and Brother Rush. What makes the case for his inclusion here is some very rippling solos where he runs the board.

Sometimes the quality of live performances especially in the days before better sound production technology was developed, as here at the famous blues club the “Wise Fool Club”, diminishes the quality of the sound. However, for a performer like Rush, having that live audience in front is the spark that takes them to flights of ....musical fancy. Put that together with Rush’s deep, powerful voice to match the intensity of the riffs and a self-selected back up band and you have the blues when they are dos.

You don’t believe me? Well, listen to a smoking “Sweet Little Angel” or the pathos of “Feel So Bad”. Or the pain of “You’re Breaking My Heart” or the frenetic longing of the title song “All Your Love I Miss Loving”. Case closed.


Sweet Little Angel - B.B. King

(B.B. King & Jules Taub)

I got a sweet little angel
I love the way she spread her wings
Yes, I got a sweet little angel
I love the way she spread her wings
Yes, when she spread her wings around me
I get joy in everything

You know I asked my baby for a nickel
And she gave me a twenty dollar bill
Oh, yes, I asked my baby for a nickel
And she gave me a twenty dollar bill
Whoa, you know I asked her for a little drink of liquor
And she gave me a whiskey still

Ah yes, asked my baby to quit me
Well, I do believe I will die
Yes, I asked my baby to quit me
Well, I do believe I will die
'Cause, if you don't love me little angel
Please, tell me the reason why

*Bob Feldman 68: `Free Leonard Peltier!'

Bob Feldman 68: `Free Leonard Peltier!'

*Folk Potpourri- Part Three-Mark Spoelstra

Click On Title To Link To Rhapsody's Presentation Of "Mark Spoelstra At Club 47". For Those Unfamiliar With 1960's Folk Revival History Club 47 (Now Club Passim) Was The "Mecca" Of The Boston/Cambridge Folk Scene With The Likes Of Joan Baez, Bob Dylan, Tom Rush And The Artist Under Review Holding Forth There. Those Were The Days. Sorry, I Could Not Find A YouTube Link For Mark Spoelstra.

CD REVIEW

Five & Twenty Questions, Mark Spoelstra, Collectors’ Choice Music, 2006

Over the past year or so I have been reviewing many of the male folksingers who proliferated in the early 1960’s folk revival and who threw their hats in the ring to be “king of the hill” of the burgeoning folk scene (the women singers of the period are to be looked at separately later). Names such as Tom Rush, Tom Paxton, Jesse Colin Young and Jesse Winchester have already been reviewed. These are performers, for the most part, who still work the small concert and coffee house circuit but whose names are probably very unfamiliar to today’s musical audience, folk or otherwise. I approached my theme initially under the sign of this question; what qualities, personal and musical, make some singers succeed and others fall by the wayside?

We know that Bob Dylan, without a doubt, wanted to win that contest for supremacy and did so. I think that Dylan answered the why of that question himself in one of the snippets of interviews in the Martin Scorsese documentary of his early career, “No Direction Home”. There he noted, when asked why audiences gravitated to his songs, that while there was plenty of talent around most singers sang their message over the audience (I think that he meant in the literal performing sense, as well as intellectually) but that it was necessary to “speak” to the audience. To our sense of longing for identity, for some knowledge of life’s mystery, and for that some one who could express in our own tribal youth language the words that we needed to push on with. Well, Dylan certainly did that to a generation, my generation, that saw “the answer blowing in the wind” and desperately hoped that “the times were a-changin’’’.

The folk artist under review, Mark Spoestra is one of the male singers that I have not mentioned previously, although he was certainly in the mix of things in the early 1960’s. In fact, his “resurrection” here is due to my having seen his “talking head” commentary on that “No Direction Home” Scorsese production. I do not know the particulars of his later story but the work here on this CD is a case in point about the Dylan comment. (I note that after this review was written I found out that Mark Spoelstra had died in 2007.)

Certainly his lyrics are strong and are right in the Woody Guthrie (and later, Dylan himself) troubadour tradition of spreading the news of the day. “Five & Twenty Questions” and, more so, the tragic story outlined in “Ballad Of 12th Avenue”, about the desperation of a used up man in the bowels of modern American society that has left him with no resources but the gun to work out his problems, are in that mode. “On The Road Again” and “The Leaves” speak to the need to ramble and find oneself or to find love or find something that we hungered for then (and not just then either). That said, this album still leaves me with the feeling that old Mark was speaking to himself and for himself and not to me. That is the difference. A big difference. Still, if you have time listen in to someone who was struggling to find the meaning of his times and, at least on “Ballad Of 12th Street”, hit pay dirt.

He Was A Friend of Mine (Just A Hand To Hold)

Lyrics: Mark Spoelstra

Music: Mark Spoelstra

This was played by the Grateful Dead in their early days, from 1966 to 1970. It is normally in setlists as "He Was A Friend Of Mine" but it is in fact a portion of a Mark Spoelstra song "Just A Hand To Hold"

Chorus
He was, he was a friend of mine
He was, he was a friend of mine
Now he's dead and gone

This morning my best friend
Was sleeping in his bed
His face like a jewel
And he was dead

[chorus]

He liked to play games
Mark, push me on a swing
Mark, push me on a merry-go-round
Going round and round

[chorus]

deadsongs.vue.90 : He Was A Friend Of Mine
permalink #5 of 18: Alex Allan (alexallan) Sat 17 Sep 05 01:20

Thanks to a tip from Russ Lipetzky, I've discovered that the song we
know as "He Was A Friend Of Mine" is in fact "Just A Hand To Hold" by
Mark Spoelstra. Spoelstra recorded it on his 1965 LP "5 & 20 Questions"
and it was covered in the same year by Kathy and Carol (Kathy Larisch
and Carol McComb). I've got a copy of the latter - lyrics below. The
Grateful Dead sang just the first few verses. Mark Spoelstra used to
perform with Bob Dylan, Dave Van Ronk et al in New York in the early
1960s, which may explain the loose connection with the song "He Was A
Friend Of Mine" that they performed.

Just A Hand To Hold

Mark Spoelstra

He was, he was a friend of mine
He was, he was a friend of mine
Now he's dead and gone

This morning, my best friend
Lay still on his bed
His face like a jewel
And he was dead

He was, he was only six years old
He was, he was only six years old
So I've been told

He like to play games
Mark, push me on the swing
Mark, push me on the merry-go-round
Go round and round

Swing me, oh swing me, swing me all up and down
Spin me, oh spin me, spin me around and round
Till my feet touch the ground

He never was afraid
For he was was brave and bold
And the only thing he ever asked for
Was a hand to hold

It makes no difference where he's from or where's he's bound
And it makes no difference if he's lost or been found
He's dead and gone

But there is no power
Anywhere in this land
Like the voice used to say
Will you hold my hand

There is a voice that rings loud throughout this land
There is a voice that speaks for the black and tan
And for all of man

It's young and it's old
It's brave and it's bold
It can't be bought or sold
Just a hand to hold

*Irish Author Of "Angela's Ashes" Frank McCourt Is Dead At 78

Click On Title To Link To NPR's Story On The Death Of Author Frank McCourt. Frank McCourt's story is my story about a generation later and a continent away. But it is still my story. I have reviewed that elsewhere in this space and have reposted it below.

*A Bit Of The Odd Manner- Irish Style- The Childhood Saga of Frank McCourt

Book Review

Angela’s Ashes: A Memoir Of Childhood, Frank McCourt, Flamingo, London, 1997

Frank McCourt’s “Angela’s Ashes” is probably the easiest review that I have had to write since I have been doing such reviews in this space. Why? Frank McCourt’s book of childhood memoirs is my story. No, not in the details of his life’s story, or mine. But rather in how being Irish, being poor and being uprooted affects your childhood, and later. And those traumas, for good or evil, cross generational lines. McCourt, we are told as his story unfolds, was born in America of immigrants of the Diaspora after Irish independence who, for one reason or another, returned to the old country in defeat in the 1930’s. As McCourt notes right at the beginning, that fact in itself provides a rather ironic twist if one is familiar with Irish history (at least until very recently). He is, in any case, thus a child of the Great Depression and World War II, the generation of my parents, as it was refracted through Ireland during that period. I, on the other hand, am a child of the 1960’s, the “Generation of ‘68” here in America born of the dreaded Irish Catholic-English Protestant combination- and raised in an Irish Catholic enclave. Nevertheless the pages of this memoir are filled to the brim with the results of the emotional (and sometimes physical scars) of being “shanty” Irish in this world that hit home to this reader.

That said, we did not share the terrible effect that “the drink” had on creating his dysfunctional family with his father’s, Malachy McCourt, crazed need for the alcohol cure to drown his sorrows and his bitterness and the fact that his great moment in life was his bit for “the cause” (of Irish independence). A familiar story in the Irish community here and in the old country but my father seldom drank, although he too was constantly out of work and shared with Frank’s father that same bitterness about his fate. He was uneducated, lacking in skills and prospects and as a “hillbilly” Protestant Southerner from coal country down in Kentucky. Thus, an ‘outsider’ like Frank’s father. That is the commonality that caught my eye (and sometimes my throat) as I read of Frank’s youthful trials, tribulations and adventures. McCourt’s ability to tap into that “mystical” something is what makes this a fine read, whether you are Irish or not.

Throughout the book McCourt’s woe begotten but fatally prideful father is constantly referred to in the Irishtown working class poor ghetto of Limerick (and elsewhere, as well, but the heart of the story is told from there) as having an odd manner. This reflects a certain clannishness against those from the North of Ireland (Dare I say it, the area then known as Ulster) and a sneaking suspicion amount that crowd of some alien (meaning English Protestant) heritage. As the book progresses that odd trait is transferred (by heredity?) to Frank in his various wanderings, enterprise and desires. What joins us together then is that odd manner that gets repeatedly invoked throughout the book. Frank survived to tell the tale. As did I. But in both cases it appears to have been a near thing.

There is more that unites us. The shame culture, not an exclusive Irish Catholic property but very strong nevertheless, drilled in by the clannishness, the closeness of neighbors, the Catholic religion and by the bloody outsiders- usually but not always Protestants of some sort (as least for blame purposes- you know, the eight hundred years of British tyranny although very real to be sure). All driven by not having nearly enough of this world’s goods. Every time I read a passage about the lack of food, the quality of the food, the conditions of the various tenements that the McCourt family lived in, the lack of adequate and clean clothing I cringed at the thoughts from my own childhood. Or the various times when the family was seriously down and out and his mother, the beloved Angela of the title, had to beg charity of one form or another from some institution that existed mainly to berate the poor. I can remember own my mother’s plaintive cry when my brothers and I misbehaved that the next step was the county poor farm.

And how about the false pride and skewed order of priorities? Frank’s father was a flat out drunk and was totally irresponsible. From a child's perspective, however, he is still your dad and must be given the respect accordingly, especially against the viciousness of the outside world. But life’s disappointments for the father also get reflected in the expectations for the son. The dreams are smaller. Here, the horizons are pretty small when a governmental job with its security just above the “dole” is the touchstone of respectability. Sean O’Casey was able to make enduring plays from the slums of Dublin out of this material. And Frank McCourt enduring literature. Thanks, brother.

Note: The movie version of “Angela’s Ashes” pretty fairly reflects the intentions of Frank McCourt in his childhood memoirs and follows the book accordingly, without the usual dramatic embellishments of that medium. The story line is so strong it needs no such “touch-ups”. Particularly compelling is the very visual sense of utter poverty down at the base of Irish society in Frank McCourt’s childhood.

These two songs below are constantly being sung by Frank McCourt's father when he is "on the drink"

"Roddy McCorly"

O see the fleet-foot host of men, who march with faces drawn,
From farmstead and from fishers' cot, along the banks of Ban;
They come with vengeance in their eyes. Too late! Too late are they,
For young Roddy McCorley goes to die on the bridge of Toome today.

Up the narrow street he stepped, so smiling, proud and young.
About the hemp-rope on his neck, the golden ringlets clung;
There's ne'er a tear in his blue eyes, fearless and brave are they,
As young Roddy McCorley goes to die on the bridge of Toome today.

When last this narrow street he trod, his shining pike in hand
Behind him marched, in grim array, a earnest stalwart band.
To Antrim town! To Antrim town, he led them to the fray,
But young Roddy McCorley goes to die on the bridge of Toome today.

There's never a one of all your dead more bravely died in fray
Than he who marches to his fate in Toomebridge town today; ray
True to the last! True to the last, he treads the upwards way,
And young Roddy McCorley goes to die on the bridge of Toome today.

"Kevin Barry"

In MOUNT JOY jail one Monday morning
High upon the gallows tree
Kevin Barry gave his young life
For the 'cause of liberty
Just a lad of eighteen summers
Yet no true man can deny
As he walked to death that morning
He proudly held his head up high

Another martyr for old Erin
Another murder for the crown
The British laws may crush the Irish
But cannot keep their spirits down

Just before he faced the hangman
In his dreary prison cell
The British soldiers tortured Barry
Just because he would not tell
The name of all his brave companions
And other things they wished to know
Turn informer or we'll kill you
Kevin Barry answered no

Another martyr for old Erin
Another murder for the crown
Whose cruel laws may crush the Irish
But CANNOT KEEP their spirits down