*Legends Of The Country Blues- Bukka White

Click On Title To Link To YouTube's Clip Of Bukka White doing "Poor Boy Long Way From Home". Wow.

DVD REVIEW

I have, as yet, not been able to find a copy of Bukka White's work. I am looking for something that has his classic (and fantastic) "Abedeen Missisippi Woman" on it. Until then I will place a previous review of White and fellow country blues musician Son House.

Kicking The Country Blues- Son House and Bukka White

Son House and Bukka White: Masters Of The Country Blues, hosted by Taj Mahal, Yazoo Videos, 1991

I have reviewed the music of country blues legend Son House elsewhere in this space (and above in this entry) and expected to review this documentary solely on the basis of a comment there. I mentioned there that in 1963 Son House, Skip James and Mississippi John Hurt performed at the Newport Folk Festival, a historic Delta blues occasion. One of the vivid cinematic scenes from that event was Son House flailing his National steel guitar, trance like, on the classic "Death Letter Blues". I assumed that I was going to see that performance here. That was not the case. However, with solid introductions to both performers by blues legend Taj Mahal we are treated to a little different look at Son House and a new look at Bukka White.

The Son House segments here concentrate on the lifelong tension between a career in preaching, Baptist style of course, and ‘doin’ the devil’s work’ of singing the blues (and along the way doing a little whiskey drinking, womanizing and hell-raising). House is interviewed here trying to lay out his philosophy, his theology and his acknowledgement that the whiskey and women mainly got the best of him. The actual musical presentation is rather short and religiously oriented- "Death Letter Blues", "John The Revelator" and the like. If you want Son House at his most musical you will have to look elsewhere, mainly to his CDs. If you want to know the man behind the music a little this is for you.

Enough of Son House here though. The real story of this documentary is that the lesser known (at least to me and others that I know who follow the blues) Bukka White steals the show in his segments. Not only is he a better and more versatile guitar player than Son House but he jumps with his musical compositions here. Let us leave it, for now, that if you want to get introduced to Brother White then this is a very good way to start. I might add that in a segment of The Howlin’ Wolf Story that I am also currently in the process of reviewing that White also steals the show from the legendary Wolf with his guitar playing. That said, the reader can expect that Brother White will shortly be getting an individual entry in this space. Yes, indeed, he will.

Bukka White - Aberdeen, Mississippi blues Lyrics
Album: Parchman Farm Blues

I was over in Aberdeen
On my way to New Orlean
I was over in Aberdeen
On my way to New Orlean
Them Aberdeen women told me
Will buy my gasoline

Hey, two little women
That I ain't ever seen
They has two little women
That I ain't never seen
These two little women
Just from New Orlean

Ooh, sittin' down in Aberdeen
With New Orlean on my mind
I'm sittin' down in Aberdeen
With New Orlean on my mind
Well, I believe them Aberdeen women
Gonna make me lose my mind, yeah

(slide guitar & washboard)

Aber-deen is my home
But the mens don't want me around
Aberdeen is my home
But the men don't want me around
They know I will take these women
An take them outta town

Listen, you Aberdeen women
You know I ain't got no dime
Oh-oh listen you women
You know'd I ain't got no dime
They been had the po' boy
All up and down.

(guitar & washboard to end)

July 4: CELEBRATING A “SLAVEHOLDER’S REPUBLIC”-“WHAT TO THE AMERICAN SLAVE IS YOUR 4TH OF JULY?”  James Earl Jones Reads Frederick Douglass’s Historic Speech (July 5, 1852)

July 4: CELEBRATING A “SLAVEHOLDER’S REPUBLIC”

Modern histories of the American Revolution rightly emphasize the interests of slaveholders and land speculators hungry to overthrow Britain’s limits to westward expansion into Native lands.  The colonial leaders debated publicly what sort or government they wanted, but they were unanimous in rejecting “Democracy,” a word which appears nowhere in the Declaration of Independence or the US Constitution.

 

“WHAT TO THE AMERICAN SLAVE IS YOUR 4TH OF JULY?”

James Earl Jones Reads Frederick Douglass’s Historic Speech (July 5, 1852)

 

Click on the image above to watch and listen!

 

*   *   *   *

RENAMING FANEUIL HALL WOULD NOT ERASE HISTORY

We must face some sobering facts: Peter Faneuil — for whom Faneuil Hall is named — was a slave trader, a purveyor of human flesh, an international trafficker of people whose lives he left in ruins…  In defense of retaining the name of Faneuil Hall, many say we should “not change history.” Here we misunderstand that history is always changing in light of new discovery, which is the product of tireless effort to verify truth claims. Without such an approach, we would have held steadfastly to wrong-headed conceptions of the galaxy when new methods, facts, and revelation compel us all otherwise.  In a similar vein, many reject renaming Faneuil Hall because it would “erase” the history of Peter Faneuil a great Bostonian, a “scion of the French Huguenots… fleeing oppression” themselves. But what about Peter Faneuil’s complicity with the slave trade and ownership of other humans? And what about the long and obscured history of blacks in Boston, which we willingly ignore, suppress and reject? In other words, is the historical narrative of black slaves in Boston as important as the stories of whites in our city? Yes, of course.  The move to rename Faneuil Hall should not be viewed as an attempt to “erase history” or change the past. Logic dictates that this is impossible. But remembering history is possible and necessary should we desire to embrace our democratic birthright.   More

 

Once Again On The Cultural Front of The 1960s Uprising-The 50th Anniversary Of The Musical “Hair” On Broadway-A Few Thoughts

Once Again On The Cultural Front of The 1960s Uprising-The 50^th Anniversary Of The Musical “Hair” On Broadway-A Few Thoughts 

A link to an National Public Radio On Point program featuring the 50^th anniversary of the musical and it meaning then, and now:

http://www.wbur.org/onpoint/2018/05/04/fifty-years-of-hair 

By Si Lannon

The first time I heard that Seth Garth was going to preempt political aficionado Frank Jackman and do the 200^th anniversary of the birth of Communist Manifesto writer Karl Marx was upon publication under the former’s name. Which pisses me off since I have been squeezed out apparently of getting any assignments around the incredible number of 1968 events which are having their 50^th anniversary commemorations. (The Marx 200^th birthday anniversary thing intersects 1968 via a then growing interest in his theories among students and young radicals once the old tactics and strategy around Democratic Party takeover politics went asunder.) Upon privately complaining to site manager Greg Green he gave me this assignment to make a few comments of the 50^th anniversary of the musical Hair, on Broadway at least although it had been off-Broadway the year before, one of the few musicals that could have possibly captured some of the pathos, bathos and essence of what was going on in all its messy splendor in that year.

Hair represented that trend away from goodie two shoes formula entertainment like song and dance musicals and thinly pitched family dramatic productions. That represented what the audiences of the 1950s were interested in and still had, have a place in the Great White Way scheme of things. But the unacknowledged (at the time not so now once the cultural critics took their long look at the subject) effect of the vanguard work that was being done in little theaters for little money for little audiences finally took root. Artaud’s Theater of the Absurd, Brecht’s didactic efforts and the like finally found a more receptive general audience. So Hair in 1967-68 did not raise as many hairs (no pun intended among the theater going public as it might have earlier in the decade when it would have been treated as an end of run “beat” saga. That is no to say the subject of intense profanity, vivid sexual reference, an interracial cast and endless paeans to drugs of all sorts didn’t raise hackles, didn’t have members of the audience walking out shaking their heads but as word got out that this was a generational sage for the agents of the Age of Aquarius the thing couldn’t be stopped. And as one voice in the above-mentioned link noted she was still playing in, albeit in Vermont one of the last real refuses of the survivors of the Generation of ’68 along with the Oregon woods and maybe Seattle now that nobody with any left-over hippie aspiration could afford to live in any part of San Francisco except maybe the streets, is still being produced someplace in this wild wicked old land.         

In a funny sort of way the saga of Hair almost accidently traced the line of the 1960s explosion but more importantly in one place stamped “youth nation” as a tribal village like it had never been before, although you could have seen around the edges of it all the way back to the wild boys of the West Coast in their souped up jalopies and hot rods with a “don’t give fuck” about the golden age of American prosperity aborning, the bad boys offspring of the Okie migration that said the more menacing “fuck you up” of the outlaw bikers with their big “hogs” and larcenous hearts, the alienated teen angst misunderstood “please don’t fuck with my head” rebel without a cause types who cooled on James Dean, and the “fuck, fuck, fuck” beat boys talking a blue streak about junkies, negro streets and jailbreaks. And you wonder why youth nation jumped right in the middle of all this when the social situation ran up against racial segregation, sexual uptightness, the fucking war in Vietnam which formed on the corners that Hair hung its hat on since every single guy, and it was all guys then, from the most gung ho Green Beret film watcher to the most ardent draft resister had to deal with the draft and the generational question-go or resist-and the weird queer drag queen fag baiting and women’s liberation.

That draft issue, that each and every guy and by extension their lovers, caught between a rock and a hard place was no joke. Was centrally why Hair spoke to a generation struggling with that very issue-to go or resist- a question that the parents’ generation had almost no conception of since they had fought, or waited anxiously at the door, in their “good war” and could not understand their kids and their idea that maybe going off to kill people, poor people, who they had no quarrel had to be thought about. Claude, a lead character had plenty to think about doped up to the gills or not. The other stuff about race, sex, dope, the signs of the Zodiac, karma, mediation, oneness with the world flow from that central concern.

It wasn’t all beautiful by any means and the threads that hung “youth nation” together came asunder readily enough once the counter-offensive by the night-takers began in earnest (and as Seth Garth and Frank Jackman have said we have been fighting a forty plus year cultural rearguard action against the bastards ever since with no letup in sight). Even in the halcyon days of the Summer of Love in 1967 which is the framework a lot of us had from my town under the guidance of the one and only Scribe, the late Peter Paul Markin who in the end fell under the bus himself, there was plenty of bad stuff going with people ripping people off for drugs, food, anything that was not nailed down. But that was a side issue like many things when something new is trying to breakout and not everybody is as pure as the driven snow and who knows who will show up.

The Captain Crunch-led converted yellow brick road bus we ran up and down the Pacific Coast Highway on picking up vagrant travelers and the wanderers of the youth nation world mostly were seekers, ranters, good people to have on your side when you are trying create a newer world out of what late capitalism and its social norms had left us to pick up the pieces with.

Like I said not everybody, not the Scribe in the end, could go the distance and once that critical mass which sustained the youth nation lost it love of plainsong, of seeking for the mysteries of the universe in a million different ways from tarot cards to LSD and everything in between, and the sense that we could win the drift went against us as people headed back to the confines of late capitalist bourgeois society. Headed back from that youthful detour, except of course those small enclaves mentioned earlier still existing in places like Vermont and Oregon if you ever get up that way. Everybody has some timeline for when the whole thing ebbed, after the hellish 1968 year of events being the prime candidate but that was/is for academics to ferret out. As Frank Jackman has said repeating what the Scribe said before he fell off the world-Wasn’t that a time, yeah, wasn’t that a time.

When The Juke Joints Rocked And Nobody Cared About The Electricity-Delta Blues- And Then Some

When The Juke Joints Rocked And Nobody Cared About The Electricity-Delta Blues- And Then Some


Click On Title To Link To Rounder Records Web Page.

CD Review

Southern Journey, Highway 61, Mississippi Fred McDowell and various artists, Rounder Records, 1997

I have spent a fair amount of time recently reviewing, individually and on various artist compilations, performers from the 1960’s urban folk revival. You know, Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, Dave Van Ronk, Eric Von Schmidt and the like. I have also reviewed the earlier performers who influenced them on the more traditional folk side like Woody Guthrie and Pete Seeger. There was another component of that search for roots that entailed heading south to the Mississippi Delta (or the hills of North Carolina) and getting ‘religion’ on the black country blues scene.

I mentioned in a review of the performers who influenced the 1960’s urban folk scene that it did not fall from the sky but had been transmitted by earlier performers. That, my friends, applies as well to the search for the blues. I also mentioned that we all, later when we understood things better, appreciated that John and Allan Lomax did yeomen’s service to roots music by their travels into the hinterlands in the 1930’s and 1940’s (and had Pete Seeger tag along for a year and thus serve as a little transmission belt to the latter generation) to find blues, mountain and other types of American traditional music. However, most of us got our country blues infusion second-hand through our addiction to local coffeehouses and the performers who provided us entertainment. They, in turn, learned their material from the masters who populate this CD.

This CD compilation is filled with the legends of the genre like the renowned Mississippi Fred McDowell (a major influence on and mentor of Bonnie Raitt). Moreover it contains fife and drum music from North Mississippi, which can be traced back to the African roots, and work songs that do not get nearly enough attention (including by this reviewer) as the work of the Delta artists like McDowell, Son House, John Hurt and Bukka White. Nicely done.

Devil Got My Woman lyrics

You know, I'd rather be the ol' devil
Well, I'd rather be the devil
Then to be that woman' man
You know, rather be the devil
Than to be that woman' man

You know, I'm so sorry
You know, so sorry
That I ever fell in love wit' you-ooo-hoo-oo
Because you know you don't treat me
Baby, like you used ta do-hoo

You know, I laid down last night
You know, I laid down last night
And I thought to take me some rest
But my mind got to rambling
Like a wild geese from the west

You know the woman that I love
The woman that I love
I stol't her from my best friend
But you know he done got lucky
An he done got her back, again

You know, I used to cut your kindleing
You know, I used to cut your kindleing
Baby, then I made you some fire
Then I would tote all your water
Way, way, way, from the bogy brier

You know, my baby she don't drink whiskey
My baby, she don't drink no whiskey
An I know she ain't crazy about wine
Now, it was nothin' but the ol' devil
He done changed my baby's mind

You know, I could be right
You know, I could be right
Then again, I could be wrong
But it was nothin' but the ol' devil
He done got my baby
Now he done gone.

I'm So Glad lyrics

Eee, an I'm so glad
Yes sir, I'm glad
Until I just don't know
What to do

An I am tired a-weeping
I'm so tired a-moanin'
I'm so tired of groanin' for you

(guitar)

Eee, an I am so -
Yes, I am mighty glad
Until I just don't know what -

Would you be my little darlin'?
Would you be my dear?
Would you be my darlin'
Be my dear?

Then I would be mighty -
I would be mighty glad
Then I just wouldn't know
What to do

When I say, 'Coo-coo-coo'
Just like a little baby, do
I would love to have
A lovely kiss from you

Then I would be mighty -
Then I would be so -
Until I just wouldn't know -

You know, I'm tired a-weeping
I'm so tired of a-moanin'
I'm so tired of groanin' for you

(guitar)

Eee, an I am so glad
Yes, I'm so glad
Until I just don't know
What to do-ooo-woo-ooo-ooo.

Cherry Ball Blues lyrics

I love my little cherry ball
Better than I love myself
I love my cherry ball
Better than I love myself
Then if she don't love me
She can't love nobody else

Cherry ball, she quit me
Quit me in a nice, good way
Cherry ball, she quit me
Quit me in a nice, good way
You know, what it take to get her back
I carries it ev'ryday

Now, I left cherry ball standin'
Standin' in the back do' cryin'
Now, I left cherry ball
Standin' in the back do' cryin'
Of course, I feel her condition
But her trouble ain't none a-mine

She's just like a spider
She's hangin' on the wall
She's like a spider
She's hangin' on the wall
You know, she done quit me
She quit me without a cause

Now, when she left me
She left tears in my eye
Now, when she left me
She left tears in my eye
You know, that I love her
But her disposition I do dispise

Now, you can take the Southern
I'm 'on take the Sante Fe
Now, you take the Southern
I'm 'on take the Sante Fe
I'm gon' ride an gon' ramble
'Till cherry ball come back to me

She got to come on back home to me-ee-ee.

Son House - Death Letter lyrics

Lyrics to Death Letter :

I got a letter this mornin, how do you reckon it read?
It said, "Hurry, hurry, yeah, your love is dead"
I got a letter this mornin, I say how do you reckon it read?
You know, it said, "Hurry, hurry, how come the gal you love is dead?"

So, I grabbed up my suitcase, and took off down the road
When I got there she was layin on a coolin' board
I grabbed up my suitcase, and I said and I took off down the road
I said, but when I got there she was already layin on a coolin' board

Well, I walked up right close, looked down in her face
Said, the good ol' gal got to lay here 'til the Judgment Day
I walked up right close, and I said I looked down in her face
I said the good ol' gal, she got to lay here 'til the Judgment Day

Looked like there was 10,000 people standin' round the buryin' ground
I didn't know I loved her 'til they laid her down
Looked like 10,000 were standin' round the buryin' ground
You know I didn't know I loved her 'til they damn laid her down

Lord, have mercy on my wicked soul
I wouldn't mistreat you baby, for my weight in gold
I said, Lord, have mercy on my wicked soul
You know I wouldn't mistreat nobody, baby, not for my weight in gold

Well, I folded up my arms and I slowly walked away
I said, "Farewell honey, I'll see you on Judgment Day"
Ah, yeah, oh, yes, I slowly walked away
I said, "Farewell, farewell, I'll see you on the Judgment Day"

You know I went in my room, I bowed down to pray
The blues came along and drove my spirit away
I went in my room, I said I bowed down to pray
I said the blues came along and drove my spirit away

You know I didn't feel so bad, 'til the good ol' sun went down
I didn't have a soul to throw my arms around
I didn't feel so bad, 'til the good ol' sun went down
You know, I didn't have nobody to throw my arms around

I loved you baby, like I love myself
You don't have me, you won't have nobody else
I loved you baby, better than I did myself
I said now if you don't have me, I didn't want you to have nobody else

You know, it's hard to love someone that don't love you
Ain't no satisfaction, don't care what in the world you do
Yeah, it's hard to love someone that don't love you
You know it don't look like satisfaction, don't care what in the world you do

Got up this mornin', just about the break of day
A-huggin' the pillow where she used to lay
Got up this mornin', just about the break of day
A-huggin' the pillow where my good gal used to lay

Got up this mornin', feelin' round for my shoes
You know, I must-a had them old walkin' blues
Got up this mornin', feelin' round for my shoes
Yeah, you know bout that, I must-a had them old walkin' blues

You know, I cried last night and all the night before
Gotta change my way a livin', so I don't have to cry no more
You know, I cried last night and all the night before
Gotta change my way a livin', you see, so I don't have to cry no more

Ah, hush, thought I heard her call my name
If it wasn't so loud and so nice and plain
Ah, yeah
Mmmmmm

Well, listen, whatever you do
This is one thing, honey, I tried to get along with you
Yes, no tellin' what you do
I done everything I could, just to try and get along with you

Well, the minutes seemed like hours, hours they seemed like days
It seemed like my good, old gal outta done stopped her low-down ways
Minutes seemed like hours, hours they seemed like days
Seems like my good, old gal outta done stopped her low-down ways

You know, love's a hard ol' fall, make you do things you don't wanna do
Love sometimes leaves you feeling sad and blue
You know, love's a hard ol' fall, make you do things you don't wanna do
Love sometimes make you feel sad and blue

Son House - Preachin' Blues lyrics
Lyrics to Preachin' Blues :

Oh, I'm gonna get me a religion, I'm gonna join the Baptist Church
Oh, I'm gonna get me a religion, I'm gonna join the Baptist Church
I'm gonna be a Baptist preacher, and I sure won't have to work

Oh, I'm a-preach these blues, and I, I want everybody to shout
I want everybody to shout
I'm gonna do like a prisoner, I'm gonna roll my time on out

Oh, I went in my room, I bowed down to pray
Oh, I went in my room, I bowed down to pray
Till the blues come along, and they blowed my spirit1 away

Oh, I'd-a had religion, Lord, this every day
Oh, I'd-a had religion, Lord, this every day
But the womens and whiskey, well, they would not set me free

Oh, I wish I had me a heaven of my own
Hey, a heaven of my own
Till I'd give all my women a long, long, happy home

hey, I love my baby, just like I love myself
Oh, just like I love myself
Well, if she don't have me, she won't have nobody else

Son House - Pony Blues lyrics
Lyrics to Pony Blues :

Why don't you catch my pony, now saddle up my black mare?
...my pony, saddle up, up my black mare?
You know, I'm gonna find my baby, well, in the world somewhere

You know, he's a travelin' horse, an' he's too black bad
He's a travelin' pony, I declare, he's too black bad
You know, he got a gait, now, no Shetlan' ain't never had

You know, I taken him by the rein an' I led him around and 'round
I say, I taken him by the reins an' I, I led him, him 'round and 'round
You know, he ain't the best in the world, but he's the best ever been in this town

You know, he's a travelin' horse and he don't deny his name
He's a travelin' pony and he don't deny his name
You know, the way he can travel is a low-down, old, dirty shame

Why don't you come up here, pony, now come on, please let's us go
I said, "Come up, get up now, please pony, now let's us go"
Let's we saddle on down on the Gulf of, of Mexico

You know, the horse that I'm ridin', he can fox-trot, he can lope and pace
I say, the pony I'm ridin', he can fox-trot, he can lope and pace
You know, a horse with them many gaits, you know, I'm bound to win the race

He's a travelin' horse an' he don't deny his name
He's a travelin' pony, he don't deny his name
the way he can travel is a low-down, old, dirty shame


Aberdeen Mississippi 2:33 Trk 9

Bukka White (Booker T. Washington White)
Bukka White - vocal & guitar
& Washboard Sam (Robert Brown) - wshbrd.
Recorded: March 7th & 8th 1940 Chicago, Illinois
Album: Parchman Farm Blues, Roots RTS 33055
Transcriber: Awcantor@aol.com


I was over in Aberdeen
On my way to New Orlean
I was over in Aberdeen
On my way to New Orlean
Them Aberdeen women told me
Will buy my gasoline

Hey, two little women
That I ain't ever seen
They has two little women
That I ain't never seen
These two little women
Just from New Orlean

Ooh, sittin' down in Aberdeen
With New Orlean on my mind
I'm sittin' down in Aberdeen
With New Orlean on my mind
Well, I believe them Aberdeen women
Gonna make me lose my mind, yeah

(slide guitar & washboard)

Aber-deen is my home
But the mens don't want me around
Aberdeen is my home
But the men don't want me around
They know I will take these women
An take them outta town

Listen, you Aberdeen women
You know I ain't got no dime
Oh-oh listen you women
You know'd I ain't got no dime
They been had the po' boy
All up and down.

(guitar & washboard to end)


Fixin' To Die Blues lyrics

I'm lookin' funny in my eyes
And I believe I'm fixin' to die
Believe I'm fixin' to die
I'm lookin' funny in my eyes
Now, I believe I'm fixin' to die, yeah
I know I was born to die
But I hate to leave my children around cryin'
Yeah

Just as sho' we live
It's a, sho' we's born to die
Sho' we's born to die
Just as sho's we live
Sho' we's born to die
Yeah
I know I was born to die
But I hate to leave my children around cryin'
Yeah

Yo mother treated me, children
Like I was her baby child
Was her baby child
Yo mother treated me
Like I was her baby child
That's why's I sighed
Sighed so hard
And come back home to die
Yeah

So many nights at the fireside
How my chillen's mother would cry
How my chillen's mother would cry
So many nights at the fireside
How my chillen's mother would cry
Yeah
'Cause I told the mother I had to say, goodbye

Look over yon-der
On the buryin' ground
On the buryin' ground
Look over yonder, on the burying ground
Yon' stand ten thousand
Standin' still to let me down
Yeah

(washboard & guitar)

Mother, take my chillen back
Before they let me down
Before they let me down
Mother, take my chillen back
'Fore they let me down
Ain't no need a-them screamin' an cryin'
On the graveyard ground.

(washboard & guitar to end)


Shake 'em On Down lyrics

Yes, you're a nice girl, mama
And little girl
Night before day
We gonna
Shake 'em on down

I need some time holler, now
Oh, must I shake 'em on down
I done shout hollerin', now
Must I shake 'em on down

Too much is debted to me
Through the week
Save these chili peppers
Some ol' rainy day, here

Best I'm hollerin', now
Ooh, must I shake 'em on down
I done shout hollerin', now
Must I shake 'em on down, now

Fix my supper
Let me go to bed
This white lightnin' done gone
To my head

Oh, must I holler now
Ooh, must I shake 'em on down
I done shout hollerin', now
Must I shake 'em on down

I ain't been in Georgia, babe
I been told
Georgia women got the best
Jellyroll

These nights time holler, now
Oh, must I shake 'em on down
I done shout hollerin', mama
Must I shake 'em on down

See See mama, heard
You, done-done
Made me love you, now I know
Man done coming

Best I'm hollerin', now
Oh, must I shake 'em on down
I done shout hollerin', mama
Must I shake 'em on down

Pretty girl's got
They don't know
What it is
Make me drunk at that old
Whiskey still

It's best I'm hollerin', now
Oh, must I shake 'em on down
I done shout hollerin'
Must I shake 'em on down.

Poor Boy Long Way From Home by Bukka White Lyrics

Poor boy a long way from home
Poor boy I'm a long way from home
Poor boy I'm a long way from home
I don't have no happy home to go home to

When I left my home my baby's in my arms
When I left my home my baby's in my arms
When I left my home my baby's in my arms
She wanna know, 'Daddy, when you comin' back home?'

(guitar)

They got me down here on the farm
Got me down here on old farm
I don't have no one to come and go my bail
Baby, I wanna come back home to you

(guitar)

Sorry, baby I can't call you over the phone
Sorry, I can't call you over the phone
'Cause they got me down here long distance phone
But I can't call you baby over the phone.

(guitar to end)

*When The Sun Goes Down, Indeed!- The Blues Back In The Days

Click On The Title To Link To YouTube's Film Clip Of Tommy Johnson Performing The Politically Incorrect (Right?)"Big Fat Mama Blues".

CD Review

When The Sun Goes Down: The First Time I Met The Blues, various artists, BMG Music, 2002

In the course of the past year or so I have highlighted any number of blues CD compilations as I have tried to search for the roots of the American musical experience, and in the process retraced some of the nodal points of my own musical interests. I never tire of saying that I have been formed, and reformed by the blues so that when I came upon this “When The Sun Goes Down” series (a very apt expression of the right time for playing the blues) I grabbed each copy with both hands. In one series, the producers, as an act of love without question, have gathered up the obscure, the forgotten, the almost forgotten and the never to be forgotten voices that “spoke” to me in my youth and started me on that long ago love affair with the blues. I have hardly been alone on that journey but it is nice to see that some people with the resources, the time, money and energy have seen fit to honor our common past. Each CD reviewed here, and any future ones that I can get my hands on for there are more than the three I am reviewing today, is chock full of memorable performances by artists who now will, through the marvels of modern high technology, gain a measure of justified immortality.

Here is the cream. I swear, if I have some time, I will do real justice to the influence of one Victoria Spivey. For now though feast upon her youthful version of her composition “Telephoning The Blues”. Today the phrasing would probably require “Text-messaging The Blues” but anyway you put it old Victoria’s got them, and got them bad. The name Tommy Johnson should be more widely known today than it is. Blues performer and archivist Rory Block had covered a few of his songs many years ago but he deserves ‘re-discovery’, especially on this alcohol-related topical number “Canned Heat Blues”. This is the real stuff from the edges of society down in the hobo jungles. It is a tough dollar there, and that ain't no lie.

I only need to mention Blind Willie McTell here slightly as he is one of the few old voices that has not been forgotten, especially on the much covered, and deservedly so, “Statesboro Blues”. I have recently gotten back into that hybrid blues/folk sound produced by jug band music in reviews of Jim Kweskin, Maria Muldaur and Geoff Muldaur from the 1960’s Jim Kweskin and the Jug Band. Well, where do you think they got some of their material from? Natch, the Memphis Jug Band here doing the old classic “Stealin’, Stealin'” (ya, I love that phrase “stealin' back to my used-to-be” too) and “Cocaine Blues” (when it was legal, of course).

Anything done by Texas bluesman Furry Lewis is good (think of those “Cassie Jones”’, parts one and two, masterpieces of the slide guitar). Here is a whimsical one, “Judge Harsh Blues”. Same goes for Sippy Wallace, a blues singer who I have reviewed individually in this space, with her youthful rendition of “I’m A Mighty Tight Woman”. For comparison purposes her version done later when she was ‘discovered’ in the 1960’s is better. By the way, as an interesting example of how the old time country blues and the folk revival of the early 1960’s linked up, The Jim Kweskin Jug Band members mentioned above and Sippy shared many a stage together in those days. Nice, right? Texan Jimmy Rodgers demonstrates his incredible yodel work on “Blue Yodel #9” although I will argue, a little, about his inclusion here. He belongs in the pantheon of some genre but I do not think that it is the blues. Finally, a tip of the hat to the title tune “The First Time I Met The Blues” by Little Brother Montgomery. I rest my case.

Lyrics to Canned Heat Blues :

Crying, canned heat, canned heat, mama, crying, sure, Lord, killing me.
Crying, canned heat, mama, sure, Lord killing me.
Takes alcorub to take these canned heat blues.

Crying, mama, mama, mama, you know, canned heat killing me.
Crying, mama, mama, mama, crying, canned heat is killing me.
Canned heat don't kill me, crying, babe, i'll never die.

I woke up, this morning, crying, canned heat 'ourn my bed.
Run here, somebody, take these canned heat blues.
Run here, somebody, and take these canned heat blues.

[ Canned Heat Blues Lyrics on http://www.lyricsmania.com/ ]

*Has He Got His Mojo Workin'? - The Blues Harmonica Of The Late James Cotton

Click On Title To Link To YouTube's Film Clip Of James Cotton Doing "Slow Blues". Yes, now you know why he played with Muddy Waters.

Has He Got His Mojo Workin'? - The Blues Harmonica Of James Cotton

CD REVIEW

Got My Mojo Workin’, James Cotton and his band, Blu Mountain Records, 2003

I have, over the past year or so, spent some time tracing the roots of the blues from its southern country home, mainly on the plantations, farms and small towns that surround them, through its transition into the larger cities of the South where the crowds and hence the lyrics got more sophisticated and, ultimately, to the blues Mecca, Chicago, and other Northern cities where blacks migrated en masse between the two world wars and in the immediate post World War II period. As part of that exposition I have discussed not only the differences in the lyrics reflecting the changeover from the moaning and groaning of the plantation life to the hyper-intensity of city life. I have also mentioned the key change in the guitar going from some old acoustic instrument to the electric guitar of the cities.

Along the way I have failed to mention, or not mentioned enough, some of the other changes in instrumentation. For one, and this is relevant here, the harmonica. This instrument, as an accompanying sound, has a long history beyond its key place in the blues saga. However, with the citification of the blues its role in a blues band as back up to those electric guitars and drums became more central. In short, a strong harmonica player became necessary to fill in the spaces left by the reverberating guitar. Correspondingly, virtuosity on the harmonica brought its own rewards. I would argue that Sonny Boy Williamson's role in this change was key in the 1920's and 1930's followed by Lil' Walter of the early Muddy Waters Band. And who followed Walter - well, the artist under review here, James Cotton.

Like all talented musicians with any sense of leadership James Cotton, after serving his long apprenticeship with Muddy Waters, went on to form his own band. This CD is one of the results of those efforts. James, as always, plays the bejesus out of the harmonica. His backup band is a little more than adequate. The gruff-voiced Cotton does so-so a job on the vocals. However, this album left me drifting in and out. Some tracks are very fine like "Fanny Mae", "Good Morning Little Schoolgirl" and the title track "Got My Mojo Workin'". However, such numbers as "Goodbye My Lady", "Teenie Weenie Bit" and Help Me" seemed forced. I confess this is the only CD of Cotton's that I have reviewed but off of this performance I sure wish he had been back with Muddy wailing out on something like "Hootchie Gootchie Man".
Got My Mojo Working

by Preston Foster / McKinley Morganfield a.k.a. Muddy Waters

Got my mojo working, but it just won't work on you
Got my mojo working, but it just won't work on you
I wanna love you so bad till I don't know what to do

I'm going down to Louisiana to get me a mojo hand
I'm going down to Louisiana to get me a mojo hand
I'm gonna have all you women right here at my command

Got my mojo working
Got my mojo working
Got my mojo working
Got my mojo working
Got my mojo working, but it just won't work on you

Play on!

Got my mojo working
Got my mojo working
Got my mojo working
Got my mojo working
Got my mojo working, but it - uh uh - just won't work on you

__________
Note: the original version of Got My Mojo Working was sung in a jump blues style by Ann Cole. She performed the song on stage in 1956, which was how Muddy Waters found the song!. Muddy Waters adapted it to his style but the bassline is still the same. The song can be found on the 1999 Rhino Records anthology album Jump, Jive & Swing. These are the lyrics to the original version as sung by Ann Cole and written by Preston Foster:

FANNIE MAE

Well I want somebody to tell me what's wrong with me
I want somebody to tell me what's wrong with me
Oh I ain't in any trouble and so much misery
Now Fannie Mae, baby won't you please come home
Fannie Mae ae ae, baby won't you please come home
Yeah I ain't been in debt baby since you been gone
I can hear your name a ringin on down the line
I can hear your name a ringin on down the line
I want to know pretty love how do I win my time

MUSICAL INTERLUDE

I no o o o for me, I no-o-o-o for me
Well I ain't been in trouble and so much misery

Song Lyrics: Good Morning Little School Girl

Written and Recorded by: Sonny Boy Williamson II (1937)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Good mornin' 'lil school girl,
can I go home, can I go home with you?
Tell your mother and your father,
I'm a little school boy too

Woke up this mornin',
woke up this mornin',
I didn't know what to,
I didn't know what to do
I didn't have no blues,
baby, bit I couldn't be satisfied

I'm gettin' me an airplane,
I'm gettin' me an airplane,
get in my airplane
Gon' fly all oh-oh, gon' fly all over this land
I'm gonna find my little school girl,
find her in the world somewhere

Good mornin' 'lil school girl,
good mornin' 'lil school girl
Can I go home with, can I go home with,
can I go home with you?
Tell your mother and your father,
Johnny little school boy too

Come be my baby, come be my baby,
I buy you a diamond, I buy you a diamond ring
You don't be my little baby,
I ain't gonna buy you a doggone ring

On The Cultural Front of The 1960s Uprising-The 50th Anniversary Of The Musical “Hair”-A Few Thoughts

On The Cultural Front of The 1960s Uprising-The 50^th Anniversary Of The Musical “Hair”-A Few Thoughts 

A link to an National Public Radio On Point program featuring the 50^th anniversary of the musical and it meaning then, and now:

http://www.wbur.org/onpoint/2018/05/04/fifty-years-of-hair  

By Si Lannon

The first time I heard that Seth Garth was going to preempt political aficionado Frank Jackman and do the 200^th anniversary of the birth of Communist Manifesto writer Karl Marx was upon publication under the former’s name. Which pisses me off since I have been squeezed out apparently of getting any assignments around the incredible number of 1968 events which are having their 50^th anniversary commemorations. (The Marx 200^th anniversary thing intersects 1968 via a then growing interest in his theories among students and young radicals once the old tactics and strategy around Democratic Party takeover politics went asunder.) Upon privately complaining to site manager Greg Green he gave me this assignment to make a few comments of the 50^th anniversary of the musical Hair, on Broadway at least although it had been off-Broadway the year before, one of the few musicals that could have possibly captured some of the pathos, bathos and essence of what was going on in all its messy splendor in that year.

Hair represented that trend away from goodie two shoes formula entertainment like song and dance musicals and thinly pitched family dramatic productions. That represented what the audiences of the 1950s were interested in and still had, have a place in the Great White Way scheme of things. But the unacknowledged (at the time not so now once the cultural critics took their long look at the subject) effect of the vanguard work that was being done in little theaters for little money for little audiences finally took root. Artaud’s Theater of the Absurd, Brecht’s didactic efforts and the like finally found a more receptive general audience. So Hair in 1967-68 did not raise as many hairs among the theater going public as it might have earlier in the decade when it would have been treated as an end of run “beat” saga. That is no to say the subject of intense profanity, vivid sexual reference, an interracial cast and endless paeans to drugs of all sorts didn’t raise hackles, didn’t have members of the audience walking out shaking their heads but as word got out that this was a generational sage for the agents of Aquarius the thing couldn’t be stopped. And as one voice in the above mentioned link noted she was still playing in, albeit in Vermont, one of the last real refuses of the survivors of the Generation of ’68 is still being produced someplace in this wild wicked old land.         

The Ghost Of Lawrence Landon-A Si Landon Story-With Hank Williams' "Cold, Cold Heart In Mind

The Ghost Of Lawrence Landon-A Si Landon Story-With Hank Williams' "Cold, Cold Heart In Mind 

   

[The Pete Markin mentioned in the sketch below and in a previous one about Delores Landon, Lawrence Landon’s wife and Si’s mother, is the late Peter Paul Markin who despite a lot of serious work as a journalist back in the early 1970s fell off the edge of the world down south of the border and fell down shot dead with a couple of slugs in some desolate back alley in Sonora after a busted drug deal as far as anybody in America was able to find out (after being seriously warned off the case by the Federales and some guys who looked like they ate gorillas for breakfast). The Peter Markin who moderates this site is a pseudonym for a guy, Frank Jackman, who along with Si Landon, Jack Callahan, Frankie Riley, Josh Breslin and a bunch of other guys knew Markin in the old growing up days and has taken the pseudonym in honor of his fallen comrade who before his untimely end had taught him a lot about the world and its ways, quite a lot. “Peter Paul Markin”]         

Memory floods. Memory flows unstaunched down to the endless sea of time. Some people shut off that memory flow to preserve their sanity others, others like Si Landon from the old corner boy Acre neighborhood in North Adamsville make it their business, go a long way out of their way to make it their business to remember, to be known among their circle as great rememberers. Si Landon had recently had occasion to test that theory out in a sort of roundabout way. He had been driven to remember one set of memories and that exploded another set in his face almost by happenstance.    

The whole episode had started when due to irreconcilable differences with his third wife, Maria, he had been given “the boot,” had been given his walking papers by her after almost a decade together. We will not get bogged down with the particulars of the causes for the separation except to say that Maria’s complaints were centered on Si’s increased moodiness and distance (that was Maria’s polite way, as was her way, of putting the matter) as well as her own need to “find herself”. The long and short of the situation was that both had agreed that “rolling stone” Si would leave the house they had shared for the previous decade. He wound up for several months staying at various friends’ places and in a sublet from a friend’s daughter before he realized that he needed some rootedness, some familiar surroundings now that he was alone again with only his thoughts and memories.

One tough “exiled” day, that was the way Si described his various experiences since the breakup with Maria he had an epiphany which led to his decision to head back to the old neighborhood after an almost fifty year absence. After a certain amount of searching he was able to find a condo for rent (he was not ready to seek a permanent condo-type situation or quite sure that he was up for that experience since he had spent the previous forty or so years in single family housing so a rental was testing the waters). The condo was located a couple of blocks from his growing up family tumbled down shack of a house in a school which had been closed when the demographics in the area changed and converted to the condo complex. Although he had not gone to school there since his family had moved back into his mother’s old neighborhood when he was in junior high school from “the projects” school across town three of his four younger brothers (no sisters to his mother’s dismay) had gone there and that memory had helped determine his move to location.                     

He had strong recollections of his brothers’ time there and that was a source of some solace once he got settled in. Then a couple of days after that moving in he noticed in the front foyer that the developers of the place had kept some of the historic aspects of the place by keeping a series of graduating class photographs on one wall. On another was the 1925 announcement in the North Adamsville Gazette of the opening of the school. That hard fact triggered a sudden re-emergent long suppressed fear in Si once he realized that that 1925 date meant that his mother had also gone to school there something that he probably know way back when but had forgotten about. Sure enough looking at those old graduating class photos there was Delores Landon (nee Riley) sitting in the front row. All the battles from early childhood until just a few years before her death came rushing back into his head. [Their relationship as described in a previous sketch had consisted of longer and longer periods of withdrawal after recrimination until there was a point of no turning back reflected in the fact that Si had not even attended his mother’s funeral for a lot of reasons but that one primarily.-Markin] One late night when he could not get to sleep a couple of weeks after he had moved in Si thought he heard his mother’s voice calling out to him from the foyer that he would never amount to anything her favorite taunting mantra foe him whenever he got in trouble.  Si freaked out over the idea that he would have to re-fight all the old memory battles. Damn. (Si by the way turned out to have been a better than average lawyer so he put paid to that eternal standard Delores notion.)              

No question the dominant force in the Landon household, the five surly boys household, was one Delores Landon. That sad fact was no accident, or if it was accident it was so by virtue of the circumstances which befell Delores Riley and Si’s father, Lawrence Landon. Delores and Lawrence had met through the contingencies of World War II when Lawrence Landon had been stationed before being discharged from the Marines at the famous Riverdale Naval Depot, a place which had earned its fame then for producing something like one troop transport vessel per day on those manic twenty-four-even shifts throughout the war. Delores had worked in an office in the complex doing her bit for the war effort. They had met at a USO dance one Friday night and the rest was history for the next forty or so years until he passed away at 65. Part of that history was the production of a crop of five boys, five hungry boys as it turned out led by Si. The other part was that Lawrence had originally come from the south, had been born and raised in coal country, in Harlan County down in Kentucky in the heart of “white trash” poor Appalachia. Before the Marines broke the string he had been the latest in about five generations of Landons to work the coal mines.

Coming and staying in the Boston area with nothing but a tenth grade education and useless coalmining skills meant that Lawrence was always scrabbling for last hired, first fired work. It also meant that scrambling to do his best as a father to provide for his own that he was a very distant figure in the day to day Landon household which in practice meant that Si was from an early age the “surrogate” father a fate which almost destroyed him before he finally left the family house. It also meant that beyond the distant figure of his father he also knew next to nothing about him. Except, and this was a big except, Lawrence Landon never ever sided with Si against his mother whether she was right or wrong in whatever accusations she made against him. Tough work, tough work indeed although he never was as bitter against his father as he had been against Delores. (A lot of what Si would learn about his father would only come after Lawrence had passed on from his youngest brother Kenneth who made serious effort to try and understand what his father had gone through. So Kenneth had known, which will become important in a minute, that his father had been called “the Sheik” by his fellow Marines for his abilities with the women what with his soft Southern accent and black hair and eyes. Had known as well that beyond a young coal-miner’s skills he had some talent as a musician, as a better than average guitar player and singer who was locally known in the Saturday night “red barn” circuit throughout Appalachian Kentucky for his prowess in song and with the girls along with his band The Hills and Hollows Boys.)

That is perhaps why when Si was old enough and thoughtful enough to know better he recognized that Lawrence had done the best he could with what he had to offer. It had been a hard lesson to learn even with some leeway. So it was no accident that a few weeks after Si’s strange nocturnal “encounter” with his mother (being a man of science he had eventually dismissed, or half dismissed that “voice” as just some gusts of wind coming from outside his windows) he had an “encounter” with the ghost of his father. Si had for many years, going back to his college days been something of a folk music aficionado. Had breathed in the folk minute that passed through the world starting in the very early 1960s.

For some thirty years previously well after the folk minute had burst and the remnants were to be seen playing before small crowds in church basement monthly coffeehouses Si had dilly-dallied with playing the guitar and singing along some folk songs which he had picked up through a famous folk music book which had the imprimatur of the late folksinger extraordinaire Pete Seeger (and lately had picked up songs from another source-the Internet- which moreover provide d the chordal arrangements for many of the songs requested). His attention to the guitar and to practice had always been a hit or miss thing through three marriages and an assortment of children and lots of work to keep them in clover (and alimony and child support when those times came). Still Si never completely abandoned either singing or playing. (For lots of reasons but mainly to keep out of the family’s hair during the Maria marriage he had done his sporadic efforts on the third floor of their house far away from other distractions. But also to be able to say when serious folksingers, including Maria, asked about his abilities that he was a “third floor” folksinger, meaning third rate which seemed about right. That would draw a laugh from those, again including Maria, whom he considered “first floor” folksingers.)            

While he was in “exile” Si had had a fair amount of time on his hands not having to attend to family matters or the million and one other things that are required in a relationship. (Si had had to laugh, a  bitter laugh, one night when he was thinking about those million and one things that he had been about nine hundred thousand, maybe closer to a  million short on keeping the Maria relationship going.) He began one of the most consistent sustained efforts at playing and singing that he had ever done. He continued those efforts when he moved back to his hometown.

What he had begun to notice in exile was that the new material that he was picking up from the Internet or from song books were a lot of old time Hank Williams ballads. Now Si was a city boy, always made it clear that he hated country music, the music of the Grand Ole Opry being his standard for what passed for country music except for one very brief period in the early 1980s when he was attracted to the music of “outlaw” country singers and songwriters like Willie Nelson and Townes Van Zandt. But he always had had something of a soft spot for the anguished Williams. Had done so ever since not knowing that it was country music at the time he would pester Lawrence to play Williams’ Cold, Cold Heart for him when he was a kid. (Lawrence always had a guitar around the house and always like Si would sporadically play when he had a few minutes from the never-ending toil of providing for the five hungry boys and the one overwhelmed wife.)                       

One night in his condo in North Adamsville he began to practice on the guitar when he suddenly thought about his father’s playing of that Williams’ song. He went on the Internet to get the lyrics and chords and began to play. As he played a few times he got a very strong feeling that something was pushing him to play that song far better than he played most songs. On a final attempt Si felt that he had played the song almost like he had heard his father cover the classic. That night he began to realize that the ghosts of his youth weren’t always going to haunt his dreams. That present in that old neighborhood former schoolhouse were lots of things that would surface. Mostly though that night he shed a tear as he finished up knowing that he had cursed his father more than he should have he once again called out “Pa, you did the best you could, you really did.”      

*Songs To While Away The Class Struggle By-Pete Seeger's "Oh, Had I A Golden Thread"

*Songs To While Away The Class Struggle By-Pete Seeger's "Oh, Had I  A Golden Thread"

Click on the title to link a "YouTube" film clip of Pete Seeger (with Judy Collins) performing "Oh, Had I A Golden Thread."


In this series, presented under the headline “Songs To While Away The Class Struggle By”, I will post some songs that I think will help us get through the “dog days” of the struggle for our communist future. I do not vouch for the political thrust of the songs; for the most part they are done by pacifists, social democrats, hell, even just plain old ordinary democrats. And, occasionally, a communist, although hard communist musicians have historically been scarce on the ground. Thus, here we have a regular "popular front" on the music scene. While this would not be acceptable for our political prospects, it will suffice for our purposes here. Markin.

*************

Oh, Had I A Golden Thread(Pete Seeger)


Oh, had I a golden thread
And needle so fine
I'd weave a tapestry
Of rainbow design
Of rainbow design

Far over the water
I'd weave my magic strand
To every city
Through every single land
Through every land

And in it I would weave the bravery
Of women giving birth
In it I would weave the innocence
Of children over all the earth
Children of all earth

Show my brothers and my sisters
My rainbow design
And bind up this sorry world
With hand and heart and mind
Hand and heart and mind

O had I a golden thread
And needle so fine
I'd weave a tapestry
Of rainbow design
Of rainbow design

From The Marxist Archives-Karl Liebknecht-No Unity With The Class Enemy-Build The Resistance

From The Marxist Archives-Karl Liebknecht-No Unity With The Class Enemy-Build The Resistance  

Workers Vanguard No. 1104 27 January 2017 TROTSKY LENIN No to Unity with Class Enemy! (Quote of the Week) Today, the reformist left calls for “unity” to fight against Trump. This boils down to uniting behind the Democratic Party, political representatives of the class enemy. Writing in 1918, as the German Revolution was unfolding, revolutionary leader Karl Liebknecht warned against the dangers of unity with those defending the capitalist order. Liebknecht, along with Rosa Luxemburg, belatedly split with the socialist conciliators who wanted to unite with the Social Democratic Party (SPD), which had betrayed the working class by supporting German imperialism during World War I. In January 1919, shortly after founding the German Communist Party, Liebknecht and Luxemburg were murdered by right-wing paramilitary forces at the behest of the SPD government and the revolution was defeated. Unity! Who could yearn and strive for it more than we? Unity, which gives the proletariat the strength to carry out its historic mission. But not all “unity” breeds strength. Unity between fire and water extinguishes the fire and turns the water to steam. Unity between wolf and lamb makes the lamb a meal for the wolf. Unity between the proletariat and the ruling classes sacrifices the proletariat. Unity with traitors means defeat. Only forces pulling in the same direction are made stronger through unity. When forces pull against each other, chaining them together cripples them both. We strive to combine forces that pull in the same direction. The current apostles of unity, like the unity preachers during the war, strive to unite opposing forces in order to obstruct and deflect the radical forces of the revolution. Politics is action. Working together in action presupposes unity on means and ends. Whoever agrees with us on means and ends is for us a welcome comrade in battle. Unity in thought and attitude, in aspiration and action, that is the only real unity. Unity in words is an illusion, ​self-​deception, or a fraud. The revolution has hardly begun, and the apostles of unity already want to liquidate it. They want to steer the movement onto “peaceful paths” to save capitalist society. They want to hypnotize the proletariat with the catchword of unity in order to wrench power from its hands by reestablishing the class state and preserving economic class rule. They lash out at us because we frustrate these plans, because we are truly serious about the liberation of the working class and the world socialist revolution. Can we unify with those who are nothing more than substitutes for the capitalist exploiter, dressed as socialists? Can we, may we join with them without becoming accomplices in their conspiracies? Unity with them would mean ruin for the proletariat. It would mean renouncing socialism and the International. They are not fit for a fraternal handshake. They should be met not with unity, but with battle. The toiling masses are the prime movers of social revolution. Clear class consciousness, clear recognition of their historic tasks, a clear will to achieve them, and unerring effectiveness—these are the attributes without which they will not be able to complete their work. Today more than ever the task is to clear away the unity smokescreen, expose half measures and halfheartedness, and unmask all false friends of the working class. Clarity can arise only out of pitiless criticism, unity only out of clarity, and the strength to create the new socialist world only out of unity in spirit, goals, and purpose. —Karl Liebknecht, “The New ‘Civil Peace’” (19 November 1918), printed in The German Revolution and the Debate on Soviet Power (Pathfinder Press, 1986)