"Born and Livin' With The Blues"

I recently listened to The Souls of Black Folk by W.E.B. DuBois on Audible and one of the essays was on how Black people have created a historical record of their experience at the hands of White Supremacy through the legacy of their music. It was scholarly and detailed, but it was so interesting that it made me want to chase more information on the topic, which I did. And that made me spend some time on YouTube reveling in the kind of music DuBois was talking about.

The video above features Brownie McGhee playing guitar and singing, Sonny Terry on harp, and the legendary Willie Dixon on bass. And if you want to check out other music I've posted through the years, you may scroll down to "Labels" on the right and click on either "music" or "blues." Or both. (*wink*)

Lucky Peterson: "Is It Because I'm Black?"

The Tedeschi Trucks Band: Revelator

As most of you are aware, I've been recuperating from surgery the past ten days or so and my body is confused. Sometimes, I can't keep my eyes open and sometimes, I'm all the way awake at midnight. Even my emotions are all over the place. You can imagine the havoc this plays with the likelihood of my blogging.

But right in the middle of it all, last night, I decided to watch the film made at Eric Clapton's 2010 Crossroads Guitar Festival in Chicago. This kind of show is a perfect example of why I support Public Television. A kick-ass concert and no commercials. Yes, indeed.

Rock Me Baby -- All Night Long

It would seem somehow irresponsible to write two posts in a row about luuuuuuv and not post a video giving honor to the tradition of songs about the topic. So here's Etta James telling her baby to rock her all night long. And if you thought we get too old for that one day, then pay attention, kiddies, 'cause she'll school you right. Fo' sho'.

I Got the Blues

I've been ranting about the socially-constructed, political notion of race in four of my classes over the past week and talking about rape in the other one. I only got two sentences into my lecture last Thursday before a White male student leapt up, grabbed his books and stomped out.

During this same week, my dog developed a fixation on my presence so strong that he couldn't bear to be without me for even a short time, resulting in his chewing up a whole bunch of stuff and ultimately necessitating my breaking my own heart by giving him away to avoid caging him whenever I'm gone -- something I won't do.

So now, of course, I'm alone with a brain full of darkness, convinced that I'm going to die old and alone in a world of chaos and pain. I got the blues. Maybe this 1970's film clip of Buddy Guy will help me feel better.

Sharde Thomas, Link to the Past and Rising Star

Sharde Thomas & the Rising Star Band, Clarksdale, MS, 2008

If you've been following this week's series on the 21st Sunflower River Blues Festival last weekend in Clarksdale, Mississippi, you've read an overview by now, as well as a post on Willie King and the Liberators. I'd be seriously remiss, however, if I moved on to other subjects without posting specifically about Sharde Thomas & the Rising Star Fife and Drum Band.

Sharde Thomas is the granddaughter of the late Otha Turner, a legend among those who know the blues, captured on film by Martin Scorsese in "Feel Like Going Home", a beautiful portrayal of the connection between the blues and the motherland of Africa. The film opens with Otha Turner and returns to him over and over throughout.

To see Otha with Sharde as a child in a film clip from that video, go here and click on "Watch the Preview." And to catch a glimpse of an even younger Sharde being groomed by her grandfather, check this out:

I just "happened" to watch "Feel Like Going Home" (the first in the renowned PBS series about the blues) two weeks before leaving for Clarksdale. Even on film, watching Otha and Sharde was mesmerizing. So, when I saw her and the band listed on the line-up of performers for Saturday, I made a mental note to make sure I caught their act.

I might have missed them. My running buddies and I had already been at the Blueberry Cafe venue for two and a half hours. We had all had breakfast. And we were ready to head out to see what else was shakin' when we heard the announcement that Sharde Thomas & the Rising Star band would be coming to that stage in a matter of minutes.

It was then that I saw her. Not big as a minute, and having lost all her baby fat, the strikingly beautiful young woman strode through the dining room like the African queen she knows she is, ignoring the crowd at the tables on her way to the back veranda to prepare herself with the band before they entered the door into the performance arena.

Sharde Thomas, Clarksdale, MS, 2008

I was too excited to have any common sense. I followed her like a groupie.

"Are you the little girl that appears with Otha Turner on the documentary?" I asked.

"Yes," she replied, nodding.

"I saw it just a couple of weeks ago," I stuttered, completely disarmed and unnerved. "Your grandfather was a remarkable man and what you're doing is terribly, terribly important. Thank you for carrying on the tradition."

Sharde Thomas was gracious considering that this middle-aged, middle-class-looking White woman was all up in her space right before she had to go on stage.

"Could I have your autograph on this band flyer?" I asked shyly, glad I had something besides my clothes for her to sign because I definitely was not going to let this opportunity pass without putting down some historical marker.

She didn't waste words, but signed the paper and I moved back into the dining room where I tipped Antoinette and Walter to Sharde's presence. They hustled out to take some photos and I made my way into the other room where the standing-room only audience was waiting expectantly. I positioned myself just inside the door they would enter and only about twenty feet from the stage.

Then the door opened and one of the most stirring, resonating sounds I'd ever heard made its way into the room and moved toward the stage in the form of four young people who were carrying Africa like a huge and invisible golden icon, bridging the gap of the past five hundred years as if it was an effortless task. They don't perform. They simply be. And while the skill they display is consummate, it's not their skills that the audience responds to. It's the heartbeat of the Earth pulsating through their instruments and their voices. Their music is not something they make. It's something they are. And the audience moves back and forth between reverent awe and broke loose expressive movement. When Sharde & the Rising Star came down off the stage to lead a processional to the main stage a block or so away, the audience followed them like baby ducks, bobbying and weaving and feeling the joy that buoys a people who have survived what none but them can ever know.

Sharde Thomas & the Rising Star Band, 2005

And lest you think the rivercane fife is the only pipe Sharde can play, listen to this:

Later, I sprang for one of the fifes a family member was selling. I chose the one I wanted out of the few they had brought along and before it was given to me, it was handed to Sharde. She played it, walked around with it for a few minutes, played it some more and then passed it to me. I carried it home like the artifact it is and will treasure it for the rest of my life.

If you happen to be in the neighborhood of Senatobia, Mississippi, for the Turner Family "Everybody Hollerin' Goat" Picnic on August 22nd and 23rd, you can see and hear Sharde Thomas & the Rising Star Fife and Drum band and a lot of other great music for yourself. Otha started hosting these picnics back in the 1950's and they must be something because people travel to get there. There's absolutely no question as to why.

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The photos above were taken by Walter C. Black, Sr.

Down at the Crossroads

Clarksdale, Mississippi, is situated at the legendary "crossroads" of blues fame, where Highway 51 and Highway 49 meet, the magical spot where, it is said, Robert Johnson claimed to have made a deal with the devil for the gift of playing the blues. It sits deep in the delta, where dark-skinned slaves and later sharecroppers bent their backs to make White men rich. While they worked from "dark to dark" six days a week, when night fell on the weekends, African-American bluesmen donned the black hats and black threadbare suits they made famous and sang the anguish of their people into smoky night air in sweaty, jam-packed shacks called "jukes." If God wouldn't just reach down and lift his people out of their pain or strike down their White oppressors where they stood, at least the blues could touch their bodies and comfort their suffering souls, helping them to survive the longest lasting onslaught against one group of people in human history.

Despite Clarksdale's size (it only has about 20,000 residents even now), multiple generations of unrelieved local agony has produced the likes of Eddie "Son" House, John Lee Hooker, Sonny Boy Williamson, Muddy Waters, Ike Turner, Sam Cooke, and Eddie "Bongo" Brown (one of the Funk Brothers, the group now attributed with almost single-handedly creating the Motown sound -- only to remain anonymous until recent years). Nevertheless, it wasn't until the last decade that the White business community in Clarksdale finally and fully admitted, accepted and even embraced the hamlet's reputation (and capitalistic promise) as the Blues Capitol of the World.

And this weekend, I attended, as you already know, the 21st Sunflower River Blues Festival there.

Needless to say, it was FAR too rich an experience to cover in only one post, so I'll offer you this overview and then post twice more later in the week -- once on Willie King and the Liberators and once on Sharde Thomas and the Rising Star Band, both having stories so fascinating and talent so huge, I just couldn't put it all together without making this a book.

My running buddies and I didn't arrive in Clarksdale until late Friday night, so we decided to forego the evening's activities and just get some sleep, which turned out to be a wise choice because things started early on Saturday and, though you couldn't get it all, you would certainly want to get all you could.

When I first started down East 2nd Street about 8:45 a.m., looking for breakfast, I only saw one man out in the street with me. He was wearing two cameras and a big smile, introduced himself as St. Louis Frank and served as a human directory of immediately helpful information. Like where to get a really great country breakfast for six bucks while listening to live blues (the Blueberry Cafe in the refurbished train depot).

I heard Wiley "Tater" Foster (dressed as the old time bluesman he is), Robert Belfour (dressed to the nines), and Terry "Big T" Williams (above), who turned out to be one of my favorites. I saw Big T at the Depot backing Arthniece "Gas Man" Jones, again later at the main stage, and then ran into him personally at the old Hopson Plantation commissary the following afternoon on my way out of town while he was getting ready to set up to play again. His bass player -- young Lee Williams -- was cloning James Jamerson so well, I wished I had three heads so I could totally focus on each of the musicians on the stage.

Then, just as we were headed for the door, we heard that Sharde Thomas and the Rising Star Band was about to lead a processional to the main stage. A couple of us had seen Sharde and her grandfather, Otha Turner (now deceased), featured on a Martin Scorsese documentary on the blues a couple of weeks ago and I'll write more later in the week about their story, but suffice it to say that this was probably the most electrifying moment of the whole weekend for me. Sharde started learning how to play the sugar cane fife at her grandfather's knee when she was about seven and when he passed, the mantle fell to her. Now, at eighteen years old, backed by a set of drummers, just as he was, she can take you to the mountain and make you jump off. To give you an idea, here's just a taste of Sharde and her brothers and cousins three years ago.

After the Rising Star Band left the stage, I listened to some more Big T and then trailed off to get out of the sun for a few minutes in the Delta Blues Museum. The sun was high by this point and it seemed like a good idea not to go back out in it, so we decided this would be the right time to head over to the Riverside Hotel to meet Frank "Rat" Ratliff who lives there, holds court, and conducts tours for whoever's in town. The rooms are named for the folks who made them famous: Bessie Smith (who died in the building back when it was the local Black hospital), Muddy Waters and Robert Nighthawk (who were staying there when they decided to leave the delta for Chicago), and John Lee Hooker, among others. Rat's mother opened the hotel in 1944 and he's been there ever since, where the blues people stay, where the guests might answer the phone, and where a sign in the busy living room reads simply "Be nice or leave."

At 5:00 p.m., however, we had to be back over to the main stage to catch Willie King and the Liberators. I had heard about Willie from an activist/professor at Delta State who told me that Willie was active in the Civil Rights movement of the sixties and just never quit. While he plays blues all over the world, he still lives in a trailer in Old Memphis, Alabama, which is not even on the map. And he rocked the stage.

Willie has a crowd-pleasing practice of coming down off the stage while he's playing and dancing through the crowd. When he took the tips of my fingers with his and jitterbugged with me for a minute, I got such rush, I was embarrassed. After he and the Liberators finished playing, I got his autograph on the cd I bought and gave him my card, telling him about this blog. "Can I call you?" he asked. "I only live three hours from New Orleans."

I paused, startled. "Absolutely!" I finally blurted.

Later, when I did my homework on him, I decided that if he doesn't call me after all, I will unquestionably call him first. We have things to discuss. But more on him in a later post.

After a rest and a shower, we were back at the main stage for Jimmy Burns, who started late, thank goodness, and got our mojo workin' again. I danced so much Saturday, my feet are still complaining.
But that wasn't the end of the evening. When Jimmy stopped playing, we proceeded to Red's where the bartender's shirt reads "The game's for life. Red's. Clarksdale Mississippi" (And yes I came home with one of those t-shirts.) Red's is a serious juke. Maybe one of the last. Small, filthy, old and worn, with the blues soaked into the very dirt itself. I spent the rest of the night there listening to Terry "Harmonica" Bean, who also got me to dance with him more than once while he was playing harp and when my ride came back to get me at a quarter to one (fifteen minutes before closing), I blew the bluesman a kiss and was glad I wasn't driving myself home because I just might not have gone alone.

The next day, we had a late breakfast at Ground Zero, Morgan Freeman's blues club, and then went on out to nose around the old Hopson Plantation commissary that's been turned into a blues club and museum, as well. Looking at the giant bell that ran the workers' lives and then standing in the safe (as big as a bathroom) where the profits were kept was an odd preparation for what came next.

As we pulled out of town, we came across an old Black church with a cemetary on the river butted right up into a cotton field. It was unnerving to all of us to think about how some of the people buried there probably lived out their days in the field and even in death, couldn't get far. So we spent some time in the drizzling rain, taking photos and communing with those who went before. And then we hit the highway, cranking up the cd player to take us home in a cocoon of the blues.
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NOTE: All photos embedded and shown in this post were taken by the RatPackStLouis photographers.

Shemekia And Me

I've been crying the blues for the whole last year since I got to Louisiana because it turns out that "the blues" are a little harder than I expected for a busy woman who looks like me to find these days -- even in the South. But I did my work (and then some), went through my trials and tribulations (and some other people's), and now I'm facing another school year right around the corner. So I need a BIG exhale in the worst way and I am deadly ready to paaaa-rty!

Fortunately, it's time for the Sunflower BluesFest in Clarksdale, Mississippi, only five hours away. So my running buddies and I are headed north today and, just like Shemekia Copeland (who'll be there, too), I'm a wild, wild woman. Imah'na find me a coupla good dancers in Clarksdale and wear. them. out.

See ya Sunday, if I can still type. ;^)

And The Beat Goes On

I was going to post this later this evening, just before I go out to dance the new year in around a bonfire, but I made the mistake of playing it again and got so worked up, I can't wait. So if you're already in the mood for a jam featuring B.B., Bo, Ray, James, Fats, Jerry Lee, and a host of others, here it is. It's even better the second time. And if you can stay in your seat through this one, you need new speakers!

Jesus Would Have "Looted"

I wouldn't normally post an advertisement. But sipping juice and browsing my early morning internet stops, I came across a video on BBC (the British television channel) that features Grammy-winning New Orleans blues man and actor Chris Thomas King talking about "Rise," the cd he released last year on the Katrina disaster. Going from there to King's website, I listened to one of the songs, "What Would Jesus Do?" about the kinds of decisions survivors were forced to make. New Orleans musicians were demonstrating this week for better pay in a city that depends on them for its legend. I hope they get what they deserve because New Orleans wouldn't be New Orleans without them. I'm buying "Rise" this morning. Maybe you'd like to check it out as well.

Key to the Highway

I'm mid-trip, loaded up, and ready to head for the high country at the crack of dawn. Since I'm on someone else's vastly unfamiliar computer, I'm not even going to try to respond to my recent comments, but know I'm seeing them and hungry to be back in more direct contact with you all again. The only key on my key ring now is my car key and, according to Brownie McGhee and Sonny Terry, it's the key to the highway. The next time I post, I'll be there instead of here. And ready for a new adventure.

I'mahna Move Up To The Country, Baby

I'mahna paint my mailbox blue. Me and Taj gonna kick it on my porch with tall frosty glasses of sweet tea with mint. I'll wear my white straw Southern lady hat with the lavender ribbon. And he'll bring his guitar. Two weeks and counting...