Once Again, On I’d Rather Be The Devil Than To Be That Woman’s Man-With Rory Block In Mind 

 

By Bradley Fox

“You know Rory Block one of the great belting women’s blues singers to come along in a while in the tradition of those old-time barrelhouse blues singers like Bessie Smith, and about twelve million other Smiths along with our own Bonnie Raiit doesn’t owe me a thing,” chuckled Sam Lowell while sipping his next sip of Chivas Regal to Bart Webber while they were waiting for the night’s live music to start at Jack’s in Cambridge one cold winter night a few months ago. Bart knew from that chuckle while he was sipping his next sip of Haig’s Highland Scotch that Sam intended to tell him some kind of story mixing up politics which had been on their minds while the dreaded 2016 presidential campaign was unwinding its ill winds and music, the music they learned to love, folk and blues back in the day. That latter part of the mix more and more the subject of conversation of late as both men have since giving up respectively the day to day running of a law office and a printing business had time to reminisce about the old days musical interests and the cold hard fact that they were among the dwindling number of aficionados still alive of both those genre.

Both agreed that the two traditions would never completely die out just like the ballads from the old country, Great Britain, were preserved by a guy like Francis Child to be picked up by the folk revival of the early 1960 over one hundred years later. Would get further attention via YouTube and the new communications technology which would, even if by accident as with Sam’s picking up a radio station one night in the early 1960s and hearing Be-Bop Benny’s Blue Hour out of Chicago, get some young person looking for something different to check the old-time music out. But a look around the room at Jack’s that night was serious anecdotal evidence of that current dwindling since the room was only half full and with that half full’s demographic one could have mistaken the event for an AARP meeting. To speak nothing of the throw-back outfits and hairstyles of both men and women like they had not heard that the 1960s were over, had been over for a while now. And this sparse audience was for Jake Landon, Jake the big troubadour of the 1960s who had lines waiting to get in to see him at Jack’s or any number of places in Cambridge, the Village, Chi Town Old Town, Ann Arbor, or North Beach.              

“Before you get to that story I know you want to tell since I know by that half-sinister chuckle you have a story to tell me what did you mean by our own Bonnie Raiit?,” Bart plaintively asked Sam. Sam was always assuming that Bart knew every reference to folk or blues music that he threw out but also knew that Bart had been a newcomer to those genre well after the folk revival of the early 1960s. Had picked the stuff up after Sam had come back to their growing up hometown of Riverdale when he had come back from sowing his wild oats out West, out on the Coast mostly along the Pacific Coast Highway riding in a converted yellow brick road school bus in the early 1970s. So sometimes, sometimes when not in his cups like just then Sam was willing to gather some high points for his friend.

“Sorry, I thought you knew that Bonnie Raiit had started out in Boston after dropping out of Radcliffe to try to make a name for herself as a singer. I first saw her at some free concert, free if you can believe that when it cost us fifteen bucks each just to see Jake tonight, on the Boston Common I think in either 1967 or 1968 when I had come back for a few weeks from out West to settle some draft board problems. And guess what this place, Jack’s, is where she hung out, performed, worked out the kinks in her material and you would see her here all the time, buy her a drink just for the heck of it. I didn’t know her well but I could nod to her on the street and she would say “how was it going Sam,” stuff like that. So, yeah, our own.” 

“Hey, Jake’s going to be back on stage from intermission in a few minutes so let me tell you the “why” of why Rory Block doesn’t own me a thing,” Sam interjected as he saw Bart wanted to pursue that Bonnie Raitt line of questioning further. That stopped Bart since as he knew from prior experience Sam the eternal lawyer even if in semi-retirement these days was going to say his piece regardless. 

“Well it was back in 2008, no late 2007 when that 2008 benighted presidential campaign was beginning to rear its ugly head. This is before Obama waylaid Hillary Clinton, out organized her no question, and never knew what hit her like with Bernie Sanders this time although she will get through this one since Bernie is not a good old boy Democrat but late-coming interloper to that party. She thought that she had the nomination sewed up and tied up with a ribbon since times had been tough for Democrats since Bush, Junior stole the 2000 election and that everybody was dying to have another damn Clinton bring the party back to victory, or wanted her as the first woman President of the United States.

“You know as part of the process of campaigning for that office somebody, some hired hack really who needs the dough or is a sycophant and political whore writes up some kind of vacuous political biography of the candidate comparing them as only second to God or something like that. Maybe better if she or he is a real hack and gets carried away with the idea of being able to pay the rent that month. Those bastards have been writing this drivel since about Jackson’s time, hell, half the reason that Lincoln got nominated at the Republican convention in 1860 was that the “wide awakes” widely distributed some paean to him, you know his log cabin man-of-the-people, never-tell-a-lie, chop-down-a-cherry-tree-stuff. As such things go in these days of the Internet and Internet commerce the book was available on Amazon (and other sites too probably but I can only speak of Amazon) so I for some misguided reason bought the book, and read it too.  

“In those days and now too I like to write something other than legal briefs and the like all the time, that is not really writing as I have told you before and so if some book, film or music thing catches my attention I write up a short review. That is what I did with the Hillary biography because I was irate over the blatant hagiography of the thing and wanted to warn people about buying this schlock. So I wrote this short review which I headlined, I’d Rather Be The Devil Than Be That Woman’s Man [Bart smiled a knowing smile since he did know where that title had come from.] The idea was to make clear that especially after her vote for the Iraq War in 2002 when she was a Senator from New York that no way was I going to support her as much as I, if you remember since we talked about it when you were so hot on Obama, I would have liked to see a woman president if for no other reason than it would be a nice change of pace. Now the way that you can comment on a review on Amazon is by pushing a “helpful” button. There is not a “not helpful” button but they give the total number of comments so you can figure it out if people liked or didn’t like the review). I think before I gave the damn thing up I had fifteen “helpful” out of seventy-eight. So not good, not good at all.     

“Worse was when I showed it around to our political friend and associates, especially the feminists, you know Becky, Sarah, Beth, and Sonia, who were supporting her as a woman for president mostly. Said I was all kinds of sexist, murderer, assassin, molester of the public order, and cheap-shot artist. As to the points made they conceded that Hillary was no angel, was wrong on the Iraq War, should have let Bill hang in the wind on that Monica thing, and was even less trustworthy than him, at least he smiled when he lied, on television or under oath.”     

“But, and I could tell by your look when I mentioned the title of the piece that I was just going back to a line from the old bluesman Skip James’ Devil Got My Woman where after going through seven kinds of hell with her that was how he summed up what she had done to him, made him rather be with the devil than be with her so she must have really put the hurt on that brother.

Bart asked Sam “I forget, was Skip James the guy you said blew everybody away at the Newport Folk Festival?”

“Yeah,” Sam replied, “I think I told you about how Mike Greenleaf, a guy whom I met down in New York City when I was staying with a gal I met from Hunter College High whom I met at his coffeehouse across the street from the Gaslight, had a few years before maybe 1958, 1959 you know how I am about dates without a calendar, had gone down with Sam Stein, Guy Clark and a couple of other guys from NYU and Columbia to look for old-time bluesmen they had heard were still down there. Hear, I think Mike said from Pete Seeger whose father had earlier, in the 1930s, gone down there himself and so with that imprimatur they went through a bunch of rural North Carolina, Georgia, Alabama and Mississippi and “discovered” guys like John Hurt, Bukka White, Sam Maxwell, Magic Jim, Son House and of course Skip James.

“Brought them north to play the clubs and coffeehouses to sell-out standing in line around the corner audiences in New York and Boston. Then somebody got the idea of getting hold of George Wein, the Newport Folk promoter to have a shoot-out one afternoon with all of them playing to be king of the hill. I was there that afternoon and I figured that Bukka White whom I had heard before and knew of since Tom Rush had covered his Panama Limited would blow everybody away. Then this wizened old guy with a straw hat on came and sat down (they all sat for these guys were ancient then, most only had a few more years to live so it was good that they got some notoriety before they passed on). Played a couple of things, Crow Jane, Cherry Ball, stuff like that, okay once you adjusted to that falsetto voice of his. Then out of nowhere he started up with Devil Got My Woman and the famous, or infamous if you choose, line. Yeah, he was the king of the hill that day. That song always stuck with me and if you remember it was the first Skip James song I played for you that night in 1971 when you asked me what this old time country blues stuff that you had heard on WCAS and liked was all about. 

“Where does Rory Block come in to all that though?” Bart, getting a little tipsy after several serious drinks, inquired as he could see Jake starting for the stage and the start of the next set. 

“Oh yeah, Rory. Well you know maybe ten years before that beef in 2008 I started listening to Rory, remember I told you that I had heard a voice on WCAS that was a white woman singing but belting it out barrelhouse style like the black female singers like Bessie Smith did back in the day. After hearing that I had bought a couple of her records, records so you know it was a while back (and later some CDs), listened to them and kind of put it in the back of my mind. All I remember is that album had a lot of covers not just of barrelhouse blues mamas but old time bluesman as well, you know Tommy Johnson, Lonnie Johnson guys like that. When I was taking hell for my use of Skip James’ line I kept thinking in the back of my mind that somebody, some woman had done a female version of Devil Got My Woman, obviously with the gender changed. Then I finally remembered it was Rory.

“So up-to-date tech guy me went onto YouTube to see if I could find a copy of her playing that song. No luck then I Googled for the lyrics. Bingo. There is Rory in all her glory singing this line-“I’d rather be with the devil than be that man’s woman.” Needless to say I spread that “news” far and wide (not to Amazon because no way could I get it straight with whoever took umbrage there.)       

‘So, yeah, Rory doesn’t owe me a thing, has done along with Bonnie, and more lately Maria Muldaur a lot of great work to make sure the few new aficionados don’t forget from whence we came.”

Bart, still half wanting to support Hillary again despite the presence of Bernie Sanders in the mix, asked Sam where he stood these days on the issue. Sam’s reply-“I’d rather be with the devil that to be that woman’s man.” Thanks, Skip.  Big Thanks, Rory.