Click on the headline to link
to a YouTube film clip of Howlin’
Wolf performing Killing Floor.
The blues is, praise be… He
had just barely gotten done with his work for the day, his sun up to sun down
work helping Brother Barnes shoe the horses on Mister’s cotton boll massive ten thousand
acre delta plantation, than his father took him aside and asked, really ordered,
him to wash up and get ready to go over to Lancer Lane. The words Lancer Lane
made him jump for joy inside, for this Saturday night he would finally, finally,
get to play his new guitar, well no really new for that instrument had been
passed down to his father from who knows when, maybe back to pharaoh times when
those old pyramid slaves needed something to take their minds off their back-breaking
work on their relax minute, in front of a real crowd at the Lancer Lane juke
joint and not just before his father, his siblings, and a few stray cats at Mister’s
company store.
No,
he was stepping up in the world, the world that mattered, the world of those
rough-hewed, hard drinking daddies (and their clinking women, praise be) that
populated the juke house on Saturday night (and paid penance, serious penance
at nearby Lancer Lane Lord’s Work Baptist on Sunday morning, many times sliding
directly from one site to the other, smoothly if stinking a little of sweat and
hard, hard Sonny Boy’s golden liquor), who would decide whether he had the
stuff his father thought he had. And decide it in the only way such things were
decided, by throwing dollars, real dollars, at him if he was good and broken
whisky bottles (or, if tight for dough and so bought their whisky by the jar,
jars) if he panned. He had asked his father repeatedly since he had turned sixteen
to let him accompany him on his journeys (as performer and as, ah, imbiber) to
Lancer Lane, but his father maybe knowing the wisdom of sheltering the boy from
those whisky bottles and jars if things didn’t work out just like his father,
bless him, before him had held off until he was sure, or fairly sure of the
night’s outcome.
What
sonny boy did not know was that father had relented as much because he was in
need of an extra pair of hands in case Big Nig Fingers showed up that night as
that he was ready. The nature of the dispute between Big Nig Fingers and his
father was simply enough explained, a woman, rather Big Nig’s woman, Lucille, a
luscious light- skinned mulatto (many though through grapevine, the who
belonged to who grapevine, that she was Mister’s daughter, or granddaughter,
who had an eye for dark as night black men like Big Nig, and his darker than
night father, to atone for some miscegenation sin, in any case she stirred men,
black as night men, and also through the grapevine the white as white Captain
who oversaw Mister ‘s plantation) and her roving eyes, roving eyes that landed,
allegedly landed, on his father (and he, he when Big Nig wasn’t looking or had
had one or two jars too many had taken his own eyeful).
A few hours later, washed up,
dressed up in a clean work shirt and denim pants he and his father having
walked the two dusty miles from Mister’s plantation arrived at the juke house,
really nothing but a cabin, a log cabin, belonging to Sonny Boy Jackson who
used the place as a front for his golden liquor sales as well. (Yes, that Sonny
Boy before he went to Clarksville and began the road to some local fame as the
best harmonica in 1920s delta Mississippi, even getting a record contract from
Bee Records when he was “discovered” by one of the agents that they had sent
out scouring the country for talent for their race record division.) Now, like
most cabins around those parts, there was no electricity, hell, nobody
practically except Mister (and the Captain, that deduction crazy and
Lucille-whipped Captain) had electricity,
or a reason to use it just a few chairs, tables, a counter to belly up to for
whiskey jar orders (bottles were sold out back away from prying eyes), and for
the occasion Sonny Boy had a small stage jerry-rigged so the entertainment
would not get pushed around too much when things got rowdy, as they always did,
later in the evening.
That night he had a surprise
coming, or rather two. His father, taking no chances, had arranged to have a
few members of the Andersonville Sheiks from up the road, who would later in
the decade, some of them anyway, go on to form the Huntsville Sheiks and also
get that coveted record contract from Bee Records, to back his son up. So he was
going to have a real ensemble, a jug player, a harp player (harmonica, okay)
and a washboard man, his father to play banjo (if he was sober enough, and
while that was in question most of the night he held up, held up well enough to
slide over to Lord’s Work Baptist for the eight o’clock service even if
stinking of sweat and liquor). Papa had
done right by him, Big Nig Fingers and his Lucille (to his father‘s dismay) had
decided to take a night off so he would need no cut knife help, and he blasted
the place with his strange riffs, riffs going back to some homeland Africa time,
some primordial time when mankind heard sound made by men to stir their
unending longing. Proof: twenty seven dollars as his share of the house.
Oh, the second surprise. Miss
Lucy, Miss Lucy Barnes, Miss Lucy Barnes, a sweet sixteen going on thirty, a
dark- skinned beauty, all cuddles and curves, the daughter of his boss, the
plantation blacksmith, had taken notice of him and kept sending small jars of
Sonny Boy’s golden liquor his way which just made him play more madly, hell,
let’s call it by its right name, he played the devil’s work like he was the
devil himself. They too were seen sneaking into that eight o’clock service at
Lord’s Work’s Baptist a little sweaty and stinking of liquor, just in case you
wanted to know.
******The blues ain’t nothing, nothing at all but a good woman on your mind, all curves and cuddles, all be my daddy, daddy, build for comfort not for speed just like your daddy, your real daddy, not your long gone daddy just now serving a stretch, a nickel’s worth for armed robbery up in Joliet for some Southside heist that went sour, hell, you told long gone daddy that guns didn’t make the play any better but long gone was just a little too long gone on that twinkle dust and so when Danville Slim called the shots, long gone was long gone, told you about when you were knee high and needing instruction about who, and who not to, mess with when you got your wanting habits on. (Stay away from big women, like the song, the blue blue blue song says, don’t forget, they will wear you out, ditto, long thin gals with wanderlust eyes, and twinkle dust noses, itching, checking out every daddy, every daddy that came by her eyes, flashing five dollars bills and another twinkle line, ditto, god’s girls, Sunday morning moaners, smelling of gin, washtub gin, and juke joint slashes, some mean mama cut her up when she wrong- eyed mean mama’s daddy, now Sunday looking for, can you believe it, forgiveness, and trick, getting it, stick with curves and cuddles, an easy rider, she’ll treat you right and no heavy overhead, and no damn where have you been daddy questions.
She, Miss Lucy she, all
cuddles and curves she, an easy rider, yah, a sweet and low easy rider, to make
a man, well, to make a man, so far away, so far from uptown downtown Chi town, far down in sweaty delta
Mississippi, maybe still in Clarksville like you left her that night, that
moonless 1942 night, when you had to break-out from delta sweats, from working sunup
to blasted sundown for no pay, for chits, (Christ what are you supposed to do
with company chits when you had your Miss Lucy wanting habits on, needed, no
craved, some of Sonny Boy’s honey liquor), from the Mister on his ten thousand
acre cotton boll plantation (selling every last boll too, good or bad, to the
U.S. Army, for, for what else, bustling war uniforms), and stripes from the
Captain, for, for sassing (really for seeing him and Lucille laughing as they
were coming out of Mister’s barn all sweaty and straw-filled. He guessed she
decided she wanted her progeny to “pass” after all), and grabbed that bus, that
underground bus, out on Highway 61, and headed, yah, head north following the
north star, following the migrant trail up-river.
Maybe a quick stop at Memphis
to see if any of the guys, B.B. (no, not the one you are thinking of), the
Slim, Delta Dark, Bobby Be-Bop, Big Joe, Muddy (yes, that Muddy slumming down
river and on the low from some Chi town wench whose man was looking, knife-
looking for the guy who messed with his baby and left her blue, real blue. True
Muddy story.) and if not straight to Chi town and work, work in the hog butcher
to the world, work in the Casey Jones steel driving hammering foundry to the
world , work in the grain elevator to the world, work in the farm machinery
equipment factory to the world , good, steady, sweaty work, five day work and
done, five day work, maybe overtime, glad-handed overtime on Saturday, and done, no Captain’s stripes, except maybe
some rough Irish cop night stick but, mainly, just hell work, and then off to
bumbling squalid three- decker hovel, overcrowded, over-priced, under heated,
damn, nothing but a cold- water flat with about six different nationalities
chattering on the fetid Maxwell connected streets.
Home, home long enough to
turn overalls, sweated blue overalls, into Saturday be-bop blues master, all
silk shirt, about five colors, blue blue, green green, sun yellow, deep magenta,
some violent purple, all fancy dance pants, all slick city boy now shoes
(against that po’ boy Clarksville no shoe night to make daddy, real daddy cry,
and mama too), topped by a soft felt hat, de
riguer for Saturday prances. For a while singing and playing, he, mainly
playing that on fire guitar (electric) first learned from daddy, real daddy,
down the delta when he was from hunger and he and daddy Saturday juked for
whiskey drinks (for daddy) and sodas and ribs for him, for nickels and dimes
with his long gone daddy (gone daddy previously mentioned tired of nickels and
thus plugging an ironic nickel’s worth) out behind Maxwell Street(only the
prime guys, the guys Chess, or Ace, or Decca, or, some race label were
interested in, for a while, got to play the big street, the big attention, the
big sweep, everybody else behind for nickels and maybe an off-hand stray piece,
a joy girl they called them, hell he
called them when he had his wanting habits on, not all black or mixed either, a
few white joys looking for negro kicks, looking for kicks before Forest Lawn
stockbrokers, or futures traders make their claims, looking over the new boys
in order to say that they had that, had that before they headed out to Maxwell
Street glare or sweet home, yah, sweet home Joliet. And Miss Lucy waited,
waited down in some lonesome Clarksville crossroad, dust rolling in, sun
beginning to rest, watching the daily underground bus heading north, north to
her Johnny Blaze, Johnny quick on that amped- up guitar and the stuff of
dreams.
The blues ain’t nothing,
nothing at all but a bad woman on your mind, a woman walking in your place of
work, your stage, your Carousel Club, you just trying to get that damn guitar
weapon, baby, mama, sugar, main squeeze, in tune, the one just off of Maxwell
Street, mecca, with her walking daddy, eyeing you that first minute, big blond
blue eyes, and even walking daddy can feel the heat coming off her, animal heat
mixed up with some Fifth Avenue perfume bought by the ounce , feel that he was
going to spend the night on a knife’s edge. The Carousel Club got a mix, got a
mix on Friday nights when the be-bop crazy white girls, not all big blond blue
eyes but also mixed, decided that be-bop jazz, their natural stomping grounds,
over at places like the Kit Kat Club was just too tame for their flaming 1950s
appetites and so they went slumming, slumming with a walking daddy, a black as
night walking daddy, make no mistake, in tow just in case, in case knives came
into play. She had her fix on him, her
and that damn perfume that he could smell across the room, that and that animal
thing that some woman have, have too damn much of like his daddy, his real
daddy, told him to watch out for back when he was knee-high and working the
jukes for cakes and candies (and daddy for Sonny Boy’s honey liquor). Just what
he needed, needed now that he had worked his way up from cheap street playing
for nickels and dimes (and, okay, an off-hand piece once the joy girls, some of
them white like this girl, looking for negro kicks, badass negro kicks and then
back to wherever white town, heard him roar up to heaven on that fret board) to
backing up Big Slim, yah, that Big Slim who just signed with Chess and was
getting ready to bring the blues back to its proper place now that it looked like that damn rock and roll, that
damn Elvis who took all the air out of
any other kind of music, had run its
course.
Then it started, like it was
started back to Miss Lucy times, she sent a drink his way, a compliment to his
superb playing on Look Yonder Wall
according to Millie the waitress who delivered the drink, then another, ditto
on The Sky Is Crying, walking daddy
was not pleased and she looked like she was getting just drunk enough to make
her move (hell, he had seen that enough, and not just with these easy white
girls). No sale tonight girlie that bad ass negro really does look bad ass, bad
ass like long gone daddy whom he started on these mean streets with and was still
finishing up his nickel at Joliet. She made her way to the stage as the first
set ended. Pleasant, hell they are all pleasant, in that polite way they have
been brought up in for about four or five generations, but still with that come
hither perfume and that damn hungry look. No sale, no sale girlie, not with bad
ass looking daggers in his eyes. And that night there wasn’t. Next Friday night
she came in alone, came in and sat right in front of him. Didn’t say a word at
intermission, just sent over a drink for a superb rendition of Mean Mistreatin’Mama,
and left it at that.
After work she was waiting
for him out in back, he nodded at her, and she pointed at her car, a late
model, and they were off. They didn’t surface again for a week.
*******The blues ain’t nothing but… He, Daddy Fingers (strictly a stage front name, with a no will power Clarence Mark Smith real name needing, desperately needing, cover just like a million other guys trying to reach for the big lights, trying to reach heyday back in early 1950s Maxwell Street, hell, maybe trying get a record contract, a valued Chess contract, and that first sweet easy credit, no down payment, low monthly payments Cadillac, pink or yellow, with all the trimming and some sweet mama sitting high tit proud in front), had to laugh, laugh out loud sometimes when these white hipsters asked him what the blues were. He, well behind the white bread fad times, having spent the last twenty years mostly in the hidden down South, the chittlin’ circuit down South, from Biloxi to Beaumont, working bowling alleys, barbecue joints (the best places where even if the money was short you had your ribs and beer, a few whisky shots maybe, some young brown skin with lonely eyes woman lookin’ for a high-flying brown skin man in need of a woman’s cooking , or at least a friendly bed for a few nights), an odd juke house now electrified, some back road road-side diner converted for an evening into a house of entertainment, hell even a church basement when the good lord wasn’t looking or was out on an off Saturday night had not noticed that these kids asking that august question were not his old Chi town, New Jack City, ‘Frisco Bay hipsters but mostly fresh-faced kids in guy plaid short shirts and chinos and girl cashmere sweaters and floppy skirts were not hip, not black-hearted, black dressed devil’s music hip. For one thing no hipster, and hell certainly no wanna-be hipster, would even pose the question but just dig on the beat, dig on the phantom guitar work as he worked the fret board raw, dig on being one with the note progression. Being, well, beat.
Plaid and cashmere sweater
crowding around some makeshift juke stage, some old corner barroom flop spot or
like tonight here on this elegant stage with all the glitter lights at Smokin’ Joe’s
Place, Cambridge’s now the home of the blues for all who were interested in the
genealogy of such things came around looking, searching for some explanation
like it was some lost code recently discovered like that Rosetta Stone they found a while back to figure out what
old pharaoh and his kind said (hell, he could
have deciphered that easy enough for those interested- work the black
bastards to death and if they slack up, whip them, whip them bad, whip them
white, and ain’t it always been so). So he told them, plaid guy and cashmere
bump sweater girl, told them straight lie, or straight amusing thing, that like
his daddy, his real daddy who had passed down the blues to him, and who got it
from his daddy, and so on back, hell, maybe back to pharaoh times when those
slave needed something to keep them working at a steady death-defying pace,
that the blues wasn’t nothing but a good woman on your mind. And if some
un-cool, or maybe dope addled wanna-be Chi town hipster, or some white bread
all glimmering girl from Forest Hills out for negro kicks, had been naïve
enough to ask the question that would have been enough but plaid and cashmere
wanted more.
Wanted to know why the three
chord progression thing was done this way instead of that, or whether the whole
blues thing came from the Georgia Sea Islands (by way of ancient homeland
Africa) like they had never heard of Mister’s Mississippi cotton boll plantation,
Captain’s lashes, broiling suns, their great grandfathers marching through
broken down Vicksburg, about Brother Jim Crow, or about trying to scratch two
dollars out of one dollar land. Wanted to know if in Daddy Finger’s exalted
opinion Mister Charley Patton was the sweet daddy daddy of the blues, wanted to
know if Mister Robert Johnson did in fact sell his soul to the devil out on
Highway 61, 51, 49 take a number that 1930 take a number night, wanted to know
if Mister Mississippi John Hurt was a sweet daddy of an old man (also
“discovered” of late) like he seemed to be down in Newport, wanted to know if
black-hearted Mister Muddy really was a man-child with man-child young girl
appetites, wanted to know if Mister Howlin’ Wolf ever swallowed that harmonica when
he did that heated version they had heard about of How Many More Years (not knowing that Wolf was drunk as a skunk,
high shelf whisky not some Sonny Boy’s home brew, when he did that one or that, he Daddy Fingers, had backed Wolf up many a night when Mister
Huber Sumlin was in his cups or was on the outs with the big man).
Wanted to know, laugh, if
Mister Woody Guthrie spoke a better talking blues that Mister Lead Belly, or
Mister Pete Seeger was truer to the blues tradition that Mister Bob Dylan (like
he, Daddy Fingers, spent his time thinking about such things rather than trying
to keep body and soul together from one back of the bus Mister James Crow bus
station to the next in order to get to some godforsaken hidden juke joint to
make a couple of bucks, have some of Sonny Boy’s son’s golden liquor, and maybe
catch a stray lonesome Saturday woman without a man, or if with a man, a man
without the look of a guy who settled his disputes, his woman disputes, at the sharp end of a knife, wanted to know,
wanted to know, wanted to know more than the cold hard fact that, truth or lie,
the blues wasn’t nothing but a good girl on your mind. Nothing but having your
wanting habits on. But that never was good enough for them, and thus the fool
questions. And always, tonight included, the fool Hey Daddy Fingers what are
the blues. Okay, baby boy, baby girl, the blues is …
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