David Honeyboy Edwards I’m Gonna Tell You Somethin’ That I Know (CD/DVD), Pro Sho Bidness
David “Honeyboy” Edwards was born in Mississippi in 1915 and lived a long life in the blues, which he called “a leading thing.” Son of a share cropper (“Papa didn’t make no money,” he says in his 1997 autobiography), and working in the fields from he was nine years old, Edwards became an itinerant bluesman, playing all over the Delta in juke joints, river boats and good-time houses, first recording in 1942, and eventually settling in Chicago as the blues went electric.
His friend and acquaintances in those early days read like a who’s who of the blues – Charlie Patton, Tommy Johnson, Big Joe Williams, Sonny Boy Williamson, Son House, Memphis Minnie and Robert Johnson. He experienced first hand the 1927 Mississippi River Flood, the Depression, Southern vagrancy laws (Honeyboy was imprisoned for a time working on a cotton farm for hitching a ride on a freight train), and the racial and economic problems of the Black community due to Jim Crow. Honeyboy Edwards really was the last living link to the early blues.
He recorded extensively, was inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame in 1996, and won a Grammy in 2007 for Best Traditional Blues Album. This CD and DVD set, entitled I’m Gonna Tell You Somethin’ That I Know, was recorded in September 2010, just eleven months before Edwards passed away. It’s a remarkable piece of blues history.
The disks capture around an hour of a performance by the bluesman, accompanied by Jeff Dale and the South Woodlawners, and Michael Frank in the G Spot in Los Angeles. The CD has 9 songs, the DVD 10, plus about 20 minutes of Edwards reminiscing about his early experience of the blues in the Mississippi Delta. This is priceless. He talks about playing with Robert Johnson when he was 21 and goes into Robert’s life and death in some detail. Johnson “was crazy ‘bout two things,” says Honeyboy, “women and whiskey.” His narrative about Johnson’s sad death speaks volumes about the situation of African Americans in the deep South at that time. “Same doctor that would come to a mule would come to you then.” Anyone who got seriously ill would likely die, for want of decent healthcare. Honeyboy’s own mother died at 32 of “dropsy” – or edema, often associated with malnutrition, and both preventable and curable.
We get details, too, about Charlie Patton (“a hell raiser”) and about Honeyboy’s own career – “been all over the world, Japan, Paris France…Turkey…can’t recall all the places I’ve been.” At 95 Edwards was both lucid and showed a remarkable memory for people, places and incidents long past.
His performance in the gig is quite something as well. He launches into each song with a guitar introduction, whereupon the band joins in, sings with feeling and gives a short guitar solo on his Gibson Les Paul each time. Quite something for a nonagenarian. The DVD is nicely shot, with a kind of sepia tinge and the sound quality good. There are songs by Robert Lockwood Jr., Robert Johnson, Howlin’ Wolf, Muddy Waters and St. Louis Jimmy – a fine collection of classic blues. Sweet Home Chicago is part of the mix, usually attributed to Robert Johnson, but claimed by Honeyboy himself.
“The guitar kept me rolling a whole lot,” says Honeyboy. And it kept him rolling for over nine decades. “God learned me music. He gave me that gift…There ain’t no harm in playing blues, that’s a gift God gave me.” If you’re a blues fan, you don’t want to miss this performance of Honey Boy Edwards’ gift right at the end of his life.
Last month I fulfilled a long-time ambition and got to see Keb’ Mo’ in concert. He played Union Chapel in London. This is a very interesting location for a gig. It’s a quite lovely church building, with the pews set in semi-circular arrangement, a balcony and a high wooden ceiling. The acoustics are wonderful and wherever you’re seated you have a great view of the stage and are quite close to the artists.
It’s also a working church – it bills itself as “liberal, inclusive, non-hierarchical, and non-conformist.” The principle of its founders was to make Union Chapel a “Friend for All” – enshrined in the Chapel’s deeds and continuing at the heart of Union Chapel Church to this day. It has a thriving service to people who face issues of homelessness, mental health, isolation and crisis, which aims to help people with their long-term recovery.
If you come to a gig at Union Chapel, you can sign up for a meal beforehand at the Café attached to the church, which is run by the homeless project. This gets you a fine meal, allows you to contribute to the worthwhile work, and gives you the benefit of bagging your seat in the venue before the rest of the crowd is allowed in!
Waiting for Keb’. Union Chapel, London
So, all in all, Union Chapel is a great venue, and a packed audience welcomed Keb’ Mo’ and his band on their Hot Pink Blues tour enthusiastically. “I prayed before I came on stage,” joked Mo’ as he launched into Keep It Simple and then got the audience rocking with Am I Wrong. This small group of top-notch musicians comprising Casey Wasner on drums, Stan Sergeant on bass and Michael B. Hicks on keyboards, and of course Keb’ Mo’ who is a fine
Stan Sergeant
guitarist, were tightly knit throughout and rocked us soulfully through the eighteen songs of the set. The band supported Mo’s singing and guitar playing beautifully throughout, but now and then were able to give full rein to their individual talents – we got a fantastic bass solo from Sergeant on More Than One Way Home, for example, and then each member of the band sang a chorus of The Door, talented soulful singers, every one of them. The whole band seemed to really enjoy playing together and their enthusiasm was quite infectious, with the audience growing more and more appreciative as the evening wore on. By the end the whole crowd was on its feet baying for more.
Keb’ Mo’ played a variety of guitars throughout the evening, including a steel resonator and a very cool looking green Gretsch. He’s a fine guitarist and we got plenty of opportunity to savour this during the evening. He’s also a great singer and song-writer and, in a kind of understated way, commands the attention of his audience. But this is largely because of the high standard of the musicianship, rather than anything else. Keb’ Mo’s is honest music, as the blues tend to be, dealing with life and love, unpretentious, but aspiring to high standards of musicianship. It’s music that draws you in, warms your heart and sends you away with a broad smile on your face.
Although I was disappointed not to hear a favourite of mine, Life Is Beautiful, we did get the fun Shave Yo Legs – fun, yet making a serious point. “You don’t need no fancy tricks, Painted eyes or glossy lips; You don’t need to change your dress, You don’t need to change your shoes; You don’t have to clean my house, You don’t have to wash my clothes; Go ahead be wild and free, ‘Cause you don’t have to shave yo legs for me.”
This is a great song in a genre of music that has plenty of sexist lyrics, where we find women blamed for the misfortunes of men, objectified or the subject of physical abuse. Remember Robert Johnson’sMe and the DevilBlues, where Johnson is “goin’ to beat my woman until I get satisfied?” Or Big Bill Broonzy’sWhen I Been Drinkin’, with “I’m lookin’ for a woman that ain’t never been kissed, Maybe we can get along and I won’t have to use my fist”.
Leaving aside the violence and discrimination that women throughout the world face, Mo’s song addresses the pressure that our society puts on women to conform to certain stereotypes of looks, dress and body-shape. In a fun song, he coaxes men to give up any outdated expectations they may have that the women in their lives should have to look after their homes or try and emulate the unrealistic images of women on the billboard ads. Good for you, Keb’.
One last thing – Mo’ is now 64. What? He looks an athletic 40 year old. And he seems to live in the music and to enjoy every second of his performance. I’m hoping it’ll not be long before he’s back on this side of the Atlantic.
A few night ago I went to see Buddy Guy play the Apollo Theatre in Hammersmith in London. This is a lovely old theatre dating from the 1930’s with a fan shaped auditorium; it’s comfortable, has good acoustics and it was a fine setting for the blues master, himself born in the 1930s.
At nearly 80, Buddy Guy is in remarkably fine fettle, his voice strong, and still able to give full expression to that sweet falsetto. And his guitar playing is undiminished as well, the licks and tricks as nifty as ever. He gave us an hour and a half’s top notch entertainment – not bad for a guy his age – was constantly joking around, engaging with the audience, and at one point, came right off the stage and wandered up and down the aisles of the theatre singing and playing, constantly mobbed by fans taking photographs and selfies with him. Quite a show.
Before Buddy appeared we had a supporting set from a young guy whose performance had us all enthralled. Nobody around me knew who he was, but his guitar playing was stunning – not just in terms of technique, but also in terms of its musicality – and his singing and stage presence were impressive. Turned out this was one Quinn Sullivan, a protégé of Buddy’s and…he’s seventeen years old! This young guy is the business, and surely has a great future. He came back later to play with Buddy and we enjoyed the two of them mimicking a number of guitar greats, including Guitar Slim, B. B. King and Jimi Hendrix.
Buddy Guy played a selection of blues standards and songs off his latest album, Born to Play Guitar, backed by a superb band. One song off the album he didn’t play, particularly appropriate at the end of this particular week of violence in the United States, is Crazy World: “It’s a crazy world, the hole we’re digging, getting deeper every day…”
So it seems – police violence against the black community seems unremitting and on top of that we had the senseless killing of police officers in Dallas. The Atlantic summarized the week:
Hands Up, Don’t Shoot
“Alton Sterling, 37, was shot and killed by police officers on Tuesday, July 5, while he was selling CDs outside of a convenience store. The following day, Philando Castile, 32, was shot and killed by a police officer after he was stopped for a broken tail light. Videos of both killings were widely shared on social media, causing hundreds to take to the streets in protest of police actions, as well as memory of the two men killed. Thursday night, snipers shot and killed five officers at such a protest in Dallas, Texas. Questions of police brutality, America’s historic racism, the Black Lives Matter movement, and second amendment rights have been pushed to the forefront of the nation’s consciousness.”
It’s a crazy world. One song Buddy did play was a song off a 2008 album, Skin Deep.
“We all gotta be careful, Buddy sings, “How we treat one another.” Because,
“Skin Deep, Skin Deep
Underneath we’re all the same.”
In the song Buddy mentions:
“A man in Louisiana
He never called me by my name
He said ‘boy do this and boy do that’”
He prefaced his performance of the song by recalling for us that, as a boy, he remembers his mother using a broken piece of glass as a mirror, and that he was 17 before he saw running water from a tap. His words and the song were a stark reminder of the recent history of black experience in America. The legacy of all of this cannot be easily erased and the current experience of African Americans, not least in their encounters with law enforcement, gives rise to a huge amount of fear, resentment and anger.
Michael Eric Dyson wrote a telling piece in the New York Times this week, expressing his sense of the way white people perceive blacks. He talks about the “binoculars” used by whites when looking at blacks:
“Those binoculars are also stories, bad stories, biased stories, harmful stories, about how black people are lazy, or dumb, or slick, or immoral, people who can’t be helped by the best schools or even God himself. These beliefs don’t make it into contemporary books, or into most classrooms. But they are passed down, informally, from one white mind to the next.”
We need to be increasingly aware of the in-built, enculturated biases that we can be prone to and learn to resist. Whites need to seek to learn – insomuch as they can – what it is to stand in a black person’s shoes.
“It all comes down to just one simple rule
That you treat everybody just the way
You want them to treat you.”
That’s not original, or course – “Do to others whatever you would have them do to you,” says Jesus in Matthew 7:12. That’s the fulfillment of the whole of God’s law. It’s a crazy world. But we can all do our bit to make it a little less crazy. “We gotta be careful, how we treat one another.”
Brexit. The UK referendum on its membership of the European Union has caused a huge amount of division and ill feeling, and we are in the middle of the fall out – the pound is tumbling, markets are reacting badly to the uncertain about what will happen and political parties are tearing themselves apart.
A small majority of people in the UK – and these, for the most part in England, rather than Scotland and Northern Ireland – voted for the change, and one of the issues that many people felt very exercised about was that of immigration. The EU allows for free passage of people between all the member states. “Britain is in the grip of an immigration crisis,” said Nigel Farage, one of the leaders of the “Leave” campaign. The UK is at “breaking point,” he claimed, all the fault of the EU. Great Britain, he says, has “frankly become unrecognizable” and looks “like a foreign land.”
Although this xenophobia clearly played on the minds of voters in what are clearly anxious times, Farage’s immigrant fear-mongering is badly flawed. First, it is quite clear, and now admitted after the vote by the Leave Campaign itself, that withdrawing from the EU is unlikely to reduce immigrant numbers in the UK.
Secondly, the evidence shows the benefits of immigration to the UK economy:
According to research by University College London, European immigrants who arrived in the UK since 2000 contributed around £205bn to the economy between 2001 and 2011.
Not only that, they also rewarded the country with valuable human capital and vital skills that would have cost the UK £6.8bn in education.
Earlier this year, nursing leaders warned the government that if lower-earning non-EU workers were to be deported, the shortage of nurses in the UK could worsen and the NHS would have to spend millions on recruitment.
In terms of the UK’s benefits system, immigrants arriving in the UK after 2000 were43% less likely than UK-born workers to receive state benefits and were 7% less likely to live in social housing.
Immigrants from the European Economic Area paid 34% more in tax than they took out.
And yet Farage and the other leaders of the Leave campaign were able to play on the latent xenophobia which exists in the UK, as it does in virtually every other country in the world. And it’s interesting – and extremely disturbing – that since the vote to leave the EU, we have seen instance after instance of ugly racist abuse around England both in terms of graffiti on buildings and personal abuse.
Sadly there is the same race-baiting rhetoric coming from would-be presidential candidate, Donald Trump. “People are pouring across our borders unabated,” he says. He’s on record saying that the Mexicans that are coming into the US are killers, criminals and rapists, and that he wants to ban all Muslims from the US. Similar rhetoric, similar xenophobia.
Whole every country wants to have a proper immigration policy, and the world refugee crisis, caused largely by war, is not an easy problem to solve, but we seem to be sliding away from the values of neighbourliness, civility and openness that have often been part of life in the US and the UK. I’ve found it interesting, as I’ve travelled around the world and met people in desperate poverty – that it’s these very same people who have so very little, that are the most generous. They’ll share what very little food they have with you. They’ll welcome you into their tiny homes.
Maybe that’s why we get this theme appearing in the blues – amongst blues singers and communities who had very little, and yet were prepared to share what they had with others. Take Blind Willie Johnson, who lived a life of extreme hardship and penury – he might have expected nothing less as a black blind man in the early decades of the 20th century. But check out his Everybody Ought to Treat a Stranger Right, recorded in 1930 with backing vocals by Willie B. Harris on Columbia.
“Careful of how you treat a stranger, Careful of how you turn him away.”
At the end of the day, Willie Johnson says, “All of us here are strangers, None of us have no home.” There but for the grace of God…
And then there’s the classic Careless Love, recorded by a host of singers. “Don’t you never, drive a stranger from your door…it might be your brother or your sister, you’ll never know.”
There’s the nub of it right there – we’re all brothers and sisters. Our common humanity demands we take care of each other, demands compassion – never mind the fact that the immigrant might actually be bringing our society something beneficial.
But Willie Johnson goes further, particularly speaking to those of us who are Jesus followers. “Well Christ came down as stranger, He didn’t have no home.” Jesus became a refugee – exiled to Egypt as a child – and was at times all but homeless – “foxes have holes, the birds of the air nests, but the Son of Man nowhere to lay his head.” Is it possible to be a follower of this Christ and not reach out in compassion to the immigrant, especially if he or she has been dispossessed, made a refugee by war or danger?
The words of an early disciple come to mind: But if a person has material possessions and sees a brother or sister in need and that person doesn’t care – how can the love of God remain in him? (1 John 3:17)
Check out Scottish musician and broadcaster Lins Honeyman’s excellent blues radio show. You can “listen again” over the next week to this broadcast, which features an interview with Gary Burnett about his book, The Gospel According to the Blues.
The book dares us to read Jesus’s Sermon on the Mount in conversation with Robert Johnson, Son House, and Muddy Waters. It suggests that thinking about the blues-the history, the artists, the songs-provides good stimulation for thinking about the Christian gospel. Both are about a world gone wrong, about injustice, about the human condition, and both are about hope for a better world. In this book, Gary Burnett probes both the gospel and the history of the blues as we find it in the Sermon on the Mount, to help us understand better the nature of the good news which Jesus preached, and its relevance and challenge to us.
Vicar Street, Dublin. It’s a few hours before the show and I’m shown in to a room backstage. Eric Bibb, looking very cool in his grey suit, pink shirt and grey hat looks up, as he strings a guitar which is sitting across his lap. He smiles welcomingly and invites me to sit down. There are no airs or graces, just a man who’s relaxed, at home with his art, his band and ready for another show.
I’m at ease now too, so we start chatting. I tell Eric that I first saw him play about seventeen years ago, and apart from the music and the incredible feel-good vibe of that evening, what I’d come away with were the stories he’d told about the songs and the blues artists – all of which had led me on a journey of exploration into the blues and the social history of the blues and resulted in Down at the Crossroads and my book, The Gospel According to the Blues.
He remembered the gig and appreciated the comment. We begin to talk…
I ask him first of all about his new album, The Happiest Man in the World, just released last month, already getting great reviews.
Eric Bibb: It started out as a project inspired by Ollie Haavista the Dobro player. He was keen to do this project with Danny Thompson, and he knew that I had a connection to Danny, that we’d toured together. So I contacted Danny and asked if he’d be interested in making an acoustic band album with him on bass. And Danny said, yeah, if we can make the scheduling work, so we found a window of time last July where all of us could get together. The band which I put together called North Country Far is based on my friendship with the Haavista brothers, and they introduced me – quite some years ago when I lived in Finland, I now live in Sweden – they introduced me to another wonderful musician, Petri Hakala, a great mandolin player, and they all said, “Let’s do this thing, we’ll worry about the business side of it another time.” So we got a residential studio in the countryside near Norfolk, because we had a very limited time.
And it all just came together. I had some new songs that I’d been waiting with for the right opportunity and, yeah, it just came together pretty quickly live on the floor – some post production, but mostly live on the floor.
DATC: On the album we have a couple of songs we associate with the blues. Tell Old Bill is a classic blues song where Bill dies and his wife gets the news. Then there’s Tossin & Turnin’ – a typical blues song bemoaning, perhaps, the terrible conditions of African Americans in the Deep South when the blues were growing up.
Eric Bibb: Yes, that’s right, but not only African Americans – it’s kind of a story that could apply to folks who were part of the great migration from the South to the North; it could also be Okies who suffered during the Depression. I wanted to include all of that together.
DATC: And it has a resonance today as well.
Eric Bibb: Absolutely
DATC: But then we get the Happiest Man in the World; and the whole album is very upbeat. How does this sense of loss, of trial, cohere with a more upbeat, positive vibe?
Eric Bibb: Yeah, well, that’s me in a nutshell! I’m a lover of history, I read a lot and I’m inspired by the history of the people who make the music that really moves me. The broad term Americana, which includes blues, and all kinds of old time country stuff, folk, gospel music – that’s all in the mix for me. I called the record the Happiest Man in the World, named after that song which came to me because I’m just very happy with my spouse and my life with her, and I really wanted to talk about that.
It seems, as many people point out, fairly un-bluesy to call yourself the happiest man in the world! But the point is, there were people – many of my blues heroes – who lived the kind of lives that were difficult because of where they were born, and who they were, and how they looked – and all of that history that involves racism and post-slavery trauma and all of that. However, there were people who transcended those difficult experiences and were capable of living a fulfilling life, having long term relationships with loving spouses – though that was certainly not the rule – but I know there were people, who, by the grace of God, were able to transcend very rough circumstances and celebrate life anyway.
The person that comes to mind right of the top of my head was somebody like Mississippi John Hurt, who I call the Dalai Lama of the country blues. He just seems so serene and so magnanimous in his spirit. And I know there were others like him. So, I also thought it was pretty provocative to call the album the Happiest Man in the World – that’s a pretty big statement to make! But then I wanted to counterbalance that with the story of people having a hard time just making ends meet.
DATC: You do get that dual track in the blues, though, don’t you? On the one hand, the trials and difficulties, but then – “the sun’s gonna shine in my back yard some day?”
Eric Bibb: That’s the thing. Good point. That optimism, that hopefulness, seems to be an essential part of this culture. The ability to enjoy life and celebrate the good things in life and also to be aware of your own spirituality in the midst of all this difficulty and oppression is an amazing quality which is expressed in the genre we know as the blues and certainly in the spirituals.
And it’s been something that’s spread to all points in the globe. There are so many people who enjoy and play this music – whether they’re from Finland, or the Philippines, or Sweden or France – I mean you find this music everywhere, people love it, they know it, they’ve read about it, and there’s something infectious about that very resilient culture from which this music springs. So it’s a testament not only to the people who survived all of that and left us with this great musical expression, but it’s also like a cosmic statement of salvation and balance – despite everything, this is the music that has glued the world together and it sprang from people who were perhaps some of the most downtrodden people.
Eric’s set that evening illustrated perfectly how well this tension in the music between on the one hand, acknowledging the suffering and the pain, and on the other, celebrating life and a sense of hope, can be creatively balanced. He sang the soulful, mournful Wayfaring Stranger in a way that could move you to tears, gave us Jimmy Oden’s Going Down Slow with its sorrowful “My health is failing me, and I’m goin’ down slow,” and retold the tragic story of the destruction of an African American community in Rosewood. But he kept the show upbeat and joyful throughout, with songs like New World Coming Through and Don’t Let Nobody Drag Your Spirit Down explicitly pointing to the hope that things can be better.
DATC: There’s a thread through your music of humanity, of a yearning for peace; for things to be better – I’m thinking of Got to Do Better; Hope in a Hopeless World; Dream Catchers; Connected; Shingle By Shingle; and so on. Can music and musicians make a difference to the way we think about the world where there is so much inequality and injustice?
Eric Bibb: Absolutely. The thing about music when it’s good, it kind of bypasses the reasoning part of the brain and goes straight to the heart. It’s something you cannot really resist if it’s got a certain energy behind it. And that’s why this music has caught on all over the world. I think musicians have a role to play in uniting people in breaking down barriers that are false barriers, based on a myopic vision of culture and nationality and all that stuff.
There’s one race – it’s the human race. And I’m happy to see this music gluing people together. I attend festivals all over the world and there are local people from that part of the world and there people in from the Czech Republic, from Chicago, from Mississippi – the music provides a gathering place, a meeting place, and it really has made a difference. It’s really brought people closer together.
And I think it’s not only this genre of music; it’s music in general has that ability to transcend all of these identifications with sub-groups and make some kind of universal family of us, as we’re meant to be.
I feel it’s a privilege to be able to do what I love, to do what I do for a living and also to play some part in making the world a better place. That’s a responsibility and a blessing, you know.
DATC: The other thing that comes strongly through your music is a strong sense of faith – that’s a distinctive element in your music. I’m thinking of songs like I Want Jesus to Walk with Me or Don’t Let Nobody Drag Your Spirit Down or I Heard the Angels Singing. How important is that to you? And these songs always seem to be well received by your audiences – why is that, do you think?
Eric Bibb: Good point. The fact that they resonate with people who are not necessarily emotionally attached to the faith that those songs spring from – to me shows that behind whatever faith it is that you practice, or adhere to, there is something universal about spirituality. And when it’s genuine, one senses intuitively that it’s an honest, sincere expression of faith. And that’s contagious. Because we are all, really, at heart, whether we acknowledge it or not, faithful people, I think we have that faithful gene. We do believe in some kind of higher power, some kind of universe that supports us. And when people hear songs that come from that space, they recognise it.
And I don’t preach, I don’t proselytize, I’m just saying that I come from a culture that has had great success in using this Christian language to express their innate spirituality. And I’m happy with it, because I’ve grown up with it, and it’s familiar to me and it’s universal. And it’s inclusive – that’s the point. I want people to feel that. I don’t want people to feel like I’m choosing to separate myself or exclude because I have a particular belief system. So it seems to really work. And that’s gratifying.
DATC: So, how closely connected are justice and faith? Should they be connected?
Eric Bibb: Absolutely. Because – I know God’s plan for the human tribe is a just world based on love, as opposed to fear. I know that. And one of the great proponents of love and justice was, of course, the late great Dr. Martin Luther King. He was a hero of mine. He understood the connection between basically doing the right thing and speaking truthfully in the face of fear-ridden people. Somebody’s got to show the way when we’ve all been duped into buying to that whole fear thing. He was a man who, I’m sure, had moments of dread and fear, but basically he overcame that with his faith in a just world. And knew that that was what we’re supposed to be doing – creating that sort of world. So I think there’s a divine connection between justice and faith.
DATC: Eric, I’m really looking forward to tonight’s performance. You’re a hard working touring musician – that’s tough at times, I’m sure. What is it about performing that makes you want to do it night after night?
Eric Bibb: I get so much in return. Not only a way to make my living, but a kind of affirmation that I’m doing what I’m supposed to be doing – every night, with so many people. To know that I’m where I’m supposed to be is a great comfort in times when there are many people who feel very lost about their role in this very changeable society. So I’m blessed with that security. I don’t have to fret and worry about what I should be doing. I know that what I’m actually doing is right on point. It’s a great source of energy, actually.
The interview and the guitar stringing is finished; time for a few photographs before the sound check. Eric has been generous with his time, there’s no rush, no fuss, everything is well organized and working towards the show. Vicar Street fills up with more than 500 people, who are treated first of all to a wonderful set of jazzy, bluesy numbers by Eric’s daughter, Yana Bibb, before Eric and the band appear. The crowd listens attentively throughout the show but with whoops, hollers and cheers of appreciation at the end of each song. The energy flows back and forth between Eric and his band and the audience. By the time we reach Don’t Let Nobody Drag Your Spirit Down and Needed Time after nearly two hours, 500 people are singing and clapping enthusiastically with huge smiles on their faces. The feel-good factor is palpable, the sheer joy immense. This is what an Eric Bibb gig is all about – “I’m connected to you, to everyone, and everything.”
The US Treasury has just announced that it is going to add some new faces to its currency, in the biggest change since 1929. This will mean that from 2020 there will be women on US banknotes for the first time in a century. As well as Eleanor Roosevelt, suffrage leaders Lucretia Mott, Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and Alice Paul will all feature.
Sojourner Truth, Lucretia Mott, Susan B. Anthony, Alice Paul and Elizabeth Cady Stanton will be featured on the back of the new $10 bill.
The change is also a major moment for American black history: Tubman, Marian Anderson, the internationally renown contralto, Sojourner Truth, the abolitionist and women’s rights activist, and Martin Luther King Jr. will be the first African-Americans – male or female – to appear on US federal currency.
The only American currency previously to depict African-Americans was Southern Confederacy banknotes, but then only as slaves. Now we have a celebration of both African-Americans and women, and a recognition in the faces on the banknotes of the troubled history of the US in terms of both slavery and race.
This seems very timely, given the racial tensions that clearly exist in the country and the well noted racial disparities in wealth, sentencing, exposure to environmental hazards, education, and job opportunities. Nicholas Kristof of the New York Times reminds us that the wealth disparity between blacks and whites in America today exceeds what it was in South Africa during apartheid, and points to the long negative legacy of slavery and post-slavery oppression on African-American communities. He wrote a series of important articles on this in 2014 entitled When Whites Just Don’t Get It, which he then revisited in April this year “because public attention to racial disparities seems to be flagging even as the issues are as grave as ever.” He urges white people to recognise the racial bias which exists and to “engage in these uncomfortable discussions of race…The challenge is to recognize that unconscious bias afflicts us all — but that we just may be able to overcome it if we face it.”
Check out Down at the Crossroads post on Harriet Tubman, former slave and abolitionist, who, after escaping to the North from her brutal experience of slavery in Maryland in 1849, bravely returned some thirteen times and brought with her what she called “over 300 pieces of living and breathing property to the promised land.”
David “Honeyboy” Edwards was born in Mississippi in 1915 and lived a long life in the blues, which he called “a leading thing.” Son of a share cropper (“Papa didn’t make no money,” he says in his 1997 autobiography), and working in the fields from he was nine years old, Edwards became an itinerant bluesman, playing all over the Delta in juke joints, river boats and good-time houses, first recording in 1942, and eventually settling in Chicago as the blues went electric.
The disks capture around an hour of a performance by the bluesman, accompanied by Jeff Dale and the South Woodlawners, and Michael Frank in the G Spot in Los Angeles. The CD has 9 songs, the DVD 10, plus about 20 minutes of Edwards reminiscing about his early experience of the blues in the Mississippi Delta. This is priceless. He talks about playing with Robert Johnson when he was 21 and goes into Robert’s life and death in some detail. Johnson “was crazy ‘bout two things,” says Honeyboy, “women and whiskey.” His narrative about Johnson’s sad death speaks volumes about the situation of African Americans in the deep South at that time. “Same doctor that would come to a mule would come to you then.” Anyone who got seriously ill would likely die, for want of decent healthcare. Honeyboy’s own mother died at 32 of “dropsy” – or edema, often associated with malnutrition, and both preventable and curable.
His performance in the gig is quite something as well. He launches into each song with a guitar introduction, whereupon the band joins in, sings with feeling and gives a short guitar solo on his Gibson Les Paul each time. Quite something for a nonagenarian. The DVD is nicely shot, with a kind of sepia tinge and the sound quality good. There are songs by Robert Lockwood Jr., Robert Johnson, Howlin’ Wolf, Muddy Waters and St. Louis Jimmy – a fine collection of classic blues. Sweet Home Chicago is part of the mix, usually attributed to Robert Johnson, but claimed by Honeyboy himself.
