High water everywhere – Charlie Patton, Typhoon Haiyan and Climate Change

In the spring of 1927, after weeks of incessant rains, the Mississippi River flooded levee after levee, inundating thousands of farms and hundreds of towns, killing as many as a thousand people and leaving nearly a million homeless.

The Delta was largely populated by poor black share croppers and who worked the land for white planters who ruled like feudal lords. It was an exploitative system in which white landowners made fortunes and black labourers could barely afford to put food on their tables. One of the towns badly hit was Greenville, where relief supplies to those left homeless by the flood were distributed on the basis of race, with the result that African Americans were often left with nothing. To add insult to injury, black men were rounded up and forced to rebuild the levees. The bitter experience of black people of their treatment by whites during the disaster led to a large migration of sharecroppers to Northern cities.

There were around 30 songs recorded by blues artists about the 1927 flood. Atlanta artist Barbecue Bob, describes losing his woman, who’s washed away in the flood in “Mississippi Heavy Water Blues.”  Texas bluesman Blind Lemon Jefferson recorded a flood song, which he frequently performed in the Delta, as did Lonnie Johnson, who was based in St. Louis. Bessie Smith had probably the most famous song on the flood, although “Back Water Blues” was recorded before the flood occurred in February 1927. It was released just as the flood came, and as a result, became a big hit.

Perhaps the song most familiar to modern blues fans is Charlie Patton’s “High Water Everywhere,” which was recorded a couple of years after the flood, although given that Patton was from the Delta, it is likely that he had probably composed it earlier. The song tells graphically of the results of the flood and Charlie pointedly says that he wanted to go to the “hilly country,” but “they got me barred,” presumably a reference to the forced labour of black men on repairing the levees.

Here, as is always the case, with disasters, natural or otherwise, it is the poor who suffer the most. The World Bank’s 2014 world development report states that it is the poor who are most vulnerable to drought, pandemic, tsunami, violent crime, or financial meltdown. Natural disasters have the effect of dropping poor people or people living just above the poverty line, deeper into poverty. They destroy crops, healthcare facilities, the infrastructure and schools, resulting in malnutrition and often leading to the spread of preventable diseases.

We’re all aware of the devastating typhoon that hit the Philippines on 10 November. At this stage there are over 5,000 people who are known to have lost their lives, with many more still missing and fears the number of dead could rise to 10,000. In addition, at least four million people have been displaced by the storm. Most of those affected are people whose lives were already on the edge and who now face the most unimaginable struggle to rebuild their lives. If you haven’t already contributed to bringing relief to these people, could I urge you to make a donation to one of the agencies which are working there, such as the Red Cross, Christian Aid, Oxfam or World Vision.

Hours before typhoon Haiyan hit the Philippines, the head of his country’s national climate commission, a young scientist and diplomat, Naderev Sano, flew out of Manila, bound for the UN climate talks in Warsaw, Poland. As he took the floor to address the delegates of 190 countries the day after the typhoon struck, he was well aware of the devastation and suffering that had occurred back home. His own brother at that point was pulling people out of the rubble. Sano gave an extraordinary, passionate speech in which he clearly linked super typhoon Haiyan to man-made climate change and urged the world to wake up to the reality of what was happening from Latin America to south east Asia and the US. He lambasted the rich countries, and dared climate change deniers to go to his country to see for themselves what was happening. As he sat down, he began to sob and was given a standing ovation.

Sano has now called for a redefinition of “disaster”. “We must stop calling events like these as natural disasters,” he told the UN. “It is not natural when science already tells us that global warming will induce more intense storms. It is not natural when the human species has already profoundly changed the climate.”

The consensus of climate scientists is increasingly that super-storms are becoming more frequent. Haiyan was the third super-storm to strike the Philippines in a year, coming after seven major typhoons in October alone. The Philippine government’s raw statistics suggest that the region’s typhoons are indeed getting stronger. Overall, the evidence is overwhelming that climate change is most adversely affecting developing countries, says Oxfam, which works in most of the world’s most vulnerable nations. “As temperatures warm, many of the world’s poorest and most vulnerable citizens will face increased risks associated with more intense or protracted droughts, extreme rainfall and heat waves,” notes a recent joint report by London-based think-tank, the Overseas Development Institute, Met Office and Risk Management Solutions.

Those of us who live in developed countries generally have the wealth and infrastructure to withstand the worst affects of natural disasters; that’s not the case in poorer countries. It’s a matter of justice that the issue of climate change be addressed in a much more whole-hearted way by wealthy nations. The self-interested, short-term, climate-change-denying foot dragging needs to stop. We all need to take a long, hard look at the horrific images of human suffering coming out of the Philippines and urge our governments to increase their efforts in combating climate change.

Lightnin’ Hopkins, Eric Bibb and Needed Time

If you’ve never been to an Eric Bibb gig, next time he’s on the same continent as you, make plans and go! Eric’s gigs are outstanding experiences – he’s not only a talented singer, songwriter and guitarist, but the whole spiritual, positive vibe from the gig will stay with you long after the gig has finished. You’ll have a smile on your face for a week afterwards – guaranteed!

His hallmark song, performed at every concert is “Needed Time.” This is an old traditional song, brought to prominence by Texas guitar-slinger Lightnin’ Hopkins (Rolling Stone magazine included Hopkins at number 71 on their list of the 100 greatest guitarists of all time), and recorded by him in 1950. Hopkins, although a prolific recording artist – he is the most recorded blues artist ever, with an estimated 800-1,000 tracks recorded over five decades from the 30s to the 70s – recorded few spiritual songs, just Needed Time and Sinner’s Prayer, as far as I know.

Needed Time refers to the sense of needing God to come into whatever circumstances we’re experiencing. “Now is the needed time…” the song goes, and then prays for “Jesus to come by here,” “even if you won’t stay long.” It a song of aspiration, giving voice to a felt need of help in the difficulties of everyday experience. Hopkins once said, “I play it from my heart and soul…The blues is something that the people can’t get rid of. And if you ever have the blues, remember what I tell you. You’re gonna hear this in your heart… slowly rough and delicately brutal, like stones being rattled in a can of ribbon cane syrup.” For sure Needed Time is a song that seems to come from the heart and soul.

Never more so as in the hands of Eric Bibb. It’s always a special moment in his gigs when he launches into the song and invites you to “think of someone you love,” as he caresses his way through the song. The song reminds me of Psalm 42: “As a deer pants for flowing streams, so pants my soul for you, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God.” The Psalm talks of turmoil and trouble, the taunts of enemies and a sense of abandonment by God. And yet somehow there is the an underlying sense of trust in God’s goodness and a cry from the heart that God would eventually “come by here.” As Old Testament scholar Walter Brueggemann says, the Psalms work on the assumption that “if you don’t summon God, nothing will happen.” (see brief video below)

The Psalms seem to wrestle at a deep, gut level with the experience of trials, and yet they are also shot through with a deep seated hope for change – which is one of the reasons why they are so widely read and appreciated. Needed Time is a kind of modern Psalm, with a sense of both despair and hope, a realistic facing of the troubles of the hour, a cry for God to come and hence a hope for the future 

“Now is the needed time…now is the needed time

Jesus won’t you come by here…prayin’ won’t you come by here

Even if you won’t stay long…prayin’won’t you come by here.”

Lightnin’ Hopkins’ memorial in Crockett, Texas

Lightnin’ Hopkins’ New York Times obituary named him as “one of the great country blues and perhaps the greatest single influence on rock guitar players.” Here is Brooks Williams’ tribute to Lightnin’…

Walter Brueggmann on the Psalms

And finally, here’s Lightnin’

In Praise of Women with Guitars

It was Bonnie Raitt’s birthday yesterday. She’s been playing the blues and entertaining us for over forty years. She’s a ten-time Grammy Award winner and is listed as number 50 in Rolling Stone magazine’s list of the 100 Greatest Singers of All Time. She’s also a terrific guitarist – number 89 on Rolling Stone’s list of the 100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time (although check out this list and see how much of it you agree with – some of the rankings are hard to fathom). Bonnie’s best known for her slide guitar, which she learned from Mississippi Fred McDowell, and is usually to be seen playing her Fender Strat – although she’s no slouch playing acoustic guitar too. Check out The Lost Broadcast, a recording of a performance for in WMMR Radio in Philadelphia in 1972, where she covers Robert Johnson, Sippie Wallace and Muddy Waters, as well as her own songs. It’s an absolute gem.

Over the years, Raitt has stood up for various causes, notable the environment, musical education and development work in south east Asia. Her commitment to the blues heritage has been shown by her contributions to the funding  of the replacement of a headstone for Fred McDowell and for Memphis Minnie, Sam Chatmon, and Tommy Johnson.

There aren’t too many women in the Rolling Stones list of 100 Greatest Guitarists. This, it seems, is a man’s world, but when Raitt gets that slide going on the fretboard, there ain’t many better. Thankfully there are a lot more terrific women guitarists around now than ever before – one thinks straightaway of Susan Tedeschi, Carolyn Wonderland, Erja Lyytinene, Orianthi, Samantha Fish, Dani Wilde, Ana Popovic, Debbie Davies, Joanne Shaw Taylor, Cassie Taylor. If you don’t know any of these, go check them out. 

Muddy Waters – I’m a Man, M-A-N

Muddy Waters first recorded Mannish Boy back in 1955. He and Willie Dixon had previously written Hoochie Coochie Man, which had inspired Bo Diddley‘s I’m a Man,and  which in turn provided the basis for Mannish Boy. The song is credited to Muddy Water, Mel London and Bo Diddley, and features a repeating lick based on one chord.

Waters recorded Mannish Boy on several occasions  –  in 1968, for the Electric Mud album, in 1977 for the Hard Again album, and on the 1979 live album Muddy “Mississippi” Waters – Live. Muddy can also be seen performing it on The Band‘s The Last Waltz film.

The song has become something of a blues standard, having reached number 5 in the Billboard R&B chart when first released. It was inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame “Classics of Blues Recordings” category, as well as being included in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame‘s list of the “500 Songs that Shaped Rock and Roll,” and was ranked by Rolling Stone magazine in its list of “500 Greatest Songs of All Time”.

The song is basically a raunchy number, both musically and lyrically, full of male sexual bravado. When Muddy sings “I’m a natural born lover,” and “I passed 21, I want you to believe me baby, I had lots of fun,” and “I’m made to move you honey,” there’s really no doubt as to what he’s talking about. He also says he’s a “hoochie coochie man” – the hoochie coochie  was a sexually provocative dance that became wildly popular in Chicago in the late nineteenth century. The dance was performed by women, so a “hoochie coochie man” either watched them or ran the show.

The song’s chorus goes:

I’m a man
Spell M-A child -N
That represents man
No B-O child -Y
That mean mannish boy.

And then goes on to assert “I’m a man, I’m a full grown man.”

Despite the clear sensuality of the song, there’s something more going on in the song. In the Southern states under Jim Crow, including Mississippi where Muddy Waters grew up, a black man was never recognized as anything other than a “boy.”

Fifty years after the Emancipation Proclamation of 1853, Thomas Bailey, a southern educator set forth fifteen major premises of the “common opinion of the South” of black Americans.  Two of these said, “The negro is inferior and will remain so,” and “Let the lowest white man count for more than the highest negro.” African Americans were both demonized and dehumanized. A white student in 1909 – shockingly – wrote, “The negro is more like a mule than anything I can think of…You cannot get the brute out of the negro; therefore he must be kept under subjection.”

Such were the attitudes that Muddy Waters experienced growing up in Mississippi. As a black man, he was considered and treated as less than human, and one of the ways in which this was reinforced was in the way in which he would never be referred to as a man – always as “boy.” Blacks at best were children, to be looked after, provided of course they knew their place, behaved and did not become “uppity.” At worst black men were considered a source of danger to white womanhood, ready at any opportunity to act as crazed, ravishers of pure white women. On this basis, many of the atrocious lynchings that mark the Jim Crow period in the South took place.

Muddy Water’s song, then, takes on a new meaning in this context. Now that he’s free of Southern racism and oppression and is a successful musician in Chicago, Muddy can assert his black manhood – “I’m a man, I’m a full grown man,” sings Muddy, “I spell M-A, child, N.” And free from the accusations of sexual misconduct, the sexual bravado of the song becomes at least understandable.

Despite the complicity of the white Christian church in years of racism in the South, the gospel is the message of God’s unconditional love for all God’s children, irrespective of race or social position. Before God we’re all the same, common humanity, with the same problems and the same potential. St. Paul lived in a world in the first century where the dividing line was between Jews and Gentiles. He wrote two of his letters to help groups of the first Christians to understand that there need be no difference between people. To the Galatians he wrote, “in Christ there is neither Jew nor Gentile,” and to the Romans he took a great deal of time to explain that nobody, whether Jew or Gentile, had any rights before God and that everybody was made right on the same basis of their devotion to the Messiah Jesus. Nothing, he said, could separate us from God’s love.

No one has the right to dominate or oppress others on any basis. To do so flies in the face of the God in whose image we are made. We each have an intrinsic worth – because God loves us. The truth is we need each other to survive and to thrive. We are human because we belong to each other, we participate together and we share together.

Inequality due to racism clearly still exists and the past casts its long shadow over the present. New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof alerts us to “the way past subjugation shapes present disadvantage.” More generally in our societies we see inequality due to aggressive competitiveness, and political and economic structures that result in large numbers of people – even in the US and Europe – suffering hardship and lack of opportunity. In the US, 95% of all income gains since 2009 have gone to the top 1 percent and the top 1% of Americans take home 22% of the nation’s income. Christians need to be in the vanguard of those seeking change in our society and the wider world – as those who will take a stand for our common humanity and against whatever it is that drives a wedge between us.