I’ve seen a few shows of varying quality during the pandemic restrictions of the past year. But none comes close to Bob Dylan’s Shadow Kingdom gig. Granted, it wasn’t a live gig, although you kinda got that impression from the advance publicity.
But the quality of this pre-recorded show, the surprising setting, and Dylan’s performance was such that any initial gripes were quickly forgotten. Shot in black and white, mimicking a smoky down-at-heels club in the 1940s, Dylan was in full cabaret singer mode, all gestures and stances, singing positively tunefully.
Where was the raspy, near-croak we’ve become use to in recent years? Gone completely as he treated us to a romp through his early back catalogue – mainly 1960s and 70s with What Was It You Wanted from 1989’s Oh Mercy the most recent one covered.
When you go to a Dylan gig, you expect the songs you know and love to be completed re-reworked, sometimes so you can barely recognise them. Here with the backing of a young band playing largely acoustically – double bass, acoustic guitars, mandolin, accordion, occasional electric guitar and no percussion – the songs sounded fresh, instantly recognizable and utterly captivating. Especially with the man in such good voice, at times strumming a couple of arch-top acoustic guitars and blowing a tasteful harmonica.
The dim lighting and the black and white shooting lent a considerable amount of atmosphere to the show, with patrons sitting around tables being served drinks and – à la 1940s, smoking. No wonder the band had their masks on – presumably to shield from the cigarette smoke rather than the virus. Though, actually, I kinda suspect the cigarette smoke might have been faked.
It worked rather well, though. The only thing else needed, said one wag on the online comments, was a “bar room brawl off stage.”
Dylan at 80 still managed to look rather cool, with his white jacket or – my favourite and I want one – his black embroidered one. The man still has a decent head of hair, though the low light suitably concealed his creased, craggy features.
He kicked things off with When I Paint My Masterpiece, probably the best version of this song he’s done, followed by Most Likely You’ll Go Your Way And I’ll Go Mine, before the exquisite Queen Jane, with Dylan standing at the mike, articulating the lyrics almost sweetly and the band paring things back to put the spotlight on the song and the singer.
I’ll Be Your Only Baby Tonight, musically was very cool, but I have to say, I felt rather uncomfortable about Dylan being flanked by two young women as he sang. Didn’t seem a good look. My feminist daughter, however, reckoned that the scene was supposed to subvert “the male gaze” (Google it!) – the women actors looked right into the camera all the time and not at Dylan. If so, it was clever work by Israeli-American director Alma Har’el, who did a superb job overall. Watch this song yourself for yourself and decide.
A few songs later we got What Was It You Wanted from 1989’s Oh Mercy, a quite beautiful acoustic version, with a little plaintive harmonica from Dylan, which brought out the yearning and pathos of the song. And that’s the thing about these arrangements – it helped you appreciate just how strong Dylan’s songs are, both lyrically and musically. In some concerts I’ve gone to in recent years, the songs were all but obscured by the rockabilly or rock’n’roll treatment.
He followed that with a tenderly sung Forever Young. I’ve always loved this song, but tonight, it seemed particularly poignant. That’s what we want for Dylan, for his songs, the albums, are so much a part of our history and we can’t bear to think of him aging. Because that means we’re aging too. And although we want it to be true, that he and we could stay forever young, we know, at 80, we’ll not have him performing and writing songs for much longer.
It was nice to get a song from John Wesley Harding in the mix, the lyrically opaque Wicked Messenger, whose title is based loosely on a verse from the biblical book of Proverbs. The obscurity of the lyrics was nicely emphasized by Dylan either being hidden entirely by the guitar player or almost completely in shade.
The final song, I hope we can’t read too much into – It’s All Over Now Baby Blue, sung with some deliberation, the band following Dylan’s careful enunciation, and highlighting the lyrics much more than the jaunty version on 1965’s Bringing It All Back Home.
Suddenly it really was all over, just 48 minutes. But 48 utterly absorbing and totally entertaining minutes. The good thing is, having paid my $25, I can watch it again a time or two over the next couple of days.
Setlist
When I Paint My Masterpiece Most Likely You Go Your Way And I’ll Go MIne Queen Jane Approximately I’ll Be Your Baby Tonight Just Like Tom Thumb’s Blues Tombstone Blues To Be Alone With You What Was It You Wanted Forever Young Pledging My Time Wicked Messenger Watching The River Flow It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue
In celebration of Bob Dylan’s 80th birthday (gosh that makes me feel old!), I listened to a lot of songs in my Dylan collection and confirmed what I had long suspected – that Dylan is fine blues artist, with a deep sense of and respect for the blues tradition.
Look through the canon and you’ll find versions of traditional blues songs, new songs that are out-and-out blues in form, songs that are blues-infused, and some that are clearly not musically blues, but nevertheless have a blues lyrical content (and on occasions, title).
The blues slips through throughout his long career, but is most evident in his very early work and then the latter albums, from Time Out of Mind onwards. But can a wealthy white guy really be said to be a bluesman? Of course, Dylan wasn’t always wealthy and paid his dues as a homeless, penniless young musician before things took off for him. But that’s a debate I’ll leave you to think about if you read Adam Gussow’s book Whose Blues? All I’ll say here is that from the beginning of his career until now, Dylan has drunk deeply at the well of the blues tradition and has done his bit in rehearsing that tradition over the years, through performing traditional songs and his own compositions. And he’s proved to be a thoroughly able exponent of the blues – in his own idiosyncratic, characteristic way.
We’ve selected 12 of Dylan’s blues songs for you to enjoy.
First, six traditional blues songs:
Corina Corina From Dylan’s 2nd album, The Freewheeling Bob Dylan, the song was first recorded in1928 by Bo Carter, and then by the Mississippi Sheiks in 1930 (turning Corina into Sweet Alberta). Many other early blues artists recorded it, including Blind Lemon Jefferson, Big Joe Turner, Mississippi John Hurt and Mance Lipscomb, as well as jazz artists and exponents of Western Swing. Dylan’s version borrows from Robert Johnson’s Stones in My Passageway, including the lyrics, “I got a bird that whistles, I got a bird that sings.”
Fixin’ to Die Dylan’s first eponymously titled album, released in 1962 features mostly folk and blues standards as well as two Dylan originals. Fixin’ to Die is a song by Delta blues musician Bukka White, recorded in 1940. The song reflected White’s experience in the notorious Parchman prison in Mississippi, where he “got to wondering how a man feels when he dies.” Dylan’s version changes the melody and adds some lyrics.
See That My Grave is Kept Clean Another song that appeared on Bob’s debut album. It was first recorded by Blind Lemon Jefferson in 1927 and 1928 and became his most famous. Dylan manages to keep the rather sombre nature of the topic in his version, possibly more so than even Blind Lemon. The song has been recorded by a host of artists, including excellent versions by B B King and Mavis Staples.
Stack a Lee Dylan’s version appears on his 1993 album World Gone Wrong, a raw sounding collection of traditional folk songs, which was critically acclaimed and won a Grammy for Traditional Folk Album. The song is known in a number of variants – Stagger Lee and Stagolee amongst them – and is a traditional song about the murder of Billy Lyons by “Stag” Lee Shelton in St. Louis in 1895. It was first recorded in 1923 by Fred Waring’s Pennsylvanians. Shelton, nicknamed Stag because he had no friends, and Lyons were members of the St. Louis underground. They got into dispute over Lyons’s hat one evening while drinking and Shelton shot Lyons, and was subsequently convicted of his murder. The song celebrating this unsavoury incident has been recorded by many artists over the years, with Mississippi John Hurt’s 1928 version often considered the definitive one.
Frankie and Albert The song appears on Dylan’s 1992 album, Good As I Been to You, another album made up entirely of folk and blues songs and Dylan’s first entirely solo, acoustic album since Another Side of Bob Dylan in 1964. Rolling Stone viewed it as positively as “a passionate, at times almost ragged piece of work.” Frankie and Albert, again, was inspired by real life, the story of a woman killing her unfaithful lover. There have been hundreds of recordings of the song, starting from as early as 1912, including versions by Elvis and Johnny Cash. Dylan’s version features some nifty acoustic guitar work and some lovely vocal phrasing.
Rollin’ and Tumblin’ Dylan’s version of this old blues standard song is on his 2006 Modern Times album. Dylan had come into a rich vein of form starting from the 1997 Time Out of Mind, which was to continue right until the present, with a number of well-received, critically acclaimed and enjoyable albums. It reached No.1 in the album charts in the US and was ranked by Rolling Stone as one of the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time. Dylan’s version of Rollin’ and Tumblin’ follows Muddy Waters’ famous version, which had taken the tune from Robert Johnson’s If I Had Possession Over Judgement Day. Dylan’s version gives a rockabilly feel to the song and has some nice slide guitar along with his increasingly croaking vocals.
We might also have included Dylan’s versions of Blind Boy Fuller’s Step It Up and Go and the Mississippi Sheiks Sitting on Top of the World, but let’s choose another half dozen of Dylan’s own blues songs.
Dylan’s Own Blues Songs
Everything is Broken Dylan’s 1989 album, Oh Mercy, produced by Daniel Lanois, after a couple of poorly received albums, was viewed as a return to form, with Dylan himself claiming, “There’s some magical about this record.” Everything is Broken is rife with blues sentiment, with Dylan bemoaning the state of the world, with everything broken, from kitchen implements to bodies to treaties. The final lines, “Hound dog howling, bull frog croaking, Everything is broken” echo the empty, hollowness of a broken world. It’s been described as a Louisiana, swamp blues, and the reverb-drenched guitar work, with a simple three chord blues structure, matches the near-despondency of the lyrics.
The Levee’s Gonna Break Another one from 2006’s Modern Times. It’s a straight 12 bar blues based on When the Levee Breaks by Kansas Joe McCoy and Memphis Minnie from 1929. The song references the Great Mississippi Flood of 1927, a hugely destructive river flood that inundated 27,000 square miles up to a depth of 30 feet and displaced 200,000 African Americans from their homes, forcing them to live in relief camps or migrate north. Dylan uses only a few lines from the original song, with the rest his own. Interesting note: the line “Some people got barely enough skin to cover their bones” probably comes from Ovid’s Tristia, Book 4: “there’s barely enough skin to cover my bones.”
The Groom’s Still Waiting at the Altar The song was recorded in 1980, but not included in the first version of Shot of Love in 1981. It appeared on the vinyl version of the album and in all subsequent versions released. Both Rolling Stone and the Guardian hailed it as one of Dylan’s best songs. It’s a brilliant piece of blues rock and the November 13, 1980 performance from San Francisco, which is included in the Trouble No More Bootleg release, features Carlos Santana on guitar with a couple of blistering solos and Dylan as intense as you’re likely to hear him, in enigmatic prophet mode, speaking of a world of chaos, madness, war and misunderstanding. The song is a powerful one – “a fiery piece of molten fury” [album liner notes] and the repetitive blues riff drives home the prophet’s urgent message. [For more on this song, click here]
Lonesome Day Blues This is a straight 12 bar blues song from 2001’s Love and Theft. In Bob Dylan All the Songs: The Story Behind Every Track, authors Margotin and Guesdon call it an exemplary blues performance – it “demonstrates how easily (he) can sing the genre. His voice takes on the atmosphere of Muddy Waters’ electric period. The support of his musicians is extraordinary.” It’s a good ‘un, all right!
Beyond Here Lies Nothing From 2009’s Together Through Life, the song’s title is a quotation from the ancient Roman poet, Ovid. It was for nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Rock Vocal Performance, Solo in 2010. There’s a nice loose feel to the arrangement, with judicious use of horns, and Dylan’s vocal performance is very cool.
False Prophet From Dylan’s highly acclaimed Rough and Rowdy Ways from 2020, an album that proved Dylan’s staying power and his song writing mastery had not diminished. The music on False Prophet is based on Billy “The Kid” Emerson’s 1954 Sun Records single If Lovin’ Is Believin’ and features some nice guitar work by Dylan’s long-time guitarist, Charlie Sexton. The song is rather enigmatic, with Dylan claiming to be “no false prophet” kind of echoing here previous denials of being the cultural prophet that many had set him up to be over the years. Notwithstanding what he has said or sung, Dylan has proved himself to be a prophetic voice, whether it has been pointing to the broken nature of the world and its injustices or the broken nature of individuals, with the hope that can come through faith.
We’ve left out no end of fine songs, including: Man in the Long Black Coat, Ain’t talking, Trouble, Shot of Love, High Water, Jolene, Shake Shake Mama, It’s all Good, World Gone Wrong, Black Crow Blues, Gotta Serve Somebody. Go check them out, if you’re not familiar with them.
But we’ll finish with a song that claims to be a blues song, but isn’t really. But it’s one of my favourite Dylan songs, so here it is, from his Modern Times album.
Time to hit the road, jump into the Cadillac, scoot down the highway. I guess we’re all feeling like that after the last year we’ve had. We’ve got itchy feet, we need a change of scene, to get outa town, maybe leave on a jet plane. There’s plenty of travel in the blues and we’ve selected twelve songs to help you fly the coop or hightail it out of here.
Robert Johnson was the typical early ramblin’ bluesman, reflected in a number of his songs, like Walkin’ Blues:
Woke up this mornin’, feelin’ round for my shoes But you know ’bout ‘at I, got these old walkin’ blues
Check out this great version of Johnson’s song, by Keb’ Mo’ and others in Play for Change video:
Big Bill Broonzy, is ready to go too – he’s “gonna leave here running, ‘cos walkin’s much too slow!”
Big Maybelle – Mabel Louise Smith – (so called because of her loud “but yet well-toned voice) had her own version of Key to the Highway – Ramblin’ Blues, released in 1958. She’s just tired of her man’s low-down, dirty ways.
Talking about highways, Howlin’ Wolf’s heading out on Highway 49, looking for his baby. Hope he’s not driving though, with that “jug o’wine.”
Watch out, Wolfman, Sonny Boy Williamson’s bound for Highway 49 too. But he’s got a straight-eight Pontiac, the company’s most powerful car in 1951, capable of 252 bhp.
Sometimes moving on was because of something more sinister. The Jim Crow south, with its sundown towns, its intolerance and its lynching, kept bluesmen on the move. Charlie Patton’s Down the Dirt Road Blues has that sense of threat. And check out Adam Gussow’s book, Seems Like Murder Here, which explores this theme in some depth.
“Every day seem like murder here, I’m gonna leave tomorrow.”
Ma Rainey’s headed to San Antonio – we’re not sure why, but she sure is down in the dumps about something.
Talking about having a serious case of the blues, Canned Heat, with Alan Wilson’s plaintive, Skip-James-inspired falsetto, complains that he “ain’t got no woman…had no place to go…my dear mother left me when I was quite young.”
Nothing for it then, but the lonesome highway.
But let’s not get too depressed – here’s the wonderful Bonnie Raitt with the more upbeat The Road’s My Middle Name, with Kim Wilson on harmonica from her 1989 album Nick of Time.
And, if everybody’s leaving town, “baby, why don’t we go too?” That was Skip James’s logic. Hard to argue with.
Bob Dylan, that most under-rated of blues artists, is “looking for the sunny side of love,” and is “gonna walk down that dirt road” until he finds it. Sadly Bob hasn’t allowed the song on YouTube, but here’s a cool version by the Alpinistos
Well, we’re on the road, we’ve hit the highway; what are we gonna do but “put all our troubles away and drive”?
Bob Dylan called him “one of the wizards of modern music.” His biographer, Ian Zack, called him “one of the world’s greatest, if not the greatest, of all traditional and ragtime guitarists” And for Alan Lomax, the folklorist, he was “one of the great geniuses of American instrumental music.”
We’re talking about Rev. Gary Davis, the blind son of dirt-poor sharecroppers in South Carolina, who went on to exert a major influence on the folk scene of the 1960s and the early rock scene of the 70s. Yet for most of his career, he refused to perform blues music publicly until the latter years of his life.
He was remarkably musically gifted and his guitar virtuosity was an inspiration to people like Jorma Kaukonen, Bob Weir, Stefan Grossman and many others. Davis was born in 1896 in the Jim Crow South Carolina, became blind as a small child, and was abandoned by his mother. Raised in poverty by his grandmother, it was a thoroughly unpromising start. But she made sure young Gary went to church where he sang in the choir. He took up the guitar early, playing spirituals in earshot of his grandmother and other songs learned from traveling minstrel shows when she wasn’t listening,
He began to have real success as a musician in his late teens at picnics and in string bands, then playing on street corners for nickels and dimes, eventually adopting the rambling lifestyle of the wandering bluesman. But, at the age of 38, when his mother was dying, Davis experienced a vision, where an angel, appearing as a child, called him to God. Right there, he says, he “surrendered and gave up. Gave up entirely.” He soon was ordained as a Baptist minister.
He now harnessed all the musical skill he had amassed in playing ragtime, jazz, blues, and minstrel music and his considerable creative energies in composing and playing spiritual songs in pursuit of his new calling in life. There had been a great change.
One of Gary Davis’s song which reflects this is simply called Great Change Since I Been Born, and I got to thinking about it, when a good friend of mine, Gary Bradley, an Irish musician, sent me a recording he had made of the song for use in the book launch of my new book.
The reason I wanted the song is because my book, Paul Distilled is about the thinking of the apostle Paul, whose letters form part of our New Testaments. He, too, experienced a great change – from a man of violence to a man promoting love and peace, because of his own encounter with God. Specifically, meeting the resurrected Jesus on the famous Damascus Road. In his letters, it’s clear that he thought the epoch-shattering event of Jesus’s resurrection meant the possibility of transformation – both personally and for the world. A transformation based on love. These short thirteen letters of Paul dropped a depth charge of thought into the ancient world, whose effects are still being felt in the world. Can love really change the world? According to Jesus, and the greatest exponent of the meaning of his life, Paul – a resounding Yes!
Gary Davis eventually made has way to New York City, where his incredible skill and talent became appreciated and where he was eventually persuaded to perform more than just spiritual songs in the 1960s Though his faith was still intact, the good Reverend clearly struggled with alcohol and was known to be pretty foul-mouthed and angry at times. As Bob Dylan observed in Solid Rock,
“It’s the ways of the flesh to war against the spirit
Twenty-four hours a day, you can feel it and you can hear it”
He was reflecting, of course, St Paul’s letter to the Romans, where he talks about doing the things he doesn’t want to do and not doing what he knows he ought to do. We’ve all been there. The good news, is that a great change is possible. A life empowered by the Spirit of Jesus “is life and peace.” The secret is, in Gary Davis’s words, to “surrender and give up. Give up entirely.”
2020 gave us a fine new collection of Americana/roots music. Bob Dylan at 79 showed his genius once more and Bruce Springsteen and the E-Street Band came through with a classic-sounding album. Other notable releases came from Jason Isbell, Lucinda Williams and Welch & Rawlings. Here are our picks in two batches, 22 in all, each shown in alphabetical order rather than ranking.
Our Top 10
American Aquarium, Lamentations
This is simply a terrific album. Serious themes, sophisticated songwriting, good tunes, with a dollop of hope and optimism creeping through. The title track is inspired by the Old Testament’s Book of Lamentations, where PJ Barham he relates Jeremiah’s sufferings to someone who has “woke up from the American dream.” “He’s watching his entire country fall apart before his eyes, calling up to ask God for help, and nobody’s answering,” says Barham. “I thought that was a really great parallel [to] 2020 America.”
The Avett Brothers, The Third Gleam
In the third of their Gleam series, Scott and Seth Avett with long-time bass player Bob Crawford give us eight pared-back songs focusing on family, romantic love and spirituality. The harmonies are lovely, the songs are strong and the sparse acoustic arrangements work wonderfully well.,
Bob Dylan, Rough and Rowdy Ways
Songs like I Contain Multitudes and I’ve Made up My Mind to Give Myself to You are, like the rest of the album, quite brilliant, With its apocalyptic overtones and searching questions like, “Is there light at the end of the tunnel?” Rough and Rowdy Ways is a majestic piece of work from the 79 year-old, something of a masterpiece.
Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit, Reunions
Another really fine album from Jason Isbell, the seventh album from the former Drive By Truckers artist, Backed by the excellent 400 Unit, this is a great set of intelligent songs, which, though personal, sound universal. The band play effortlessly together with terrific energy throughout, beautifully accompanying Isbell’s and Amanda Shires’s spine-tingling harmonizing. Outstanding.
The Jayhawks, Xoxo
Hard to believe the Jayhawks have been on the go for 35 years. This, their 11th studio album, is classic Jayhawks, and features songwriting and vocals from all four members of the band. There’s a nice bit of musical diversity in this album which will appeal to long-time fans and newcomers alike.
Diana Jones, Song to a Refugee
Song to a Refugee is a quite remarkable piece of work by singer-songwriter, Diana Jones – an album entirely given to highlighting the global refugee problem. It’s a serious listen – you’ll enjoy Jones’ acoustic, guitar-driven, folky Americana, but feel downright uncomfortable as she tells story after story about desperate people escaping war and violence and seeking refuge and safety.
Marcus King, El Dorado
First rate set of bluesy, soulful Americana from a man whose guitar chops and richly textured vocals are making a lot of people sit up and take notice. The band graced Eric Clapton’s Crossroads festival last year and this album is sure to enhance its reputation even more. Produced and co-written with the Black Keys’ Dan Auerbach, there’s a fine balance of approaches here, from powerful blues rock here in The Well to the late-night blues of Wildflowers and Wine to the 70s Southern rock of Sweet Mariona.
Bruce Springsteen, Letter to You
Classic E-Street rock from the Boss, who seems to have more energy than ever. With more road behind him than ahead, Springsteen waxes philosophical on the subjects of loss and frailty of the human condition. But Springsteen, in the way only he can, gives us hope and celebration as well, and the album is surely his best of recent years.
Gillian Welch, David Rawlings, All the Good Times
Wonderful album of covers from the talented duo, sparse and beautiful renditions of traditional and songs from other artists. Rawlings’ take on Bob Dylan’s Seǹor is masterful while Welch’s Hello In There is a lovely tribute to John Prine whom we sadly lost this past year. Together they breathe new life into this beautifully chosen set of songs, and somehow hit the right note for the year that is past.
Lucinda Williams, Good Souls, Better Angels
Williams’ raspy, edgy growl adorns a bluesy, gnarly set of apocalyptic songs which explore a world coming apart. Full of punk-rock energy, as Jesse Malin said of it, “It’s like Muddy Waters meets the Stooges. It’s a badass record.” It’s real and it’s raw and Williams takes no prisoners – certainly not Trump who is firmly in her sights in Man Without A Soul. “Help me stay fearless,” she sings towards the end of the album, “Help me stay strong.” Her prayer’s been answered in this album.
And the next 12
Dave Alvin, From An Old Guitar: Rare and Unreleased Recordings
“There are two types of folk music: quiet folk music and loud folk music. I play both,” says Alvin, and that’s what you get here. It’s mostly covers in this generous 16 song set, and Alvin’s crusty, attention-grabbing vocals take centre stage. Alvin said the album was recorded for “the sheer kicks of going into a recording studio to make some joyous noise with musicians and singers that I love and admire.” Sums it up nicely.
Mary Chapin Carpenter, The Dirt and the Stars
Mary Chapin Carpenter is in the sharpest form of her 30 year career with incisive songwriting in a beautiful, intimate album. But watch out for the stinging American Stooge, which takes aim at hypocritical politicians.
The Chicks, Gaslighter
Having dropped the “Dixie” from their name, the three Chicks have released their first album in 14 years. Punchy country pop and defiant take on relationship-gone-bad and politics.
Brandy Clark, Your Life is a Record
Heart-break album, which never descends into melancholy. That’s a feat in itself. Clark proves herself to be, once again, a top-notch song-writer and singer.
Sarah Jarosz, World on the Ground
In this, her 5th album, Jarosz’s songs draw inspiration from her home in Texas, after her world tours and sojourn in New York City. Fine album of folk-pop, featuring Jarosz’s finger-picked guitars and banjo and her meditative vocals.
Brian Fallon, Local Honey
Short, at just over 30 minutes, but it’s fine stuff on this 3rd solo release from Brian Fallon. Local Honey sees the former Gaslight Anthem man move into country folk territory in these fine acoustic-led ballads.
Lori McKenna, The Balladeer
Peerless songwriter McKenna draws inspiration from her family to create an upbeat album of the hugely enjoyable songs we’ve come to expect from her.
Two voices, two guitars, gorgeous harmonies and eleven classic songs reimagined in a rootsy, fresh manner.
Chris Smither, More From the Levee
From a master song-writer come 10 more songs from his 2014 New Orleans Still On the Levee sessions. His wry wit, rhythmic finger picking an authentic, world-weary singing make any Chris Smither album worth listening to.
Chris Stapleton, Starting Over
It’s more of the same from the current king of country, despite the album’s title. Solid country rock with some nice bluesy moment. And two Guy Clark covers can’t be bad, right?
Watkins Family Hour, Brother Sister
Siblings Sean and Sara are excellent songwriters, singers and musicians, all on display in this lovely album, bluegrass based, but with tinges of Americana, jazz and ragtime.
Waxahatchee, Saint Cloud
Apparently inspired by Lucinda Williams’s Car Wheels On A Gravel Road, Katie Crutchfield veers away from melancholy indie-rock back to her country roots – very successfully. Excellent stuff.
Acclaimed “father of the blues,” song-writer and band-leader W.C. Handy was born this day 137 years ago. He’s an important figure in the history of the blues – the first real superstar, through his sheet music compositions, his 1914 St. Louis Blues, and his claim to recognizing the “world famous blues note.”
And, whatdayaknow, I share a birthday with W.C. Handy! Handy, of course, is credited with recognizing the blues for the first time in the plaintive slide playing by a man on his guitar at a station in Tutweiler, has a statue in a park named after him in Memphis, and his compositions are played to this day.
Me, I was a member of the winning sprint relay team in the Belfast primary schools’ interschool competition at Dunmore dog-racing stadium in the late ‘60s and am the proud author of this blog.
But, of course, I’ve one thing going for me over Mr. Handy. I’m still here! Though with each passing birthday, you’re painfully aware of the passing of time. You’ll never be in the sprint relay team again, your hair gets thinner and just about every muscle group in your body heads south. As Jackson Browne says,
Time may heal all wounds
But time will steal you blind
Time the wheel, time the conqueror.
But, there’s no point is dwelling on that too much, I reckon. I like the attitude of acoustic blues master, Rory Block, who’s now over 70 and who told me when I spoke to her a while back:
“Getting older or passing years is only what you make it. You know, you may make a disadvantage of it, but honestly, I don’t go there. I see it as an advantage. Now maybe I’m crazy, but I see it as a real opportunity to know more, to do more with what you know, to feel more…your fruit ripens! And to me it’s like I don’t feel old. What are you talking about? I’m more clear that this is what I was put here to do. You know, really, I see it that way. And man, I’m just getting started! I don’t feel a limitation at all and I don’t feel old – my goodness, not at all!”
So, as I celebrate my something-somethingth birthday, I’m with Rory. There are books to be written (a new one coming out soon); albums to be reviewed (though I’ll never keep up with the prolific and quite wonderful Rocking Magpie); guitars to be played; family and friends to cherish; grandchildren to greet into the world; and a big old hurting world in which to try and make a small difference (with God’s help).
Bob Dylan’s Forever Young from his Planet Waves album in 1974 – which, incidentally, someone gave me as a birthday present – hits the right note, I think:
May your heart always be joyful
May your song always be sung
And may you stay forever young
May you stay forever young.
And now, to help W.C. and me celebrate, here are a few blues songs.
Louis Jordan and his Tympany 5’s big band Happy Birthday Boogie gets the party started. “Happy birthday to you, and I hope you have many more”
Sammy Mayfield gives us a more bluesy version of the song.
And B.B. King has his Happy Birthday Blues, with a bit more blues feeling
And check out this bit of fun from Chris Kramer and the Beatbox, who hopes all our dreams come true.
And finally, it’s not the blues, but it’s a celebration, and it is Bruce Springsteen. Written for his wife Patti, but now dedicated to everybody who’s having a birthday today:
So teach us to count our days that we may gain a wise heart. (Psalm 90:12)
The railroad has a special place in the blues. Lovers leave on the train, singers go searching for them by the train, the gospel train is on its way, and the ramblin’ bluesman needs to board that train and ride.
Railroads were one of the major infrastructural and economic achievements of the nineteenth century and loomed large in the lives of people as the blues began to develop. You recall that the story of the very beginnings of the blues was at a railway station – in 1903, whilst waiting for a train in Tutweiler, Mississippi, bandleader W.C. Handy heard a man running a knife over the guitar strings and singing. He said,
“A lean, loose-jointed Negro had commenced plunking a guitar beside me while I slept. His clothes were rags; his feet peeped out of his shoes. His face had on it some of the sadness of the ages. As he played, he pressed a knife on the strings of a guitar in a manner popularized by Hawaiian guitarists who used steel bars. The effect was unforgettable. His song, too, struck me instantly. ‘Goin’ where the Southern cross’ the Dog.’ The singer repeated the line three times, accompanying himself on the guitar with the weirdest music I ever heard.”
Handy later published an adaptation of this song as “Yellow Dog Blues,” and became known as the “Father of the Blues.”
Freed slaves had built the railroad with their blood, sweat and tears, and in the early years of the twentieth century, it was the primary means of transport for people for longer distances. For itinerant blues musicians like Robert Johnson, trains allowed them to move from place to place and ply their trade. Johnson’s sister, Annye Anderson, in her book, Brother Robert, remembers Robert “hoboing” around on the train, going back and forth from Memphis to the Delta for his music. His famous train song, of course, is Love in Vain.
The train was the means of escape, too, for black people wanting to leave behind the injustice of the Jim Crow South and seek a better life in the North and West. From 1916 onwards, around 6m people moved away from the racist ideology, the lynching and the lack of economic opportunity to cities like Chicago, Philadelphia, Detroit and New York. Famously, McKinley Morganfield – Muddy Waters – boarded a train for Chicago in 1943 to become the “father of Chicago blues” and pioneer electric blues.
Trains in the South were, of course, segregated. In the “colored” section, there were no luggage racks, requiring travellers to cram their suitcases around their feet; and the bathroom there was smaller and lacked the amenities of the “whites” bathroom. All these were subtle and not-so-subtle reminders that you were not as good as the people in the other section.
So James Carr’s Freedom Train of 1969 was significant. Attorney General Tom C. Clark had organized a Freedom Train as “a campaign to sell America to Americans” to try and bolster the sense of shared ideology within the country. The train was integrated, but several Southern cities refused to allow blacks and whites to see the exhibits at the same time, and the Freedom Train skipped the planned visits. Carr’s song celebrates a new Freedom Train, free from segregation and discrimination. where “every man is gonna walk right proud with his head up high.”
So, here’s to trains, and may the Freedom Train keep on rollin’ down the track!
Here are 20 blues train songs for you to enjoy.
Trouble in Mind (1924)
In this old blues standard, things are so bad, the singer wants to end it all – he’s going to lay down his head on that old railroad iron, and let that 2.19 special pacify his mind. It never really gets to that point, happily, because, “sun’s gonna shine in my back yard some day.” First recorded in 1924, it’s been done by Nina Simone, Janis Joplin, Snooks Eglin, Lightnin’ Hopkins and many more. I like this jaunty version by Brooks Williams from his Brooks Blues album of 2017.
Railroad Blues , Trixie Smith with Louis Armstrong (1925)
Trixie Smith, not related to Bessie Smith, paid her dues in vaudeville and minstrel shows, as well as performing as a dancer, a comedian, an actress, and a singer. Here she is backed by Louis Armstrong’s muted horn, as she is “Alabama bound” on the railroad.
The Mail Train Blues, Sippie Wallace (1926)
The Texas Nightingale recorded 40 songs for Okeh during the 1920s before going on to be a a church organist, singer, and choir director, and then eventually reviving her performing career in the 1960s. In Wallace’s 1926 Mail Train Blues she bemoans her sweet man leaving her and wants to go looking for him aboard the mail train.
Spike Driver Blues. Mississippi John Hurt (1928)
This and other songs recorded by Hurt in 1928 were not commercially success and he reverted to the farming life until being found in 1963 by Dick Spottswood and Tom Hoskins, and persuaded to perform and record again. John Hurt had a wonderful guitar picking style which is credited by many guitarists as their inspiration. Spike Driver Blues is a John Henry song where the “steel-driving man” dies as a result of his hammering a steel drill into rock to make holes for explosives to blast the rock in constructing a railroad tunnel.
Long Train Blues, Robert Wilkins, (1930)
Wilkins was a versatile blues performer from Mississipi who gave up playing the blues to become a gospel minister in 1936. An excellent guitarist, he came to light again in the 1960s and recorded some of his gospel blues. Long Train Blues, which he recorded in 1930 tells the tale of a lover who has run off on the train.
Too Too Train Blues, Big Bill Broonzy (1932)
There’s some nifty acoustic guitar work here by the hugely talented Bill Broonzy, with another “my baby done left me aboard the train” blues. Broonzy sustained his career successfully from the 1920s to the 1950s, performing both traditional numbers and his own compositions, recording more than 300 songs.
The Midnight Special, Leadbelly (1934)
Recorded in 1934 by Huddie William “Lead Belly” Ledbetter at Angola Prison for John and Alan Lomax, the song has been covered by a host of artists, notably John Fogerty’s Creedance Clearwater Revival. The Midnight Special is said to be the name of a train that left Houston at midnight, heading west, running past Sugarland prison farm, the train’s light becoming a symbol for freedom for the inmates. The song also references the injustice of black men being incarcerated for minor infractions.
Love in Vain, Robert Johnson (1937)
Famously covered by the Rolling Stones for their 1969 Let It Bleed album which featured some tasty electric slide guitar, Love in Vain is a Robert Johnson song recorded in his last studio session in 1937. Johnson’s guitar work is outstanding, as is his singing. The sense of loss is palpable, and you hear Johnson crying out his lover Willie Mae’s name near the end of the song.
This Train, Rosetta Tharpe (1939)
This old gospel song has been around since the 1920s and has been extensively recorded. Bruce Springsteen’s Land of Hope and Dreams takes This Train as its starting point but reworks the ideas of the original so that everybody can get aboard. Tharpe’s more original version has “everybody riding in Jesus’ name”; it’s a “clean train, which won’t take “jokers, tobacco chewers and no cigar smokers.” The song was a hit for Tharpe in the late ‘30s and again in the ‘50s. This live performance gives some sense of what an expressive and incredible performer Tharpe was, not to mention her impressive guitar chops. The 1939 version was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame
Lonesome Train, Sonny Terry & Brownie McGhee (1952)
Just a great train song, with Sonny Terry’s harp driving the train down the track in this instrumental track. There are a few “whoooos” hollered along the way by the duo, who had a 35-year partnership. A masterclass in harp playing. The song was recorded by Sonny Terry in 1952 along with the Night Owls.
Mystery Train, Junior Parker (1953)
Mississippi bluesman Parker’s 1953 hit inspired a number of later versions, notably Paul Butterfield Blues Band’s take in 1965. In Parker’s version the drums mimic the rattle of the train on the track and the tenor sax the wail of the whistle. Butterfield adds a nice bit of harmonica.
Southbound Train, Muddy Waters (1957)
This is another Big Bill Broonzy song from 1957, which Muddy Waters recorded on his tribute to Broonzy in 1960, Muddy Waters Sings “Big Bill.” Broonzy had mentored Waters when he came to Chicago. Waters version isn’t too far removed from Broonzy’s, both piano driven blues, but Water’s version features some nice harp from James Cotton. The song has the singer heading South to the lowlands to escape his faithless lover.
Freight Train, Elizabeth Cotton (1957)
The song actually is about dying and being laid to rest at the end of Chesnut Street, so “I can hear “old number 9 as she comes rolling by.” Remarkable really, when Cotton said she composed the song as a teenager (sometime 1906-1912). She recorded it in 1957 and it’s been covered by many artists, including Peter, Paul & Mary, Joan Baez and Odetta. Cotton was a great guitar picker and this song has been a favourite for aspiring acoustic guitar players to learn. (Guitarist – check out Tommy Emmanuel’s lesson here (easy!!)
Freight Train Blues, Bob Dylan, 1962
Bob Dylan here echoes Elizabeth Cotton’s song in this 1962 recording from his debut album. Dylan tells a tongue-in-cheek but atmospheric story of poverty, rambling and the freight train. It’s typical early Dylan, all strummed acoustic guitar and harmonica.
Freedom Train, James Carr (1969)
A 1969 R&D hit for James Carr, Freedom Train reflects the Civil Rights movement of the sixties: “It’s time for all the people to take this freedom ride, Got to together and work for freedom side by side.” Born in Mississippi, Carr grew up singing in the church, but his R&D success led to his being called “the world’s greatest R&D singer.”
Hear My Train A-Coming, Jimi Hendrix (1971)
Hendix’s train song is typical Hendrix – overdriven, psychedelic guitar pulsing. It’s on his 1971 Rainbow Bridge album, but Hendrix performed the song in a BBC performance in 1967. He has also been recorded doing an acoustic version of the song on a 12-string guitar, giving it a Delta blues sound, Hendrix clearly familiar with the style of the acoustic blues masters of the past. Here’s some rare footage of Jimi Hendrix playing acoustic guitar.
Get Onboard, Eric Bibb (2008)
The title track of blues troubadour Eric Bibb’s 2008 album. Bibb, in his customary positive fashion, wants us to get on board the “love train.” There’s “room for everybody,” he sings as the band, including some nice harmonica, rattles us down the track.
Slow Train, Hans Theessink, 2012
Good times, bad times, tired and weary – Dutch guitarist and songwriter Hans Theessink has been singing the blues for a very long time and knows how to craft a blues song. This one is from his excellent 2012 Slow Train album, and features Theessink’s superb acoustic finger-picking and his rich bass-baritone voice.
When My Train Pulls In, Gary Clark Jr. (2013)
“Everywhere I go I keep seeing the same old thing & I, I can’t take it no more,” sings Clark, surely against the backdrop of racism in America. Hailing from Texas, the Grammy winning Clark is an outstanding guitarist and prolific live performer. This performance of the song which appears on his 2013 Blak and Blu album, showcases Clark’s guitar chops and his classy vocals.
Train to Nowhere, J J Cale (2014)
Eric Clapton recorded this previously unreleased J J Cale song on his tribute to Cale, The Breeze in 2014. The song features Mark Knopfler singing and playing guitar and is both unmistakably a J J Cale song and a train song. The lyrics look to be about that last train ride we all have to take and are a little bleak.
This Train, Joe Bonamassa (2016)
It’s full steam ahead for Joe’s train, in this case his baby who “comes down like a hammer” and “hurts him bad.” It’s all good stuff, with the usual Bonamassa guitar pyrotechnics. But Bonamassa has become a fine singer as well, which This Train amply demonstrates. The song is on his 2016 Blues of Desperation album, but there are some great live versions available too.
We’re at the half year mark and it’s been a pretty strange year so far. The coronavirus pandemic has stopped live music in its tracks – aside from the online variety – and there haven’t been as many album releases as usual. But what we’ve had has been top notch and we’ve chosen 12 of the best.
Dion, Blues with Friends
With liner notes by Bob Dylan and a stellar cast of blues musicians – Van Morrison, Paul Simon, Patti Scialfa and Bruce Springsteen, Joe Bonamassa and Jeff Beck…the list goes on – Dion’s new album is pretty special. His energy and passion for the blues has clearly not diminished even in his 81st year. Every track is a highlight and it’s an album you’ll want to return to again and again. As Dion says, “The blues is a beautiful form of music that God gave to us.” Full review here.
Larkin Poe, Self Made Man
The Lovell sisters’ latest album takes over from 2018’s terrific Venom and Faith. If anything, the rockin’ blues on offer is even more raw and arresting. This is modern blues at its best and you gotta love the fabulous vocals of Rebecca, the glorious harmonies of the two of them and Megan’s sensational lap steel work. We loved God Moves on the Water, which you’d swear was a cover of an old blues song, but this original testifies to Larkin Poe’s authentic feeling for the blues. Exhilarating, invigorating stuff. Check out our interview with Rebecca and Megan here.
Rory Block, Prove it on Me
Acoustic blues master, Rory Block gives us another terrific album celebrating the blues artists of yesteryear. This time she’s focused on women blues artists, and exploring some of the more obscure material. This 10-song set that features Block’s intricate guitar work, and her nicely phrased and bluesy vocals. Full review here.
Sonny Landreth, Blacktop Run
It only takes you to hear a few notes before you recognize that it’s Sonny Landreth. His sixteenth album is exhilarating stuff, with slide playing that is jaw-droppingly good, deadly accurate, sometimes amazingly quick and always with that characteristic Landreth tone. This is a richly textured album from the hugely talented Landreth and his band, which is impressive the first time you hear but repays repeated listens in spades. Full review here.
Lucinda Williams, Good Souls Better Souls
Williams’ raspy, edgy growl adorns a bluesy, gnarly set of apocalyptic songs which explore a world coming apart. Full of punk-rock energy, as Jesse Malin said of it, “It’s like Muddy Waters meets the Stooges. It’s a badass record.” It’s real and it’s raw and Williams takes no prisoners – certainly not Trump who is firmly in her sights in Man Without A Soul. “Help me stay fearless,” she sings towards the end of the album, “Help me stay strong.” Her prayer’s been answered in this album.
Marcus King, El Dorado
First rate set of bluesy, soulful Americana from a man whose guitar chops and richly textured vocals are making a lot of people sit up and take notice. The band graced Eric Clapton’s Crossroads festival last year and this album is sure to enhance its reputation even more. Produced and co-written with the Black Keys’ Dan Auerbach, there’s a fine balance of approaches here, from powerful blues rock here in The Well to the late-night blues of Wildflowers and Wine to the 70s Southern rock of Sweet Mariona.
Robert Cray Band, That’s What I Heard
Another excellent offering of blues, R&B and soul from the ever-consistent Robert Cray and his band. A 12 track set of both originals and covers of songs you may not know, all delivered with Cray’s sweet vocals and his clean as a whistle guitar tone. There’s a nice dash of gospel as well with Burying Ground.
Eliza Neals, Black Crow Moan
Honest-to-goodness blues rock from the talented Ms Neals, choc full of attitude, sass, top-notch musicianship, and downright good fun. One of the best blues rock albums you’ll hear all year, with Eliza Neals and her group of musicians playing straight out of their hearts and souls. Read our review here.
Albert Cummings, Believe
An album to savour from blues rock guitarist and singer, Albert Cummings. Recorded in Muscle Shoals, with the legendary Jim Gaines producing, we get six originals and five covers, including the delightful cover of Van Morrison’s Crazy Love, delivered with a laid-back bluesy vocal performance backed up with some lovely gospel vocals. There’s also a terrific version of Wolf’s Red Rooster with some muscular guitar work and vocals to match.
Watermelon Slim, Traveling Man
Bill Homans’ rugged, gritty blues in a generous 18 song package of live performances from 2016 in Oklahoma. It’s just Homan and his twangy resonator on a set of originals and old blues covers, including Muddy Waters and Howlin’ Wolf. It’s raw, sittin’-on-the-porch blues, all slide guitar and rasping vocals – old school blues.
Victor Wainwright & The Train, Memphis Loud
Raucous boogie-woogie and horns-driven soulish blues from blues award winner and Grammy nominated Wainwright and his band. It’s toe-tapping stuff, never a dull moment, as Wainwright and the Train barrel down through the tracks. Wainwright is a terrific pianist and singer and the band are quite masterful.
A Special Mention to:
Bob Dylan, Rough and Rowdy Ways
I thought long and hard whether to include this in the main list. It’s not a blues album per se – songs like I Contain Multitudes and I’ve Made up My Mind to Give Myself to You are, like the rest of the album, quite brilliant, but definitely not blues songs. On the other hand Black Rider and GoodBye Jimmy Reed are for sure. And then there’s the gothic 17 minute Murder Most Foul which may not be blues in form but in lyrical content pretty much is. As is the rest of the album, really, with its apocalyptic overtones and searching questions like, “Is there light at the end of the tunnel?” In any case, it’s a majestic piece of work from the 79 year-old, something of a masterpiece.
And a couple of live albums worth mentioning, both from Irishmen, both sadly no longer with us. But both albums capture the dazzling talent of each man.
Gary Moore, Live from London
The guitar legend at the top of his game in a small club performance at London’s Islington Academy on December 2nd, 2009, with beloved Moore favourites like Still Got the Blues and Parisienne Walkways.
Rory Gallagher, Check Shirt Wizard
Previously unreleased, this blistering 20-song set is from four shows in England during an early 1977 tour across the UK in support of Rory’s then latest album Calling Card.
We’re choosing a few songs that have particular resonance at this challenging time. This time, we’re going with Bob Dylan’s Lord Protect My Child, recorded on May 2, 1983. Dylan decided not to include it in his Infidels album, but it appeared eight years’ later on The Bootleg Series Volumes 1–3 (Rare & Unreleased) 1961–1991.
Reviewer Jonathan Lethem called the song “an achingly candid blues-plea which [provides] a rare glimpse of Bob Dylan-the-parent.” It is indeed a great blues song, with Dylan in fine form and you wonder why it didn’t make the cut on Infidels.
Anyway, I got to thinking about this song because my daughter is a doctor, currently caring for Covid-19 patients in an Intensive Care Unit in a hospital in central London. She’s right in the thick of things in this pandemic, and she’s very brave. But, as a parent, you can’t help but be concerned for her, even with all her PPE (Personal Protective Equipment). You pray with Dylan:
No matter what happens to me, no matter what my destiny
Lord, oh Lord, protect my child.
It’s what every parent feels about their children – no matter what happens to you, you just want your children – no matter what age they are – to be safe and to be happy.
I pray the same for you and your families.
Here’s Dylan’s album version and then a great version by Susan Tedsechi, who really does justice to the bluesy tones of the song.
We don’t normally expect prisons to play a role in the history of music. But with the blues, it’s not just drinkers, ramblers and vagrants who take a starring role, but also convicts. The blues grew up not only in plantations but in prisons.
Songs from the 1920s onward complain about the privations of life in prison, loneliness, lost love and injustice. Because under Jim Crow, African Americans were abominably treated by a justice system that might better be called an injustice system. Consider, for example, the convict leasing which took hold in Mississippi towards the end of the nineteenth century and went on for decades. Black people convicted by the law were leased to farmers and businessmen and literally worked to death. They were savagely beaten, made to work seemingly endless workdays and treated with murderous neglect. “Convicts dropped from exhaustion, pneumonia, malaria, frostbite, consumption, sunstroke, dysentery, gunshot wounds and “shackle poisoning” says historian David Oshinsky – and in the process made fortunes for plantation owners. Many of the convicts had fallen foul of local ordinances for minor infractions, were simply not able to pay the hefty fines levied, and then fell foul of well-off whites who paid their fines and forced them into indentured slavery characterized by back-breaking and life-threatening labour. “The end result was a stream of back bodies to the county chain gangs and local plantations” (Oshinsky).
African Americans were also worked in unbearable conditions in Mississippi’s penitentiary, Parchman, which sprawled over 20,000 acres of rich Delta farmland. Prisoners were put to work as if they were slaves, with men working until they dropped dead or burnt out with sunstroke. They worked from dawn to dusk in the brutal heat, surviving on worm-infested food, kept at it by the brutal application of the “Black Annie,” a heavy leather strap. Bluesman Willie Dixon, who was born in 1915 was once sentenced to 30 days for vagrancy on the Harvey Allen County Farm. He recalls the use of the Black Annie:
“They’d haul us out there to work and put us on a great big ditch…We were on top cutting and all of a sudden I hear somebody screaming, “Oh Lawdy! Oh, Lawdy, captain please stop doing it…I run over there peepin’. Boy, they’ve got five guys on this one guy…and this guy – they called him Captain Crush – has got a strap about eight inches wide. It’s leather, about five or six inches long, a handle on it about two feet long and holes in the end of this strap about as big as a quarter. They called it the Black Annie…Every time he hits this guy, flesh and blood actually come off this cat…He was out and they were still beating him.”
Willie Dixon
Dixon goes on to relate how, for being caught watching this, he too was beaten with the strap round the head, resulting in deafness for the next four months. He was thirteen at the time.
But in these prison-farms, remarkably, music thrived – mostly as a survival mechanism. When father and son musicologist team, John and Alan Lomax embarked on their famous blues-collecting road trip in 1933, they discovered that their most productive visits were to penitentiaries. They described finding here a “black Homer”, an aging black prisoner called “Iron Head”, with a songbook that would fill 500 pages if written down. In Louisiana’s Angola, They also found Huddie Ledbetter, later to be known as Leadbelly.
Possibly Leadbelly’s most famous song is Midnight Special, covered by Creedance Clearwater Revival, Van Morrison and many others. The Midnight Special was a train whose headlights lit up Ledbetter’s cell. The song speaks of “Nothing in the pan,” in other words nothing to eat, and if you were to “say a thing about it, you’d have trouble with the man.” It highlights the minor infractions that could put you away in prison – “if you ever go the Houston, boy you’d better walk right… Benson Crocker will arrest you, Jimmy Boone will take you down.” Blacks often did not have to commit any crime, in order to be arrested and subsequently jailed. A white person was completely at liberty to stop and question a black stranger in the neighbourhood, and if they did not have a local white person to vouch for them, then the police could be called upon to make an arrest.
As you listen to blues songs the Lomaxes recorded at Parchman (check out “Negro Prison Blues and Songs, Recorded Live by Alan Lomax”) – prisoners recounting personal tragedies, injustices and the ever-present hope of pardon and freedom, you get an insight into the hardship and injustice that Parchman and other penitentiaries represented.
To be sure, many incarcerated in Parchman had committed very violent crimes. But factors of extreme poverty, lack of education and racist oppression need to be reckoned with. Not only did they contribute to a climate of violence, they increased the conviction rate, lengthened sentences and lessened chances for pardon or parole.
Other famous blues convicts include Son House and Bukka White, second cousin to B.B. King. In his Parchman Farm Blues, Bukka sings of the dawn to dusk work regime:
Go to work in the mornin’ just at the dawn of day And at the settin’ of the sun that is when your work is done.
No wonder he also wrote Fixin’ to Die blues:
Now, I believe I’m fixin’ to die, yeah
I know I was born to die
But I hate to leave my children around cryin’
(Check out the Postscript after the songs)
Here’s our selection of prison blues songs.
Furry Lewis, Judge Harsh, 1928
It’s an appeal from an innocent man for a light sentence:
They ‘rest me for murder, I ain’t harmed a man
‘Rest me for murder, I ain’t harmed a man
Women hollerin’ murderer, Lord I ain’t raised my hand
I ain’t got nobody to get me out on bond
I ain’t got nobody to get me out on bond
I would not mind but I ain’t done nothing wrong
Blind Lemon Jefferson, Prison Cell Blues, 1928
The hopelessness of the convicted prisoner:
I asked the government to knock some days off my time
Well, the way I’m treated, I’m about to lose my mind
I wrote to the governor, please turn me a-loose
Since I don’t get no answer, I know it ain’t no use
Leroy Carr, Prison Bound Blues, 1929
Early one mornin’, the blues came falling down
Early one mornin’, the blues came falling down
All locked up in jail, and prison boun’.
Peg Leg Howell, Ball and Chain Blues, 1929
Howell served time in Georgia prison camps for bootlegging offenses. He knew
what it was like to endure physical labour for the state as a prisoner.
They arrested me, carried me ‘fore the judge
They arrested me, they carried me ‘fore the judge
Said, the judge wouldn’t allow me to say a mumbling word
I’ve always been a poor boy, never had no job…
And the next day, carried the poor boy away
The next day, they carried that poor boy away
Say, the next day, I laid in ball and chains
Take these stripes off my back, chains from ’round my leg
Stripes off my back, chains from ’round my leg
This ball and chain about to kill me dead.
The Memphis Sheiks, He’s In the Jailhouse Now, 1930.
Made famous recently by featuring in the movie, O Brother Where Art Thou by The Soggy Bottom Boys. This unusually cheerful jail song was originally found in vaudeville performances from the early 20th century, usually credited to Jimmie Rodgers. The final verse of the song is about the singer taking a girl named Susie out on the town and the two winding up in jail together.
I went out last Tuesday, Met a gal named Susie…
We started to spend my money, Then she started to call me honey
We took in every cabaret in town
We’re in the jailhouse now
We’re in the jailhouse now
I told the judge right to his face
We didn’t like to see this place
We’re in the jailhouse now.
Bukka White, Parchman Farm Blues, 1940
White was born in Mississippi, but moved to Memphis and Chicago to record. He ran into trouble when he and a friend were “ambushed” by a man along a highway, according to White. He shot the man in the thigh in self-defence. While awaiting trial, he skipped bail and went to Chicago, where he recorded two songs before being apprehended. He was sent back to Mississippi to do a three-year stretch at Parchman Farm. He recorded two numbers for the Lomaxes at Parchman Farm in 1939. His Parchman Farm Blues speaks of the long days of back-breaking labour:
We go to work in the mo’nin
Just a-dawn of day
We go to work in the mo’nin
Just a-dawn of day
Just at the settin’ of the sun
That’s when da work is done, yeah
Leadbelly, Midnight Special, 1934
Leadbelly recorded a version of the song at Angola Prison for the Lomaxes. They said that the Midnight Special was a train from Houston, shining its light into a cell in the Sugar Land Prison, where the light of the train is the light of salvation, which could take them out of prison. Author Carl Sandburg’s view, however, was that the singer would rather be run over by a train than spend more time in jail.
Well, you wake up in the mornin’, you hear the work bell ring,
And they march you to the table to see the same old thing.
Ain’t no food upon the table, and no pork up in the pan.
But you better not complain, boy, you get in trouble with the man.
Big Maceo, County Jail Blues, 1941
Written by Alfred Fields, the song was also recorded by Eric Clapton in 1975.
So take these stripes from around me, chains from around my neck
These stripes from around me, and these chains from around my neck
Well, these stripes don’t hurt me, but these chains oughta give me death
Walter “Tangle Eye” Jackson, Tangle Eye Blues, 1947
One of many recordings made in late 1947 at Parchman by Alan Lomax, the song speaks of the regret of the incarcerated prisoner.
Oh Lord
Well I wonder will I ever get back home?
Oh Lord
Well it must have been the devil that pulled me here
more down and out
Oh Lord… if I ever get back home, I’ll never do wrong
If I can just make it home I won’t do wrong no more
Lighnin’ Hopkins, Jail House Blues, 1961
Originally written by Clarence Williams and Bessie Smith in 1923, and recorded also by Ella Fitzgerald in 1963, Hopkins’s version is telling, in that he had been sent to Houston County Prison Farm in the mid-1930s – for which offense we don’t know.
Hey mister jailer, will you please sir bring me the key
I just want you to open the door, cause this ain’t no place for me
Johnny Cash, Folsom Prison, 1955
Recorded first on his debut album, Cash performed the song at Folsom Prison itself on January 13, 1968. It contains the classic lines, which were roundly cheered by the inmates:
But I shot a man in Reno
Just to watch him die…
Far from Folsom Prison
That’s where I want to stay
And I’d let that lonesome whistle
Blow my blues away
Bob Dylan, Hurricane, 1976
Co-written with Jacques Levy, the song concerns the imprisonment of Rubin “Hurricane” Carter, who, it alleged, was falsely tried and convicted, a victim of racism. In 1985 Federal Judge H. Lee Sarokin, ruled that Carter had not received a fair trial and overturned the conviction, resulting in Carter’s release and the granting of a writ of habeas corpus to Carter, commenting that the prosecution had been “based on racism rather than reason and concealment rather than disclosure.”
Sam Cooke, Chain Gang, 1960
Cooke’s incongruously upbeat 1960 hit “Chain Gang” was inspired by his encounter with a prison chain gang while out on tour. These prisoners had been out build a highway, and the only thing keeping them in good spirits was the hope that one day they’d be free from their shackles.
All day long they work so hard
Till the sun is goin’ down
Working on the highways and byways
And wearing, wearing a frown
You hear them moanin’ their lives away
Then you hear somebody sa-ay
That’s the sound of the men working on the chain ga-a-ang
That’s the sound of the men working on the chain gang
Postscript
The inequity of the justice system in the United States continues to this day, with one in every three black male babies born in this century expected to be incarcerated. The United States has the highest rate of incarceration in the world, with a prison population that has grown from 300,000 to over 2 million today, and one in every 15 people in the country expected to go to jail or prison. Its rate of incarceration is four to eight times higher than those in other liberal democracies, including Canada, England, and Germany.
Michelle Alexander in The New Jim Crow says that “more African American adults are under correctional control today…than were enslaved in 1850.” The United States now imprisons a larger percentage of its black population than South Africa did at the height of apartheid. Alexander goes on to note, shockingly, that “young black men today may be just as likely to suffer discrimination in employment, housing, public benefits and jury service as a black man in the Jim Crow era.”
Black rapper Meek Mills tells of his experience as a black man caught in a justice system in need of reform: “Like many who are currently incarcerated, I was the victim of a miscarriage of justice — carried out by an untruthful officer, as determined by the Philadelphia District Attorney’s office, and an unfair judge.” You can read details of his case here.
Mills speaks of the disproportionate number of men and women of colour in prison and contends that “the system causes a vicious cycle, feeding upon itself — sons and daughters grow up with their parents in and out of prison, and then become far more likely to become tied up in the arrest-jail-probation cycle. This is bad for families and our society as a whole.”
John Pfaff, in his recent Locked In, observes that “blacks are systematically denied access to the more successful paths to economic stability,” and therefore “face systematically greater pressure to turn to other alternatives.” He goes on to note that young men without a way out of poverty turn to gangs, and gangs always turn to violence. The way out of the cycle of violence and incarceration that America has got itself into in not straightforward, but surely has a lot to do with the need to tackle poverty, with the fact that prosecutors are elected and need to be market themselves as “tough on crime,” with the lack of any sensible gun control policy, and with the need to examine drug policy.
Michelle Alexander concludes her book by reminding her readers of Rev. Dr Martin Luther King’s appeal for a “radical restructuring of our society,” and urges a radical restructuring of America’s approach to racial justice advocacy as well.
James Baldwin, in a letter written in 1962 to his nephew, tells him that, “you were born into a society which spelled out with brutal clarity…that you were a worthless human being.” The sad history of incarceration in the United States is achingly reflected in the prison blues songs.
The Fire Next Time, James Baldwin, 1962 Worse than Slavery: Parchman Farm and the Ordeal of Jim Crow Justice, David M. Oshinksy, 1996 The New Jim Crow, Michelle Alexander, 2010 Race, Crime and Punishment, The Aspen Institute, 2011 Just Mercy, Bryan Stevenson, 2015 Locked In, The True Causes of Mass Incarceration, John F Pfaff, 2017
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Remarkable story of redemption.
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