Big Road Blues

Show Notes:

Todays show focuses on blues songs about hard times; songs about the 29’ depression, job loss, inflation, recession and welfare are just some of the themes touched upon in the songs played today. While hard times touched both whites and blacks, it always hurt the poorest, which in the segregation area meant the black population. This is the second installment of a planned series of topical blues shows; the first was one we did last year on blues songs dealing with war.

When the Wall Street crash occurred at the end of October 1929 there were many stories of lost fortunes, of bankrupt financiers throwing themselves from skyscraper buildings. Those who bore the brunt were the poor, and of those the black population was the worst off. As steel mills ceased to operate and factories were closed down, thousands of workers, many of whom were seasonal employees, were laid off. Few were members of unions, and there was no protection against unemployment. “The Panic Was On” as Hezekiah Jenkins sang in 1931:

What this country is coming to
I sure would like to know
If they don’t do something bye and bye, the rich will live and the poor will die
Doggone, I mean the panic is on

Can’t get no work, can’t draw no pay
Unemployment getting worser every day
Nothing to eat no place to sleep
All night long folks walking the street
Doggone, I mean the panic is on

The shantytowns constructed from waste materials that sprang up around the cities were named “Hoovervilles” after President Hoover. In J.D. Short’s “It’s Hard Time” he sings:

Now we have got a little city that we calls ‘down in Hooverville’
Times have got so hard, people ain’t got no place to live

Franklin D. Roosevelt was inaugurated in March 1933 and took many measures in his first hundred days to combat the depression. In June he established the Public Works Administration (PWA) for which over $3 billion was appropriated. PWA projects were largely engaged in construction projects like sewage plants, flood control and bridge building. Under the PWA was an alphabet soup of agencies with acronyms like PWA, CCC, CWA, CCC and others. Later came the WPA which replaced direct relief and built over a half million miles of roads, a hundred thousand bridges and even more pubic buildings. Many blues songs deal with this topic. In his “Charity Blues” Charlie McCoy sums up the situation:

I Said you ain’t got no money and you got no place to stay
You got to get you a job on the P.W.A.
The rent man keeps askin’ ‘When is you goin-a pay’ (2x)
I said ‘Just as soon as I get my money from the W.P.A.

In “Don’t Take Away My P.W.A” Jimmy Gordon shared a similar sentiment:

Lord, Mister President listen to what I’m going to say (2x)
You can take away all he alphabet but please leave the P.W.A.

Not everyone had kind words about the situation. Relief rates were often unequal among blacks and whites. In some instances black families were getting only a third of the sums that whites got. In “Let’s Have A New Deal” Carl Martin had this to say:

Everybody’s crying ‘let’s have a new deal’
Relief stations closing down – I know just how you feel
If you went to the relief workers and put in a complaint, 8 times out of 10, you know, they’ll say they can’t
They won’t give you no dough, won’t hardly pay your rent, and it ain’t costin’ them one dog-gone cent

In “Working on The Project” Peetie Wheatstraw complained:

Working on he project with pay-day three or four weeks away (2X)
Now how can you make ends meet, ooh well, well, when you can’t get no pay?

While the entry in WW II eased the pressure on many who were drafted or employed in the plants, it was largely the white population who benefited. Many were still “On The Killin’ Floor” as Doctor Clayton described in 1942:

Please give me a match to light this short that I found
I know it looks bad for me, picking tobacco off the ground
I was in my prime not so very long ago
But high priced whiskey and woman done put me on the killin’ floor

Truman became President in 1945. Inflation was a major reason Truman’s popularity dropped from 87% after his election to 32% by the time he was up for re-election. In addition, after the war prices began to rise and opportunities lessen. Prices rose 38% between 1946 and 1948.Among the songs that deal with this period are Jimmy Witherspoon’s “Money’s Getting Cheaper” (1947), Louis Jordan’s “Inflation Blues” (1947), Roosevelt Sykes’ “High Price Blues” (1945), Sunnyland Slim’s “Bad Times (Cost of Living)” (1949), Smokey Hogg’s “High Priced Meat” (1947) and Ivory Joe Hunter’s “High Cost Low Pay Blues” (1947).

Eisenhower was elected President in 1953. In the spring of 1954 the U.S. suffered a modest recession. The most bitter attack on the President was “Eisenhower Blues” by J.B. Lenoir:

Hey everybody, I was talkin’ to you
I ain’t tellin’ you jivin’, this is the natural truth
Mm mm mm, I got them Eisenhower blues
Thinkin’ about me and you, what on earth are we gonna do?

Taken all my money, to pay the tax
I’m only givin’ you people, the natural facts
I only tellin’ you people, my belief
Because I am headed straight, on relief
Mm mm mm, I got them Eisenhower blues
Thinkin’ about me and you, what on earth are we gonna do?

Ain’t go a dime, ain’t even got a cent
I don’t even have no money, to pay my rent
My baby needs some clothes, she needs some shoes
Peoples I don’t know what, I’m gonna do
Mm mm mm, I got them Eisenhower blues
Thinkin’ about me and you, what on earth are we gonna do?

In “Everybody Wants To Know (Laid Off Blues) ” he was even more militant:

You rich people listen, you better listen real deep:
If we poor peoples get so hungry, we gonna take some food to eat

By 1954 there were three million people on the dole. The specter of the depression haunted many of the blues songs of the Eisenhower years. Jimmy McCracklin, who had experienced the depression as a child, pronounced the “Panic’s On”:

The panic’s on, wonder what are we going to do?
Lord, it reminds me of nineteen and thirty-two

“Tough Times” was recorded the same year by John Brim who sang a similar refrain:

Things like times getting tough like 32’

As the 1960 presidential election campaign got under way, the 1960-1961 recession began. John F Kennedy’s 1960 campaign promise “ to get America moving again “ referred to the American economy. Though Richard Nixon came to office preoccupied with foreign policy, he soon had to grapple with an economy that threatened him with political defeat when the economy dipped into recession. We wrap up the show with several songs from this period: Freddie King “(The Welfare) Turns Its Back On You” (1962), Jimmy Lee Robinson “Times Is Hard” (1962), Little Wolf Jr. (King Solomon) “Inflation Blues” (1970), Jimmy Dawkins “Welfare Blues” (1971) and Mighty Joe Young “Hard Times” (1966).

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