Big Road Blues

Show Notes:

Much of today's notes and transcriptions have been based on Chris Smith's The Titanic a Case Study Of Religious and Secular Attitudes (see below for full article). The sinking of the Titanic on the night of 14th-5th April 1912 was the first characteristically 20th century transport disaster, the first of the age of mass intercontinental travel; its 1503 deaths dwarfed the losses from the train wrecks that were the typical large-scale accident of its time, and the figure still exceeds the largest toll from an air crash. It is a measure of the impression that was made by the sinking of the Titanic that it found its way into African American music. The Titanic became a topic for both religious and secular singers. Even before recording began, folk song collectors in Alabama, the Carolinas, Georgia and Mississippi were noting down songs about the Titanic from black informants as early as 1915.

Around 1913 there was a proto-blues about the Titanic sung by Butler "String Bean" May a star of African-American vaudeville.  As Lynn Abbott and Doug Seroff describe in Ramblin' on My Mind: New Perspectives on the Blues: "'Beans' was known throughout black America for his street-wise humor, contortive  vernacular dancing, and outrageous blues piano playing." He was popularly known as the "The Elgin Movements Man" and "some time before the end of 1913, String Beans combined his metaphor of 'Elgin movements' with the theme of the sinking of the Titanic to produce, his irreverent tour de force 'Titanic Blues'." W.C. Handy was an eyewitness to a performance with the following lyrics recalled:

A relatively small percentage of blues deals directly with overt protest but there were many more about community events; there were numerous songs about natural disasters such as floods, drought, storms and fire, songs about cultural figures like Joe Louis, Franklin Roosevelt, Martin Luther King and John Kennedy, songs about politics, war, urban renewal, prostitution and even racism and of course countless songs about the depression, hard times and welfare. Taken together these songs form an oral history of black America at a time when black Americans had few outlets for self-expression. On today's show we spin over a dozen songs related to the Titanic as well as a batch of topical numbers we haven't played on previous shows.

Ma Rainey’s “Titanic Man Blues” recorded in New York in December 1925, is the first documented blues that refers in any way to the sinking although, in true blues fashion, the song refers not to the actual disaster but to her lover who is compared to the Titanic: "Rig you up like a ship at sea/But you sunk an’ made a fool of me." “Titanic Blues” recorded by Virginia Liston in Chicago on the 29th of May 1926, was the next blues recorded about the Titanic. It was structured in much the same way as Ma Rainey’s song and it used a small part of that song’s chorus but it was more a ballad about the actual sinking. Leadbelly recorded his Titanic song on more than one occasion and it owes its structure as Ma Rainey's song. Our version, "The Titanic",  is from his last sessions in 1948. Leadbelly claimed he learned the song in 1912.

"When That Great Ship Went Down" was heard sung by African-Americans as early as 1915 or 1916. It was William and Versey Smith who made the first recording of "When That Great Ship Went Down" in 1927:

On a Monday morning, just about nine o'clock.
Great Titanic began to reel and rock;
Children weepin' and cry,
"Yes, I'm going to die!"

Wasn't it sad when that great ship went down?
Sad when that great ship went down (2x)
Husbands and wives. Children lost their lives.
Wasn't it sad when that great ship went down?

When that ship left England, making for the shore,
The rich had declared that they would not ride with the poor.
Put the poor below,
Where first they had to go.

African Americans expressed their sympathy with the dead but they saw the disaster as God's punishment for the supposed boast of the ship's builders that God could not sink it. For many singers, the disaster was a kind of modern “tower of Babel”, God punishing man’s arrogance, especially among black singers who saw in the disaster God’s punishment for the segregationist policies of the boat’s company (Black were not allowed on board). "God Moves on The Water” is the other religious song about the Titanic. The song was collected by folklorist Dorothy Scarborough and published in 1919, but first issued on record in a 1929 by Blind Willie Johnson. We play another version today by songster Mance Lipscomb who learned the song from Johnson.

Another early song about the Titanic was by Richard "Rabbit" Brown who was most likely born around 1880 in or near New Orleans, Louisiana. On March 11, 1927, Brown waxed six sides for Victor. "Sinking of the Titanic" brought Rabbit Brown a form of recognition seldom given to a songster in his time. Abbe Niles noted the song in his music column in The Bookman for July, 1928. The entire text of the song was reproduced and a meager biography, courtesy of Ralph Peer, also accompanied the lyrics. Brown "sang to his guitar in the streets of New Orleans, and he rowed you out into Lake Pontchartrain for a fee, and sang to you as he rowed." In 1929 a Blind Willie Harris recorded one 78 and it's been suggested this was a pseudonym for Brown.

A year later Jim Jackson cut "Traveling Man" which had verses about the Titanic:

He run and jumped on this Titanic ship,
And started up that ocean blue;
He looked out and spied that big iceberg,
And right overboard he flew:
All the white ladies on the deck of the ship
Said that man certainly was a fool,
But when that Titanic ship went down
He's shootin' craps in Liverpool

The earliest collected version of "Traveling Man" is from North Carolina in 1919. The song was recorded by numerous performers (not all with the Titanic lyrics) such as Coley Jones, Luke Jordan, Pink Anderson as well as by several white country artists.

In 1932, the St. Louis guitarist 'Hi' Henry Brown accompanied by Charley Jordan, recorded  'Titanic Blues. "This song, Chris Smith writes, is notable for having been, until recently, the only 12 bar blues on the subject.

We hear later Titanic songs by Bill Jackson, Flora Molton, Johnny Otis and Cousin Joe. Bill Jackson's "Titanic Blues" comes from his lone album, Long Steel Rail, recorded in Philadelphia, in 1962 by Pete Welding and issued on the Testament label. Flora Molton And The Truth Band recorded "The Titanic" in 1980. Molton began preaching at the age of 17, not taking up guitar until 1943, when she moved to Washington DC. Virtually blind, she supported herself by playing in the streets. From 1963, she made appearances on the folk circuit, and was later visited Europe in 1987. She released self-produced singles in the 70's and had an album's worth of material issued on the L+R label that was recorded by Axel Kunster and Ziggy Christmann as part of the Living Country Blues series in 1980. A couple of other full-length albums appeared in the late 80's.

One version we won't be playing today (I've included it below) is the x-rated "Hey Shine" by Delmar Evans backed the Johnny Otis band cut in 1970. As Chris Smith notes: "For an unambiguous Titanic-based song about relations between the races, we must turn to another alter ego of the Traveling Man, Shine. 'Shine & The Titanic' is by and for blacks; usually, it is a 'toast', or narrative poem, relentlessly obscene like almost all toasts…"

We conclude the show with a Titanic song by Cousin Joe from his final album, Relaxin In New Orleans. Chris Smith writes: "In 1985, the New Orleans singer and pianist Cousin Joe recorded his last album. On it, no doubt in response to Bob Ballard's location of the wreck, he included what will probably be the last black song about the Titanic, 'What A Tragedy'":

Now a rich man asked me to save his life,
He would give me half his wealth;
I said, 'I'm very sorry, mister,
But I've really got to save myself'

When I jumped in the water,
Everybody said, 'Look at that fool ;'
But when that Titanic ship hit the bottom,
I was in Harlem shootin' pool.

Oh what a tragedy, when the Titanic ship went down (2X),
I used strategy during the tragedy; that's why I was nowhere around.

I'm not going to talk about today's other topical numbers but I do want to mention that several of the tracks come from the companion CD's to books written by Guido Van Rijn. Rijn has written a series of important books on topical blues: Roosevelt's Blues: African-American Blues and Gospel Songs on FDR, The Truman and Eisenhower Blues: African-American Blues and Gospel Songs 1945-1960, Kennedy's Blues: African-American Blues and Gospel Songs on JFK, President Johnson's Blues: African American Blues and Gospel Songs on LBJ, Martin Luther King, Robert Kennedy and Vietnam 1963-1968 and The Nixon and Ford Blues: African-American Blues and Gospel Songs on Vietnam, Watergate, Civil Rights and Inflation 1969-1976.

Show Notes:

Today's show examines the intersection between blues and religious music. In the early 1900's, blues singing was associated with the brothel, juke joint, and the dregs of African-American society. Black church goers called it the "Devils' Music" as the following quote, told to Paul Oliver, reflects: "When she was singin' the blues I told her-she was pavin' her way to Hell," said Emma Williams of her daughter', the blues singer Mary Johnson…" This view was also shared by some former blues singers: "A man's who's singin' the blues- I think it's a sin because it cause other people to sin," said Lil Son Jackson" who gave up blues for the church. As Oliver notes, "Musically the blues and the spirituals, or the spirituals' successor, the gospel song, may have stemmed from common sources. But in the recording era, though they shared on occasion similar instrumentation and voices, they were separate and distinct." Despite this divide, religious imagery is prevalent throughout blues music, particularly the blues of the 20's and 30's; songs talk about the devil, make fun of the preachers, deacons and reverends, use biblical imagery and speak of the afterlife, both heaven and hell in frank terms. In addition there's a slew of bluesman who struggled between blues and religion like Son House, blues artists who moonlighted by singing gospel like Charlie Patton, Blind Boy Fuller, Skip, James, Mississippi John Hurt, Blind Lemon Jefferson, among many others and those bluesmen who eventually turned full time to religion like Robert Wilkins,  Rev. Gary Davis, Georgia Tom, Rube Lacey, Ishman Bracey, Gatemouth Moore and many others. On the flipside are artists who straddled blues and gospel like Blind Roosevelt Graves, Sister Rosetta Tharpe and those artists who's musical language was similar to the blues artists, most notably the so-called guitar evangelists like Blind Willie Johnson, Rev. Edward Clayborn, Sister O.M. Terrell and others, plus sanctified singers and groups who's instrumentation drew from secular music like blues and jazz. We explore all this and more on the first installment of a two-part feature on blues and religion.

Today's title takes its name from the famous 1930 Son House recording, "Preachin the Blues", a savage attack on organized religion—specifically in the form of the Baptist church:

Oh, I'm gonna get me religion, I'm gonna join the Baptist Church (2X)
Oh, I'm gonna be a Baptist preacher and I sure won't have to work

I'm gonna preach these blues an' I want everybody to shout
Oooo…oh, I want everybody to shout
I'm gonna do like a prisoner, I'm gonna roll my time out

Oh, in my room, I bow down to pray (2X)
But the blues came along and blowed my spirit away

Oooh, I'd've had religion on this very day (2X)
But the womens and whiskey well they would no let me pray

In his younger days House became involved with the Baptist religion, and by the time he was twenty he was preaching in a church near Clarksdale. In his mid-twenties, House heard a guitar player named Willie Wilson (sometimes Willie Williams) playing bottleneck guitar and it changed his life. House bought a battered guitar. Wilson patched it up, put it in Spanish tuning, and soon House was accompanying him. Surprisingly enough, after becoming a bluesman, House continued to preach for awhile, an unlikely combination of careers that speaks of the conflict between religion and blues that would bedevil him the rest of his life. In 1936 Robert Johnson would do his version of the number. However, in 1934, Texas Alexander cut "Justice Blues" where he sang:

I'm Gonna build me a Heaven, have a Kingdom of my own (2x)
Where these brownskin woman can cluster round my throne

The song echoed a line from House' earlier number:

Ooh, I wish I had me a heaven of my own (great Godawmighty)
Then I would give all my woman a long, long happy home

These lines would crop up in other blues songs through the years including Lightnin' Hopkins' "I'm Going To Build Me A Heaven Of My Own." House also addresses the afterlife in "My Black Mama" recorded at the same session:

Yeah it ain't no heaven now, and it ain't no burning hell
Say where I'm going when I die, can't nobody tell

In 1948 John Lee Hooker cut "Burnin' Hell", derived from the House song and featured on today's show:

Everybody talking about that burning Hell
Ain't no Heaven, ain't no burnin' Hell
When I die, where I go, can't nobody tell

Unrelated to the House song where several similarly titled songs featured today such as Bessie Smith's "Preachin' The Blues", "Preaching The Blues" by H-Bomb Ferguson and Big Bill Broonzy's "Preachin' The Blues" which we played a couple of weeks back. In many versions of his life, Broonzy speaks of becoming a preacher for awhile. Unlike the House song, these songs represented the blues singer delivering mock sermons. As Oliver notes, "If the preacher could preach his sermon for God and his congregation, the blues singer could preach the blues for the Devil and those who aligned themselves against the Church. Most preaching parodies were in comic imitation of church sermons, rather than attempts at blues parallels to religious sermons."

The criticism of the preacher in House' song is reflected in a slew of related songs that took a cynical, humorous view of the preacher: Arthur Anderson's "If You Want To Make A Preacher Cuss", a field recording captured by Lawernce Gellert, Hambone Willie Newbern's "Nobody Knows (What The Good Deacon Does)", Memphis Minnie & Kansas Joe's "Preachers Blues", Hi Henry Brown's "Preacher Blues", Bob Robinson's "The Preacher Must Get some Sometimes", Mississippi Sheiks' "He Calls That Religion", Luke Jordan's "Church Bells", Christina Gray's "The Reverend Is My Man", Frakn Stokes' "You Shall", Little Esther's "The Deacon Moves In" and Louis Jordan's "Deacon Jones." The Mississippi Sheiks deliver a litany of problems with the preacher in "He Calls That Religion" which opens:

Well the preacher used to preach to try and save our souls
But now he preaches just to buy jelly roll
Well he calls that religion, but I know he's going to hell when he dies

and concludes:

Old Deacon Johnson was a preachin' king
they caught him round the house tryin' to shake that thing
Well he calls that religion, but I know he's going to hell when he dies

The subject of many of these songs was the preacher doing the very things he was railing against in his sermons, namely reveling in liqueur and sex as the Sheiks refer to it with the common blues term, "jelly roll." In "Nobody Knows (What The Good Deacon Does)" Newbern sings:

Nobody knows what the good deacon's doing
I declare when the lights go out

While Luke Jordan sang:

And that lowdown dirty deacon
Stole my girl and gone

There was another song of this type that has roots in a widely known song that dates from before the turn of the century, called "Po' Mourner" or "You Shall Be Free." An early stanza went:

Some folks say a nigger won't steal
But I caught two in my cornfield

This was transposed to "preacher" in blues songs as in "You Shall" by Frank Stokes:

Oh well it's our Father who art in heaven
The preacher owed me ten dollars he paid me seven
Thy kingdom come Thy will be done
If I hadn't took the seven Lord I wouldn't have gotten none

Oh well some folks say that a preacher won't steal
I caught about eleven in the watermelon field Just a cutting and a slicing got to tearing up the vine
They's eating and talking most all the time

Oh well you see a preacher lay behind the log
A hand on the trigger got his eye on the hog
The hog said mmm he gun said zip
Jumped on the hog with all his grip

Now when I first went over to Memphis Tennessee
I was crazy about the preachers as I could be
I went out on the front porch a walking about
Invite the preacher over to my house

He washed his face he combed his head
And next thing he want to do was slip in my bed
I caught him by the head man kicked him out the door
Don't allow my preacher at my house no more

In the first verse Stokes uses the Lord's Prayer to make fun or the preacher. A variation of this also turns up in a Texas Alexander song "Justice Blues" which was mentioned earlier. The line "some folks say that a preacher won't steal" is one that also appears in another of today's featured songs, "Preacher's Blues", by Memphis Minnie and Kansas Joe McCoy. The caricature of the lecherous deacon persisted as evidenced by Louis Jordan's 1943 send up "Deacon Jones" (selected verses):

Who gets all the chicken breast
And leaves all the gizzards for the rest?
Deacon Jones, yes yes yes

And when a sister's feeling blue,
Who's always there to woo?
Deacon Jones, oh yeah

And before any of the church money is spent,
Who takes out his usual ten percent?
You guessed it … Deacon Jones

There was also  Little Esther's "The Deacon Moves In" from 1951:

Look out there Deacon
Do you really think I'm gonna weaken
Well now, sister pigeon
If you really want that true religion
You betta do what I say and see things my way

Later in the song one of the band members announces that "prayer meeting is downstairs." Also from 1953 was Wynonie Harris' "The Deacon Don't Like It." The latter song is related to the song "God Don't Like It" which was recorded by Blind Willie McTell in 1935, Sister Rosetta Tharpe in 1939 and Rev.Anderson Johnson in 1953 which is the one we feature today. The song starts by railing against drinking:

So many people say they done cut whiskey out, just let them have a little wine
Lord they get sorta drunk every once in awhile, they must been drinking moonshine
But God don't like it (I don't either), sin ain't it a shame

And later takes takes a jab at the preacher, similar to the blues songs mentioned above:

Well the preacher went to the sister's house, she asked him to rest his hat
Now he began to laugh and grin said sister tell me where your husband at
But God don't like it (I don't either), sin ain't it a shame

Johnson cut two sessions in the 50's playing remarkable steel guitar gospel for the labels Angel and Glory. He began preaching as a child and in later years became noted for his folk art murals. He passed in 1998.

Today's program features several so called guitar evangelists. There is only a slight difference between a street-corner blues singer and a sanctified street singer, since both need to hold a crowd and make a few bucks. Blind Willie Johnson is the most famous and greatest of the guitar evangelists. Others from this period include Edward W. Clayborn, A.C. & Blind Mamie Forehand, Blind Willie Harris plus several who recorded slightly later like Rev. Utah Smith, Willie Eason and Sister O.M. Terrell.  Also worth mention is pianist Arizona Dranes who's playing has strong affinities to blues. Smith,Terrell and Dranes are all represented today.

Smith first was a traveling evangelist out of the Churches Of God In Christ before he settled in New Orleans. There he founded the Two Wings Temple and the song "Two Wings" became his theme song. Smith oftentimes used two wings while singing this song. Even before he came to New Orleans he played an electric guitar. He toured the South and was famous for this particular song. Smith recorded "Two Wings" first in 1944, but the 1953 recording is the more famous one. Sister Rosetta Tharpe stated Smith being one of the great "old" guitar players in gospel music.

Terrell was an itinerant "Holy Ghost Preacher" who recorded six sides for Columbia Records in 1953, and never recorded again. From the Depression years of the 1930's to the'50s, Sister Terrell lived the life of an itinerant evangelist and supported herself with her music.

Arizona Dranes is the most important performer for introducing 'hot' piano style to African American gospel music," says blues historian David Evans. Dranes had been living in Dallas when she was discovered by a traveling Okeh talent scout in early 1926. At the time, most gospel performances were vocal only or accompanied by guitar, but Dranes stood out with her boogie-woogie piano. Her inaugural session featured the vocals of blues singer Sara Martin. Dranes became Okeh's biggest gospel star. She began recording in 1926 with OKeh Records, first as a solo artist and later with choirs and various other artists and groups. Although she last recorded in 1928, she continued touring through the 1940s.

Everyone knows the story of Robert Johnson and the crossroads and his songs like "Hellhound On My Trail" and Me And The Devil" but devil references in blues songs were common in the 30's and 40's. Clara Smith sung "Done Sold It To The Devil" as early as 1924. Artists like Peetie Wheatstraw (who went by the nicknames The Devil's Son-In-Law and The High Sheriff of Hell), Tampa Red, Lonnie Johnson, Sippie Wallace, Bessie Smith, Sylvester Weaver and others all used devil imagery in their songs. We play a trio of such songs today as performed Weaver, Lonnie Johnson (a prime influence on Robert Johnson) and Washboard Sam.

Several artists started off as blues artists and only to renounce the music for the spiritual world like Robert Wilkins, Rube Lacey, Ishman Bracey, Gatemouth Moore and others while others seem to have a foot in both worlds like Rev. Gary Davis, Blind Roosevelt Graves among others. There were also many blues singers who recorded the occasional gospel sides, sometimes under their own name but often under a pseudonym, such as Charlie Patton, Mississippi John Hurt, Blind Boy Fuller, Blind Willie McTell, Skip James, Son Bonds and numerous others. Then there were the gospel artists like Sister Rosetta Tharpe who flirted with blues and gospel.

Charlie  Patton for instance, not only performed and recorded religious songs but for most of his life wrestled with what he thought was a calling to be a preacher. He cut several religious songs (some as Elder J.J. Hadley): "Prayer of Death" (Parts 1 & 2), "Lord I'm Discouraged", "I Shall Not Be Moved", "Jesus Is A Dying Bed Maker", "Some Happy Day, "Jesus Is A Dying Bed Maker", "You're Gonna Need Somebody When You Die" and "Oh Death."

Two months after his father's death, Josh White left home with a blind, black street singer named Blind Man Arnold, who he had agreed to lead across the South to collect coins after performances. Over the next eight years, he rented the boy's services out to different blind street singers, including Blind Lemon Jefferson, Blind Blake, and Blind Joe Taggart (Taggart cut close to three-dozen sides, all religious, except for two most likely cut by him under the pseudonym Blind Percy & His Blind Band). While guiding Taggart in 1927, White arrived in Chicago. Mayo Williams, a producer for Paramount Records, recognized White's talents and began using him as a session guitarist. He backed up many artists for recordings before recording his first popular Paramount recording as well as recording with Taggert.Late in 1930, New York's ARC Records sent two A&R men to find Joshua White. They found him at his mother's home in Greenville, NC. After promising Mrs. White that they would not record the "Devil's Music", and only have Josh record religious songs, she finally agreed to sign a contract for $100. White moved to New York City, billed as "Joshua White – The Singing Christian". Within a few months, after recording all of his religious repertoire, ARC explained to White that he could make more money if he also recorded the blues repertoire he had learned, in addition to working as a session man for other artists. White, at 18 and still underage, signed a new contract under the name "Pinewood Tom" in 1932 and began cutting blues.

Early musical experiences at Center Raven Baptist Church in Gray Court, South Carolina, were at the core of strong religious convictions that helped Gary Davis cope with blindness, and in 1937 he was ordained as minister of the Free Baptist Connection Church in Washington, North Carolina. For years he toured as a singing gospel preacher and also sang on the streets, mostly in Durham. During this period he crossed paths and eventually recorded with Blind Boy Fuller and other "Piedmont style" musicians, including Brownie McGhee and Sonny Terry. By 1940 Reverend Davis had found his way to New York City, where he was ordained minister of Missionary Baptist Connection Church. Here his recording career began in earnest, cutting numerous albums for a variety of labels.

"Georgia Tom" Dorsey first gained recognition as a blues pianist in the 1920s and later became known as the father of gospel music for his role in developing, publishing, and promoting the gospel blues. He registered his first religious piece in 1922 and became director of music at New Hope Baptist Church, where he fused sacred music with his blues technique. Dorsey continued playing the blues as well, and in 1924 Ma Rainey chose him to organize and lead her Wild Cats Jazz Band. However, Dorsey's greatest blues success came in 1928 when "Tampa Red" brought him the lyrics to a song called "It's Tight like That," and the two had an instant, hit. Under the name "Georgia Tom," Dorsey recorded more than sixty sides with Tampa Red, in addition to accompanying many famous blues performers, including Scrapper Blackwell, Big Bill Broonzy, Frankie Jaxson, Blind Lemon Jefferson, Memphis Minnie, and Victoria Spivey. In 1932 he renounced blues music. During the late 1930s and early 1940s, Dorsey worked extensively with Mahalia Jackson, establishing Jackson as the preeminent gospel singer and Dorsey as the dominant gospel composer of the time.

Not long after Robert Wilkins made his final blues sessions in 1935 his philosophy of life went through a radical switch, the catalyst being the casual violence and sleazy atmosphere of one of the typical house party gigs that he played. Apparently, it was enough to make him believe this music really was an instrument of the devil. Shortly after he joined the Church of God in Christ. He recorded only sparingly in later years; he cut one full length album Memphis Gospel Singer in 1964 plus several sides on various anthologies. He reworked "That's No Way To Get Along" on his 1964 album, Memphis Gospel Singer, into the gospel song "Prodigal Son" which was covered by the Rolling Stones on their 1968 Beggars Banquet album.

Sister Rosetta Tharpe is widely acclaimed among the greatest Sanctified gospel singers of her generation. She was a flamboyant performer whose music often flirted with the blues and swing, she was also one of the most controversial talents of her day, shocking purists with her leap into the secular market—by playing nightclubs and theaters, pushing spiritual music into the mainstream. Tony Heilbut, in his book The Gospel Sound: Good News and Bad Times, wrote that Tharpe "could pick blues guitar like a Memphis Minnie." He added that "her song style was filled with blues inversions, and a resonating vibrato. She bent her notes like a horn player, and syncopated in swing band manner. Above all, she had showmanship. … And, starting in 1938, she triumphed as no gospel singer has done since."

Roosevelt Graves hailed from southeastern Mississippi, born in 1909 without the ability to see. By his teens, he was a 12-string guitar playing street musician performing with his half-blind brother and guide Aaron (not Uaroy, as has often been reported), who backed him on tambourine and harmony vocals. H.C. Spier, the talent broker from Jackson, apparently played a role in securing recording sessions for "Blind Roosevelt Graves and Brother," as they were dubbed, first with Paramount in 1929 and later with ARC in 1936. The duo recorded both blues and religious music.

Joe McCoy is probably best know for the many sides he recorded with wife Memphis Minnie and later sang lead for the popular Harlem Hamfats. He seemed to have a short lived conversion and recorded several sermons as Hallelujah Joe. Within a year of cutting his sermons he he cut " Hallelujah Joe Ain't Preachin' No More" with the harlem Hamfats:

Hallelujah Joe (Hallelujah Joe responses throughout)
Ain't preachin' no mo'
Everybody though he was true
When he preach that song about What You Gonna Do?
Hallelujah Joe, ain't preachin' no mo'
He's swinging now so he ain't gonna preach no mo'

Show Notes:

When a woman get the blues, she goes to her room and hides (2x)
When a man gets the blues, he catches a freight train and rides
(Trixie Smith, Freight Train Blues)

For southern Blacks the appeal of the railroads has always been both a real and a symbolic one. For them the train was a symbol of power, of freedom and escape.  As blues historian Paul Oliver wrote: “In the slavery periods when they were unable to travel between districts without written ‘bonds’ from their owners, the snorting engines, with brilliant furnaces traces their progress and clouds of black smoke that hung in the still air above the tracks long after the screaming whistles had died away, inspired them in awe which their descendants still retain.” This image carried on, in the hard times of the 1920's and 1930s', when the southern Blacks struggled to make a living and saw the northern cities as their saviors, where work was plentiful and a better life was to be had. As the blues developed, the railroad featured prominently in the songs. Numerous songs were sung about individual trains such as the Flying Crow, the Sunshine Special and the Panama Limited, many simply abbreviated like the C&O (Chesapeake and Ohio), T&P (Texas Pacific) or the L&N (Louisville and Nashville), many songs dealt with the hobos who rode the rails, others dealt with working for the railroad while other songs retold the famous railroad ballads of John Henry, Railroad Bill and Casey Jones. Today’s show will spotlight all of these types of railroad blues.

The title of today's program comes from the song by Henry Thomas. Thomas, nicknamed “Ragtime Texas”, was born in 1874 in Big Sandy, Texas. The 1874 date marks him as one of the eldest-born blues performers on record. Thomas was the archetypal rambling musician who went wherever the railroads would take him. According to Mack McCormick, as told to him from a former railroad conductor, “Ragtime Texas was a big fellow that used to come aboard at Gladewater or Mineola or somewhere in there. I’d always carry him, except when he was too dirty. He was a regular hobo, but I’d carry him most of the time. That guitar was his ticket.” Speaking of his famous “Railroadin’ Some”, William Barlow calls it the most “vivid and intense recollection of railroading” in all the early blues recorded in the 1920’s.

Among the famous railroad songs featured today are two associated with Leadbelly, "Rock Island Line" and 'Midnight Special", and the folk ballads Casey Jones, John Henry and Railroad Bill. John Lomax recorded "Rock Island Line" at the Cummins State Prison farm, Gould, Arkansas, in 1934 from its convict composer, Kelly Pace. Leadbelly, who was with Lomax at the time, rearranged it in his own style, and made commercial recordings of it in the forties. The song refers to the Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific Railroad. Lyrics appearing in the "Midnight Special" were first recorded in print by Howard Odum in 1905. The song was first commercially recorded on the OKeh label in 1926 as "Pistol Pete's Midnight Special" by Dave "Pistol Pete" Cutrell and the following year by bluesman Sam Collins. In 1934 Lead Belly recorded a version of the song at Angola Prison for John and Alan Lomax, who mistakenly attributed it to him as the author. Leadbelly recorded at least three versions of the song, including the one we feature with the Golden Gate Quartet.

John Luther "Casey" Jones was an American railroad engineer from Jackson, Tennessee who worked for the Illinois Central Railroad. On April 30, 1900, he alone was killed when his passenger train collided with a stalled freight train at Vaughan, Mississippi on a foggy and rainy night. His dramatic death trying to stop his train and save lives made him a folk hero who became immortalized in a popular song. We spin two versions on today's program: "Kassie Jones Pt. 1" by Furry Lewis and "Southern Casey Jones" by Jesse James.

John Henry is an American folk hero, notable for having raced against a steam powered hammer and won, only to die in victory with his hammer in his hand. He has been the subject of numerous songs, stories, plays, and novels. The truth about John Henry is obscured by time and myth, but one legend has it that he was a slave born in Missouri in the 1840s and fought his notable battle with the steam hammer along the Chesapeake and Ohio Railway in Talcott, West Virginia. On today's show we play a version by the duo The Two Poor Boys.

The legend of Railroad Bill arose in the winter of 1895, along the Louisville and Nashville (L&N) Railroad line in southern Alabama. Based loosely on the exploits of an African American outlaw known as "Railroad Bill," tales of his brief but action-filled career on the wrong side of the law have been preserved in song, fiction, and theater. He has been variously portrayed as a "Robin Hood" character, a murderous criminal and a nameless victim of the Jim Crow South. He was never conclusively identified, but L&N detectives claimed he was a man named Morris Slater. Today we spin  "Railroad Bill" by Will Bennett.

Featured today are several songs about specific trains or railroad lines. Our opening track "Sunshine Special" by Blind Lemon Jefferson refers the train of the same name which was inaugurated by the Missouri Pacific Railroad on December 5, 1915, providing service between St. Louis, Little Rock, and destinations in Texas. The Sunshine Special served as the flagship of Missouri Pacific Railroad's passenger train service. Several songs make reference to the Flying Crow, a train line connecting Port Arthur, Texas to Kansas City with major stops in Shreveport and Texarkana. Black Ivory King, Carl Davis & the Dallas Jamboree Jug Band, Dusky Dailey, Washboard Sam and Oscar Woods all recorded songs about the train. Other songs dealing with specific trains featured today include Jack Ranger's "T.P. Window Blues" ( Texas Pacific Railroad), Lucille Bogan's "T& NO Blues" (Texas and New Orleans Railroad), Sparks Brothers' "I.C. Train Blues" (Illinois Central Railroad), Little Brother Montgomery's "A. & V. Railroad Blues" (Alabama & Vicksburg Railroad), Willie Brown's "M&O Blues" (Mobile and Ohio Railroad), Billiken Johnson's "Sun Beam Blues" (Sunbeam was a named passenger train operated from 1925 to 1955 between Houston and Dallas by the Texas and New Orleans Railroad), Andrew and Jim Baxter's "K C Railroad Blues" (Kansas City Southern Railway), George Noble's "The Seminole Blues" (Seminole Gulf Railway), and Pink Anderson & Simmnie Dooley's "C.C. and O. Blues" (Chesapeake and Ohio). Sam Collins' "Yellow Dog Blues" seems to refer to two trains. In 1903 W.C. Handy related how he heard a lean, raggedy, black guitarist in Tutwiler’s railroad depot, singing of going to where the "Southern cross the Yellow Dog." The “Southern” was the Southern Railway which began operations in 1894.“The Dog” was the Yellow Dog, a name for the Yazoo Delta Railroad which opened in 1897.

Several songs like Bukka White's " Special Streamline" and Cripple Clarence Lofton's "Streamline Train" refer to streamliners. A streamliner is any vehicle that incorporates streamlining to produce a shape that provides less resistance to air. The term is most often applied to certain high-speed railway trainsets of the 1930's to 1950's. For a short time in the late 1930s, the ten fastest trains in the world were all American streamliners.

Other trains immortalized in blues songs will be featured in the sequel to today's show; trains such as the Cannon Ball (an Illinois Central passenger train routing between Chicago and New Orleans, now known as the City of New Orleans), the Santa Fe (Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway), the Seaboard (The Seaboard Coast Line Railroad), the Katy (the Missouri, Texas, Kansas, Texas line), the Big four (Cleveland, Cincinnati, Chicago & St. Louis Railroad ) and the New York Central among others.

Show Notes:

Today's program is our fifth devoted to topical blues. Previous show have focused on hard times, presidents, war and prison. Today's show is more of a grab bag, spotlighting songs about natural disasters, the depression, historical figures, social issues, civil rights and more. "The blues, contrary to popular conception, are not always concerned with love, razors, dice, and death," Richard Wright wrote in 1941.  Wright, argued that the blues was by its nature a protest music, and many other writers concur. Mostly it was veiled in verses like "You don’t know my mind/ When you see me laughing, I’m laughing just to keep from crying." A smaller percentage of blues deals directly with more overt protest and many more were commentaries about community events. There were numerous songs about natural disasters such as floods, drought, storms and fire; songs about cultural figures like Joe Louis, Franklin Roosevelt, Martin Luther King and John Kennedy; songs about politics, war, urban renewal, prostitution and even racism; and of course countless songs about the depression, hard times and welfare. Taken together these songs form an oral history of black America at a time when black Americans had few outlets for self-expression. Although it’s outside of our scope, it should be noted that many of the same themes can be found in gospel records and sermons of the same period.

The 1927 Mississippi River flood was one of the greatest natural disasters in US history. Numerous blues and gospel songs were written about the event. The first record on he market, and the biggest seller, was Bessie Smith’s “Back Water Blues” issued on Columbia. Columbia also enlisted its most popular country blues artist, Barbecue Bob, to record the flood blues “Mississippi Heavy Water Blues” in June. The record was advertised in the Chicago Defender on August 13th and like Bessie's record was a hit. Other flood songs performed by Columbia artists include Kansas Joe and Memphis Minnie's “When The Levee Breaks” cut at their first session in 1929. Also in 1929, Charley Patton recorded a two-part flood blues, “High Water Everywhere” Part 1 &d 2. Paramount devoted one of its last advertisements to this record, which became a surprise hit at the dawn of the Great Depression. This was the last original blues to be recorded about the 1927 flood:

Well, backwater done rose all around Sumner now,
drove me down the line
Backwater done rose at Sumner,
drove poor Charley down the line
Lord, I'll tell the world the water,
done crept through this town

Five months after the Mississippi flood, on Sept. 29^th, a cyclone struck St. Louis killing dozens of people and causing millions of dollars in damage. Three blues and one sermon were recorded about this event.  "St. Louis Cyclone Blues" was first recorded by Lonnie Johnson and then covered by Elzadie Robinson.  In addition to being a gifted singer and guitarist he was also an imaginative songwriter as “St. Louis Cyclone Blues” amply demonstrates:

I was sitting in my kitchen, lookin’ ‘way out cross the sky (2x)
I thought the world was ending, I started in to cry.

The wind was howlin’, the buildings beginnin’ to fall (2x)
I seen that mean old twister comin’, just like a cannonball

The world was black as midnight, I never heard such a noise before (2x)
Sound like a million lions, when they turn loose their roar

Oh, people was screamin’, and runnin’ every which away (2x)
[spoken ] Lord have mercy on our poor people!

I fell down on my knees, I started in to pray

The shack where we were living, she reeled and rocked but never fell (2x)
[spoken ] Lord, Have mercy!
How the cyclone spared us, nobody but the Lord can tell

In a similar vein was St. Louis Jimmy's "Florida Hurricane." John Lee Hooker recorded the song "Tupelo" several times. While Hooker refers to the disaster as a flood,  the town of Tupelo was actually  struck by a tornado on April 5^th, 1936. This was an outbreak of seventeen tornadoes that struck the Southeastern United States from April 5 to 6th, 1936. Approximately 436 people were killed by these tornadoes. Although the outbreak was centered around Tupelo, Mississippi and Gainesville, Georgia, other destructive tornadoes associated with the outbreak struck Columbia, Tennessee, Anderson, South Carolina and Acworth, Georgia. Severe flash floods from the associated storms also produced millions of dollars in damage across the region.

The sinking of the Titanic in 1912 generated many songs among white and blacks. Soon after the event, songs began to circulate and some were put in print on broadside papers. For many singers, the disaster was a kind of modern "tower of Babel", God punishing man’s arrogance, especially among black singers who saw in the disaster God’s punishment for the segregationist policies of the boat’s company (Black were not allowed on board) or for man's hubris for calling the boat unsinkable. Among the most influential was “God Moves On The Water" by Blind Willie Johnson:

Year of nineteen hundred and twelve, April the fourteenth day
Great Titanic struck an iceberg, people had to run and pray
God moves, moves, God moves, ah, and the people had to run and pray

The guards who had been a-watching, asleep 'cause they were tired
When they heard the great excitement, then a gunshot was fired
God moves, moves, God moves, ah, and the people had to run and pray

The Titanic continued to be a popular theme well into the post-war era. Blues artists who sang about the Titanic include Ma Rainey, Hi Henry Brown, Richard "Rabbit" Brown, Leadbelly, Virginia Liston and in the post-war era Mance Lipscomb, Pink Anderson, Bill Jackson among others.

There have been several songs written about historical figures like presidents, particularly Roosevelt and Kennedy,  black leaders, sports figures and even blues singers. There were several blues written about the passing of well known blues artists including a few dealing with the death of the hugely popular Leroy Carr in 1935.  Among those were the poignant "My Old Pal Blues (Dedicated To The Memory Of Leroy Carr)" sung by Carr's long time partner Scrapper Blackwell:

I woke up this morning, couldn't hardly get out of my bed (2x)
When I got the news, that Leroy Carr was dead

I run to the window, and I throwed up the blinds (2x)
I stood there wondering, and just couldn't keep from crying

The day of his funeral, I hated to see Leroy's face (2x)
Because I know there's no one, could ever take his place

Then off to the funeral, then to the burying ground (2x)
My heart was breaking, as they lowered him down

He's done singing, he's done playing, you'll never hear his voice no more (2x)
He was a real good pal, and I'll miss him everywhere I go.

Bumble Bee Slim and Bill Gaither also recorded tributes to Carr. There were other tributes on the passing of Ma Rainey, Blind Lemon Jefferson and Sonny Boy Williamson II. Other songs have dealt with the passing of Bessie Smith, Blind Lemon Jefferson, Doctor Clayton and Sonny Boy Williamson II. There have been dozens of blues, jazz, ballads and gospel songs written about heavyweight champion Joe Louis. During the era of segregation, Joe Louis was a hero among black Americans. Those who paid tribute to Louis include Memphis Minnie, Joe Pullum, Jack Kelly, Lil Johnson, Bill Gaither, Carl Martin among others. Pullum's "Joe Louis Is the Man" seems to be the first Louis song, dated Aug. 13, 1935:

Joe Louis, is a battlin' man
The people think his fame will always last
He's the Brown Bomber of this land
He's supposed to whup 'most any man
He's got a real left, and a real good right
But when he jabs with either one, that stops the fight
He's not a bad dresser, and his hair is curled
He's the champion now of the world
He's bound to be the next champion of the world

Named after a popular 19th-century minstrel song that stereotyped African Americans, "Jim Crow" came to personify the system of government-sanctioned racial oppression and segregation in the United States. There were several artists who made reference to"Jim Crow" including Leadbelly, Josh White and Rosa Henderson (PDF). In 1924's "Back Woods Blues" Rosa Henderson sings:

Got the blues so bad for the place that I came from
Wanna see my folks but its way to far, to ride in a dusty old Jim Crow Car
Got the back woods blues for a place way down in Bam
Got the blues but I’m gonna stay right where I am
Gonna lay ‘round here right where I’m at
Where there ain’t no grinnin' and snatchin' off my hat

Three years later Cow Cow Davenport cut the explicitly titled "Jim Crow Blues":

I'm tired of being Jim Crowed, gonna leave this Jim Crow town
Doggone my black soul, I'm sweet Chicago bound
Yes, sir, I'm leaving here, from this old Jim Crow town

Fire was another theme that crops up in several blues songs. Leola Manning sings about a fire that burned down the Arcade building in Knoxville, TN in her "Arcade Building Moan" cut just 15 days after the event. One of the most tragic fires happened in Natchez, Mississippi. On April 23, 1940 the Rhythm Night Club fire killed 209 African-American partygoers, while severely injuring many others. It remains the second deadliest fire at a nightclub in the United States. The disaster has been acknowledged in songs by The Lewis Bronzeville Five, Gene Gilmore, "Baby Doo" Caston, Howlin' Wolf, John Lee Hooker and others. Other songs about fires include "Jailhouse Fire Blues" by Buddy Boy Hawkins, "Fire Department Blues" by Sleepy John Estes, "Call The Fire Wagon" by Memphis Minnie and "Stockyard Fire" by Tampa Red and "Fire Detective Blues" by Roosevelt Sykes are a few examples.

Urban renewal is the theme in "Third Street's Going Down", one of Peetie Wheatstraw's finest compositions:

We used to have luck in the valley
But the little girl had to move way out of town
We used to have luck in the valley
But the girl had to move way out of town
Some moved in the alley
Ooo-well-well, because Third Street is going down

Third Street ran through the heart of the East St. Louis district known as the "valley", a tough area full of brothels, gambling houses and saloons. Wheatstraw also lived in the district and not coincidentally was an area where the blues flourished. Some forty years later Gatemouth Moore returned to his old Memphis stomping grounds which was transformed by urban renewal and recorded the moving "Beale Street Ain't Beale Street No More."

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. Countless blues and gospel songs were written about the depression. "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

During the depression casual prostitution was a reality to many poor women. Whether it was a bartering to pay the "rent man", helping their unemployed men or actually walking the streets, prostitution was a prevalent theme in the blues. Statistics show that a quarter of all prostitutes were black when blacks represented a tenth of the population.  “Tricks Ain't Walking No More”was a popular song recorded by Lucille Bogan, Memphis Minnie, Bumble Bee Slim, Curley Weaver, Buddy Moss and others. During the depression even prostitution suffered from the economy as Lucille Bogan lamented in "They Ain't Walkin' No More":

Sometimes I'm up, sometimes I'm down, I can't make my livin' around this town
'Cause tricks ain't walkin', tricks ain't walkin' no more
I said, tricks ain't walkin' no more, tricks ain't walkin' no more
And I got to make my livin', don't care where I go

I need shoes on my feet, clothes on my back,
get tired of walkin' these streets, all dressed in black
But tricks ain't walkin', tricks ain't walkin' no more
I said, tricks ain't walkin' no more, tricks ain't walkin' no more
And I get four or five good tricks standin' in front of my door

Homelessness was another reality as detailed in songs like Josh White's "Homeless And Hungry",  Bessie Smith's "Homeless Blues"and Sleepy John Estes' " Hobo Jungle Blues." Even after the depression the possibility still loomed as Willie "Long Time" Smith sang about eloquently in his 1947 composition "Homeless Blues":

On one cold frosty morning, the ground was covered with snow (2x)
Well, I met a million people had no place to go
Well some have children, some just have their suitcase and clothes (2x)
You know those people was steady walkin',  but they couldn't find no place to go

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 "working on the project"  such as Peetie Wheatstraw's "Working On The Project" and his sequel "The Wrong Woman (Lost My Job On the Project)", Black Ivory King's "Working For The PWA", Jimmy Gordon's "Don't Take Away My PWA"  and "Casey Bill Weldon's "W.P.A. Blues" are a few examples. 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. Many blues tackled the subject including Jack McVea’s "Inflation Blues", Louis Jordan's song of he same name, Smokey Hogg's "High Priced Meat", Ivory Joe Hunter's "Ivory Joe Hunter "High Cost Low Pay Blue" and Roosevelt Sykes' "Roosevelt Sykes "High Price Blues"  among others.

After the twin bombings in August 1945 on Hiroshima and Nagasaki a slew of songs in all genres took up the atomic theme. In blues songs the word "atomic" came to mean anything of great energy, often used as a sexual metaphor as in songs like "Atomic Love" by Little Caesar or in "Atomic Baby" by Amos Milburn. In "Atomic Bomb Blues" Homer Harris gives an almost eyewitness account of the bombing of Hiroshima. In the gospel world it was used as a metaphor for God's power as expressed in songs like the Pilgrim Travelers much covered "Jesus Hits Like The Atom Bomb" and the Swan Silvertone's "Jesus Is God's Atom Bomb."

Overt political commentary was rare in recorded blues and gospel prior to the 1960’s but became increasingly more common afterwords. Several blues and gospel numbers were recorded about Martin Luther King and the civil rights movement in Alabama. In "Birmingham Blues" John Lee Hooker forcefully sings about the Birmingham campaign which was a strategic effort by the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) to promote civil rights for black Americans.

I ain't goin' down, Birmingham by myself (2x)
If I go, gonna take someone with me
Take an airplane, fly over Birmingham (2x)
Drop me a bomb, keep on flyin' on
Feel so bad, when I read about Birmingham (2x)
Oh do I know one thing, a man is just a man

Based in Birmingham, Alabama, and aimed at ending the city’s segregated civil and discriminatory economic policies, the campaign lasted for more than two months in the spring of 1963. To provoke the police into filling the city’s jails to overflowing, Martin Luther King, Jr. and black citizens of Birmingham employed nonviolent tactics to flout laws they considered unfair. In 1962's "Ride On Red, Ride On" Louisiana Red is a civil rights themed blues that is mainly about leaving the racist south and in its subject not far removed from Rosa Henderson's concerns in her 1924 song quoted above. Red does make a brief mention of the events in Little Rock several years prior:

We rolled into old Little Rock, had made another state
Where it took the whole US army to make one school integrate

In "Alabama Bus" Pts. 1 &2 Brother Will Hairston sings bout the 1955 Montgomery Bus Boycott led by Dr. King and ignited by Rosa Parks' refusal to give up her seat to a white man. Several blues singers paid tribute to the death of Martin Luther King including Champion Jack Dupree, Big Joe Williams and Otis Spann.

Show Notes:

Today's shown revolves around blues songs relating to presidents and politics. Overt political commentary was rare in recorded blues and gospel prior to the 1960's. Some of the most moving political songs were tributes for Presidents Franklin D. Roosevelt and John F. Kennedy, who had great appeal to African Americans. One theme running through today's show is several songs dealing with the death of president Kennedy who was assassinated 45 years ago yesterday. There were also quite a number of gospel songs written on the topic, and although we normally don't play gospel we make an exception today. Roosevelt was considered the "poor man's friend" and the lyrical evidence suggests he was viewed "as a benevolent and powerful patron or ‘bossman'" while Truman was seen as much more fallible and "unresponsive to the economic plight of black people as well as their growing demands for equal rights." Kennedy's reputation, particularly in the early years, was rather ambivalent but his death, as the lyrical evidence makes clear, "virtually eradicated any criticism of his international or political policies and left him an unadulterated hero." These last quotes come from scholar Gudio Van Rijn who has written the books Roosevelt Blues, The Truman & Eisenhower Blues and Kennedy's Blues which analyze lyrics of blues and gospel songs that deal with topical issues. In addition each book has an accompanying CD, which is where many of today's songs come from. Several of the Kennedy songs come from the album Can't Keep From Crying: Topical Blues on the Death of President Kennedy on the Testament label.

I guess you can say I wear my sympathies my sleeve with the opening numbers; Champion Jack Dupree's "God Bless Our New President" and Bobo Jenkins' "Democrat Blues." "God Bless Our New President" was cut only a few days after Truman was sworn in following the death of FDR. The flip side was "F.D.R. Blues." The record was advertised in Billboard as a "new sensational timely blues record." In "Democrat Blues" cut in 1952 Jenkins is clearly not happy about Dwight Eisenhower who was the first Republican in the White House since 1933. If Jenkins was still with us he would clearly be a happy man.

A running thread throughout today's show is some remarkable songs on the death of President Kennedy. In the wake of John Kennedy's assassination, Pete Welding recorded over a dozen acoustic blues tributes to the late president for the compilation Can't Keep from Crying: Topical Blues on the Death of President Kennedy in late 1963 and early 1964. Several other songs come form Kennedy's Blues. Not surprisingly Kennedy’s assassination provoked an outpouring of memorial songs where “the deceased president emerges as a near-saint." As Rijn notes, “the blues and gospel singers’ president was in heaven now. Like Christ he had died for our sins.” Indeed Kennedy’s death is often compared to the crucifixion of Christ a theme hammered home in several gospel songs. Among the moving performances are Otis Spann's impassioned "Sad Day In Texas", his voice choked with emotion, Jim and Fannie Brewer's simply but deeply moving "I Want To Know Why" and Perry Tillis' "Kennedy Moan." There are several strong gospel performances including Ronda Mitchell & Mrs. Lovell magnificent "J.F. Kennedy's Reservation", The Southern Bell Singers' soaring "The Tragedy Of Kennedy" and the Dixie Nightinglaes' haunting "Assassination."

When Franklin Delano Roosevelt became president of the United States, thousands of black Americans, traditionally Republican, deserted the party of Lincoln and became Democrats. Roosevelt was immensely popular among blacks as evidenced in songs like Otis Jackson's two-part "Tell Me Why You Like Roosevelt" and Big Joe Wiilliams' moving "His Spirit Lives On." While were practically no blues lyrics critical of Roosevelt, Truman was criticized explicitly early on. Expectations were high for post-war prosperity and Truman's inability to stem inflation made him ripe for criticism. It wasn't long for the sentiment expressed in Champion Jack Dupree's "God Bless Our New President" cut in April 1945 (Truman became President in January that year) became more pointed in songs like J.B. Lenoir's "Eisenhower Blues" and the "positively revolutionary" variation "Everybody Wants To Know:"

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

While Rijn has yet to write his book on Nixon (I have no doubt he will) there were a number of songs about Nixon and as you would imagine they were not very flattering. Watergate is a topic taken up by Howlin' Wolf on "Watergate Blues" on his final album The Back Door Wolf while Big Joe is back with his "Watergate Blues." Clarence "Gatemouth" Brown addresses Nixon directly in "Please Mr. Nixon" to "Don't cut off your welfare line." Other songs that directly addressed the president were several songs that came along at the same time including Roy C's "Open Letter To The President" and his more explicit "Impeach The President, King Solomon's "Please Mr President" the Angels Of Joy's gorgeous plea "Mr President."

Today's show also features a trio of fantasy songs inspired by Big Bill Broonzy's "Just A Dream." The idea of a black man as a president was the stuff of fantasy as Big Bill relates:

Dreamed I was in the White House, sittin' in the president's chair.
I dreamed he's shaking my hand, said "Bill, I'm glad you're here"
But that was just a dream. What a dream I had on my mind
And when I woke up, not a chair could I find

Some fifteen years later Johnny Shines recorded his "Livin' In The White House:"

Now I'm livin' in the White House, just trying to help old Ike along (2x)
And tryin' to make an admendment, for things Harry left undone

I want to live in paradise, make servants out of kins and queens (2x)
Now, don't shake me, please, darling, this is one time I wanna finish my dream

Then there's Louisiana's Red surreal, hilarious "Red's Dream" where he goes "to the U.N. and set the whole nation right", threatens Castro with a "Georgia shave" (slit his throat) and is finally summoned to the White House by the President where he plans to install some "soul brothers" in the senate like Ray Charles, Lightnin' Hopkins, Jimmy Reed, Bo Diddley and Big Maybelle! Then of course there's Louis Jordan's "Jordan For President." After announcing that he is ready to move "… from the phonograph record to the ‘Congressional Record'", Jordan promises to help listeners "… get straight on all the candidates" and "… make the proper selection in the coming election." Jordan's hoping you'll vote for the swing ticket: "For an administration that'll move you, groove you, and keep you fit" and "… to walk on the sunny side of the street with the candidate with the beat … vote for Jordan for President!" Jordan's electoral promises: "Every American will get his portion – after I get mine" and "… we'll all serve – time!." I Don’t Want To Be President” by the ever philosophical Percy Mayfield takes a Nixon era slant:

Now just suppose I had a girlfriend and called her, and she lived way across the lake
Why Congress would know the whole conversation because, you see, they’d have it on tape
Then they put me on the television to tell the whole world my private life
Hell I wouldn’t mind if people knowing but what about my wife