Big Road Blues

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

Show Notes:

It ain’t but the one thing I done wrong
I stayed in Mississippi just a day too long
(Mississippi Prison Song)

Todays show deals with blues songs about prison, both commercial recordings and field recordings by actual prisoners. In the segregation era down south it wasn’t hard for African-Americans to find themselves going to prison over a host of offenses. They were often treated harshly and unfairly by the legal system. Unfortunately even today the prison system has a disproportionate number of African-Americans and tales of being unfairly targeted by the criminal system all too common.

As for blues singers, their very profession was a dangerous one. The criminal element in the south gravitated to the black sectors of cities like New Orleans, Memphis or Atlanta, sectors that were treated as “wide open” and virtually beyond the law. It was the rough and tumble world of gambling joints, saloon, brothels and juke joints that employed the blues singer and there was always the possibility of trouble with the law. Memphis in the 1920′s, for example, was known as the “Murder Capital of America”, with over hundred homicides a year, 90 percent of the victims were black. Many blues singers were victims and many were perpetrators; men like Bukka White, Texas Alexander, J.T. Smith, Son House, Pat Hare and Lightnin’ Hopkins all did stints in prison.

Folklorists like John and Alan Lomax, Harry Oster, Lawrence Gellert and Bruce Jackson went to southern prisons like Parchman Farm, Angola, Huntsville, Sugar Land, Ramsey Prison Farm and others to record blues and work songs. On the surface the songs described incidents and experiences of the singers but on the other hand I think they can be viewed as a subtle form of protest against an unjust system. African-Americans had little or no outlet to voice their opinions and concerns prior to the civil rights era outside of recorded music. In The Land Where The Blues Began, Lomax had this to say regarding prison songs: “They tell us the story of the slave gang, the sharecropper system, the lawless work camp, the chain gang, the pen.” Bruce Jackson, who recorded in southern prisons in the 1960′s and 70′s, explained: “Southern agricultural penitentiaries were in many respects replicas of nineteenth-century plantations, where groups of slaves did arduous work by hand, supervised by white men with guns and constant threat of awful physical punishment . . .. It is hardly surprising that the music of plantation culture — the work songs — went to the prisons as well.” A New York Post reporter wrote as late as 1957: “The state penitentiary system at Parchman is simply a cotton plantation using convicts as labor. The warden is not a penologist, but an experienced plantation manager.”

In 1932 John Lomax was retained by the Library of Congress to make recordings. Lomax and his son Alan hit the road with 500 pounds of recording equipment and covered sixteen thousand miles over six months. As Lomax explained: “Our best field was the southern penitentiaries…we went to all eleven of them…”
It was on that trip that they ran across Leadbelly and secured his early parole. “We agreed to make a record of his petition on the other side of one of his favorite ballads, ‘Goodnight Irene’. I took the record to Governor Allen on July 1. On August 1 Leadbelly got his pardon. On September 1 I was sitting in a hotel in Texas when I felt a tap on my shoulder. I looked up and there was Leadbelly with his guitar, his knife, and a sugar bag packed with all his earthly belongings. He said, ‘Boss, you got me out of jail and now I’ve come to be your man’” This tale by Lomax, while colorful, has been in dispute as are many of his other recollections. On today’s program we play “Midnight Special” a song that’s become closely associated with Leadbelly. This version with the Golden Quartet is probably my favorite of this oft recorded song.

Bukka White

The Lomax’s continued to visit and record in prisons in the 1940′s and 1950′s. Alan Lomax returned to Parchman Farm in 1947-48 and made some remarkable recordings, armed with state-of-the-art technology, a cassette machine. These sides were originally issued as the LP Negro Prison Songs and reissued on CD as Prison Songs Vol. 1: Murderous Home by Rounder. Lomax gathered the prisons best lead signers for these recordings, all simply known by their nicknames: men like Bama, 22, Alex, Bull, Dobie Red, and Tangle Eye. During this period Lomax interviewed and recorded Joe Savage and said of him “he was by far the youngest and most damaged.” Jumping to 1980 we hear Savage recount his prison experience and sing on his harrowing “Joe’s Prison Camp Holler.”

Bukka White was recorded by Lomax in Parchman Farm in 1939. He was Convicted of murder and sentenced to life in 1937. He was still under contract for Vocalion (“Shake ‘em On Down” was a big hit from the session). Lomax recorded him doing two numbers: “Sic ‘Em Dogs On” and ” Po’ Boy.” He was released two years later probably through the actions of his music agent Lester Melrose. His recordings from 1940 show the prison experience was still on his mind on songs like “Where Can I Change My Clothes” (prison clothes), “District Attorney Blues” and his famous “Parchman Farm Blues:”

Judge give me life this mornin’ down on Parchman Farm (2x)
I wouldn’t hate it so bad, but I left my wife in mourn

Oh listen you men, I don’t mean no harm (2x)
If you wanna do good, you better stay off old Parchman Farm

We got to work in the mornin’, just at dawn of day (2x)
Just at the settin’ of the sun, that’s when the work is done

Recorded just a few days apart were a group of fine female singers. Woman in Mississippi were rarely sent to the state penitentiary but Parchman did open a woman’s camp in 1915. They canned vegetables, ran the prison laundry and worked dawn-to-dusk shifts in a sewing room making clothes, bedding and mattresses for the entire farm. Lomax recorded some of these woman in the Woman’s Sewing Room in 1939, including the remarkable Mattie May Thomas. We feature her singing unaccompanied on “No Mo’ Freedom” and “Dangerous Blues” where she describes a violent life:

You keep talking about the dangerous blues
If I had my pistol I’d be dangerous too
You may be a bully, but I don’t know
But I’ll fix you so you won’t gimmie no trouble, in the world I know

Less well known than the Lomax’s was Bruce Jackson who recorded extensively in the 1960′s and 70′s: “I started recording in Texas prisons in July 1964. I think Texas had about 12,000 prisoners in 14 prisons back then (they’ve got more than 150,000 prisoners in 105 state-run and private prisons now). My primary interest in Texas was the black convict worksongs…” Pete Seeger and Toshi Seeger, their son Daniel, and folklorist Bruce Jackson visited a Texas prison in Huntsville in March of 1966 which resulted in the film and book, Wake Up Dead Man. Another remarkable recording Jackson made was an LP by J.B. Smith titled Ever Since I Have Been A Man Full Grown issued on Takoma, of which we play “I Got Too Much Time For The Crime I Done.” The centerpiece is the title track, a 24-minute opus drawing on imagery and lyrics from a wide variety of traditional sources.

One of the most well known images of the old justice system is the chain gang. The chain gangs originated as a way to create extensive quality roads. Convict labor in road work was more economically efficient than using compulsory free labor as they could be worked harder, for longer hours, and over a more sustained period of time. Georgia was the first state to begin to use the chain gang system to work male felony convicts outside of the prison walls. The chains were wrapped around the prisoners’ ankles, shackling five prisoners together while they worked, ate, and slept. Chain gangs became very economically and politically popular among most southern politicians as they witnessed convicts working from sunup to sundown in Georgia. We spin chain gang tales today by Kokomo Arnold, Ma Rainey and Fred McMullen’s harrowing “De Kalb Chain Gang” (De Kalb County, Georgia):

Ahh liquor and a gun, cause me ache and pain (2x)
And they give me six to twenty years, on the De Kalb county gang
And I tell all you people that ain’t no place to go (2x)
Well they treat you cruel, dog you from morning til’ night

There were also female chain gangs and Ma Rainey tells their tale on her “Chain Gang Blues” from 1925:

The judge found me guilty, the clerk he wrote it down (2x)
Just a poor gal in trouble, I know I’m county road bound

Many days of sorrow, many nights of woe (2x)
And a ball and chain everywhere I go

Chains on my feet, padlock on my hand (2x)
It’s all on account of stealing a woman’s man

Several of the blues artists featured today knew first hand about the prison experience. Among them were Texas Alexander who served at least two prison terms including a stint in Paris, Texas, for allegedly killing his wife. Alexander’s songs reflected prison life in songs like “Levee Camp Moan Blues” and “Penitentiary Blues.” Alexander’s one time running partner, Lightnin’ Hopkins, did a mid-1930’s stint in Houston’s County Prison Farm. Son House’s career was interrupted when he shot a man dead at a house party in Lyons, MS in 1928 and was quickly sentenced to imprisonment at Parchman Farm. He ended up only serving two years of his sentence and was released in 1929 or early 1930. His “County Farm Blues” is a vivid description of southern justice:

Down South, when you do anything, that’s wrong (3x)
They’ll sure put you down on the county farm

Put you down under a man call “Captain Jack” (2x)
He sure write his name up and down your back

Put you down in a ditch with a great long spade (3x)
Wish to God that you hadn’t never been made

On a Sunday the boys be lookin’ sad (3x)
Just wonderin’ about how much time they had

J.T. “Funny Papa” Smith ‘s career purportedly came to an abrupt end during the mid-’30s, when he was arrested for murdering a man over a gambling dispute; Smith was found guilty and imprisoned, and is believed to have died in his cell circa 1940. He describes the prison life in our selection “County Jail Blues” plus “Hard Luck Man Blues” and the unissued “Life In Prison Blues.” Pat Hare, who wrote and recorded “I’m Gonna Murder My Baby” in May 1954, then took the song’s message a step further and killed his girlfriend and a police officer in mysterious circumstances eight years later. He received a life sentence in 1964 for this double murder and spent the last sixteen years of his life in a Minneapolis jail, dying of cancer in 1980.

Discovered in the Louisiana State Penitentiary, Robert Pete Williams became one of the great blues discoveries during the folk boom of the early ’60s. In 1956, he shot and killed a man in a local club. Williams claimed the act was in self-defense, but he was convicted of murder and sentenced to life in prison. He was sent to Angola prison, where he served for two years before being discovered by folklorist Dr. Harry Oster and Richard Allen. The pair recorded Williams performing several of his own songs, which were all about life in prison. Our selection today, “Prisoner’s Talking Blues”, is one of his more memorable prison songs. Impressed with the guitarist’s talents, Oster and Allen pleaded for a pardon for Williams. The pardon was granted in 1959, after he had served a total of three and a half years. For the first five years after he left prison, Williams could only perform in Louisiana, but his recordings,which appeared on Folklyric, Arhoolie, and Prestige, among other labels , were popular and he received positive word of mouth reviews. In 1964 he played the Newport Folk Festival. Williams made many other recordings circa 1959-160 in Louisiana’s notorious Angola Prison. In addition to several Williams CD’s available, Oster’s prison recordings can be found on collection like Angola Prisoner’s Blues, Prison Worksongs and Angola Prison Spirituals all reissued on Arhoolie.

One of our final numbers is Calvin Leavy’s “Cummins Prison.” Leavy is currently serving life plus 20 years in Cummins Prison for drug dealing. Ironically Leavy made this record twenty years before he was busted. He cut a follow-up called “Free from Cummins Prison.” He even wore a fake prison uniform in one of his publicity photos long before he was arrested. I heard Leavy was up for parole but haven’t heard anything since.

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).

Show Notes:

I’ve always be fascinated by topical blues songs and this week we spotlight songs dealing with blues artists’ response to war. In this week’s show we hear songs dealing with WW I, WW II, Korea and Vietnam. I plan to do a follow-up show or two spotlighting topical songs dealing with natural disasters, social issues and politics.

In the “Jim Crow” world of pre-1945 America, black servicemen confronted not only the hostility of enemies abroad but that of enemies at home. African-American soldiers and sailors had two formidable obstacles to deal with: discrimination and segregation. Yet, black servicemen in both world wars repeatedly demonstrated their bravery, loyalty, and ability in combat or in support of frontline troops.

World War I (1914-1918) – More than 350,000 African Americans served in segregated units during World War I, mostly as support troops. No black men were allowed in the Marines, Coast Guard or Air Force. They were allowed in the Navy only as messmen. Several units saw action alongside French soldiers fighting against the Germans

President Roosevelt established the country’s first “peacetime draft” when he signed into law the Selective Training and Service Act of 1940 following the fall of France to the Nazis. More than 10 million men were drafted during World War II. More than 2.5 million blacks were registered for the draft in World War II, and about 909,000 served in the Army. At its peak in In 1944 there were over 700,000 blacks in the Army. Segregated troops remained official U.S. Army policy throughout World War II.

With the onset of World War II the government found it necessary to ration food, gas, and even clothing during that time. In the spring of 1942, the Food Rationing Program was set into motion. Rationing ended in 1946. Reconversion refers to moving the economy from wartime economy to a peacetime economy and Louis Jordan’s “Ration Blues” and “Reconversion” humorously sums up the situation.

One response to the war was the idea of burrowing underground either to escape a nuclear attack or avoid the draft. We play three such songs: Jimmy Rogers (“This World Is In A Tangle”), Honeyboy Edwards’ (“Build A Cave) and Arthur Crudup’s (“I’m Gonna Dig Myself A Hole”). In addition several others have used this imagery including John Lee Hooker (“Build Myself A Cave”), Robert Lockwood & Sunnyland Slim (“I’m Gonna Dig Myself A Hole”), Lightnin’ Hopkins (“War News Blues”).

The Korean War began as a civil war fought between 1950–1953 on the Korean Peninsula, which had been divided by the post-World War II Soviet and American occupation zones. The civil war began on June 25, 1950, when North Korea attacked South Korea. The civil war was greatly expanded when the United Nations, led by the United States, and later China entered the conflict. The conflict ended when a cease-fire was reached on July 27, 1953. Sister Rosetta Tharpe’s “There’s Peace In Korea” was cut on July 27, 1953 the very day armistice was declared in Korea.

In 1948 the draft was re-instated. It was expanded by the Universal Military Training and Service Act in 1951, in response to the manpower needs caused by the Korean War. African-Americans served in all combat and combat service elements during the Korean War and were involved in all major combat operations, including the advance of United Nations Forces to the Chinese border. In June 1950, almost 100,000 African-Americans were on active duty in the U.S. armed forces. In October 1951, the all-black 24th Infantry Regiment, a unit established in 1869, which had served during the Spanish-American War, World War I, World War II and the beginning of the Korean War, was disbanded, essentially ending segregation in the U.S. Army.

The Vietnam War saw the highest proportion of blacks ever to serve in an American war. During the height of the U.S. involvement, 1965-69, blacks, which formed 11 percent of the American population, made up 12.6 percent of the soldiers in Vietnam.

U.S. involvement in Vietnam unfolded against the domestic backdrop of the civil rights movement. From the outset, the use, or alleged misuse, of African American troops brought charges of racism. Civil rights leaders and other critics, including Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., described the Vietnam conflict as racist—”a white man’s war, a black man’s fight.” Volunteers and draftees included many frustrated blacks whose impatience with the war and the delays in racial progress in America led to race riots on a number of ships and military bases.

The Vietnam War was especially well documented in soul circles. Apart from country music, no other genre of music can offer anywhere near as much social commentary on the subject. It is no coincidence that the overwhelming majority of enlisted personnel came from either poor white or poor black America, where Country and Soul ruled their respective musical roosts.