Nine Below Zero.

And there I am playing blues at the bus station at 3:42 am. Just like in Oxford, the greatest person I feel solidarity to is the window cleaner who has arrived to straighten up the bus stop. The man who has lived. The man whose parting words are, ‘don’t worry my friend, you keep playing the blues like that, and you’ll recover from your broken heart, quickly’. A man who tells me of his former work as a security guard, who tells me, as always, that it is the manners of a person that make them. If you can’t say please and thank you, you’re a chauvinist and you ain’t worth nothing. The whole evening of trawling around god knows where was worth it to speak to a man who knows the truth, even if it is only the truth of a moment. I’d do it all again, and sing ‘nine below zero’ till my heart broke if it meant I crossed another window cleaner like that.

LEADBELLY

You caused me to weep,

You caused me to mourn,

You caused me to leave my home.

Good night Irene,

Goodnight Irene,

I’ll get you in my dreams.

“Now, don’t you bother nobody, don’t make trouble, but if someone try to meddle with you, I want you to protect yourself.”

-Leadbetter Sr on giving his son, Huddie, a pistol for his 16^th birthday.

           On the surface Leadbelly can be seen to embody a number of contradictions. He was a singer and multi-instrumentalist as much at home playing in brothels and gin jukes, as in the trendy New York Greenwich folk scene which he graced in the 1940s. On the one hand he has the reputation of being a tough guy who supposedly murdered one man over a woman, and attempted to kill another several years later. On the other hand he was often described as a quiet, gentle, and friendly man, who was kind to children to the point where he adopted orphans with his second wife, and famously arrived late to a recording session when a group of children and families begged him to perform as he was walking through a park on his way to the studio. He performed songs in support of Roosevelt’s election, yet his later association with workers’ unions brought him to the attention of the FBI. A man who decried racism, as well as the treatment of the Jews during World War II, yet humbled himself to the Lomaxs and would do almost anything for a buck. The contradiction continues in images of the performer. In photographs, he is dressed alternately in farm, and prison, work uniforms; to the dress of smart suits, bow ties, morning, and dinner, jackets.

What is lacking in these juxtapositions is context, not only of Huddie Ledbetter’s life, but also the world in which he lived in; the world of the American south between 1900 and 1940.  In his youth, Huddie showed a natural flair for music when singing on his father’s farm, and when playing musical instruments at school. In rural Louisiana and Texas, where Huddie grew up, music was a part of everyday life and performed many social functions within the African American community. At weekly church events gospel singing, spirituals, and call and response preaching; music announced salvation from hardship. When working in the fields, and later when Huddie was on the chain gangs, singing eased the soul, and the beat made the work more efficient and bearable. At dances music played the backdrop for courtship, and in families it was used for children’s lullabies and playtime. Music also performed an individual function in the form of ‘hollers’. In the rural south, where families could live great distances apart, hollering as one worked or travelled announced the arrival of someone, the presence of a friendly hand nearby, or the regularity of a neighbor walking to work or the local town. In a manner comparable with social media today, it let others know that the person hollering was okay, and available should those who recognized their voice need their friend or neighbor.

In this world Huddie distinguished himself as a singer and multi-instumentalist. At school he was described as a quiet hard working boy, who availed himself to communal instruments. When he worked on his father’s farm as a teenager, guitars and banjos afforded an escape when resting. As his talent grew he received invitations to play local parties and dances. Within the range of blues street singers, gospel events, spirituals, string bands, hollers, jigs, dances, parties, and, by the time he was sixteen, saloons, and brothels, there was ample opportunity for Huddie to find work and ready audiences. Although of course there was a disparity between the civilized performances at religious meetings, and the uncivilized world of brothels and drinking houses. In the latter, violence and debauchery was a part of everyday life. Knife fights, shootings, and quarrels over women were constant occurrences in such places, particularly on ‘Fanin street’ of which he was in particular demand to brothel owners to attract and entertain customers. Between the ages of sixteen and twenty, Huddie cut his teeth playing such joints and had to learn to survive them. Whereas Ledbetter was always described as a kind boy, such environments were not always kind back. Already strong from years of manual labour, he was good at ‘knocking’ (fist-fighting), and was given a pistol for his sixteenth birthday (not an uncommon present as it was often needed for hunting as well as matters of honor and defense), which he readily used at an after dance fight to scare off an opponent soon after receiving the gun.  As a performer and ‘musicianer’, Ledbetter’s talent distinguished himself from others at dances, attracting both the affections of women and the jealousy of men. Several times in this period Huddie returned to his parent’s home after an evening’s work scathed and bleeding; worse off for the fight. At twenty he contracted gonorrhea and had to quit the circuit while he took “Lafayette’s mixture” to treat the disease.  Now somewhat disillusioned with the underground world he preferred  the civilized world of the church, but still found it necessary to visit red light districts for work and attention. Nonetheless on the red light circuit, Huddie had met countless other inspirational musicians, most notably Blind Lemon Jefferson, and gained a mastery over the music of the scene.

Tragedy befell the Ledbetter family when Huddie was arrested for his aggression with his pistol. In order to pay Huddie’s legal fees, his parents had to sell their farm and land. However, as much as it was necessary for Huddie to defend himself, there was a wider motive behind his arrest. Oil companies had taken interest in, and purchased, the property surrounding the Ledbetter farm in texas, and sought to bypass the family’s decision not to sell up. Arresting Huddie was a means to this end in forcing the family to sell through bankrupting them as they struggled to pay Huddie’s legal fees.

Miraculously, Huddie broke out of the local jail, evaded the police, who shot at him as he fled into a pine forest (In the pines, in the pines, where the sun never shines, and I shiver the whole night through), and he escaped with his first wife to New Orleans, where he adopted the alias Walter Boyd. It was there in 1917, that he was then convicted for the murder of William Scott. The circumstances of the murder are unclear, the evidence suspect, and there is serious doubt over Leadbelly’s guilt. Indeed, ‘Boyd’ and Scott held a complex relationship of friendship and Jealousy. Scott was even married to Huddie’s cousin, but the two regularly quarreled over women at dances, and it was after such a quarrel that Scott was murdered, and ‘Boyd’ was blamed.

Now in prison and working on a chain gang, Huddie tried several escapes, however after the ordeal of his final attempt, where Huddie was chased down by hunting dogs, he accepted that escape was impractical or, at least, was not worth getting killed over. Instead he led the hardest working gang, and wrote songs to the Governor of Texas in appeal for his release which was granted in 1925 (ain’t you glad, that the good judge done signed my name, oh the judge done signed my name).

His return to the music circuit was short lived. Huddie was arrested and imprisoned again in 1930 for attempted murder.  This time it was for cutting a white member of a Salvation Army band. Huddie’s side of the story was that the band had taken offence when he began dancing to their tune and that he was acting in self defence. The other side was that a racist remark had inflamed Huddie, and provoked the fight.

Now in the hellish Angola prison, where he gained the nickname Leadbelly, after four years he once again achieved bail through promoting his musical talents to the governor, famously with the help of John Lomax, and his son Alan. Upon his release the Lomaxs continued to record Leadbelly, and John took him on as a chauffeur, a degrading role that Leadbelly accepted for its stability as he was determined never to return to prison.

Following the exposure of the Lomax’s recordings, Huddie became estranged from the family as he found fame and popularity among wider audiences. He endorsed Roosevelt’s presidency writing several songs for the presidential candidate. Yet his sympathy for America’s labour movements later brought him to the attention of an FBI watch list of potential ‘un-American’ popular celebrities. He became an icon in the New York Greenwich folk scene, appeared in Hollywood films, and, ultimately, became one of the most influential folk singers of the 20^th Century, indeed, of all time.

As far as Leadbelly’s style goes, the performer is famed for preferring a 12 string guitar for its louder sound. His voice was likewise powerful, and he had a style of tapping his feet into complex syncopations to accompany his playing. As a multi-instrumentalist, he was also competent on banjos, mandolins, and the accordion.

Along with his obvious talents as a great musician and performer, Leadbelly’s expansive knowledge of folk blues and country music gave his work and fame a greater significance. He was an anthology of southern folk music, claiming to know more than five hundred songs, who acted as a bridge between the old and new folk scenes. For example, one of his most famous songs, Goodnight Irene, has its roots in the 1860s. The Lomaxs recognized this significance right of the bat and their first book Negro Folk Songs as Sung by Leadbelly is as much an appreciation of the singer’s archival like capabilities, as it is an examination of musical style.

With such an incredible life as Leadbelly’s, it can, naturally, be framed in a variety of ways. But what sort of a life was it? A man who at the mercy of white systematic oppression, at risk to African Americans jealous of his talents and tastes, forever trying to survive the economic struggle of a travelling musician yet who continued to play the music he loved and lived so well; it is the life a man constantly adapting to the hostilities and possibilities of his environment. As many of his autobiographers have argued, it is the life of a loner.

***

I have recorded a version of Goodnight Irene, in tribute to Leadbelly. I can’t sing and I don’t do it justice, but it was a pleasure to play it. 

https://soundcloud.com/samsmusicandmusings/irene-goodnight-mp3

https://samsmusicandmusings.bandcamp.com/track/goodnight-irene

Notes from Buskers and the underground.

The most wonderful thing about buskers on the underground is the reverberation. The flat tiles of the station corridors cause the music to bounce and echo, allowing the sound to haunt its travelers. Usually, and especially if the performer is a novice, such travelers carry on their journeys in complete ambivalence, and have been conditioned by former trips to forget the unwanted sounds as soon as they hear them. Sometimes, however, the traveler is in just the right frame of mind, and the musician is playing just the right style, that the two enjoy each other’s company and patronage for a moment or two. A saxophonist improvising over summertime on a glistening sunny London morning, and a Dixie band playing minor jazz in a snow-kissed Oxford winter are two recent, personal, examples that come to mind.

I recall that I was first haunted by such a player one Christmas evening at Piccadilly Circus, when I was 13 years old. After a day of exploring the blues and jazz, vinyl and CD section at the Virgin megastore (formerly Tower Records) nearby, I heard the wail of the blues and deserted my companions to find the source. There he was: Harmonica Matt. With an amplifier plugged up to an old shopping dolly, a belt of harps around his waist, and a Sure ‘Green Bullet’ mic clutched around a harp, cupped in both hands and pressed to his mouth. He paused only to growl into the mic and distort the amp. I dislike the stereotypes forced upon harmonica players in general culture, that the instrument can only be played by the downtrodden; tramps, the homeless, cowboys, dying soldiers, and old farm workers. Matt lived up to this stereotype. I couldn’t tell whether he was drunk, or just confused by the wild haired teenager who stood before him, fascinated with his playing, but, after a moment or so, he seemed pleased to see a 13 year old kid with such an interest in the instrument. When he finished his song, we exchanged words about the instrument, his playing, and his equipment. He received my compliments, and I bought one of his CDs. 

A few weeks later I came across The Holloway Brothers performing in Kingston where I marveled at the lead singer’s jazz harp technique. When I purchased a CD from him we again discussed the instrument and his approach. He offered to jam with me right there on the street, however I had forgotten to bring a harp with me (sharing a harp is a hygienic faux pas) and I missed out on a golden opportunity. Since then I have considered it a bad omen to leave the house without a harmonica on my person, or at hand nearby.

In homage to Matt’s first haunting, I wrote a song about him when I got home that evening. Ten years later, I have now taken the liberty of recording it as I first played it, and have included it here.

https://soundcloud.com/samsmusicandmusings/harmonica-mattwav

***

‘Even if he starved to the very best of his ability, and so he did, nothing could rescue him anymore, people walked past him. Try and explain the art of starving! It needs to be felt, it’s not something that can be explained.’

-Franz Kafka, The Hunger Artist.

On one of the street corners in the back lanes of Kingston market I pass by an old man playing a chord harmonica; a simpler form of the instrument compared to the diatonic or the chromatic. I pull out my diatonic and play music with the old man. After I finish playing we exchange a few words and then I hurry off to eat. I work in a stationary shop and I am on my lunch break. I walk by the Thames listening to houseboats creak on the causeway. I sit by an old converted WWII torpedo boat docked to the mooring that, with the presence of its old military colours, is a minor local attraction.  On the way back to work I have since acquired a few coins in change and I place them in the busker’s hat as I pass him by again. He stops playing and talks to me more eagerly this time, and I am pleased to learn of his life. His name is Raymond. He is Italian, and finds my obscure Portuguese surname and heritage to offer some comfort of continental solidarity. He has played since he was ‘yea high’ and has also mastered the accordion. He tells me how he chooses locations and how he appreciates even a few pennies thrown into his hat. He takes any sum as a compliment no matter how large or small. Busking, he explains, is not the means to make a monetary fortune, but to receive acknowledgement from those that appreciate one’s style and talent, even if only for a moment.  We exchange compliments, well wishes, the shaking of hands and pats on the arm; gestures that indicate friendship, and demonstrate mutual respect and appreciation. He is a good man. I think to myself about buskers. From great artists, to mainstream sellouts; those with fanbases, and patrons who pay in advance of performances, carry the luxury of a safety net that every performer dreams of. Buskers and underdogs have to try it by the teeth.

And I realise that these are the people I stand for. Everyone dreams of easy fame and winnings (and why shouldn’t they?), and those that gain them either become saints; or vain chauvinists, but to go out into the streets with nothing but talent, necessity, and conviction, takes guts. I realise that I stand for those who try it by the teeth.

***

My new year’s resolution for 2015 is to start performing live again. The main avenue for lone musicians, like myself, is to attend jam nights, or open mic nights.

The most awful thing about jam nights is the show-off wankers one has to play with (and I am fully aware of the hypocrisy that, in this regard, it takes one to know one). Jam nights are where one hears a thousand notes per minute played over the same old scales with the finesse of a raging bull. It is the arena where everyone from the novice to the master ‘fancies themselves’.

Open mic nights are more preferable as one can perform pieces prepared in advance and without the intrusion of strangers. The environment is more relaxed, and I have come across some truly great players who have welcomed my own modest talents with friendly open arms. Along with open mic nights, I have taken to busking before work. Buskers belong to that category of people, and that philosophical concept of being, where an individual can exist in plain sight, yet still be invisible. While I have made a little profit in my performances, as Raymond told me, the rewards are not riches, but a few chance encounters with like-minded patrons who hear just the right thing at just the right time. 

Stereotypes and the Harmonica

‘In the piano scores of songs there are [now] strange diagrams. They relate to guitar, ukulele and banjo, as well as the accordion –infantile instruments in comparison with the piano- and are intended for players who cannot read the notes.’

-Theodor Adorno.         

   When I told a former university lecturer that I played the harmonica, she replied, jokingly, ‘gee Sam, I didn’t know you’d spent time in prison’. Her response typifies stereotypes of the instrument; that it is designed for the amusement of the downtrodden, the lowest classes, and the outcasts of society. Such negative typecasts have been solidified in popular culture through a variety of forms from Hollywood films, to toy replicas of the instrument that are little better than whistles. In the former case, the dying American civil war solider calling for ‘dixie’ to be played on the harp [slang for harmonica] one last time, the prisoner in the exercise yard, the old toothless bum playing blues at a railway station, or the folk singer droning on the instrument while simultaneously strumming the acoustic guitar, are all popular (mis-)conceptions of the instrument and its cultural place.*

   Part of this negative image arises from the construction of the instrument itself. Anyone can inhale and exhale into the instrument and produce a sound (which will be in a western harmony-hence the term harmonica-and sound ‘pleasing’). This gives it an appearance of ease and, therefore, ‘accessibility’ suited to the ‘untalented classes’. Condescension to the instrument is as much a disdain for persons of these stereotypes and an opportunity for the critic to feel a sense of superiority, instead of a chance to appreciate a new instrument and sound. The quote from Adorno [whose snobbish views of culture I abhor] at the start of this piece is a prime example of this mentality.

   Yet anyone can produce a sound from any instrument with relative ease, but few can then play that instrument well or with any technicality, and even fewer can play brilliantly [see my article on Stevie Wonder for an introduction to a brilliant harmonica player]. Indeed, whenever I have allowed a friend to try playing the harmonica, the most they managed was awkward chords; not one of them could play a single note melody! The more complex actions of bending, over-bending, trills, tongue blocking, vamping, and varied vibrato techniques, would be far beyond their grasp at a first playing/lesson, and are probably beyond their knowledge of sounds associated with the instrument altogether.*

   That is not so say that there is anything intrinsically wrong with refraining from complex techniques [see style and form (forthcoming)], but rather that the wider capabilities of the instrument should not go unacknowledged. As Kim Field notes, in is brilliant book: Harps, Harmonicas, and Heavy Breathers, whenever a ‘serious’, or classical piece of music is composed for the instrument it is written and framed with stereotypes in mind, and often with an ignorance of the instrument’s full capabilities (C3-C#7 being the full range of a sixteen hole chromatic harmonica). Thus, there is the ‘street-corner concerto’, or Milhaud’s Suite for Harmonica and Orchestra in three movements entitled ‘Gigue’, ‘Sailor Song’, and ‘Hornpipe’. However, along with Blues and Folk, the instrument is adept at Jazz, Classical, Soul, Funk, Rock, Reggae, Hip Hop or any other style of music one cares to name - as is any other instrument. Within the musical families, the Harmonica breaches a fine line between the brass and woodwind sections. It has brass reeds but the fact that it uses reeds would probably place it in the woodwind department; a position similar to that of the saxophone-which is made of brass but produces sound through a reed. Its sound is so unknown and misunderstood that I often have to tell people that the music they are listening to is produced by a harmonica. On such occasions, harmonica players performing through distorted amplifiers are often thought to be guitarists or electric pianists, while acoustic players are mistaken for clarinets or saxaphones.  

   Of course every instrument has a sound and a persona associated to it. When considering the Harmonica’s, and further considering its familial place, I would have to agree with one of the arguments presented by Field. With its proximity to the mouth, the Harmonica has the feel of a lost voice.

*Being a big Sergio Leone and Ennio Morricone fan, my favourite portrayal of the Harmonica in mainstream film is Once Upon a Time in the West, despite the factual error that Charles Bronson mimes on a tremolo harmonica in the film, when the performer on the soundtrack alternated between a diatonic and a chromatic as the piece dictated. This only strengthens my argument: There are different types of Harmonicas and people often associate the limits of one with the other.

*Whenever I have then shown would-be players such techniques, I am glad to say, I have never failed to provoke a smile and a sense of pleasure, albeit accompanied by surprise, in the listener.

Classy Huh?