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Read Ebook {PDF EPUB} Between Midnight and Day The Last Unpublished Blues Archive by Dick Waterman Va.'s Arthur 'Big Boy' Crudup and a legacy of the blues. Jane Cabarrus, owner of the Do-Drop Inn, talks about how her establishment makes a positive contribution to the community. Jonas (left) and James Crudup rehearse at the Gidden’s Do-Drop Inn in Weirwood, Va. (Photo: Billy Sturgis image) The opening chords of Elvis Presley’s cover of “That’s All Right (Mama)” ring out and call to mind images of the legendary jet-black pompadour, cuban collared shirts and hysterical, fainting crowds of wooed women. Rarely, to most, does the song conjure visions of migrant workers or legal battles. The disparity of these realities plagued the song’s original author, Arthur “Big Boy” Crudup, for much of his life as white artists and music executives profited from his talents while he lived penniless on Virginia’s Eastern Shore. “Down in Tupelo, Mississippi, I used to hear old Arthur Crudup bang his box the way I do now, and I said, 'If I ever got to the place I could feel all old Arthur felt, I'd be a music man like nobody ever saw,' " said Presley in a 1956 interview with the Charlotte Observer. Crudup’s legacy lived on after his death through his bloodline and a rich body of work covered by the likes of legendary musicians Eric Clapton, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Elton John, Jerry Garcia and Otis Redding, but an exact account of the 6-foot-5-inch musician’s annals is hard to come by and best amassed through yellowing newspaper articles, rabbitholes of blues anthologies and bits of hearsay. Born in 1905 in Forest, Mississippi, the man who has been called the “Father of Rock ‘n’ Roll” didn’t learn to play a guitar until his early 30s. Discovered in Chicago by blues producer Lester Melrose, Crudup recorded his first song “If I Get Lucky” in 1941 with RCA/Victor’s Bluebird Records. Crudup would record many original hits with Bluebird until 1952. Crudup, who signed the copyrights to these hits over to Melrose through Wabash Music Co. as was routine of many blues artists, would receive scant royalty checks for these smashes. Crudup subsidized the meager compensation by brewing moonshine and laboring in the fields of Northampton County’s unincorporated community of Franktown after retiring to Virginia. At one point, Crudup even started his own business transporting migrant workers between Virginia and Florida, according to his marker on the Mississippi Blues Trail. A Philadelphia-based promoter named Dick Waterman took an interest in Crudup in the late 60s, booking the justifiably cautious musician shows around the world in Europe, Australia, Hawaii, England and Scotland. By 1973, Crudup was touring with Bonnie Raitt, Freebo and Little Feat along with “Mississippi” John Hurt, John Lee Hooker and Son House along with a handful of other black, male musicians who found footing after World War II. The Gidden’s Do-Drop Inn will host the third annual tribute to Arthur "Big Boy" Crudup at Giddens' Do Drop Inn in Weirwood, Virginia in September. Nearing his dues. At 68, Crudup came close to reaching an agreement with Hill & Range, the publishing house that Melrose had turned Wabash Music over to before his death, that then held the rights to Crudup’s hits. John Carter, a lawyer with the American Guild of Authors and Composers, aimed to secure a $60,000 check for back royalties as well as secure future royalties but the deal fell through when higher powers decided that it was more than Crudup would win in litigation against Melrose’s widow. A black man suing an elderly white widow was not a case in which success was highly likely. “Naked I come into this world and naked I shall leave it,” said Dick Waterman, Crudup’s booking agent, who recounted Crudup saying that line following the meeting in “Between Midnight and Day: The Last Unpublished Blues Archive.” Tom Parks, James Crudup, Tim Drummond, Jonas Crudup and Denzil "Dumpy" Rice at the Gidden’s Do-Drop Inn in Weirwood, Va. (Photo: Billy Sturgis image) Crudup returned to Franktown and died in March 1974 in Nassawadox following a stroke. Waterman, motivated by the lack of regard for Crudup’s legacy, teamed up with lawyer Ina Meibach to finally secure royalties for Crudup’s estate following the funeral. The estate has been paid more than $3 million in royalties, since. An enduring legacy. The Crudup legacy lived on through modern reincarnations of his many hit songs but also through the Crudup bloodline. His sons James, Jonas and George formed a band called the Malibus in 1970, touring east of the Mississippi and opening for acts such as Wilson Pickett and even occasionally Arthur, himself. “I went with him alone a couple of times,” said Jonas Crudup, in a 1996 edition of the Eastern Shore News. “On one tour we were at the Lincoln Center (Manhattan) and I was up on stage playing in front of a crowd with my father and B.B. King.” Billy Sturgis, an Eastern Shore native and avid blues fan, had spent much of the 1990s searching for the remaining Crudups. “Big Boy” Crudup didn’t have a headstone to mark his grave in Franktown. His grave had remained unmarked for years and Sturgis and the blues community intended to do something about it. Ultimately, Jonas Crudup found Sturgis in the office of his record label Warehouse Creek Records. The two began the conversation that led to the 2000 production of “Franktown Blues,” a collection of original “Big Boy” Crudup songs and originals by the former Malibus, themselves. “As they say, the fruit didn’t fall far from the tree,” Sturgis said. The album was nominated for a 2002 W.C. Handy Blues Award in the category of Best New Artist Debut from Memphis-based nonprofit The Blues Foundation. “It turned out to be something I’m very proud of as far as releases,” Sturgis said. James Crudup during rehearsal at the Gidden’s Do-Drop Inn in Weirwood, Va. (Photo: Billy Sturgis image) The album is the second of three blues albums produced by Warehouse Creek Records. The first was "Nothing Nice” by Guitar Slim Jr., son of blues legend Eddie "Guitar Slim" Jones. The third, an album called “Hi-Fi Baby” by longtime Jimmy Buffett band member Greg “Fingers” Taylor was released in 2003. The album, Sturgis said, was truly born at Weirwood’s Do-Drop Inn, one of the oldest continually owned and operated African-American businesses on Virginia's Eastern Shore. Built in 1967 by Lloyd Henry Giddens with building materials from the recently torn-down home of a white man, the former jukejoint is now maintained by Giddens’ daughter Jane Cabarrus. “Big Boy” Crudup had frequented the establishment in its heyday, sometimes playing to the crowds of predominately African-American patrons who were excluded from other venues in the 1960s and other times sitting quietly on a bar stool and watching the Malibus rock the night away. He also served as the "money man," said Cabarrus, collecting $3 per patron at the door. "He knew what he was about but the majority of us didn’t know how great 'Big Boy' was," she said. "He was going all over to do his music. He would take his old, beat up guitar and catch his bus and go on." It was natural that the Do-Drop Inn would serve as the birthplace of "Franktown Blues." "The Do-Drop Inn was the rehearsal hall," Sturgis said. "The vibe of the place is just so fabulous. You walk through the doors and you just feel . something." Why they call it the blues. Crudup’s sons had their own fair share of strife despite the success of the record. “Gather ‘round, let me tell you a story,” croons Jonas Crudup on the album’s namesake track, “about Arthur “Big Boy” Crudup and those little Crudups: George, James and Jonas Crudup, and how they loved to play the Franktown Blues.” James and George Crudup were arrested in 1974. James was charged with robbing the then National Bank of Northampton in Nassawadox while George was charged with possession of marijuana. James was still incarcerated when the idea for their record originated. Jonas Arthur Crudup passed away in 2004 from lung cancer and at the age of 55. James, the youngest brother, died of complications from diabetes during the recording of "Franktown Blues." The oldest brother, George, is hard to account for these days. At 76, he doesn’t play music any more. “I gave that up 15, 20 years ago,” he said. “I was getting too old to play music, I guess.” The living Crudup brother spends most days watching TV at his home in Apopka, Florida. “It was a blues family,” said Sturgis, recalling the rough-and-tumble lifestyle of the talented progenies and their propensity to compose and record music on the spot. “It was that kind of magic and spontaneity that allowed this record to come into being,” he said. “It was a one-time shot, unfortunately." Waterman, Dick. PERSONAL: Male. Education: Studied journalism at Boston University. ADDRESSES: Home and office —P.O. Box 1475, Oxford, MS 38555. E-mail —[email protected] CAREER: Founder of Avalon Productions (talent agency); has worked as a talent agent and promoter for blues musicians, and as a journalist. Exhibitions: Photography exhibited at A Gallery for Fine Photography, New Orleans, LA, and Govinda Gallery, Washington, DC. AWARDS, HONORS: Inducted into Blues Hall of Fame, 2000.

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