BB King, Planetary Humanism and the Blues Behind Bars

How Blue Can You Get? B.B. King, Planetary Humanism and the Blues behind Bars Les Back Goldsmiths, University of London Abstract This article honours the memory of blues musician B.B. King, who died on 14 May 2015, through focusing on his work and historical performances in prisons. The article situates his concerts inside Cook County jail and Sing Sing within the wider political crisis during the 1970s surrounding issues of race and class in the American prison system. It suggests the historical resonance of these events can be interpreted through using Paul Gilroy’s notion of planetary humanism. The tone of B.B. King’s guitar carries both the historical trace of African American experience while at the same time voicing a humanistic sensibility beyond the brutalities of racism and incarceration. Keywords African American music, blues, Paul Gilroy, B.B. King, planetary humanism, prisons Part I: ‘There’s Something about being in prison’. Never char- about Being in Prison’ ging a fee, he played the blues inside the prison walls only for Amongst the tributes celebrating the satisfaction of what he called the life of B.B. King – who died ‘touching souls that needed to be on 14 May 2015, aged 89 – it was touched’. In remembering B.B. rarely pointed out that this giant of King’s music and his extraordinary blues guitar gave his most sublime life, I want to foreground this performances behind bars. Over a because the ineffable ‘something’ 25-year period, B.B. King per- he indexes, I argue, is a humanist formed in 47 different jails across sensibility in his music. In the feel, America. As he reflected in his touch and tone of his guitar we can autobiography, ‘there’s something hear the trace of what Paul Gilroy 274 275 has called a planetary humanism and perhaps more human. for (see Gilroy, 2004, 2010). many players the guitar is their He was born Riley B. King on 16 most constant companion. But a September 1925 on a cotton plan- blues musician’s life is precarious tation called Berclair, near the and always on the move. Many town of Itta Bena, Mississippi. guitars have been stolen on the The son of sharecroppers Albert road or pawned when cash is and Nora Ella King, the young tight. There is something meaning- Riley was raised by his grand- ful in the act of naming the guitar, mother from the age of four. and most bluesmen choose female During much of his early life he names. had to fend for himself. He wrote Baptising a guitar is not just in his autobiography that this early about giving it an identity, experience of estrangement and making it a ‘significant other’ and loneliness formed him as a person: the object of love and devotion. ‘My friendliness might fool you ... The relationship between musician But few if any really know me ... and instrument is two-way. Hands Words are not my friends. Music and fingers wear themselves into is. Sounds, notes, rhythms.’ the instrument’s body. The soul While in Memphis, working as a of the player seeps into the fret- singer and disc jockey at WDIA, board and the guitar also becomes he picked up the nickname ‘Beale part of the musician. Street Blues Boy’, later shortened Lucille has taken the shape of to ‘Blues Boy’ and then finally to many different kinds of guitar. B.B. During the 1950s, B.B. King The first Lucille was a Gibson emerged as a key figure in the elec- L30 archtop. This guitar was tric blues, scoring hits with ‘3 O’ stolen and B.B. replaced it with a Clock Blues’, ‘Woke Up This Gibson ES 5, like his hero T Bone Morning,’ ‘You Upset Me Baby’ Walker. However, since the late and ‘Every Day I Have the Blues’. ’50s, Lucille has taken the form In 1954, B.B. King named his of the Gibson 335. ‘I’ve turned to guitar ‘Lucille’ after he nearly lost Lucille – and there have been his life rescuing it from a burning seventeen different Lucilles – for dancehall in Twist, Arkansas. It’s comfort and relief. Just to pick a story that bears repeating. Two her up and stroke her settled me men got into a fight and knocked down. I put her on my lap and over a vat of burning kerosene wait until some happy combin- being used for heating. When ation of notes falls from her B.B. emerged from the burning mouth’ (King and Ritz, 2011: 130). building holding his guitar he was The ES 335 became the medium told that the men were fighting through which B.B. achieved his over a woman named ‘Lucille’. unique tone. As a young man he Why do blues guitarists name loved the sound of the hillbilly their guitars? Personalizing an steel guitars he heard on the instrument makes it individual radio. The trace of that 275 fascination, and also the sound of over the internal running of the delta slide guitar players like his prison to the inmates. Once the cousin Booker White, echoes in bars on the prison doors were B.B.’s style of vibrato and string locked, the tiers of the jail were bending. You only need to hear run by whoever was the toughest one note of B.B. King playing to and most physically intimidating identify his unique sonic inmate. For the prison authorities, fingerprint. all that mattered was that the pris- By the time B.B. King was doing oners didn’t escape. C Richard his prison performances in the English, who played a central role 1970s, blues was thought to be out in bringing B.B. King to Cook of step with black popular taste. County, remembered: ‘There was B.B.’s manager – Sid Seidenberg – a very serious level of rapes, and I tried to broaden B.B.’s appeal, and think the straw that broke the this was not just with white rock camel’s back and caused the admin- audiences that embraced him. istration to change was when a Seidenberg also booked B.B. to white young man was hanged. play at Mr Kelly’s, Chicago’s pres- They say he hanged himself but tigious jazz club on Rush Street, a they believed the inmates hung place where Sarah Vaughn, com- him. They abused him so bad that 1 edian Bill Cosby and a young he was probably going to tell.’ Barbara Streisand had performed. In March 1968, black psycholo- This lounge jazz venue would pro- gist Winston Moore was vide the unlikely steppingstone for appointed Warden of Cook his history-making performance at County; in fact he was the first Cook County Jail. black prison warden in the United States. C Richard English Live at Cook County was his Chief Jail Officer, respon- sible for the internal running of the In the late ’60s and early ’70s, a prison. English came to Cook crisis was unfolding in America’s County from the Illinois State prisons. It was driven in part by a Correctional Department for shortage of resources, but also pris- Youth in Joliet. He was an ex- ons had become inequality fac- ranger, paratrooper and retired tories. They both produced and professional fighter and kickboxer. processed divisions of race and He immediately recruited a team class. At Cook County, the prison of over a dozen officers from population was 90 per cent black, Chicago’s black neighbourhoods, while the prison guards and war- including his boxing team. Many dens in control of them remained of the members bore names as largely white. memorable as any gangster, like Facing limited resources, the ‘Smitty’ or ‘Iron Man’ Wallace then Deputy Warden of Cook (English, 2007). He remembered: County set up the ‘Barn Boss’ ‘The Sheriff at the time, I mean, system, which effectively handed he had nothing to lose, he had 276 277 the worst jail in the world. I mean got what they need to survive.’ what did he have to lose? It was What is interesting amongst the like do or die.’ black leadership of Cook County The tiers of the prison run by the was their awareness that taking ‘Barn Bosses’ and ‘Tier Clerks’ had back physical control of the to be taken back by ‘cracking prison was only part of the answer. heads’ and through physical force. Music was central to the strat- English’s team cleaned out stashes egy for pacifying Cook County. C of weapons and confiscated drugs Richard English was a jazz fan, his as well as refrigerators full of favourite artist being the blind food. C Richard English reflected: English pianist George Shearing. ‘You can’t do what I did now. Half His mother was a school teacher of that stuff we had to do probably specializing in English and music. got us put in jail.’ Paradoxically, English developed a sophisticated inside the prison, black prison classification system that kept guards had to ‘take care of the most prisoners away from the white guys first. It was like a ‘hard core tough group’. He also reversed segregation type situation put all the inmates who could in the jail because white guys were play music together in a tier of so outnumbered they were at the the prison, and in this section jail mercy of the other prisoners.’ bands formed, including rock’n’- However, English said, ‘the black roll, spirituals, and jazz, with guys knew what I was doing’, and something between 40 to 60 musi- it was widely recognized that the cians. English brought street enter- level of prisoner-on-prisoner vio- tainers into the prison too, for lence under the ‘Barn Boss’ system concerts, and, prior to B.B.

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