Blow My Blues Away Vol. 2

Mississippi Delta Blues "BLOW MY BLUES AWAY” Vol. 2 Recorded by GEORGE MITCHELL in the 1960s MISSISSIPPI DELTA BLUES in the 1960s -V o l. 2 An Introduction - by George Mitchell (1968) It was our fifth day in Mississippi. for the members of the band, watching My wife and I were whiling away the the headlights as they crept by on the time on a bench in the "downtown" highway, hoping they might turn into section of Como. The town, popula the field in front of the house and head tion 789, was strangely quiet to urban toward us. It was past midnight when ears. Interstate 55 streamed past on the outdoor recording session finally one side, while old Highway 51 got underway. And three hours more rambled along the other. Half the store before the drums were lying on the fronts along the lifeless business dis ground among the lard buckets in trict were boarded up. The only public which Annie Mae McDowell had bathroom was in the one-room city planted sunflowers. Then Othar hall across the street. A hand scrawled Turner, one of the drummers, walked sign in the window of Mrs. M. Perkins' over and propped his leg on the porch store read: "Pay your burial dues here. " where I was sitting. "If you want a So far, we had had no luck in locat man who can flat lay down the blues, " ing unrecorded blues singers— the pur he said nonchalantly, "I know who pose of our trip. We had been up half that be. " Othar gave us directions to the night before trying to get the Como his house and said to be there at 3 Drum Band down on tape. It was the o'clock and he'd take us to "where first time our recorder had even been R. L. Burnside stayed at if nothing on and we had had to suffer five hours didn't happen. " of headaches to fill half a reel of tape. A little bit before 3, we gathered Most of the evening was spent on Fred ourselves together and headed for McDowell's unlit front porch waiting Othar's. As we bumped along a nar- Joe Callicott row dirt road that ran through the stopped dead when they saw us and middle of a seemingly endless cotton ran into the house. A woman peered field, we wondered whether Burnside through the gaping hole in the screen was going to be another mediocre mu door, and we asked her if R. L. was in, sician who could play a couple of John adding that we wanted to hear him Lee Hooker tunes. We waited at play. She stepped out on the sagging Othar's shack while he unhitched his front porch, shooed away the swarm mule, hung up his torn straw hat (re of flies, pointed in the direction of a ally), changed his boots, and we were cornfield to our right and replied in a off to R. L. Burnside's. friendly drawl, "No, he's over yonder It was 30 steaming minutes before cuttin' corn. You go back out and down we stopped at the barbed wire gate in the road and then cut over but you front of Burnside's house after a drive better walk cause that old bridge liable through the backwoods near not to hold no car. " Cold water that I thought our little bug I had expected to see Burnside "cut would never survive. Burnside's house ting corn" by hand but he was driving sat in back of his "bossman's" barns a tractor which was slashing down the and sheds which appeared consider parched stalks like a lawn mower. Two ably more livable than Burnside's laughing little boys, their shirts hang crackerbox shanty. My wife got out of ing open on their dark brown chests, the car, unfastened the gate and then were running alongside. Burnside was quickly shut it so as not to let a shaggy at the opposite end of one of the rows old horse escape (although he ap and waved when he saw us. We stood peared much too worn out to ever there watching as he guided the trac make the effort). About six or seven tor in our direction, shutting it off when raggedy kids darting here and there he reached us and stepping down smil on the hard packed dirt yard under ing. Not asking what we wanted, he several clothesless clotheslines wiped his brow and exclaimed, "Whew, it's hot. How y'all doing? " friends who had come over for the After chatting for a few minutes I said affair. But spaces were quickly made we had been told he could play some for us and beer was offered. old-time blues and we would love to We were anxious to hear some blues hear him. Burnside laughed and said but had to wait while R. L. scraped sure, to come back that night after he'd down our wound little-E string—he finished work. said the string has to be slick for "chok It was dark when we were again ing. " Any fears I had harbored earlier winding along the roads back to his about Burnside's musical ability were house, the night hushed except for the immediately shed when he sat down chirping of the katydids. Finally, we and began putting out a droning but saw a dim light burning off to the right rhythmic sound on the guitar and and we judged it could be R. L. 's. We chanting: "Goin' down South, goin' were late and about 10 or 12 grins and down South, goin' down South. " Prac stares met us when we entered his tically hypnotized, I forgot about the house. Nine of Burnside's ten kids were couch spring poking my back and the sprawled out in the side room on one sweat pouring down my face and of the two clumpy beds that accom watched Othar and one of R. L. 's kids modated the whole family. But they snap their fingers and stomp the floor jumped up and scrambled into the hot in an improvised dance to the continu and stuffy front room when they heard ous, rolling rhythm. When the song us. They plopped down on the warped, was over, I whipped out my tape re dirty floor because the only other corder. And the music that played late pieces of furniture, a sofa with the into that night is what you hear on this springs splitting through the tattered CD. covering and a wooden box covered It was several days later, on a Satur by a piece of colored plastic, were oc day, when we rolled into the court cupied by R. L., his wife, Othar, and house square in Hernando, just north of Coldwater. The small towns which Callicott for years. He said Joe lived in dot the Delta and its fringes seem al Nesbit about seven miles north and we most deserted on weekdays. But "go could find him just east of the big ing into town" on Saturday is the ma highway. Callicott's house could not jor recreation for the men, and the be seen from the road but there was a streets and cafes are filled. Some play mailbox, with "Callicott" scribbled on checkers on the courthouse lawn, some it, beside a deeply rutted driveway on sit on benches outside the barbershop, a steep hill. We parked our car and and others get drunk in the shoddy climbed through the mud to a little cafes which line the streets of the "col house enshrouded in kudzu vine and ored section. " On that Saturday in giant sunflowers. We knocked, and Hernando, we pulled up in front of a asked the man who answered if Joe cluster of Black men shooting the bull Callicott lived there. The man grinned in front of the courthouse and spitting a wide smile and invited us in. "How tobacco juice on the sidewalk. Direct y'all doing? Have a seat. I'm Joe. " It ing the question toward no one in wasn't long before he was putting out particular, I asked if anyone had ever the old songs that most people have heard of Joe Callicott. A moment heard only on records, the songs you passed and no one said anything. hear on this CD. "Callicott? Joe Callicott? " an elderly Burnside and Callicott were our first man finally piped up. "Ain't never "real finds" of the trip, but there were heard of him. Go ask Eli. He'll tell you. many more to come during the five He knows just about everybody in often frustrating but eventful weeks these parts. " He pointed to an old, we spent combing the Delta for blues stooped-over man wearing a dirty singers in the summer of 1967. And we black derby who was leaning against a discovered that the oft-heard conten pair of stand-up penny scales in front tion that every worthwhile blues singer of a hardware store. Eli had known in the '20's and '30's was recorded has no basis in fact. Probably many good sis. Most of the ones we found did not bluesmen of the time never found their own guitars and were a little rusty, way on wax simply because the Ralph although they were able to play a few Peers and the H. C. Spears never ran numbers well. Burnside and Callicott across their paths or because they were were probably the two most consis unaware of the market.

Load more