He stuck his thumbs in his belt, leaned back on his heels and started rocking back and forth - heel, toe, heel, toe, heel, toe. Like one of those big blow-up plastic clowns with huge feet, Roy's stomach centered him so he couldn't rock too far in either direction. As usual, Roy was taking on the tone of a tent-reviving evangelist. The boy could preach. Usually 'bout some Delta blues player. What it was like to see Son House live in 1969.
Roy took a deep breath. He knew, as I did, he was entering sacred territory.
"One night we went to one of these Saturday night fish fries, where Son House was playing. Muddy Waters was there. That's when he was using the bottleneck because most of the Delta people used the bottleneck-style thing. Muddy has been known to say that when he heard Son House, he should've broke his bottleneck. Son House played this place for about four weeks, and I was there every night. You couldn't get me out that corner, listening to him, to what he was doing. That guy could preach the blues by just sittin' down there and sing one thing after another like a man of the cloth. That show was the best I'd ever seen. Lord, the Son must've been ninety years old then. He'd be sitting on a chair all bent over, with an old weathered guitar on his lap, drawing on some ancestral spiritual strength. Then he would lift his head and start to sing the kind of singing you could only hear in the cotton fields 100 years ago, the kinda singing that is sure there ain't no way out. There ain't no other way than doing what they're doin'; yes, Lord and that be pickin' cotton. Oh, I got da blues, cause all I'm gonna do, is pick de' cotton for the man. Make no mistake Preacher man. The blues is the music of the Lord, Oh yes indeed. Let us not make that mistake. The kinda singin' that can only be sung by a man who have gone blind with music. May I get an Amen."
We were too stunned to say Amen. But Roy didn't mind. He had his story to continue.
"And them hands. those powerful hands. The same hands that plowed the fields and picked the thorny cotton off the vine, were the same hands clutching at chords from steel strings that were waiting to be ripped from the wood of the guitar."
Roy unhooked one of his thumbs so that he could wrap his fat hand around a shot glass full of Old Crow bourbon. He was just getting started.
He had our attention. I was forgetting to take a drag off of the cigarette I was holding. I was forgetting to flirt with the new janitor and I was forgetting not to cry. If we could have just been there--seen it for ourselves. Add it to the experience of the music I was playing every night.
Roy lit a cigarette. He had been fortified so it was time to continue.
"Brothers and Sisters, please open your Bibles to Psalm 78. We will now read from 'The maskil of Asaph'. O my people, hear my teaching; listen to the words of my mouth. I will open my mouth in parables; I will utter hidden things, things from old--what we have heard and know, what our father have told us. We will not hide them from their children; we will tell the next generation the praiseworthy deeds of the Lord, his power, and the wonders he had done. Can I get an Amen"?
I smiled while Roy ranted and continued.
"The power of Son's presence and voice pinned us against our seats. The sweat was pourin' down his face. He was what he sang. There weren't no separtin' the two. The son's black body glistening from his sweat becoming a mirror for the lights. He was sitting on the stage, but his spirit was living down south, in the cotton field. As in the words of Booker "Bukka " White 'You want to know where the blues come from? The blues came from behind the mule. Well now, you can have the blues sitting at the table while you eat, but the foundation of the blues is walking behind a mule way back in slavery time'. You see, that's what the brother Son knew."
Ray took another drink.
"When Son would finish wailin', he'd collapse, exhausted. There he'd be, hunched over for two or three minutes, absolutely still. And then he'd slowly rise up pulling on the same spiritual chord and do it all over again. He would put himself through the same blues initiation song after song after song. Two soul-filled hours of the main man. Lord, I will never forget Son House. Let us pray for the still suffering."
I sat in quiet awe. I was a convert. Roy had preached me the Delta Blues.
No comments:
Post a Comment