Martin Scorsese Presents The Blues

by Peter Guralnick

  WARMING BY THE DEVIL’S FIRE: Farley: Back Water Blues: In Search of Bessie Smith by Sara Grime (Rose Island Publishing Co./Sara Grimes, 2000); Baltimore Afro-American, April 10, 1926; The Essential Bessie Smith (Columbia, 1997), CD liner notes; Bessie Smith-The Collection (Columbia, 1989), CD liner notes; Bessie Smith, Volume I (Frog, 2001), CD liner notes; Bessie Smith; The Complete Recordings Vol. 1, Columbia/Legacy, 1991), CD liner notes; Bessie Smith, The Final Chapter, The Complete Recordings Vol. 5 (Columbia/Legacy, 1996), CD liner notes; The Jazz Makers, edited by Neil Shapiro and Nat Hentoff (Rinehart &. Company); DownBeat.com; Nothing but the Blues; An Illustrated Documentary, edited by Mike Leadbitter (Hanover Books, 1971); Personal Politics; The Roots of Women’s Liberation in the Civil Rights Movement and the New Left by Sara Evans (Random House, 1979); A Shining Thread of Hope: The History of Black Women in America by Darlene Clark Hine and Kathleen Thompson (Broadway Books, 1998); Black Pearls: Blues Queens of the 1920s by Daphne Duval Harrison (Rutgers University Press, 1990); Blues Legacies and Black Feminism: Gertrude “Ma” Rainey, Bessie Smith, and Billie Holiday by Angela Davis (Pantheon, 1998); Women, Race and Class by Angela Davis (Vintage, 1983); Bessie Smith by Jackie Kay (Absolute Press, 1997); Blues Traveling: The Holy Sites of Delta Blues by Steve Cheseborough (Mississippi, 2001}; Bessie by Chris Albertson (Stein and Day, 1982); Nobody Knows My Name by James Baldwin (Vintage, 1960]; The American Dream, The Death of Bessie Smith, Fam and Yam, by Edward Albee (Dramatist Play Service); Bessie Smith-Empress of the Blues, by Chris Albertson and Gunther Schuller, (Schirmer, 1975); Brown Sugar Eighty Yean of America’s Black Female Superstars by Donald Bogle (Harmony, 1980); Jazz Masters of the Twenties by Richard Hadlock (MacMillan, 1974); Pittsburgh Courier, October 9, 1937; Clarksdale Press Register, ibid, September 26, 1957, ibid October 3, 1957, ibid, September 27, 1937; Chicago Defender, October 2, 1937; ibid, October 9, 1937; Baltimore Afro-American, March 7, 1926; Down Beat, October 1937; ibid, November 1937; ibid, December 1937; Hollywood Rhythm Vol.1: The Best of Jazz and Blues (King Video, 2001); Stomping the Blues by Albert Murray (Da Capo, 1976); Somebody’s Angel Child: The Story of Bessie Smith, by Carman Moore (Dell, 1969); The Big Book of Blues, Santelli. Brown; all lines from “Ma Rainey” from The Collected Poems of Sterling A. Brown, edited by Michael S. Harper. Copyright © 1932 by Harcourt Brace & Co. Copyright renewed 1960 by Sterling A. Brown. Reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers, Inc.; Marshall; “Shave ‘em Dry” by Lucille Bogan (n/a) Solome Bey Matthews (SOCAN), reprinted by permission of Hot Usama Music; Titon: Early Downhome Blues: A Musical and Cultural Analysis, second edition, by Jeff Todd Titon, Copyright © 1995 by the University of North Carolina Press. Used by permission of the publisher. Shines: “Remembering Robert Johnson” by Johnny Shines, from American Folk Music Occasional, 1970, reprinted with permission of Chris Strachwitz; Ellison: from Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison, copyright © 1947, 1948, 1952 by Ralph Ellison. Copyright renewed 1975, 1976, 1980 by Ralph Ellison. Used by permission of Random House. Edwards: from The World Don’t Owe Me Nothing: The Life and Times of Delta Bluesman Honeyboy Edwards, by David “Honeyboy” Edwards as told to Janis Martinson and Michael Robert Frank. Reprinted with permission of Chicago Review Press, Inc. Faulkner from Soldiers’ Pay by William Faulkner. Copyright 1954 by William Faulkner. Copyright 1926 by Boni & Liveright, Inc. Used by permission of Liveright Publishing Corporation. Baldwin: excerpted from “Down at the Cross: Letter From a Region in My Mind” by James Baldwin, originally published in The New Yorker. Collected in The Fire Next Time © 1962, 1963. Copyright renewed. Reprinted by arrangement with the James Baldwin Estate; Bond: reprinted with permission of the author.

  THE ROAD TO MEMPHIS: Booth: “Furry Blues” by Stanley Booth. Reprinted by permission of the author. Shade: from Conversation With the Blues by Paul Oliver. Cambridge University Press, 1965. Reprinted by permission of the author; “The River’s Invitation” by Percy Mayfield. © 1952 (renewed) Sony/ATV Songs LLC. All rights administered by Sony/ATV Music Publishing, 8 Music Square West, Nashville, TN 37203. All rights reserved. Used by permission. Palmer from Deep Blues by Robert Palmer. Published by Viking Press, 1982. Reprinted by permission of the Estate of Robert Palmer.

  THE SOUL OF A MAN: Farley: Nothing But the Blues: The Music and the Musicians by Lawrence Cobn (Abbeville Press, 1993); The Lund Where the Blues Began by Alan Lomax (Pantheon, 1993); A Natural History of the Senses by Diane Ackerman (Vintage, 1990}; Blind Lemon Jefferson: His Life, His Death, His Legacy by Robert Uzzel (Eakin, 2002); Blindness: The History of a Mental image in Western Thought by Moshe Barasch (Routledge, 2001); Twilight: Losing Sight, Gaining Insight by Henry Grunwald (Knopf, 2000); Aldous Huxley, The Art of Seeing (Creative Arts Book Company, 1982); Tales From Ovid, translated by Ted Hughes (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1997); “Music Rooted in the Texas Soil” by Robert L. Uzzelm, Living Blues, November/December 1988; The Blues Makers by Samuel Charters; “Blind Lemon Jefferson: the Myth and the Man” by Alan Govenar, Black Music Research journal, Spring 2000, “The Language of Blind Lemon Jefferson: The Covert Theme of Blindness” by Luigi Monge, Black Music Research Journal, Spring 2000, “Musical Innovation in the Blues of Blind Lemon Jefferson,” by David Evans, Bluesland, edited by Pete Welding and Toby Byron (1991); Arizona Drones, Complete Recorded Works in Chronological Order 1926-1929 (Document, 1993), CD liner notes; Sight Unseen by Georgina Kleege (Yale University Press, 1999); The Best of Blind Lemon Jefferson (Yazoo, 2000), CD liner notes; “Moanin’ Ail Over,” (Tradition Records. 1996), CD liner notes; The Big Book of Blues by Robert Santelli; “Blind Willie McTell” by Bob Dylan, Copyright © 1983 Special Rider Music; Charters: reprinted with permission of the author; McCormick: reprinted by permission of the author; Hurston: pages 142-47 from Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston, copyright 1937 by Harper & Row, Publishers, Inc.; renewed © 1965 by John C. Hurston and Joel Hurston. Reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers, Inc.; Amft: interview with Holly George-Warren, 2003; Antone: interview with George-Warren, 2003; Vaughan: interviews with David Ritz, 2002-03; White: interview with George-Warren, 2003. Hooker from Conversation with the Elites by Paul Oliver, Cambridge University Press. Reprinted by permission of the author; Nelson: interview with George-Warren, 2003.

  GODFATHERS AND SONS: Palmer from Deep Blues, by Robert Palmer, reprinted by permission of the Estate of Robert Palmer; Hughes: “Happy New Year! With Memphis Minnie” by Langston Hughes, from the Chicago Defender, January 9, 1943. Reprinted by permission of the Chicago Defender, Farley: Woman with Guitar. Memphis Minnie’s Blues by Paul and Beth Garon (Da Capo, 1992); How Sweet the Sound: The Golden Age of Gospel by Horace Clarence Boyer (Elliot and Clark, 1995); Sister Rosetto Tharpe: Original Soul Sister (Proper, 2002), CD liner notes; Big Bill Blues: William Broonzy’s Story As Told to Yannick Bruynoghe by Big Bill Broonzy (Cassell, 1955); Memphis Minnie: Queen of the Blues” (Columbia, 1997), CD liner notes; Memphis Minnie: The Essential (Classic Blues, 2001), CD liner notes; Chicago Defender, January 9, 1943; “My Girlish Days” Blues Unlimited, December 1970; “Memphis Minnie” by Steve LaVere and Paul Garon; Living Blues, Autumn 1973; The Blues Makers by Samuel Charters; Nothing But the Blues: The Music and the Musicians by Lawrence Cohn; The Story of the Blues by Francis Davis (Hyperion, 1995). Charters: reprinted by permission of the author. Dixon: from I Am the Blues, 1989 by Willie Dixon with Don Snowdon, Da Capo, reprinted with the permission of the Estate of Willie Dixon; Trynka: from Mojo, February 1996, reprinted by permission of the author; Bloomfield: from the book Me and Big Joe by Michael Bloomfield with Scott Summerville. © 1980 Re/Search Publications, San Francisco (www.researchpubs.com); Amft: interview with George-Warren, 2003.

  RED. WHITE AND BLUES: Farley. Big Bill Blues: William Broonzy’s Story As Told To Yannick Bruynoghe by Big Bill Broonzy; The Land Where the Blues Began by Alan Lomax; Big Bill Broonzy, Trouble, in Mind (Smithsonian Folkways, 2000), CD liner notes; The Young Big Bill Broonzy (Yazoo, 1928), CD liner notes; Nothing But the Blues: The Music and the Musicia
ns by Lawrence Cohn; Chasin’ That Devil Music: Searching for the Blues by Gayle Dean Wardlow (Backbeat, 1998); Deep Blues by Robert Palmer (Penguin, 1981); Blues Masters: The Essential History of the Blues (Rhino Home Video, 1993); The Big Book of Blues by Robert Santelli. Wilmer: from Mojo, 1995, reprinted by permission of the author; Booth: from The True Adventures of the Rolling Stones, 1984, reprinted by permission of the author.

  PIANO BLUES AND BEYOND: Farley: Firmly Rooted,” by Matthew Socey, Down Beat, November 2002; “Marcia Ball: Pounding the 88s Across 50 States,” by Ernie Rideout, Keyboard, October 2001. “Marcia Ball: Of Crawfish and Edna St. Vincent Millay,” by Mindy Giles, July 2001. ABC News: Nightline, “Satchmo’s Blues: Louis Armstrong in his own words,” by Dave Mrash, August 17, 2001; The Gold Coast Bulletin, “Norah on the Rise,” by Barry Ralph, January 4, 2003. Sojourner: the Women’s Forum “A Century of Jazzwomen,” by Cathy Lee, September 30, 1984; Stormy Weather: The Music and Lives of a Century of Jazzwomen, by Linda Dahl (Pantheon, 1984); The Washington Post, “Women Sing the Blues” by Mike Joyce, May 13, 1998; The Dallas Morning News, “All Through Singing the Blues,” by Thor Christensen, September 20, 1998; The Times Union (Albany, New York), “True to Blues: Women Crossing Genre’s Racial Divide,” by Dana Jennings, August 17, 2000; The Washington Post, “Hazel Scott, Jazz Pianist, Singer, Dies; Once Wed to Congressman,” October 4, 1981; The Washington Post Magazine, “Power and Love,” by Wil Haygood, January 17, 1993; Albert Murray, “The Hero and the Blues,” (Vintage, 1973); Ralph Ellison, “Living with Music: Ralph Ellison’s Jazz Writings” (Modern Library); Peterson: interview with George-Warren, 2003; Hammond: interview with George-Warren, 2003; Welty: reprinted by the permission of Russell and Volkening as agents for the author © 1941 by Eudora Welty renewed in 1969 Eudora Welty; Spann: from Conversation with the Blues by Paul Oliver, Cambridge University Press. Reprinted by permission of the author; Lydon: from Ray Charles: The Man and His Music by Michael Lydon, reprinted with permission of the author. Wexler from Rhythm and the Blues: A Life in American Musk by Jerry Wexler and David Ritz, reprinted with permission of the authors; Ball: interview with Richard Skanse, 2003.

  Contributors

  HILTON ALS is a staff writer for The New Yorker. His work has also appeared in The New York Review of Books.

  STANLEY BOOTH, author of Till I Roll Over Dead, Rythm Oil, and The True Adventures of the Rolling Stones, met Furry Lewis in 1966. They were friends till Furry died in 1981.

  SAMUEL CHARTERS has written and produced numerous books and albums on the blues since writing The Country Blues in 1959. He has also published novels and books of poetry.

  ANTHONY DECURTIS is a contributing editor at Rolling Stone and the author of Rocking My Life Away: Writing About Music and Other Matters. He holds a Ph.D. in American literature and teaches in the creative writing program at the University of Pennsylvania.

  CHRISTOPHER JOHN FARLEY, born in Jamaica and raised in New York, is author of the novel My Favorite War and the biography Aaliyah: More Than a Woman. As the chief music critic for Time in the 1990s. Farley interviewed Bob Dylan, John Lee Hooker, U2, Radiohead, and Aretha Franklin, among other artists. Farley is currently a senior editor of Time and a contributor to CNN Headline News, where he hosts the weekly music report Christopher John Farley’s Jukebox.

  HOLLY GEORGE-WARREN is creditor of American Roots Music and The Rolling Stone Encyclopedia of Rock & Roll, and author of Cowboy: How Hollywood Invented the Wild West and Shake, Rattle & Roll: The Founders of Rock ei Roll, among many other books.

  ALEX GIBNEY, series producer of The Blues, is an Emmy Award-winning writer, director, and producer. His credits include the The Trials of Henry Kissinger, The Fifties (based on the best-seller by author David Halberstam), and The Pacific Century,

  ROBERT GORDON is author of Can’t Be Satisfied: The Life and Times of Muddy Waters, It Came from Memphis, and two books about Elvis Presley. His documentaries include Muddy Waters Can’t Be Satisfied and All Day & Ail Night. He was writer of the blues documentary The Road to Memphis.

  PETER GURALNICK is author of Feel Like Going Home, Searching for Robert Johnson, Sweet Soul Music, and the novel Nighthawk Blues, along with a two-volume biography of Elvis Presley, among other books.

  DAVID HALBERSTAM is a Pulitzer Prize-winning author whose most recent book is Teammates.

  RICHARD HELL is the author of the novel Go Now. His most recent music release is the double CD Time, and his most recent book is Hot and Cold.

  ELMORE LEONARD is the author of numerous books, including Unknown Man #89, Get Shorty, and Tishomingo Blues, soon to be a major motion picture.

  MICHAEL LYDON, author of Ray Charles: Man and Music, has been writing about pop music for more than thirty years. He’s also a singer-songwriter who performs regularly in New York City.

  JAMES MARSHALL has written for Spin, the New York Times, and High Times, among other publications.

  MACK MCCORMICK is a cultural anthropologist who has been researching and writing about the blues since the 1940s.

  CATHERINE NEDONCHELLE, a French journalist based in the U.S. for twenty years, covers the New York-Paris-Memphis axis.

  PAUL OLIVER is the author of Conversation with the Blues and The Story of the Blues, among many other books.

  PAUL OSCHER was the first white musician to become a full-time member of Muddy Waters’ band. He has performed with John Lee Hooker, T-Bone Walker, and Victoria Spivey, among others. A songwriter, vocalist, and multi-instrumentalist, Oscher continues to perform at blues festivals throughout the U.S. and abroad.

  ROBERT PALMER has made several recordings with his band Insect Trust. His works include Deep Blues, Rock & Roll: An Unruly History, and numerous other projects.

  SUZAN-LORI PARKS is a Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright, screenwriter, and novelist.

  DAVID RITZ, whose most recent book is Faith in Time: The Life of Jimmy Scott, is also the author of the novel Blue Notes Under a Green Felt Hat and the lyricist of “Sexual Healing.”

  LUC SANTE is the author of several books, including Low Life and The Factory of Facts. He lives in Ulster County, New York.

  ROBERT SANTELLI is coeditor of American Roots Music, author of The Big Book of Blues, and the executive director of the Experience Music Project.

  JEFF SCHEFTEL is an award-winning filmmaker whose most recent works are Mahalia Jackson: The Power and the Glory, Welcome to Death Row, and Sounds of Memphis. He also served as director of media production for NARAS, producers of the Grammy Awards.

  JOHN SWENSON is editor of The Rolling Stone Jazz & Blues Alb um Guide, He has been writing about the blues since the late 1960s for publications including Crawdaddy and Rolling Stone, as well as UPl. He is the blues columnist for Off Beat,

  JOHN SZWED is Musser Professor of African-American studies, anthropology, and music at Yale University, and is Louis Armstrong Visiting Professor at Columbia University in 2003-04. He is the author of Space Is the Place; The Lives and Times of Sun Ra, Jazz 101, and So What: The Life of Miles Davis, and is at work on a biography of Alan Lomax.

  GREG TATE is a staff writer at the Village Voice. His books include Flyboy in the Buttermilk, Everything but the Burden: What White People Are Taking from Black Culture, Midnight Lightning: Jimi Hendrix and the Black Experience, and the forthcoming futuristic novel Altered Spaydes. He also leads the ensemble Burnt Sugar.

  JEFF TODD TITON is professor of music at Brown University and author of Early Downhome Blues: A Musical and Cultural Analysis, Powerhouse for God, and Give Me This Mountain.

  TOURE is the author of The Portable Promised Land, a collection of short stories, and the forthcoming novel Soul City. He is also a contributing editor at Rolling Stone and a contributor to NPR’s Ail Things Considered.

  PAUL TRYNKA is editorial director of Mojo, where he has worked in various guises since 1996. Trynka is also the author of Portrait of the Blues (with photographs by Val Winner) and Denim: From Cowboys to Catwalks.