The Blues Had A Baby And They Named It Rock And Roll
–Muddy Waters
Did Muddy Waters play an acoustic? Well, of course he did. But did he turn his back on being able to plug it in and play louder? No, he plugged in and turned it up and got miles and miles ahead of the game in one fateful act of just plugging in.
–Billy Gibbons of ZZ Top
I got up one Christmas morning and we didn't have nothing to eat. We didn't have an apple, we didn't have an orange, we didn't have a cake, and we didn't have nothing.
–Muddy Waters
Zorbane's spacecraft was awash in a bluish glow as broadcast meters danced and threw an eerie shadow on his face. As he took a long slow pull on his water bottle a smile creased his almost baby face.
"Greetings, fellow Zeonese, I discovered this fantastical music I've been playing for you from an electronic cloud while traveling near planet Earth, approximately one light year from Zeon. And, because we speak a very basic form of English, among other languages, I was able to enjoy the music as it was intended. Earth is many years behind us science-wise; they haven't cured cancer, cannot desalinize water very well, and still have much warfare and violence erupting. However, their music is much more alive and vibrating than ours. The reasons for that are many, but let me say that the most creative and crazy good were born much poorer than any of us. In between my music playing, I will be reading to you notes from my Earth friends on the immortals who changed their planet despite starting their lives in true hardship and destitution. These innovators music cats never had much goods except their immense talent and belief in themselves. I will read to you about all of them but sticking to the facts strictly and with quotes from other Earth creatures of the music zone sprinkled throughout. It is my mission to share these mind-altering vibrations with you in hopes that our planet can enjoy some of Earth's sublime, unexpected pleasures. By the way, the years listed are Earth time, so, just add about 40 dynas, that's about how far they are behind us, scientifically, but not, as you will hear, artistically.
“I begin reading notes from Mr. Jericho Bright, Earthling, and his Mississippi moonshiner crime partner, Haskell Land. This a bluesy bio is from friend Jericho as translated by yours truly," said Zorbane with relish.
“This dude was the original Hoochie Coochie Man, a real son-of-a gun. There's no real other way to say it than to lay out the facts of Muddy's life for you and let you Sherlock Holmes it. He was a man among men. Keith Richards, the invincible, says that when the Rolling Stones first came to Chess records in Chicago to record there, some guy in a painter's bib greeted them, showed them to the sound stage, and went back to painting the offices. It was Muddy his own self. Some more facts of interest, regarding our intergalactic friends.
McKinley Morganfield (Muddy Waters) was born April 4th, 1913, died April 30th, 1983. That's spring time on Earth my friends.
His mother died when he was three in Rolling Fork, Mississippi. That's young to lose your mom, man.
He was sent to Stovall Plantation near Clarksdale, Mississippi, to live with his grandmother.
He got his nickname, Muddy, because he loved to play in creeks and puddles.
He picked cotton in the fields at the plantation for 50 cents a day and played music in a trio for fish fries and house parties, for 50 cents a gig.
He lived in a one-room cedar shack in Stovall.
The actual shack where Muddy Waters lived in his youth on Stovall Plantation is now located at the Delta Blues Museum at 1 Blues Alley in Clarksdale, Mississippi. I must visit that on my next Earth jaunt if there is one.
In 1941 a Yankee dude named Alan Lomax who was making field recordings for Earth America the Library of Congress discovered Muddy. They were Muddy’s first recordings.
In 1943 at the age 30, Muddy traveled north to Chicago where he was part of the Great American Migration of black people to the cities of the North to seek work and access to food and respect. That's how Jericho's grandparents got to Philly. Philly is short for Earth, Philadelphia, a city of fantastic musical legacy and very ornery sports fans. But I digress.
Muddy brought along with him to Chicago the soul and spirit of the rural South, and electrified the blues music scene for the city Earthlings. Country strong and country wise was Muddy.
Muddy was a fierce singer and slashing slide guitarist whose uncut blues bore the stamp of his mentors, the crossroads man Robert Johnson and his pioneering mentor Son House. Yes, that's a real name on Earth during the early 1920s, also known as the "Roaring Twenties.”
They say his best recordings were singles made in the 1950s, which were featured on the album: The Best of Muddy Waters. I say his were good up until the end of his natural life.
He is considered the "Godfather of Modern Chicago Blues." Like Don Corleone with an electric guitar and all.
His longtime fan Johnny Winter, a very bad blues dude himself, produced another great Muddy Waters album: Hard Again, in 1977.
The Rolling Stones' Keith Richards says in his documentary, Keith Richards: Under the Influence, in which he said that he and Mick met on a train and both were carrying one of Muddy's records. That's how the Stones began. And they consequently named the band after one of Muddy’s songs; Rollin' Stone.
Therefore:
No Muddy, no electric blues. His use of amplification is cited as "the technological missing link between Delta Blues and Rock 'N' Roll." This is underlined in a 1968 article in Rolling Stone magazine: "There was a difference between Muddy's instrumental work and that of Son House and Robert Johnson, however, and the crucial difference was the result of Waters' use of the electric guitar on his Aristocrat sides; he had taken up the instrument shortly after moving to Chicago in 1943."
No Muddy; probably no Chuck Berry. Waters got the 'duck walker' his first recording contract.
No Muddy; no Rolling Stones.
No Stones; no super model wives for Mick and Keith.
No teenage girls for Bill Wyman.
Brian Jones dies in quiet obscurity.
No ‘Beggar's Banquet’ (a loss, for sure).
No ‘Sympathy for the Devil’ (sorry 'bout that Beelzebub).
No “American Pie”by Don McLean
No ‘Sticky Fingers’. (Shame, shame)
No Andy Warhol album cover.
No Bianca Jagger jet setting with Mick on the tongue plane.
No Exile on Main Street (‘you got to roll me...’).
No Keith Richards. No blood transfusions. Fewer cigarettes. Less fun.
No Pirates of the Caribbean
No “Moves like Jagger” by Maroon 5.
No Rolling Stone magazine. (Good when it started. Full of star fucker glam crap now.)”
Zorbane glanced at his Muddy Waters CD cover, and spoke softly into his system. "Here's “Mannish Boy”, featuring Earth's Muddy Waters from the Last Waltz movie. Muddy Waters, and the other artists to follow, were a cultural force that Zeon's advanced civilization has not encountered to this point in its history."
Zorbane took a swig of water and dialed the volume up. Yes, the cosmos were about to be altered.
Chapter Seven
Ground Control to Zorbane
Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go.
–T. S. Eliot
A FEW MONTHS EARLIER
It was a long flight back from Earth to Zeon for Zorbane and Trax, and they had plenty of time to listen to all the great music given to them by Jericho and Haskell and read the information handed to them by Haskell.
But upon entering Zeon's atmosphere, they got an immediate and disturbing transm
ission from one of their Mountain friends, Odurn, whose family worked the airfield where Zorbane would land on occasion.
"Please do not attempt to enter Zeon airspace in a conventional manner as they know through their Earth sources that you have been to that planet. As you know, the Shapers will imprison you as disrupters and rebels," said Odurn, one of the Mountain People warriors, speaking on a secure back channel known only to a select few.
How could they know? They had only been to a few places outside Jericho's: the juke joint, the honky tonk, and, they attended the Antioch Baptist Church on a lark because the spirituals interested them. That was a remote, rural adventure. How could the Shapers have found out?
Zorbane, though one of the more daring pilots of Zeon's Air Patrol, knew it would be very hard to spread the seed of Earth American rock 'n' roll from a padded cell deep in the bowels of the "Confessional," a secret prison run by The Shapers’ henchmen. As part of their reeducation, inmates had to apologize and repent for their thought crimes every day, lest they begin to waver and return to their regressive ideas one day. But he needn't have worried. Brave Trax, his ship mate, and a damn fine pilot himself, volunteered to take their smaller landing craft and attempt to land in the Mountains, where some of the more unrepentant Mountain People would hide and care for him.
"I'll take our helo craft and make a go of it," said Trax.
"But, that's a very dangerous trip, not to mention landing in the mountains," Zorbane said.
"Look, you're our musical savant, Zorbane. You stay out here beyond their reach and play the music. If I can reach it, I'll work from the inside of the Mountain Region. Most importantly, one day, if we're lucky, we can bust some music on this tired place."
Zorbane took out a bottle of moonshine that Haskell had given them, and poured it into two glasses filling them to the brim. They both raised the glasses and Trax made a toast. "Here's to lighting a fire in the belly of our homeland with the incendiary sounds of hungry peoples' music. Long live rock."
And with that, the men drained their drinks and crushed the glasses under their shoes.
Trax gathered himself and went below decks to commence his helo craft launch countdown. Zorbane adjusted their flight course to get as close to the Mountain coordinates as possible.
There was no time left to lose. The Shapers were planning a folk music festival later that summer, and Zeon's people would have their brains turned even mushier. But before we proceed further, readers, let's learn more about Trax, and how he was drawn into this adventure with Zorbane.
Chapter Eight
Zorbane's Yin
The difference between school and life?
In school you're taught a lesson and then given a test.
In life you're given a test that teaches you a lesson.
–Tom Bodett
Any basic understanding of Tao, which illustrates the relationship between our two principal characters, begins with the understanding of Yin and Yang. Yin represents the night. Yang the sunny day. Together they form a whole.
For our purposes Yin and Yang help explain the symmetry of Trax and Zorbane. Trax is Yin to Zorbane's Yang.
Zorbane and Trax were both pilots. On Earth we would call them "fighter jocks."
Zorbane is the eternal optimist, always looking for an opportunity, letting the dice roll if the odds are anywhere reasonable. Trax is the engineer, looking for functionality in everything. Trax is always evaluating the practicality in anything he and his partner Zorbane encounter.
If Zorbane got extra motivation when his father, Ranno, disappeared, Trax, his schoolmate, wasn't surprised at all. He figured the rakish Ranno, despite his immense skills as a pilot, would eventually run into problems with the Shapers, given his impish sensibilities and occasionally outlandish statements.
How else were they different? Well, to put it into athletic terms: Trax was blessed with a low heart rate and very little body fat, a long-distance runner. Zorbane was a quick twitch sprinter with a high motor.
Zorbane loved wine when he could get his hands on it. All the best stuff was reserved for Zeon proper. Trax was predisposed to beer.
They both were stone cold bonkers over rock 'n' roll.
Chapter Nine
The Man Who Walked the Line
We're all crazy, but it's a type of insanity that borders on genius. I really feel that. To be as free as you have to be for any kind of music, you almost have to be in another dimension.
–Sam Phillips, on himself and his charges at Sun.
Zorbane turned on his broadcast system and put up his CD cover of Johnny Cash. The singer's rugged face stared out at him with an intensity one doesn't see often in any man's face. There were so many stories in his face, thought Zorbane. He then began to read Haskell's notes.
They have a saying on Earth that talk is cheap. Well, here's a man that didn't say anything he didn't mean.
Early in his career, he wore black because it hid stains and looked better longer. He's immortalized as the Man in Black and he became an American icon through hard work and talent. He was like a badass cat out of a Western, a stranger who rides into town with mystery all around him and a strong sense of purpose and obvious talent. Let me introduce one of Earth's strongest souls, Brother Johnny Cash.
Johnny "J.R." Cash was born February 26th, 1932, and died September 12th, 2003. He was born in Kingsland, Arkansas, one of seven children. That's a mess of kids.
“On Zeon, there are rules against that many children, I continue with Haskell's notes,” said Zorbane with a smile.
In March 1935, when he was three years old, in the midst of Earth's Great Depression, the Cash family settled in Dyess Colony in northeast Arkansas.
He started working in cotton fields when he was five years old, singing along with his family while working. That's hot dirty work my friends, especially for a child of five. Cash used that experience of working as a child in his great song, "Get Rhythm."
The family farm was flooded on at least two occasions, which later inspired him to write the song "Five Feet High and Rising." He was always making good out of bad.
John worked on the farm until he graduated from high school in 1950.
He soon got work in an automotive plant but later joined the U. S. Air Force, and formed his first band while serving in Germany.
In 1954, Cash and his bride Vivian moved to Memphis, Tennessee, where he got a job selling appliances while studying to be a radio announcer.
“Very much like what I'm doing now, only I’m broadcasting somewhere in outer space,” teased Zorbane.
After working up the courage to visit Sun Records, Johnny was rebuffed after Sam Phillips told him he didn't record Gospel music anymore, John's go-to style at the time.
Undaunted, Cash finally persuades Phillips to record him, and in 1955 makes his first recordings at Sun, "Hey Porter" and "Cry, Cry, Cry." "Folsom Prison Blues" and "I Walk The Line" followed soon thereafter, the former climbing to No. 5 on the country charts and the latter making it all the way to No. 1 on the country charts and No. 20 on the pop charts.
Throughout his adult life, he struggled with addictions to alcohol, amphetamines, and barbiturates. Those are real problems on Earth.
His early life of poverty compelled John to feel great compassion for prisoners. His first ever prison concert was held on January 1st, 1958 at San Quentin State Prison. These performances led to a pair of highly successful live albums, Johnny Cash at Folsom Prison (1968) and Johnny Cash at San Quentin (1969).
The Man in Black was more than a sartorial statement. In 1971, Cash wrote the song "Man in Black" to help explain his dress code: "We're doing mighty fine I do suppose / In our s
treak of lightning cars and fancy clothes / But just so we're reminded of the ones who are held back / Up front there ought to be a man in black."
In 1980, Cash became the Country Music Hall of Fame's youngest living inductee at age 48. He was mighty young when he began working in the fields and very young to be inducted into the CMHOF.
The Man in Black is in three preeminent halls of fame: Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame (1977), the Country Music Hall of Fame (1980), and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (1992).
So, no Johnny Cash:
No worldwide black fashion obsessions.
No Goth.
No Cash, no Johnny Cash Show. Maybe no Kris Kristofferson, who launched his career on that show. Johnny also persuaded the reclusive Bob Dylan to perform on the show and introduced him to an entirely new audience.
No Johnny Cash, maybe Nashville never got the rebellion from Waylon, Willie, Kris and the likes, which opened up the town to new perspectives and dimensions of country music.
Poverty Rocks! (Rock n' Roll in Outer Space Book 1) Page 3
