The Memphis Blues

This blog focuses primarily on the lyrical content found in the early beginnings of the blues genre.  Born out of the depths of the poor, rural South, the Memphis Blues illuminates the hardships that defined the lives of African Americans in the early 1900s. In a time span that ranges from the turn of the century up to the Great Depression, the lyrics of many blues songs acted as windows into the lives of their authors; giving their audience a glimpse into their personal troubles, aspirations, and addictions.  The proceeding songs, written by some of the most popular pioneers of the genre,  should be viewed as modes of life narrative.  Henrietta Yurchenco writes in her journal, "Blues Fallin' Down Like Hail," "...the blues, both words and music, offers an incomparable portrait of life with all its wrinkles. No other art form has been penetrated as deeply into the thinking and feelings of generations of poor southern blacks” (Yurchenco 467).  As for most blues songs derived from the Memphis Blues era, “The words are peppered with graphic, vivid expressions of local usage, but the subjects are universal, common to humanity everywhere and easily understood” (448). Blues thus was a form of personal expression - a diary if you will - documenting the lives of African Americans in an autobiographical sense.  The following posts offer examples of songs and lyrics that pertain to the mode of personal expression and confession, contextualized with some of the autobiographical concepts offered by Sidone Smith and Julia Watson.  

Important quotes from Henrietta Yurchencho's American Music article "Blues Fallin' Down Like Hail"**:

“The blues singer sings only of his or her own life, the pleasures and suffering, and provides remarkable portrait of a private, intimate realm, complete within itself, marching to its own rhythm and governed by its own moral percepts and way of life” (450).

“Despite the survival of certain African musical characteristics, the blues is not native to either Africa or the Caribbean. From its beginnings in the nineteenth century, it was rooted in the life of the poor rural South…” (449).

Blues: “Discord between the sexes, the escalation of violence, and alienation from white society…” (467).

“Male and female blues singers came form the same geographical areas, and the same poverty-stricken backgrounds, and they based their songs on the same themes: discrimination, injustice, exclusion in a Jim Crow society, and relationships between men and women – male machismo and the female backlash, violence between the sexes, sexual promiscuity, and rampant dysfunctional family life” (450).

“Subjects that did not affect the blues singer personally rarely entered the orbit of blues lyrics” (450).

Bessie Smith - "Poor Man’s Blues"

Sex, Drugs, and Memphis Blues

When one thinks of the blues, most connotations of the word imply a sense of depression, angst, and hardship.  However, in many blues songs, themes such as sex and alcohol are prominent: "The most sensational blues of the 1920s-30s were about sex, its pleasures and pitfalls" (457).  As these ideas were often sensationalized, they were popular themes for many Memphis Blues era artists.  However, besides the glorification of sex, addiction to alcohol or drugs was a huge problem facing African Americans in the early 1900s.

In “Mean Tight Mama” Sara Martin offers a glimpse into her sexual life:

Now my hair is nappy and I don’t wear no clothes of silk,

But the cow that’s black and ugly has often got the sweetest milk.

I’m a mean tight mama, with my mean tight mama blues.

Autobiography: 

Martin's lyrics are unique in that they include both racial and sexual glimpses into her life.  Her economic status is conveyed through the statement that her hair is nappy and she can't afford expensive clothing.  In the next line, she compares herself to a big, ugly black cow that even though it may not be as aesthetically pleasing, its produce is the "sweetest." In just three lines, Martin is able to convey her status as a poor African American women, yet her ability to perform sexually is unhindered. Smith and Watson's concept of the Ideological 'I'  seems to apply to Martin's lyrics.  The Ideological “I” is “steeped in ideology, in all the institutional discourses through which people come to understand themselves and to place themselves in the world” (76). Martin presents her sexuality in context with her social status.  The use of 'I' in the lyrics is applied with an understanding of her social background and institutional discourse of which she comes to understand her current state of being.

Bessie Smith was a popular Memphis Blues artist in the 1920s.  In "Me and My Gin" Smith writes of her long time addiction to alcohol:

When I’m high ain’t nothin I won’t do,

Keep me full of liquor and I’ll be nice to you.

I don’t want no clothes, and I don’t need no bed,

I don’t want no pork chops, just give me gin instead. (464)

Autobiography: 
Smith's lyrics reveal her dependency on alcohol.  The severity of her addiction is articulated through the admittance of desiring alcohol over clothes, food, and shelter.  Though this is rather dramatic, Smith details how her alcoholism has an impact in every aspect of her life.  Smith and Watson discuss the idea of addiction in autobiography which they term "addiction narrative." This is “a kind of conversion narrative in which the reformed subject narrates his or her degeneration through addiction to something – alcohol, drugs, sex, food, the Internet” (RA 254). Obviously, Internet does not apply in this case, but Smith's lyrics do suggest that she has experienced a social degeneration through her addiction to alcohol.

Like Bessie Smith, artist Jimmy Gordon experiences similar addiction problems in his song "Bleeding Heart Blues":


Well, I drink to keep from worrying and I laugh to keep from crying,

I keep a smile on my face so the public won’t know my mind.

Some people thinks I am happy but they sho’ don’t know my mind,

They see this smile on my face, but my heart is bleeding all the time.

Autobiography: 
Being another variation of an addiction narrative, Gordon's problems rest more upon the troubles of happiness.  With Smith's lyrics revolved around being an alcoholic alone, Gordon's drinking is primarily a form of escapism.  His dependency on alcohol is a result of depression - his social life is plagued by his inability to be happy and thus, turns to alcohol to repress his true emotions.

The Great Depression

The Stock Market Crash of 1929 is known as one of the biggest National economic crisis' in American history.  Of those affected the worst included primarily white shareholders who's financial well-being depended on the stock market.  For southern African Americans, the Great Depression was merely a continuation of the hardships that defined their lives.  Yurchenco estimates "...out of a half-million young hoboes (as the homeless and jobless were called), the majority were black, many of whom drifted into crime. Their plight in the face of southern injustice came to national attention during the 1930s when nine black youths, known as the Scottsboro Boys, were indicted for raping a white woman" (456). 

Blues artist Lonnie Johnson’s “Hard Times Ain’t Gone Nowhere” speaks the truth about the depression: "not everyone suffered" (456):

People is raisin’ ‘bout hard times, tell me what it’s all about,

Hard times don’t worry me, I was broke when it first started out.

Friends, it could be worser, you don’t seem to understand,

Some is cryin’ with a sack of gold under each arm and a loaf of bread in each hand.

Autobiography:
Johnson's lyrics present another side of the Depression that is rarely considered in the social discourse of the Stock Market crash.  The line "Hard times don't worry me, I was broke when it first started out" is a unique reflection on how the Depression was not as much as a national calamity it has been portrayed to be in the history books.  Smith and Watson's concept of identities spell out how the self is portrayed in various contexts.  They contend that Discursive Identities are based on social structures that define individuals : “They are constructed. They are in language. They are discursive. They are not essential – born, inherited, or natural though much in social organization leads us to regard identity as given and fixed…Since social groups have their languages, each member of the group becomes conscious in and through that language. Thus autobiographical narrators come to conciousness of who they are, and of what identifications and differences they are assigned, or what identities they might adopt through the discourses that surround them” (RA 39).  By stating "Some is cryin’ with a sack of gold under each arm and a loaf of bread in each hand,"  Johnson reveals his place in social discourse that was not inherited or natural, but acts as a defining aspect of his identity.

"In those troubled times women supported not only their children but their unemployed and often shiftless men as well.  Some women retaliated by throwing the men out" (456). 

In “Worn Out Daddy Blues” Ida Cox expresses feelings about her unemployed husband:

You’re like an old horseshoe that’s had its day,

You’re like an old shoe I must throw away,

I’m through with you and I hope you don’t feel hurt.

You ain’t got no money, you’re down and broke,

You’re just an old has-been like a worn-out joke,

So I’m through with you and I hope you don’t feel hurt.

Autobiography: 
Cox explores her emotional departure with her husband as a necessity for her well being. Autobiographically, her lyrics can be viewed as Poetic, which Smith and Watson describe as “A mode of the lyric distinguished…not by content but by the ‘formal device of recapitulation and recall’. It may appear that all lyric poetry is life writing in that the speaker of the lyric inscribes a subjective self as he or she explores emotions, vision, and intellectual states” (RA 277). Cox subjectifies her relationship as a coping mechanism to deal with her emotions while keeping her husband in mind.  Her inability to deal with his unemployment hinders her state as an intellectual and stable African American woman, and thus must "throw him away."

Though southern African American's were not highly effected economically by the Great Depression, there was an increase in crime: “During the depression...approximately 44 percent of the crimes in the United States were committed by blacks.  Most crimes took place in the southern cities, where poverty and disease ‘numb the senses, destroy values, and dull initiative to stunned, unthinking stupor – or they provoke unreasoning anger" (466). As a result, many blues lyrics contained reflections on the increased crime rate and the de-stablization of an entire community.  

Walter Davis’ “High Jack Blues” explores the personal issues that hindered his emotional well being. Consequently, violence was a common conclusion to many problems:

I got a mind to ramble, I got a mind to rob and steal,

I got a mind to hijack people, you don’t know how I feel.

Autobiography:
Davis' lyrics detail his inability to cope with the hardships that plague his well-being thus, resorts to violence.  His mind to rob, steal, ramble and hijack are directly related to his ethnic identity.  Smith and Watson explore the idea of Ethnic Life narrative which is “A mode of autobiographical narrative, emergent in ethnic communities within or across nations, that negotiates ethnic identification around multiple pasts…” (RA 269). I feel Davis explores the idea of violence in context with the inevitabilities that came to define ethnic communities.  The inability to progress socially and economically as an African American led to an increase in violence that few white Americans would understand - as illustrated in Davis' lyrics.

Separate but Equal - The Era of Jim Crow

With an increase of job opportunities available to African Americans, the desire to participate in the industrial production gave many southern blacks hope for a more stable economic life.  Though the liberation of their rights were yet to be brought to fruition, there was an increase in optimism for social progression.  Yurchenco states, “Around the turn of the century, about 1890, three-quarters of the black population lived in rural areas. By 1930 half lived in towns, and this urban population increased as southern blacks sought wartime jobs in the cities in the 1940s. Thousands migrated north to work in the Detroit auto industry, where they found not only jobs that paid good wages but dreams of a new freedom...wives and children back home were often abandoned and left to shift for themselves" (455). 

In “Detroit Bound Blues,” “Blind” Blake (Arthur Phelps) reveals the new sense of economic optimism for African Americans:

I’m goin’ to get me a job, up there in Mr. Ford’s place,

Stop these eatless days from starin’ me in the face.

Because wild women lives in Detroit, that’s all I want to see,

Wil’ women and bad whiskey would make a fool out of me.

Autobiography:
Blake's desire to move to Detroit is filled with optimism.  He wants to leave his days of economic hardships and "eatless days" behind for a more fulfilling existence.  Smith and Watson explain that a Travel narrative is a "broad term [that] encompasses multiple forms: travelogue, travel journal, (pseudo)ethnography, adventure narrative, quest, narrative of exotic escape" (RA 284). Blake's desire to move north reflects the idea of an exotic escape.  The idea of escape here details more than just a physical escape, but an emotional and social escape from the bondage of social prejudice and economic depravity.  

However, not all blues artists were as optimistic as Blake.  Among those who moved north with hopes of a better life, there were others who doubted the promises of equality.  As the Jim Crow laws enforced "Separate but Equal" many African Americans failed to find optimism in its promise.

In “Jim Crow Blues” “Cow Cow” Davenport (Charles Davenport) expresses the doubt that filled the minds of many African Americans of the promise of a better life in the North:

I’m tired of this Jim Crow, gonna leave this Jim Crow town,

Doggone my black soul, I’m sweet Chicago bound,

Yes, I’m leavin’ here, from this ole Jim Crow town.

I’m going up North, where they say money grows on trees,

I don’t give a doggone if my black soul leaves,

I’m goin’ where I don’t need to B.V.D.s

Lord, well if I get up there where they don’t suit –

I don’t start no crying. Go tell ole ma’am of mine,

Lord I’m ready to come back to my Jim Crow town.

Autobiography: 

Davenport's heartfelt lyrics mirror the inability to accept the promise of the North as a means to escape poverty and prejudice.  At first, Davenport feels the need to leave the South due to the boundaries enacted by the Jim Crow laws.  What little optimism he has, however, is easily retracted since  he places little hope in the promise of a better life. After realizing that the north failed to fulfill his economic aspirations, Davenport is willing to accept his social position in a society that belittles his existence as a human being.  Smith and Watson's concept of Positionality is an important idea to consider in reference to Davenport's lyrics.  According to them, "Positionality is a theoretical concept [that] designates how speaking subjects take up, inhabit, and speak through certain discourses of identity that are culturally salient and available to them at a particular historical moment.  These 'subject positions' - for they are always multiple and often contradictory - are effects of social relations whose power is distributed unevenly and asymmetrically across difference" (RA 215).  The idea of power being distributed unevenly and asymmetrically due to race plays a large role in the progression of Davenport's lyrics.  Davenport's dreams are hindered through the social ambiguities imbedded in the Jim Crow laws and the segregation that thwarted African American social and economic progression. 

Illuminating Social Injustice

After nearly 50 years after the abolition of slavery, there remained the racism and prejudice that dictated the way African Americans had to live their lives - especially in the South.  In particular, the justice system rarely favored a black man or woman's case thus illuminating the corruption that was the United States legal system.  Yurchenco writes: "Any black man apprehended by the police during the 1920s and 1930s found himself at the mercy of a corrupt legal system, which generally sentenced him to work on the so-called county farms…Men were often convicted of crimes based merely on suspicion" (453) . The idea of being returned to a farm mirrors the connotations of slavery.  As a result, the legal system was a common theme found in blues lyrics in the early 1900s.  

Eddie Boyd's  “Third Degree” illustrates the ongoing problem of racial prejudice in the legal system:

Got me accused of peepin’, I can’t even see a thing.

Got me accused of beggin’, I can’t even raise my hand.

Got me accused of murder, I never harmed a man,

Got me accused of forgery, I can’t even write my name.

Autobiography:
Boyd's lyrics exemplify the injustice that African Americans experienced.  Everything he is being accused of goes against his true actions.  Boyd presents himself being racially profiled in the context of incarcerated subjects.  Smith and Watson's description of the incarcerated subject is one who "[exposes] the contradictions of democratic nations, the dangers of dissidence in new postcolonial nations, and the brutality of particular political regimes..." (RA 134).  Boyd's lyrics expose the racial determinism that controlled the judicial and political aspects of the lives of African Americans.  These issues were prominent in the lives of many blacks in the South and thus, found their way in the lyrics of many blues artists in the early 1900s.  

"Even women and children were included among the prisoners, and they were treated just as cruelly as the men"(434). 

In “Chain Gang Blues” Ma Rainey also sings about being incarcerated:

Many days of sorrow, many nights of woe,

And a ball and chain, everywhere I go.

Chains on my feet, padlocks on my hands,

It’s all on account of stealing a woman’s man.

It was early this mornin’ that I had my trial,

Ninety days on the country road, and the judge didn’t even smile.

Autobiography:
The fact that many African American's were sentenced based solely on suspicion exemplifies how racism controlled their lives; an uncanny reminder of the 1860s not too distant in the past.  According to Yurchenco, "Convicts were leased out to contractors to build roads, pick cotton, or labor on sugar plantations or in coal mines, and the inmates worked off their fines at outrageously low wages” (453).  As building roads, picking cotton, and working on plantations and mines were the common responsibilities of slaves, not much had seemed to change in the early 1900s.  Thus, Rainey's lyrics can be viewed as a pseudo-slave narrative, or “A mode of life narrative written by a fugitive or freed ex-slave about captivity, oppression – physical, economic, and emotional” (RA 280). Though slavery had been abolished, the ball and chain and padlocked hands are reminiscent of the essence of slavery.  Though legally she is considered a free woman, her skin color initiates an unjustified treatment in the judicial system and thus has failed to transcend oppression.  

 

Like Rainey, Victoria Spivey's song "Bloodhound Blues" mirrors the woes of slavery as she details her escape from prison:

Well, I broke out of my cell when the jailer turned his back,

But now I’m so sorry, bloodhounds on my track.

Well I know I done wrong, but he kicked me and blacked my eyes,

But if the bloodhounds ever catch me, in the electric chair I’ll die.

The Early 1900s

The following songs by "Big Bill" Broonzy, Walter Davis, and Robert Johnson detail the lives of a a southern black man, who's plot in life revolves around life on the farm and dealing with social adversity both internally and with their communities.  To apply a single autobiographical concept to each of these songs, or any song used in this blog for that matter, is nearly impossible.  Their identities are shaped by multiple aspects of their lives both socially and racially.  Smith and Watson explain that identities that require many concepts to define are Intersectional.  They explain, “We cannot…just add the effects of one identity to those of another to understand the position from which someone speaks, for effects of a multiplicity of identities are not additive but intersectional. To speak autobiographically as a black woman is not to speak as a ‘woman’ and as a ‘black,’ It is to speak as a black woman” (RA 41). Subsequently, it is impossible to define these artists as just black, men, farmers, or oppressed human beings.  It requires all of these aspects to analyze and contextualize the lives of the men and their lyrics.  

In “Going Back to My Plow,” “Big Bill” Broonzy (William Lee Conley Broonzy) explains his plight in relation to his wife and his life as a black farmer:

I was a plow hand for forty years, I swore I would never plow no more,

Now I’m a married man now, oh Lord, there ain’t no more more so and so

I’m going back to my plow, now a woman is the cause of it all,

Now she says, “Bill, if you ain’t raising cotton, oh Lord, we’ll have no money in the fall

Farming is all right, little girl, if you knows just what to do,

‘Cause it killed my old grandpap, oh Lord, I declare I’m going to make it kill me too. 

Like Broonzy, Walter Davis'  “Cotton Farm Blues” expresses the stagnant life of a black man in the South:

I’m just from the country, never been in your town before,

Lord, I’m broke and hungry, ain’t got no place to go.

I was raised in the country, I been there all my life,

Lord, I had to run off and leave my children and wife.

Robert Johnson – “Crossroad Blues”

I went to the crossroad, fell down on my knee,

Asked the Lord above have mercy, save poor Bob if you please.

Standing at the crossroads, I tried to flag a ride,

Didn’t nobody seem to know me, everybody pass me by.

The sun going down, boy, dark gonna catch me here,

I haven’t got no loving sweet woman, that loves and feels my care. 

The Birth of Blues

Blues according to Henrietta Yurchenco:

“The old African field hollers and worksongs, which regulated the rhythm of communal work or ease the burden of physically exhausting work, were transformed into blues on American soil” (450).

“Melodies – sometimes sung, sometimes chanted or half spoken, and embellished by cries, wails, moans, falsettos, gravelly tones, whispers, portamento, or unexpected asides – were imitated on instruments sometimes as a dialogue in the traditional African call and response pattern” (450).

“The blues is thus an American form of music born of the wall of separation between white masters and black former slaves in the aftermath of the Civil War” (450).