Chapter Twenty-one
Ever since the night I went to James Huggins’ house I had reserved a corner of my musical library for jazz and the blues. I loved the sound of it, the artistry, the soul. Of all forms of American music it was the most authentic, grown from a profoundly deep, arduous, painful, tragic place. I didn’t listen to it on the car radio, it was seldom heard in restaurants or clubs, though occasionally I could tune in to a show on WBOR – late at night – and later on Public Radio. Slowly I accumulated a select number of records of blues and jazz. I would pick certain times just to listen, without distractions, searching for what this music might have to tell me.
Among the amazing things I discovered about this music was this: given the soil from which it mostly grew, which was the life of Americans of African descent – a life of intense labor, forced, and relentless, of the theft of culture, language, and custom, of degradation and the destruction of family and of bodily autonomy, as well as the joys and exuberance that even such an existence could afford, this art form in all its splendor was developed and presented as a gift, to all Americans, and to the world. It was gifted even to the Americans who had enslaved, sold, beaten, raped, and killed them, though these Americans had little notion of the scope of the gift. But they had ears, and if they would hear it, they could.
This realization was so overwhelming to me that I couldn’t figure out what to do with it. I decided that, truly, I had no right to sing the blues, even though I loved it. Who could possibly be worthy of such a heartbreakingly generous gift? Certainly not me. It was incomprehensible.
I’m not sure if it was original with Willie Brown or Robert Johnson or someone else, but the old saying goes “the blues ain’t nothin’ but a good man feelin’ bad…” So if I am a man, good or otherwise, who feels bad, I can have the blues, even sing them? Apparently so. Not only that but – by this definition, and by the acts and attitudes of jazz and blues musicians through the ages – African Americans are not proprietary about this art form. Jelly Roll Morton may have claimed that he invented jazz, but he never, to my knowledge, insisted that he owned it. The blues are not something one can keep to themselves or hoard. It ceases to be the blues and becomes depression. The blues have to be released and given away in order to be the blues.
What I was really after in my analysis of the blues was, I believe, my privilege. As I think of my ninth grade year, the one year of my life when I was a victim of bullying, I can’t be fully honest about the pain I suffered without also acknowledging that I am a Roman Citizen.
A Roman Citizen is an obvious emblem of privilege. The apostle Paul, jailed while in Caesarea on charges brought by the Jewish leadership, was able to appeal to the Emperor’s justice because he was a Roman citizen. It carried weight.
From the first day of school till the very last, I was never without a home, and a family. They were not perfect. They struggled over my situation, got confused, missed the mark. They were not experts in this sort of thing, but what they did was listen to those that were. There was never a time when they were indifferent. They always cared. In this I was fortunate.
In spite of being stripped of my energy, my dreams and goals, my courage, I always knew which doors I could walk through. I knew where my membership was, and what were the benefits of it. Nothing could take this away, and everyone knew it. Ray, Hugh, and Eddie knew it. James Huggins knew it. But he never held it against me. For all my very real subjective torment, I never had the added burden of not being one of the dominant culture.
I don’t think I have overthought this. I hope I haven’t. I felt I should bring this analysis to my ninth grade year because of the people that were around me – my teachers, my parents, and my friends. Mostly, as I said at the beginning, this was done for me. I have no regrets. And though it was not my express purpose, if someone, by reading this account, may have been given some insight, or solace, or resolution, or pleasure, then I am glad.
Song lyrics and Quotations:
Page 5: Speech by Mendel Rivers, (R-SC) to the U.S, House of Representatives on May 21, 1959; from the Congressional Record of Proceedings of the 86th Congress: Vol. 1, Jan. 7 – Sep. 14, 1959.
Page 11: Lyric from “Turn Down Day” by the Cyrkle, July 21, 1966, Columbia Records.
Page 25: Lyric from “Mellow Yellow” by Donovan Leitch, October 1966, Epic Records.
Page 35: Lyric from “Elusive Butterfly” by Bob Lind, January 1966, World Pacific Records.
Page 39: Lyric from “That’s Life” by Frank Sinatra, November 1966, Reprise Records.
Page 43: Lyric from “Rainy Day Women #12 & 35” by Bob Dylan, April 1966, Columbia Records.
Page 49: Lyric from “We Can Work it Out” by the Beatles, December 3, 1965, Capitol Records.
Page 59: Lyric paraphrase from “Flowers on the Wall” by the Statler Brothers, September 1965, Columbia Records.
Page 61, 62: Lyric from “Working in the Coal Mine” by Lee Dorsey, July 1966, Amy Records.
Page 66: Lyric fragment from “Eleanor Rigby” by the Beatles, August 5, 1966, Capitol Records.
Page 75: Lyric from “What Becomes of the Brokenhearted” by Jimmy Ruffin, June 3, 1966, Soul Records.
Page 85: Lyric from the Hymn “Now Thank We All Our God” by Martin Rinkart, 1636.
Page 86: Lyric from “Walk Away, Renee” by The Left Banke, July 1966, Smash Records.
Page 98: Lyric from “Il Est Ne” a traditional 19th Century French carol.
Page 113: Lyric from “Walk Away, Renee” by The Left Banke, July 1966, Smash Records.
Page 124: Lyric from “Visions of Johanna” by Bob Dylan, April 1966, Columbia Records.
Page 129: Lyric from “Good Vibrations” by the Beach Boys, May 1966, Capitol Records.
Page 136: Lyric from “Reach Out I’ll be There” by the Four Tops, August 18, 1966, Motown Records.
Page 137: Lyric from “Paint It Black” by the Rolling Stones, May 7, 1966, RCA Records.
Page 148: Lyric from “Reach Out I’ll Be There” by the Four Tops, August 18, 1966, Motown Records.
Page 156: Lyric from “Darling, Be Home Soon” by the Lovin’ Spoonful, 1966, Kama Sutra Records.
Page 163: Lyric from “Darling, Be Home Soon” by the Lovin’ Spoonful, as above.
Page 174: Quote from “Acquainted With the Night” by Robert Frost, from West-Running Brook, 1928, Henry Holt and Company.
Page 174: Spoken introduction to “Mercy, Mercy, Mercy” by The Cannonball Adderley Quintet, 1966, Capitol Records.
Page 175: Lyric from “Dark End of the Street” by Percy Sledge, 1967, Atlantic Records.
Page 175-176: Lyric from “Feel So Bad” by Little Milton, 1966, Checker Records.
Page 176: From comedy sketch “The Good Old Days” by Jackie “Moms” Mabley, 1965, Chess Records.
Page 180: verse from Jose Marti, quoted in the song “Guantanamera” by the Sandpipers, October 1966, A&M Records. From the original Spanish:
Y para el cruel que me arranca
el corazón con que vivo
cardo ni oruga cultivo
cultivo la rosa blanca.
Jose Marti, 1891
Page 189: Lyric from “I Had Too Much to Dream” by the Electric Prunes, November 1966, Reprise Records.
Page 193: Lyric from “Strawberry Fields” by the Beatles, February 13, 1967, Capitol Records.
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