Luella Miller: Tornado Groan, 1927 (Revisited)

"Tornado Groan" by Luella Miller (1927)

Tornado swept out this little town today
Tornado swept out this little town today
And taken away everything I had.

The lightning flashed, wind rattled around my door
Lightning flashed, wind rattled around my door
Ever since that time, I haven’t seen my house no more.

It ruined my clothes and blowed my bed away
It ruined my clothes, blowed my bed away
I ain’t got no place to lay my heavy head.

The storm come back and blowed my man away
Storm come back and blowed my man away
That’s the reason why I ain’t got a good man today.

I’m lonesome now, I have to walk the street
Lonesome now, I have to walk the street
A flat stranger to everyone I meet.

Mmmmmhhh, tornado ruined my home
Mmmmmhhh, tornado ruined my home
And left me standing with the tornado groan.

http://www.we7.com/album/Luella-Miller/Luella-Miller-1926-1928?m=0

This was recorded on October 11, 1927, less than two weeks after a tornado ripped through St. Louis (on September 29). See “High Water Everywhere: Blues and Gospel Commentary on the 1927 Mississippi River Flood,” pp. 49-50, in Nobody Knows Where the Blues Come From: Lyrics and History, ed. Robert Springer, 2005, 2006.   I'm not sure about one word each in lines 9 ("heavy") and 15 ("flat").  

Photo: St. Louis tornado aftermath and cleanup of telephone poles, 1927. Courtesy of AT&T Archives and History Center.

St. Louis Cyclone Blues

Photo: St. Louis tornado aftermath, Sarah and Cook, 1927. Courtesy of AT&T Archives and History Center.

Lonnie Johnson (with uncredited assistance from Mary Johnson), "St. Louis Cyclone Blues," 1927:

I was sitting in my kitchen
Lookin' way out 'cross the sky
I was sitting in my kitchen
Lookin' out 'cross the sky
I thought the world was ending
I started in to cry.

The wind was howling
The buildings beginnin' to fall
The wind was howlin'
The buildings beginnin' to fall
I seen that mean old twister comin'
Just like a cannonball.

The world was black as midnight
I never heard such a noise before
The world was black as midnight
I never heard such a noise before
Sound like a million lions
When they turn loose their roar.

Oh, people was screamin'
And runnin' every which old away
Oh, people was screamin'
Runnin' every which old away
Lord have mercy on our poor people!
I fell down on my knees
I started in to pray.

The shack where we were living
She reeled and rocked but never fell
Lord, Have mercy!
The shack where we were living
It reeled and rocked but never fell
Have mercy!
How the cyclone spared us
Nobody but the Lord can tell.



Horrifically, St. Louis endured another cyclone/tornado/twister last night, on Earth Day.

Today's Rune: Harvest.  

Earth Day 2011

Earth Day 2011. How does one help make life on Earth better -- right here and now? On any scale, small or large? Today, some people plant trees, work on passive conservation layout, consider landscape ecology, spruce up urban spaces, combine ecological and cultural efforts, seek alternatives to destructive practices. There is competition. It's certainly easier to destroy than to nurture creation. But it ain't over 'till it's over. Work the good works and keep on keeping on.  

Seems like a fundamental problem is the drive for short-term gain without due consideration for the future -- even five or ten years down the path, let alone fifty. Can we rethink this? Or will we always take the half-ass way out, everything good or necessary or desirable underfunded, undersupported and under-appreciated in support of quarterly profits?

What does the contemporary society as a whole value most, if anything at all? I know what I value personally, but it's clear that many others privilege very different things. What seems clear to me must seem obscure to someone else. Is there common ground? Is there higher ground? And can we find it?

Today's Rune: The Mystery Rune.

Josh Fox: GasLand

GasLand / Gasland: A Film by Josh Fox takes us on an eyepopping sleuth-out of the natural gas industry's poisoning of water, air, animals and people. It will be broadcast on HBO "through 2012" and is available on DVD. 

If you're living near industrial nightmares such as the ones shown in this documentary, don't drink the water. Don't breathe the air, either. Run for your life! Or better yet, why not stop industry before it arrives at your back door?

Website here: http://gaslandthemovie.com/ 

Today's Rune: Defense.  

And Birds Fell from the Sky

All in all it's been a good year since April 20, 2010. Ha! Here's a new book about the particular nightmare that began a year ago today: Carl Safina's Sea in Flames: The Deepwater Horizon Oil Blowout (2011).

And another good new book: Antonia Juhasz' Black Tide: The Devastating Impact of the Gulf Oil Spill (2011).

So much has "transgressed" during the past 365-day solar cycle that I'm guessing many have already buried their memories of the Eyjafjallajökull volcanic eruption. Maybe thinking about the latest big tsunami and the Fukushima nuclear disaster. And birds fell from the sky. An iced over Super Bowl. Frenzied tornadic outbreaks. Floods. Mass-scale drought and fire. Gas-fracking. Upheaval. Convulsion. What's next on the docket? 

I'll bet we'd never guess in a thousand years the where and when of it all . . .

Check back often, particularly one year from today for another glance back, braving the lot of Lot's wife. -- God willing and the creek don't rise.

Today's Rune: Warrior.

Signifying Mary Johnson: Black Gal Blues

Here's my transcription of Mary Johnson's "Black Gal Blues." On this take, Johnson is accompanied by Henry Brown on piano; song recorded on August 24, 1934, in Chicago.

"Black Gal Blues" by Mary Johnson

Black gal, black gal
How come you talk about poor me so?
The more you talk about me
The more your man hangs around my door.
Now if you can’t hold your man
Don’t call me no so and so.

If your lovin’ won’t hold him
Why don’t you let him go?
If your lovin’ won’t hold him
Why don’t you let him go?
Well don’t blame me
If I got Mr. so and so.

If you don’t like my peaches
Please don’t you shake my tree.
If you don’t like my peaches
Please don’t shake my tree.
I don’t ask your man for his money
He brings it on home to me.

Black gal, black gal
What makes your nappy head so hard?
Black gal, black gal
What make your nappy head so hard?
The more you talk about me
Your man stays in my back yard.

Black gal, black gal
How come you talk about poor me so?
The more you talk about me
The more your man hangs around my door.
Now if you can’t hold your man
Don’t call me no so and so. 

http://www.we7.com/song/Mary-Johnson/Black-Gal-Blues?m=0 

Today's Rune: Harvest.

Signifying Mary Johnson: No Good Town Blues

With the help of some old school headphones that cost under $10, it's become a whole lot easier to transcribe the old blues lyrics. Here's my take on Mary Johnson's "No Good Town Blues." She draws out each word on the recording.

"No Good Town Blues"

Now I’m going away
From this old no good town
Now I’m going away
From this old no good town
‘Cause the man I love
He done turned me down.

I’m going to the station
Goin’ to catch me a passing train
I’m going to the station
Goin’ to catch me a passing train
It takes the Good Lord to tell
When I’ll be back again.

You can never tell
What’s on the St. Louis men’s mind
You can never tell
What’s on the St. Louis men’s mind
When you think they’re lovin’ you
They done changed their mind.

A married man’ll tell you
He love you all of his life
A married man’ll tell you
He love you all of his life
And then go home and tell that
Same thing to his loving wife.

Ain’t no good married man
Lord in a no good town
Ain’t no good married man
Lord in a no good town
I can’t stay around here
There’s too much talk going around.

http://www.we7.com/song/Mary-Johnson/No-Good-Town-Blues?m=0

(Mary Johnson, accompanied by pianist Judson Brown, April 9, 1930, Chicago.)

Today's Rune: Harvest. 

Harmonic Convergences: Angela Davis and Marianne Faithfull

Thoroughly enjoying NYC Babylon: Beat Punks. Notes, Raps, Essays, Secrets, Transcripts, Opinions (Wise and Otherwise), and Pictures of a Gone World and of How the Punk Generation Typhooned Its Way Back Through and Harpooned the Beat Generation Harmonica Collaboration by Victor Bockris (1998). Coming up next for happy reading time: "The Captain's Cocktail Party: Dinner with Mick Jagger, Andy Warhol and William Burroughs" (pages 89-101).

It's astonishing to me to see so many of the people I've been reading about, listening to or watching on some kind of screen for many years all converge together in this one book.

So far, the most interesting sections (to me) have been transcripts of interviews with Debbie Harry, Marianne Faithfull and Susan Sontag, all strong and sharply observant people.

So where is this convergence of Angela Davis and Marianne Faithfull?

It is this: "Bessie Smith, Ma Rainey, and Billie Holiday were my goddesses," Faithfull tells Victor Bockris in an interview circa 1991 (Bockris, NYC Babylon, page 66).

And in 1998, Angela Y. Davis' Blues Legacies and Black Feminism: Gertrude "Ma" Rainey, Bessie Smith, and Billie Holiday is published.

Of course, Davis and Faithfull also converge through The Rolling Stones, but that's for another post. Time to get back to NYC Babylon first.

Today's Rune: Growth.