Jenkins' Ferry: Born in the Saline Bottoms

Site near the Union Army's pontoon bridge crossing (off to the left), Jenkins' Ferry, Arkansas. In the battle of April 30, 1864, Union and Confederate casualties amounted to about 1,500.

"The ground was thickly strewn with ghostly, mangled forms. It was almost too horrible for human endurance. No conception of the imagination, no power of human language could do justice to such a horrible scene." -- "BATTLE OF JENKINS' FERRY," The Grant County Museum, 521 Shackleford Road, Sheridan, AR 72150.

Yeah you know I was born in the bottoms
Down by the Devil's Den
Yeah I was born in the bottoms
Down by the Devil's Den
Yes you know I ain't seen my home
Whoah yes since the Good Lord knows when. . .

Lightnin' Hopkins, "Born in the Bottoms" (Strikes Again, circa 1960).

Smoldering leaves at Jenkins' Ferry.

The end of the road. Buckling pavement near the site of the Union pontoon bridge crossing.

Today's Rune: Initiation.

Lightnin' Hopkins/Roosevelt Sykes

Not sure how these two separate half hour documentaries from the early 1970s came to be festooned together, but Lightnin' Hopkins and Roosevelt Sykes provides fabulous samplings of two of the great blues artists of the twentieth century. I've posted about both men before -- Hopkins on his own and Roosevelt Sykes as pianist accompanying Mary Johnson early in his career (he really got going in 1929, according to his own testimony here).

The vibe in both parts is definitely similar, but with Hopkins hanging out and performing in various types of venues near Houston, Texas, and Sykes doing the same in and around New Orleans. Priceless footage of both dudes in their element particularly for anyone who digs the blues. They are very much in a zone I like to be in.

The DVD is also titled as part of a series, Masters of the Country Blues. From my notes, it appears that Sam Lightnin' Hopkins was directed by Charles D. Peavy (Jack Bauer, producer for KUHT Film Productions University of Houston, circa 1971); the credits for the second part are Roosevelt Sykes / A film by Pasquale Buba & Dusty Nelson, 1972.



Today's Rune: Fertility.  

Lightnin' Hopkins: His Life and Blues

I thoroughly enjoyed Alan Govenar's Lightnin' Hopkins: His Life and Blues (Chicago Review Press, 2010).  Govenar scoured city and country to find every bit of information he could; he dug through company records, conducted numerous interviews and sifted through a mountain of liner notes and articles. Combined with an extended engagement with Hopkins' recorded output -- even a reasonable sampling -- this biographical study will give anyone interested a good feel for the iconic bluesman.  One also glimpses how the music show business worked from the 1940s into the 1980s, in the studio and on the road. 

For now, two things to note. First, some keen observations by Ed Pearl, owner of Ash Grove, a West Coast oasis for live performances at  8162 Melrose Avenue, Los Angeles that ran from 1958 to 1973: "He [Hopkins] knew his limitations . . . and he was happy to be part of his community, but he knew there was a bigger world out there. He thought people should be equal and he thought . . . poor people should have more. And everyone is a child of God. He was against the Vietnam war." (p. 194, from 2008 Govenar interview).  Another noteworthy aspect of Lightnin' Hopkins' life: his thirty-five year relationship, until his death, with Antoinette Charles. She was a love of his life, and strong, if not the only one; given that she was married to someone else for the same duration, with kids, it was the same for her. 

As Govenar points out emphatically, not all of the bluesman's recorded output is of equal quality. Delving into his discography (and there's a comprehensive one included), it's a good idea to choose carefully. The most recent collection I've been listening to features him on electric guitar  (Hopkins' preferred style): Lightnin' Hopkins, Rainy Day In Houston (2000), recordings from 1955, 1961 and 1968.  This one has three of my favorite of his topical tracks: "War Is Starting Again," "The World's In A Tangle" and "Vietnam War."   

Today's Rune: Strength.

Lightnin' Hopkins: Cryin' for Bread

Two idiosyncratic blues greats, Sam Lightnin' Hopkins and John Lee Hooker, both use the "cryin' for bread" trope.  Transcribing their lyrics is tricky, because they glide in and out of present, past and future, using irregular grammar and muttering some words so that at certain points I have no idea (at least yet) what they're singing or saying. Here's my first shot with Hopkins' "Cryin' for Bread" and second with Hooker's "No Shoes."  The Hopkins track was recorded in Houston, Texas, on April 11/12, 1968, with Lawrence Evans on bass, Ben Turner on drums and Cedric Hayward on piano.  It's a deeply wrought lyrical improvisation, involving two men, a woman, hungry kids, money and a matter of land ownership.

"Cryin' for Bread"  by Sam Lightnin' Hopkins

Sure is sad
I come home and
My baby was cryin' for bread
But when she told me
You oughta heard what poor Lightning said
I said it don't look like my baby
She ought to be cryin' for bread

She had takin' all my money
Whoah she throwed it all away
Whoah she had taken all poor Ligntnin's money
Do you know that girl had throwed it all away
That's the reason I come home and caught her cryin'
She was cryin' on one Saturday

But a women will do them things
You gotta watch her close
When you gone somebody will come by
And lead her to the door
... and my children done got tired
And they can't eat no more

He tell her never unless you go to bed with me
I let your whole family
Go down the drain just like old Monk and me
But that's something that people don't understand
What a woman will do to a man

Then he went in the house
And made him feel real good
Then she give him the money
Then holler at the kids that
I didn't do what I should
She done mistreated her whole family

All in the world and me is gone
Ah there ain't no tellin' how soon
Your Daddy will come home
But you take a woman, she's weak
She can't hardly help herself

I can pass the house with a little money
When you see it . . .
She said the children just come
And look at the money
And that man's hand
If I could overtake him and get it
We would own this land

But the children said to Mama, Papa
He doin' the best that he can
When Papa come in, I believe
He'll make us all . . .
That be my Daddy
Yes and them books said that he will . . .
I believe that he would be your husband
And will take care of his baby child

Yes but when Papa come in
This is what he see
He see the baby boy standing at the door
He would sure look at me
He said Daddy, there's been a man by here
Led Mama to the door

Papa rapped her across the head, and she said
I never do that no more
No, she wouldn't
'Cause everything in the world she got was gone
Well, that would be all right, you know
Them childrens can't live there by themselves

Compare with John Lee Hooker's "No Shoes" (1960). (Note: this plays briefly in the background during Ridley Scott's American Gangster [2007] in a scene where Frank Lucas gathers his family in Greensboro, North Carolina, establishing in mood how far he's come since childhood).  "No Shoes" makes no mention of a woman, but like "Cryin' for Bread" involves hungry children, a man, money and improvised living arrangements.

"No Shoes" by John Lee Hooker

No food on my table

And no shoes to go on my feet
No food on my table
And no shoes to go on my feet
My children cry for mercy
They ain’t got no place to call their own

Hard times, hard times
Hard times seem like a jealous thing
Hard times, hard times
Hard times seem like a jealous thing
If somebody don’t help me
And I just can’t be around free much long[er]

No shoes on my feet
And no food go on my table, oh no
It’s too sad
The children crying for bread. 

 Today's Rune: Journey.  Happy Birthday to Hubert Sumlin!

Lightnin' Hopkins: Born in the Bottoms

This'll be the sixth Lightnin' Hopkins song I'll have transcribed in a quick and dirty fashion and turned into a post.  The man recorded hundreds of songs, so it may be impossible to even find them all, let alone hear them all. His lyrics, including ones adapted from older blues songs, tend to be idiosyncratic in form.  Only line I'm not sure of is the last one of stanza three.

"Born in the Bottoms" (ca. 1960/1961), first released on Strikes Again (so far as I know), in the early 1960s.

Yeah you know I was born in the bottoms
Down by the Devil's Den
Yeah I was born in the bottoms
Down by the Devil's Den
Yes you know I ain't seen my home
Whoah yes since the Good Lord knows when.

You know my Papa was a preacher
Poor Mama she was sanctified
My Daddy was a preacher
Poor Mama she was sanctified
But some time I wish I'd a been born dead
Daddy said son it's a shame you were born alive.

I used to run the world over
I'd run the  world so that my Daddy was mad
And Mama she was too
But I stopped running when I settled down for a
Greedy little girl I'd come to church with too.

My Daddy wanted to kill me one day and Mama told me:
Son you better run, you better run
You better run if you ain't got your gun
You better run, you better run, son
You better run, if you ain't got your gun
I said Mama don't you worry I take care of myself
'Cause I wasn't born to run
All right . . .

One more word Mama told me:
You better try to make it before the sun rises in the morning
I said Mama I'll make it if I can
You better try to make it before the sun rise in the morning
Mama I'll try to make it now if I can
But if my Daddy should catch me with that
old shotgun I'm gonna let him know
I done forgot about how he had been my friend. 

Today's Rune: Joy.

The Air-Conditioned Nightmare

As of 2010, it's probably safe to say that a lot of people in "highly developed countries" take AC for granted -- when it's working. We kinda forget that modern air conditioning is only a little more than a century old. Sort of like the aeroplane and the automobile.  A North Carolinian coined the term air conditioning -- Stuart W. Cramer (1868-1940) of Thomasville.  Even though the concept goes way back to "ancient times," I'm talking electrical AC.  Requires electricity.  Makes hot, humid places more bearable -- and more thickly populated. Makes movie theatres cool, and cars.  [A truly interesting book: Gail Cooper's Air-Conditioning America: Engineers and the Controlled Environment, 1900-1960 (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2002)].













Need we go into the downside of AC and its cultural outgrowths? One probably doesn't have to move beyond Henry Miller's blistering nonfiction work, The Air-Conditioned Nightmare, (New Directions, 1945, 1970), to catch a glimpse. Still, while Miller scores any number of direct hits on American consumerism and general shortsighted tomfool greediness, I'm most definitely a "fan" of AC on hot, humid days. How about you?

Today's Rune: Signals.

Lightnin' Hopkins: War Is Starting Again

So far as I can tell, here's the first worldwide interpretive transcription of the lyrics to Lightnin' Hopkins mid-1960s song, "War Is Starting Again." Please feel free to make corrections if you hear anything differently from what I did.  A wicked little twist in the last stanza.  The actual song is available on iTunes, etc.

Woe, you know this world done get tangled now, baby
Woe, you know I believe they fixin' to start a war again
Woe, you know this world done get tangled now
Yeah, I believe they gonna start war again

Yeah, there gonna be a'mothers start to worry
Yes, there's gonna be many a girls will lose a friend

Well, I got news this morning
Right now they need a million men
Woe, I got news this mornin'
Right now they need a million men

Woe, you know I been overseas once
Oh, Lightnin' don't want to go there again
Lord have mercy!
All right!

Yeah, you know my girlfriend got a boyfriend in the Army
That fool better go overseas
You know I don't hate it so bad because you know
That's a better break for me
This world is a-tangled
Yeah, they finally had a war again . . .

Today's Rune: Gateway.

Lightnin' Hopkins: Vietnam War Blues

Here's a blues song from the late 1960s by Lightnin' Hopkins that rarely makes the light of day in the USA. Who knows why? Hopkins, like John Lee Hooker, has a unique style, not easy to pin down in any way. That includes his lyrics, which are really stranger than many. More or less, the lyrics for "Vietnam War Blues" might go something like this:

Mama said son, how can you be happy when your brother way over in Vietnam?
How can you be happy when your brother way over in Vietnam?

I told her
I said Mama he may get lucky and win some money
Oh he got to maybe bring some money back home

Mama looked at me
She said that ain't no way to talk about your brother
When he's my child too
You see Mister Johnson is tellin' everybody
Exactly what he want them to do
All right my child
What if Uncle Sam was to call you boy? I'd be so lonesome
Oh, I would miss you so much I may die
Yes if Uncle Sam should call you, Oh Lord I'd miss you so much I may die
Yeah you know when you get over yonder and get to fightin' them soldiers,
Yeah you know you're gonna be fightin' way upon my heart. . .



In case anyone forgot, the US is still at war in 2010, albeit these "twins" are being conducted by an all-volunteer military force plus professional contract workers -- unlike Vietnam, which included a lottery draft. 

Today's Rune: Defense.

Crazy Heart

Scott Cooper's Crazy Heart (2009) is a very good low-key film with a wonderful performance by Jeff Bridges and nifty accompanying music mostly by T-Bone Burnett. Jeff Bridges really sings, too. Listen for a Lightnin’ Hopkins track while Bad Blake (Bridges) waits for Jean Craddock (Maggie Gyllenhaal). Colin Farrell and Robert Duvall also put in superb work. Gyllenhaal is good playing the annoying Craddock (and I'm no fan of the character or the actor), but God knows how this divorced mother of one can afford such a nice house in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Aside from this little quibble, I really liked Crazy Heart. Based on Thomas Cobb's novel of the same name.

Today's Rune: Fertility.

The Forests and the Tribes

Been going through the history of the Old Northwest (now the Eastern side of the US Midwest) from pre-colonial days through the mid-1800s. The biggest impact of that stretch was ecological. I haven't seen Avatar but I get the idea that it's not so different from the historical record, but more like a parable.  
















One source for a good chunk of the era:  Gregory Evans Dowd's A Spirited Resistance: The North American Indian Struggle for Unity, 1745–1815. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1992.

 












The various tribes tried to deal with the invaders the same way they dealt with other tribes -- alternating between warring and peacemaking, containing and trading, coalition-building and autonomous survival.

I don't pretend to understand tribal thinking, nor do I tend to romanticize much. But I do know this: from a forest's perspective, the indigenous peoples of the Old Northwest left a light impact and did little harm, whereas the "Anglos" who poured in from the East and South especially after the American Revolution succeeded in decimating everything in their path. Virtually all of the "old growth" forests were brtually chopped down by the end of the 1800s, in a matter of decades.  What's in their place can be seen in places like today's Ohio and Indiana.

Today's Rune: Possessions.

Texas Radio and the Big Beat

While driving around the San Antonio area of Texas, caught some excellent radio play -- a rare thing in the 21st century unless you have Sirius or whatnot.  Lightnin' Hopkins, for instance. Also a dude speaking in a tongue that sounded like some tribal language -- turns out he was speaking in some tribal language (I understood only one word outright: "Canada;" but the cadences sounded like American Indian).  Eventually another dude broke into English and reminded pow wow vendors to call Arby Little Soldier.  Also some Robert Johnson blues reminded me of the time a few years back having brunch with B & G in the Gunter Hotel in downtown San Antonio, where Johnson recorded "I Believe I'll Dust My Broom" and a bunch of other tracks in 1936. There's a display there noting the sessions, in fact.  On the radio around San Antonio driving around New Year's, also some Dwight Yoakam.  As for Elvis Costello, he was mentioned in the toast after B & G's wedding on New Year's Eve.

Today's Rune: The Self.

The Getaway

After seeing it last night, what struck me immediately about Sam Peckinpah's The Getaway (1972) -- based on the 1959 Jim Thompson novel -- is how much it seems like a hip melding of Ridley Scott's Thelma & Louise (1991) and the Coen brothers' No Country for Old Men (2007), only with a "happier ending."

The cast is a fun crew, especially Steve McQueen, Ali MacGraw, Ben Jonson, Al Lettieri, Sally Struthers, Bo Hopkins, Richard Bright, Slim Pickens and Dub Taylor. MacGraw and Struthers even sizzle at times. The film involves a lot of chases through Texas, holing up, fleeing, roadblocks and shootouts, but also some clever character interaction. Pretty cool, with Quincy Jones soundtrack.

In The Getaway, Steve McQueen looks a little sickly, though only in his early forties. Not too surprising, I suppose, since he later died of stomach cancer at fifty. In the meantime, he married Ali MacGraw. During production, Sam Peckinpah slipped over the border to Juarez and married Joie Gould (Before and after, he was "divorced, re-married, re-divorced three times" to Begoña Palacios. Source: Hollywood.com). Peckinpah died in 1984, four years after Steve McQueen, at age fifty-nine. Al Lettieri (of The Godfather fame) died at forty-seven of a heart attack in 1975. Call it the curse of The Getaway . . .

Today's Rune: Fertility.

San Antonio de Béxar

Digging San Antonio. This is my fourth trip to the city, the first since 2005. The culture and history of San Antonio runs deep, with Spanish, Mexican, French, German and Anglo dimensions.

San Antonio is the seventh largest city in the entire USA, just behind Philadelphia and ahead of Dallas, Detroit, and so on. Its population is approximately 62% Hispanic or Latino.

San Antonio has always had a military function, from the Spanish presidio through the Alamo to the Confederacy; for most of its history, it's known a strong US military presence at command, intelligence, medical, air and troop level. Before the American Civil War, both Joseph E. Johnston and Robert E. Lee knew San Antonio well -- in the 1850s, it was one the most civilized places in all of Texas.


Overall, San Antonio is about as old as Detroit and New Orleans. Like them, it's an interesting and storied place, no question.

Last night, one of the highlights of the Fiesta San Antonio and NIOSA (A Night in Old San Antonio) event was coming across "Lonesome Louie," the bluesman. He's like a blend of Elmore James and Lightnin' Hopkins, with a pinch of Johnny Cash.

The food, crowds and margaritas are all good so far; including the Fiesta Flambeau and other parades, think Mardi Gras. In San Antonio, this tradition goes back to the late 1800s.

Today's Rune: Initiation.

Wild, Thin, Mercury Sound

Should be required reading for anyone thinking of volunteering for the Army: Bảo Ninh (Bao Ninh), The Sorrow of War (1991). Life during wartime in Vietnam, fighting for the winning side. A grim take, even grimmer than American novels about the war. Ninh's unit lost more than ninety percent of its young men through fighting and attrition. Briefly banned in Vietnam, now accepted as a deep contemplation on reality.


Lee Harvey Oswald's birthday. Joined the United States Marine Corps at seventeen and derided as "Ozzie Rabbit." A disturbed man, his very existence still haunts us.


Wild man Klaus Kinski (1926-1991) was also born on this day. Here he is with Lee Van Cleef. Some of his best work was completed with Werner Herzog. An interesting documentary on their rough and tumble collaboration is: My Best Fiend / Mein liebster Feind (literally My Dearest Enemy, 1999).


All Kinski needed was love! His memoir is as scary as he looks on screen. It was first released as All I Need Is Love in 1988, then re-released in 1997 as Kinski Uncut: The Autobiography of Klaus Kinski. It is, frankly, compelling.


Candy Lo. Are those permanent tattoos?

Freja Beha Erichsen just being playful. An informal ambassador for Denmark. In Iraq, the fewer than 500 Danish troops who had been stationed near Basra have been downsized to about fifty. Denmark has lost seven killed during the occupation. Denmark has a battalion-sized presence in Afghanistan, too. In that conflict, another seven Danish soldiers have been killed.

Today's Rune: Flow.

Birthdays: Lotte Lenya (Karoline Wilhelmine Blamauer), Miriam Hopkins, Joseph Philippe Pierre Yves Elliott Trudeau, Melina Mercouri, Jesse Helms, Chuck Berry, Klaus Kinski, Inger Stevens, Peter Boyle, Dawn Wells, Mike Ditka, Lee Harvey Oswald, Laura Nyro (Nigro), Wendy Wasserstein, Bảo Ninh (Hoàng Ấu Phương), Martina Navratilova (b. Šubertová), Milčo Mančevski, Jean-Claude Van Damme, Wynton Marsalis, Rick Moody, Candy Lo, Freja Beha Erichsen.

Vi Ses Senere!

Down the Alley, the Ice Wagon Flew

I love alley ways. Detroit and its environs have a lot of them. In East Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania, the town where I was born, we had an alley behind our house. And outbuildings -- garages, storage units, and across the way, an old field. If you walked a little ways, you could find woods above Broadhead's Creek where hobos used to hang out, or so I was told. Lots to imagine!

These days, alleys crisscross a lot of places where I walk, run or drive. I see a lot of strange sights, victory gardens with teddy bears warding off varmints, padlocked gates, broken down cars, all sorts of signs that telegraph something about people's lives. The newer suburbs -- especially those built for the rich, gaudy and afraid -- don't have alley ways and often don't even have sidewalks -- instead, grotesquely huge garages jut right out into a cul-de-sac; the lamer versions are gated in completely. What do people do for mystery in subdivisions like those? Kill each other with shotguns, I suppose.

Regardless of newer developments, the power of alley ways and what Iggy Pop calls "the city's ripped back sides" endures.

From Bo Didley, "Who Do You Love?"

Down the alley, the ice wagon flew!
Hit a bump and I heard a scream
You should should have heard just what I seen
Who do you love?

And from Bob Dylan's "Subterranean Homesick Blues:"

Look out kid
It's somethin' you did
God knows when
But you're doin' it again
You better duck down the alley way
Lookin' for a new friend
The man in the coon-skin cap
In the big pen
Wants eleven dollar bills
You only got ten . . . . .


Top: Marcel Duchamp, "Nude Descending Staircase No. 2" (Philadelphia Museum of Art); bottom: Barbara La Marr (1896-1926), "The Girl Who Was Too Beautiful," who died of tuberculosis and complications from various addictions, including heroin.

Today's Rune: Fertility.

Birthdays: Philippe François Nazaire Fabre d'Églantine, Ludwig Andreas von Feuerbach, Gerard Manley Hopkins, Beatrix Potter, Marcel Duchamp, Barbara La Marr (b. Reatha Dale Watson), Rudy Vallée, Malcolm Lowry, Jacqueline Lee Bouvier Kennedy Onassis, Bill Bradley, Vida Blue, Hugo Rafael Chávez Frías, The Walking Man (Mark), Priscilla Chan, Birgitta Haukdal.

Bon voyage!

Industry

Real lives are endlessly fascinating but impossible to really fathom. Books and movies and other forms of magic provide tidier glimpses. Such is the case with Julie Taymor's Frida (2002), a colorful "biopic" about Frida Kahlo, played by Salma Hayek. By the end of the film, one absorbs the basic rhythm of Kahlo's life, catches something of her vision, and indirectly witnesses her stormy relationship with Diego Rivera. Their time in Detroit is not covered directly, but it hardly matters. One gets the idea. Taymor is currently completing Across the Universe (2007), a fictional tale set in the 1960s that includes, reportedly, the Detroit Riots of 1967.


Another really good, edgy biopic is Stephen Hopkins' The Life and Death of Peter Sellers (2004), based on Roger Lewis' biography. Geoffrey Rush is excellent in the lead role, with Charlize Theron well-suited to the role of Britt Ekland. Sellers, like Diego Rivera, was extremely talented yet monstrous in personal relationships. Pretty damned interesting stuff with some playfully innovative flourishes and entertaining soundtrack.


Caroline Trentini sees something other-worldly.

Today's Rune: The Mystery Rune.

Birthdays: John Paul Jones, Frida Kahlo (Magdalena Carmen Frida Kahlo y Calderón), Sebastian Cabot, Merv Griffin, Bill Haley, Janet Leigh (b. Jeanette Helen Morrison), Pat Paulsen, Della Reese (b. Delloreese Patricia Early), Dave Allen, Ned Beatty, Burt Ward (b. Bert John Gervis, Jr.), G.W. Bush, Sylvester Stallone, Nathalie Baye, Geoffrey Rush, 50 Cent, Caroline Trentini.

Ciao!

Armed Forces

May 19: a bizarre alignment of the birthday stars? Regardless of geographical origin, one look at the list below and many will recognize a standout crew of oddballs and cults of personality.

It's the folk-inspired Feast Day of Joey Ramone, so it's also time to break out Joey's cover of The Stooges' "1969."

The legacy of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk is being battled over in contemporary Turkey -- a complicated cycle, indeed. Separation of mosque and state on the one hand, Islamic fundamentalists on the other, crazed xenophobic nationalism on one foot, pro-Western tattoos on the other. And blogger Istanbulwitchy still missing in action. Throw in Armenians and Kurds, mix together and see what comes out the other side.

Mohammed Mosaddeq , former prime minister of Iran -- the CIA abetted in his overthrow in 1953 and installed the Shah in power, leaving us among the living having to deal with the ongoing consequences of the Islamic Revolution of 1979. How (and if) the Iran-US power struggle will end, no one has a clue.

Hồ Chí Minh was one resilient leader -- fought the Japanese, French, Americans, Chinese and Cambodians for his entire adult life, leaving behind a bloodied but independent Vietnam.

El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz (Malcolm X) provided an alternative approach to civil rights in the USA and human rights in the world, with an Islamic twist. I've always found his life story more interesting than Martin Luther King, Jr.'s, probably because King's is more "officially sanctioned."

As for Pol Pot: the horror, the horror. Came to power out of the toxic spillover from the Vietnam War. Thank you, Richard Nixon, for your bombing parts of Cambodia into the Stone Age, and for your secret invasion. After the Vietnam War, the independent Vietnamese defeated the Khmer Rouge.


Today's Rune: The Self.

Birthdays: Johns Hopkins, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, Mohammed Mosaddeq /Mossadegh, Hồ Chí Minh, Yuri Kochiyama (b. Mary Nakahara), El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz / Malcolm X / Malcolm Little, Pol Pot (Saloth Sar), Lorraine Hansberry, Jim Lehrer, Pete Townshend, André the Giant (André René Roussimoff), Grace Jones (Grace Mendoza), Joe Michael Dusty Hill, Joey Ramone (b. Jeffry Ross Hyman).

Lòi chào xin cào biêt!

Meet You at the Chicken Shack

Here's my verbatim transcript of Sam Lightning Hopkins lyrics as talked/sung on January 23, 1962, in Houston, Texas, with Spider Kilpatrick on drums. I couldn't find them anywhere on the internet, so here goes.

Meet You at the Chicken Shack

All right!
We gotta hurry, Spider
You know we gotta get back
They havin' a dance tonight over there
At that they call it that little Chicken Shack
Wellie, we’re gonna meet you there
All right!
Walk along and tell me when you
know we’re near about there.

I’m in a hurry ‘cause I know my girl gonna be there
I know it, these are the words she said:
“If I don’t meet you at the Chicken Shack
I’m gonna meet you at the Club Matinee.”
She say, “you know I’m right.”
She say, we can go ahead and we can boogie there all night
And that made me feel better than just part-of-the-night.

Just look at her go!
She brought the boogie in here
And she can boogie plum down on the floor.
The reason I like her -- they call her Mary Jo.

Let’s boogie one more time, boy.
Whoo!
Sure enough!
Go ahead, girl and strut your stuff!
She stands up in her hand
Then she turns, dip just like a fan.
She’s a good little girl
Knows all about the boogie.
There’s a new boogie and a new style.
Let’s rest a while.
All right!

Whoo!

She says lookee yonder
Here come my brother Joe.
She said this thing is getting good
Now we gonna boogie some more!

Mmmmmhhhhh
Let’s boogie all night!
Mmmmmhhhhh
Let’s boogie all night! Mmmmm
I don’t wanna stop now baby
Cause I know that ain’t right.
Let’s boogie a while, Spider.
Work a while. . .

("Texas Blues" CD, 1994).

Lightnin' Hopkins - Baby Please Don't Go

The man in action. Check out the common elements from other blues artists. This is Lightning "unplugged" and quite the dude.

LIGHTNING HOPKINS - Lonesome Dog Blues

You can hear how this would have influenced Jimi Hendrix. Some dude (not me) recorded this and I'm just sharing it while playing around with YouTube.