| Me and Big Joe -page 2 |
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Joe also carried me to see TOMMY McCLENNAN, who recorded for RCA Victor in the Forties. We visited him in Cook County Hospital, where he was dying of TB. He was just a skeleton, but his eyes were like hot coals burning at you. And his music was like that too�it had a savage, searing sound. He was a fierce man. And there was JAZZ GILLLUM, who was just about the craziest man I�d ever met. Joe took me to see him on a very uncomfortable summer day, with both the temperature and humidity up in the nineties�the kind of day when doing nothing makes you sweat; when dirt forms up under your fingernails for no reason at all. We drove out to the West Side and stopped in front of a tiny frame house, just a shanty, really. When we walked into the place I thought I�d hit Hell City �As hot as it was outside, it was insufferably worse within. All the windows were shut down tight. Clad in a huge brown overcoat and sweating profusely, Gillum stood beside a woodstove, stoking a raging fire. He was extremely paranoid. He�d written the very successful Key To The Highway and had never gotten the publishing money for it, and was afraid I�d come to steal his other tunes. We didn�t stay long enough to change his mind. Eventually I sat in so many bars and met so many singers that the south and west sides of Chicago ceased to be new territory for me. Joe, from his travels, knew blues singers from all over the country, and when he suggested that we make some field trips I was quick to agree. The first jaunt we took was to Milwaukee so I could sit in with SONNY BOY WILLIAMSON. Now. this Sonny Boy thing can he confusing, The original Sonny Boy�s name was John Lee Williamson He was a big star for Bluebird Records and recorded many songs that Joe liked to sing, such as Decoration Day Blues, I Can Hear My Black Name Rinqing, and Katie Mae. The second Sonny Boy Williamson�s name was Rice Miller. He was a much older man than the original Sonnv Boy, and had been recording even longer, but he didn�t become famous until after the original Sonnv Boy died � stabbed by a woman in his Chicago doorway. It was this second Sonny Boy, Rice Miller, that we went to Milwaukee to see. We found him at a funky lounge in the black section of town. He was an old man --God only knows just how old he was. He had a baleful stare and a sour mouth, and he�d check you out with cold, squinty eyes that said you were just so much dust from the road. He sat at a table among the customers with his harmonicas and mike and an old hotel towel, and to start off a song he�d spit blood in the towel and then blow a little harp. He wouldn�t tell the band what song or key or anything, and they�d just stagger in behind him. He didn�t care if they were there or not�he�d just tap his feet and play along by himself. I wasn�t real crazy about approaching him to play, but I did, and he asked me if I knew Help Me, which was his hit at that time. I said, �Yeah, I believe it�s like Green Onions,� and he said, �That�s right. Go ahead and play.� So I sat in with him and the people seemed to like us. Continued on page three-- |
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