Providing the link to Warwick Sabin’s writeup in the Oxford American…one of the best blues festivals in the country held in the crucible that spawned the blues.

How Helena Got Its Biscuit Back

Quick update…a Kindle version is now available on Amazon and other e-versions are on the way. Amazon is quicker than most.

We’re also working to load the CD tracks onto my web site, all of them, for free…we’ll see what technical challenges will try and dissuade us. Nothing certain yet.

Happy Holidays

When I was living in Thailand in the early ’70s, or sometime in high school, I can’t remember exactly when, my classmates started using a phrase that was new to our slang vernacular but that we hoped was very different from anything our parents spoke. Of course, no one knew its origin, but we immediately understood what it meant by its context, and we seized it as our own.

After we went our separate ways, the years rolled by and the phrase slipped away as we matured and new expressions substituted for the old. That is, until I picked up a copy of Nicholas Lemann’s The Promised Land, a wonderful book chronicling the black migration north and looking closely at Clarksdale, MS and Chicago. As I read the book as research for my own, I stumbled upon the phrase which I immediately recognized as the one we had used years before. Never knowing where the phrase originated, only what it meant, I was astounded to learn that it had gotten its start, but where else, in a cotton field.

During the cotton harvesting process, before machines took over, workers were provided sacks which they slung over their shoulder and in which they placed the cotton. Now if you’ve ever picked any cotton, even just a bit from a field outside Helena, AR where the owner stopped and chastised you for picking the money off the stalk and you told her how beautiful it was and she softened a bit, then you know that picking just the fibers can be a challenge. If you’re not careful, it’s possible to pull off parts of the dried plant as well.

Now when someone was done and had filled their sack, they’d take it to be weighed and then they were paid based on the weight. However, the cotton was not always inspected thoroughly, so it’s possible the payment was based not only the cotton but on the weight of stems, leaves, etc. that had been placed in the sack.

When these extraneous items were gathered unintentionally, it was obviously an accident, but when it was done purposely, it was called “gettin’ over” because the worker was finishing, getting the picking over with and going to do something else which was presumed to be more fun. The addition of stems and leaves added weight and volume to the sack but didn’t provide any value once the cotton was extracted. But the phrase also had another connotation that the worker was getting away with something so he was “gettin’ over ” on the foreman. When we used this term as youths, we relished in both of the meanings. If a fellow classmate got out of a test or homework for a reason we deemed weak, we’d say he was gettin’ over. This context was no different than the one which spawned the phrase decades before.

As for how it worked its way into our slang, who knows? But there we were blurting it out oblivious to its beginnings.

Once again African-American culture has produced a phrase, timeless in its application, relevant even today.

My novel, Where Southern Cross the Dog, includes a CD. For those who may have overlooked it, the CD is located inside the back cover. While it’s not unheard of to include a CD with a book, it’s a bit unconventional to include one with a novel. CDs are mostly found in biographies (musical artists) or works of nonfiction which deal with a particular musical genre.

However, for me, this work of Southern fiction would never have been complete without the complement of music. The blues is such an integral part of the spirit of Mississippi that I was bound to share its powerful message I have been fortunate enough to experience.

Most of the recordings have never been heard before except by a handful of people who knew the artist. With Jim O’Neal, noted blues researcher at the helm, we journeyed down the road of discovery and relished in the findings for this compilation. The tracks, most of which were recorded near Clarksdale, Mississippi in the late 1930s and early 1940s, include nursery rhymes, prison work songs, oral history narrations, and a few songs with very little instrumental accompaniment. Listen, at least once, knowing that you’ve heard history conveyed by voices that are dust, something that is pure and newly rediscovered, and that we’ll always have occasion to sing the blues.

On a final note, someone in Birmingham asked me if they should listen to the CD before reading the book. While I hadn’t thought if it before, for those who may be unfamiliar with the blues genre or who just want to acclimate to the context and tone of the story, that’s a great idea. It will definitely take you there.

All the tracks on the CD are listed below.

1. Lewis (Billy) Bell: “Levee Camp Holler (Got Me ‘Cused of Forgin’)” (2:23) Sherard, 1942 (AL)

2. Convicts, state penitentiary, Parchman: “Can’t Pick Cotton, Can’t Pull Corn” (2:25), Parchman, 1936 (JAL)

3. Convicts, state penitentiary, Parchman: “Dem Long Summer Days” (2:30) Parchman, 1936 (JAL)

4. Convicts, state penitentiary, Parchman: “If You White Folks Want to Learn to Play Poker” (2:55) Parchman, 1936 (JAL)

5. Jesse James Jefferson: “Walk Around” (2:33) Clarksdale, 1942 (JW)

6. Irene Williams: “Come On Oar” (1:50) Rome, 1940 (JAL & RTL)

7. Walter Whitehead: “Last Night and the Night Before” (0:21) Drew, 1940 (JAL & RTL)

8. Two girls [sic]: “I Met Brother Rabbit” (0:24) Greenville, 1939 (HH)

9. Doretha Cook and Bessie Lee Huffman: “One Year Twenty-Four Years Ago” (0:32), Greenville, 1939 (HH)

10. Bessie Lee Huffman: “Jump Po’ Rabbit” (0:44) Greenville, 1939 (HH)

11. Mrs. A. Williams [Annie Williams]: “Shout For Joy” (3:48) Friars Point, 1942 (AL)

12. Emma Jane Davis & Group: “Little Sally Walker” (0:36) Friars Point, 1942 (AL)

13. Emma Jane Davis & Group: “Shortenin’ Bread” (2:16) Friars Point, 1942 (AL)

14. Turner Junior Johnson: “Preacher Let Your Heart Catch on Fire” (2:50) Coahoma County, 1942 (AL)

15. Asa Ware: “Levee Camp Song (Before I Go)” (0:50) Hopson Plantation, 1942 (AL)

16. Houston Bacon [with Elias Boykin]: “Lining Track or Calling Track” (12:13), Clarksdale, 1942 (AL)

17. Unidentified Negro: Toast [“You Shall Be Free”] (1:29) Sherard, 1942 (AL)

18. Will Starks: Interview (14:04) Clarksdale, 1942 (AL)

19. Will Starks: “My Old Mistis Promised Me” (3:11) Clarksdale, 1942 (AL)

20. Will Starks: Toast [“Doodley Doo”] (1:46) Clarksdale, 1942 (AL)

The folklorists who recorded the tracks include: Alan Lomax (AL), John A. Lomax (JAL),

Ruby T. Lomax (RTL), Herbert Halpert (HH), and John Work (JW).

The book launched on Amazon this week in anticipation of the coming holiday season.

E-book is around the corner.

Great turnout at the Austin book signing at Mangia. A few pics here but check out “Allen Whitley’s Book” on Facebook for the rest of them.

Mannish Boy t-shirt available at:

http://www.bluescentric.com/

Good turnout in San Antonio…

The Twig Bookstore at Pearl Brewery.

Blues guitarist at the signing. We had to hide his whiskey and cigarettes.

Mangia Pizza
8012 Mesa Dr.
Austin, TX
Saturday, Sep 18
4 pm till ?

A good time was had by all as we traveled north by car for book signings in Clarksdale, MS. Ground Zero, Cat Head, and the public library were gracious hosts and new friends were made at all venues. Couple of pics from the festival…

Super Chikan playing the Chicken Chopper Axe

Big Jack Johnson at Reds

New Ike Turner Blues Trail Marker

See the Book Tour tab for 3 new signings next week in Clarksdale, MS (where the book is set) during the Sunflower Festival. Lots of great music and activities including train rides to Hopson.