"Ladies and gentlemen, children and chaps" "Proud-eyed mosquitoes and bow-legged laps" "Pull up a seat or either sit on the floor I'll tell you a story you've never heard before" "God taking care of me because I should have been dead 40 years ago, but I was a good marksman." "Killed that old grey mule" "Burned down the white man's barn" "Learned to write my pieces right out in the cotton field plowing." "Cotton field. I hadn't learned nothing in no town ain't been to town hardly." "Didn't know what town was, did you?" "I worked 12 years-just me and my girls farmed. 12 years." "Didn't have no men help at all." "And I made it." "That band give the team spirit to play and that singing gives you pep to work." "Don't get mad with boys" "Buggy don't drive like mine" "It's an easy riding buggy, raring to go all the time" "Poor boy and I'm a long way from home" "Poor boy and I'm a long ways from home" "And wrap it around." "OK, I nail this in" "When you tune it you pulls it down" "like so I don't know if you can hear it too plain" "this is actually tuning it." "Those actually the songs I would play when I was a kid." "Lord woke up this morning" "Sun shining in my back door" "Lord woke up this morning baby" "Sun shining in my back door" "Shakin that thing, kill poor me." "Must I... I don't like to play this but once in awhile, you know sometimes I get the blues." "Burn my house, ain't no turn around" "Don't know 'bout that,going to break it on down" "When I first started started to making them fife, all right, I'll show you." "When I started there, I done my fingers like this." "Now that's wet." "Then I took my knife swung that out I got my fingers like that." "Then, I took a knife and swung this out." "Then, I swung that out." "All right." "Got up here." "Got my tongue like this." "Take it easy all right baby" "Early in the morning coming back home" "Ain't gonna call me I'll be gone" "Down in the bottom where the water rise" "Baby I'll be satisfied" "Well, here we come." "Way back yonder all you worked for was your clothes." "Way back yonder." "They didn't pay you any money at all?" "They'd pay you 5Oc a day or 4Oc a day." "I picked cotton 35c a hundred." "Chopped cotton from sun to SU n two bits and 4Oc." "My daddy let us- 1900-let us chop cotton on a Saturday evening -start at one o'clock and chopped to sundown for 2Oc." "Will you please tell me tell me tell me tell me baby" "Where you stay last night" "Yeah will you please tell me tell me tell me" "Baby where did you stay last night" "Yeah Mama told me Mama told me Mama told me" "Way back 'fore I was born" "Well gonna be a boy child coming coming coming" "Oh gonna be a rolling stone" "Learned to write my pieces right out in the cotton fields" "I hadn't learned nothing in no town ain't been to town hardly." "You didn't know what town was did you?" "No, I learned all my blues in the country." "Right here, out in the country." "In the field." "Field, picking the cotton, plowing, hoeing, picking peas, all that kind of mess." "That's where we learned this mess at." "That's the reason we don't know no other pieces." "Boy, we learned something." "Have you been a farmer all your life?" "All my life, been farming out here all my days." "Plow a mule in the daytime, pick guitar at night." "That's all I do." "Nothing but a farmer." "Daddys and things was a farmer." "That's all I knowed." "Raised chickens and a few hogs-something to eat around here." "Farm out there in the field." "That's all I ever knowed." "Oh hard times here every where l go" "Lord hard times baby gal drive me to the door" "Hard times baby gal drive me to the door" "Door door drive me to the door" "Hard times drive me to the door" "I ain't gwine no higher baby Lord blow yours down" "Lord stay right here baby gal 'til you drag me" "Stay right here baby gal' til you drag me down" "Drag me down 'til you drag me, stay right here 'til you drag me" "Lord hard times here every where l go" "Hard times baby gal drive me to the door" "Hard times baby gal drive me to the door" "Hard times drive me to the door" "Hard times baby gal drive me to the door" "I started the field when I was 8 years old." "I used to cry to go to make a day." "And my mother, she didn't want me to go." "So's this old white man wasn't staying too far from us." "All of them was be in the field but me;" "and he asked me what I was crying for." "I told him I was crying because I wanted to go and make a day like the rest of them." "They started me off at a dollar a day." "I was getting just what they was getting." "From then on I come all the way through." "I cleaned up new ground." "I cut down trees. I cut wood. I can cultivate." "I can plow. I can even sweep." "And then I can plant." "I done did all of that all the way through in my life and days." "I worked 12 years-just me and my girls- farmed 12 years." "Didn't have no men help at all." "And I made it." "I run down to that river" "That's what I'm talking about boys" "You know I'm gonna leave you" "Tell me what shoulder that you want it on" "Tell me gal what you been waiting on I been away from home too long" "Me and one man would take it he had it on one end and I had it on the other going down the gangplank..." "going over the water." "And we'd get out there and we'd stagger like that, you know, like we gonna fall with it- and just keep on rocking." "I worked on the Tennessee Belle, the Kate Adams." "When she used to get along yonder, she would make that blow." "And that levee there would be lined with women,meeting us." "What would the blow be?" "Whoooa-whooa-whooa- whoo." "What would happen then?" "What did they come out there for?" "Payday!" "Payday." "Women be takin care of men a whole month." "They put them out then cause that man off the boat would come in." "then they going to take him on." "When that boat blow, they'd put him out." "And he would have to stay gone until the boat go back out." "He was a playboy." "Playboy!" "Lord I went to to her house" "And I sat down on her steps" "Come right in pretty boy, My good man just now left" "Good man just now..." "Good man just..." "Good man just" "Did you guys on the boat know about those men?" "No." "No, they didn't know about it." "I caught one at my house one time." "What happened?" "Huh?" "I left him right there, him an her. I just got my clothes and left them there." "Well if I can't come in" "Let me sit down 'fore your door" "Lord I'll leave so easy baby gal" "Your good man never know good man never... good man never, good man never... lf l see a woman that I wanted and she just absolutely- her husband couldn't carry her home." "I pick that guitar hard." "I play that guitar hard and sing hard." "and I've had women come and kiss me and didn't ask could they kiss me- kiss me right then." "Just grab me and kiss me." "I said tell me now sweet mama" "Gal how you want your rolling done" "Tell me sweet mama" "Gal how you want your rolling done" "She said slow and easy like my old time rider done" "Roll my belly mama" "Roll it like you roll my dough" "Want you to roll my belly" "Gal like you roll my dough" "I want you to roll me sweet mama 'til I tell you I don't want no more" "Oh don't come back to Sam no more" "Woman, it's your last time" "Shakin' it in the bed with me" "Says, I told you to your face I had another good girl to shake it in your place" "Babe, it's your last time" "Shakin' it in the bed with me" "Oh, you shake it, you can break it" "Hang it on the wall" "Throw it out the window and run round and grab it just before it falls" "Shake it, you can break it" "Hang it up on the line I don't want your love cause it sure ain't none of mine." "I told you in the spring" "When the birds all began to sing" "Woman, it's your last time" "Shakin' it in the bed with me" "Well, you kicked all my cover off the bed on the floor" "You better be glad sandfoot, you ain't gonna get to kick it no more" "Now you wear your miniskirt way above your knees" "Now you can shake your jelly with every other man you please l told you you could go" "And don't come back to Sam no more" "Woman, it's your last time" "Shakin' it I mean twisting it" "Doing that monkey dog" "And that slop in the bed with me" "Oh go baby" "I said, well, the blues is about a woman." "If you have the blues about a Woman your wife or anybody, and they misuse you," "you go along and make up a song to sing." "Instead of telling her in words, you would sing that song." "So, when you be singing that song you have your mind direct on how she done treated you." "I went down to that river" "Oh, thought I'd jump and drown I thought about the woman I was loving" "Boys I turned around" "I went down to that depot" "Asked the man how long the train been gone" "He said, "lt's been gone long enough for your woman be at home"" "It's a good job, I mean, you can raise a family with the job." "I started out here-course the rate of things back in then, you didn't make too much money, but it was enough, you know, to have a job, to support your family off of." "Nowadays it's almost the same thing." "but the cost of living at this time and age, it dissolves it all." "So, we just about doing about as good as we did in '45." "It was good enough for me to put five kids through high school and college too." "Course it was tough, but I made it." "Right, I had 17 of 'em." "You talk about sing, ing on the railroad it's just like a band on a football field." "That band gives the team spirit to play and that singing gives you pep to work." "All right, now." "Up under the railing up under the tie" "Up under the rail where the tie lie" "Up under the rail where the tie lie" "Up under the rail up under the tie" "Up under the rail where the tie lie" "A lot of mens have got hurt handling steel." "Steel is very dangerous." "of handling that steel with a big bunch of men they'd always be putting out money on hospital bills and injuries." "And they had to have some system to protect that, you know, prevent it from happening all the time." "And at its best, we have accidents with it." "When you come to work on Monday morning at seven o'clock and get out there on the job working, singing comes according to what job you're doing." "Now you take lining track." "That singing was just a rhythm that the labor used in keeping the time and getting the track lined like the boss man wanted." "But now, singing -wasn't no joy in it whatsoever." "To get the job done." "What the old lady say when she come to die" "She put a hand on her hip and one on her thigh" "Good Lord, have mercy" "All right, quarter back." "All right, all right" "Just a little bit, Just a hair" "Just a little bit right there" "Just a little bit just a hair" "Just a little bit right there" "Alrighty, Jack the Rabbit, Jack the Bear" "Just a little bit right there" "Give it to me in the center." "What did the hen duck say to the drake" "Just dive other side dive other side dive other side dive dive" "All right, that'll get it?" "Move ahead a little bit." "Move ahead there one eye." "Come on there." "Talk loud George." "All right, all right" "Jack the Rabbit, Jack the Bear" "Just a little bit, just a hair" "All right, that'll do." "Clear the track; train's coming." "Talk loud and draw a crowd. I want to work 20 more years." "I'm going down to that railroad" "Lay my head on that railroad track I'm gon think about the woman I'm loving" "And man I'm gonna snatch it back" "You go down in them quarters" "Well my wheel mule's crippled" "And my lead mule's blind" "Lord, I'm want need somebody I can't shake a line" "How many people would be singing at one time?" "Oh, everybody near about.." "You couldn't hear your ears." "And some of them could sing so good, 'till the mules would go to hollering." "They'd just holler-just holler, like it was twelve o'clock or something." "I'd get out there and got my team, then." "Get way back on the end of my line, you know." "Two great big old mules, trace straps all on them." "Their heads up in the air like that with them harnesses on them." "Wearing tassels hanging all down the side of them." "Just taking my time, just walking and walking." "I'm gonna be late in the morning, I'm gonna be late all day," "Hey, hey, hey, hey l'm gonna be late all day" "With old Freddie Mae" "Them big son of a guns just stepping, just stepping with me." "They pulling me up the levee!" "I'm just raring back on the lines." "People that's been here a few years, I guess that's why God didn't kill 'em all." "He left somebody here to tell the story." "It be so cold out there they wouldn't let you go to the fire." "You'd have to let your lines slip through your hands." "I don't understand." "Tell me how that was." "Like your wheeler'd be going along - you have two mules to it, and the mules be going along you'd walk along and get up to the fire and..." "What was the fire doing there?" "They'd had a fire built for you to warm going by, you couldn't stop at it, your wheeler couldn't stop, but you could let the mules keep a-going and let the lines slide through your hands" "till you get to the end, then you got to catch 'em." "You couldn't never just say, "stop" at the fire and warm." "What would they do to you?" "Cut your head!" "Beat it with a pistol, stick or something." "They'd ride right in the middle of the pit and old man Brown used to take his hat off his head." "He wore a big white Stetson, a great big one, and he'd throw it up and he'd shoot six holes in it before it hit the ground." "Then he'd tell somebody down there and they would hand it to him." "And he'd say," ""Now listen, I'm gonna whip you if you stand and I'm gonna kill you if you ru n." "I want ya'll to do so and so and so." "I want you to get me some dirt." "I got to finish such and such a station by such and such a time..." "And is there any questions?"" "When he asked you that, he'd have his hand on that pistol." "Kill a nigger, hire another one" "Kill a mule, buy another one." "Plenty of mornings you had to wait until it get light enough to go to work." "You be standing there in the dark." "Then when it get light enough, then you go to work." "Then you'd work in the evening, 'til you couldn't see how to come in." "You wasn't locked up, but other than that it was just like the penitentiary." "They paid you what they wanted." "They gave you what they wanted you to have." "If you didn't do it, somebody's going to beat you up." "Why did you men go into those places?" "We didn't know no better." "You couldn't do no better." "You was trying to leave the farm for 50 and 75c a day and go someplace where you could earn a little bit more money." "But when you get in those places, you would earn the money but you didn't get paid for it." "Yeah, you get out there and they'd say they were going to,give you $15 a week" "And payday, he may pay you off and then he may not pay you off." "He just work you out there sometimes 2 and 3 months just give you a drag, like 1 O or $15, something to gamble around in the camp with." "Mister Charlie gave 'em payday boys, instead he give a drag." "Wasn't no difference in the money that the two men had." "Killed that old grey mule" "Burned down a white man's barn" "Killed that old grey mule" "Burned down a white man's barn" "I didn't mean no trouble I didn't mean no harm" "I want you to love me or leave me girl" "Anything you want to do" "Oh Rosie oh Lord gal" "I've been callin' you for 12 long years, Rosie" "You won't answer, wonder do you hear" "Oh Rosie oh Lord gal" "Go ahead and marry don't you wait on me" "Long haul over and I can't go free." "Oh Rosie oh Lord gal" "Look on your finger gal and think of me" "Ring I bought you when I was free" "Oh Rosie oh Lord gal" "Big leg Rosie with her big leg drawers" "Got me wearing these striped overalls" "Overalls Lordy overalls" "Got me wearing striped overalls." "Jump in the bushes" "They gonna break my leg" "Catch you fooling with my woman I kill you dead" "Seven of us broke jail together." "We broke this county jail." "They caught me" "Did they still use the "bat" in Parchman when you were there?" "Did they whip the prisoners when you were there?" "They whipped us with big, wide strops." "How many blows did they give?" "How many blows they give?" "Just as many as you could stand." "I got two whippings while I was there." "They didn't whip no clothes." "They whipped your naked butt." "Had two men to hold you." "Four!" "As many as they need." "Two on your legs and two on your arms." "Did they ever injury anybody that way?" "Oh yeah!" "They'd kill um like that." "Got me accused of thieving I can't see a thing" "They got me accused of forgery" "And I can't even write my name" "Bad luck bad luck is killing me" "Boys I just can't stand no more of this third degree" "Now looka here boy I wanna tell you something" "They got me accused of taxes" "And I don't have a lousy dime" "They got me accused of children" "And ain't not one of them mine" "Bad luck bad luck is killing me" "Boys I just can't stand no more of this third degree I'm gone so baby so long" "Lie down thy weary one lie down" "Do you not know tonight" "One thing I like about God?" "He's so just tonight." "God is a just God." "God is so just tonight" "Kennedy's got to stand before God." "I said, Rockefeller's got to stand before God." "And that means your money can't buy you nothing." "No matter how much money you got," "That can't buy it with God." "God said -you are just a steward" "And He lended it to you for a few days." "I remember one Friday morning," "Out there on Calvary," "They tell me that they hung the S" " O-N on the cross." "Tell me that the S-U-N peeped up and looked at the S-O-N" "And say that the S-U-N told the S" " O-N" ""Two suns can shine together."" "And the reason that the sun amen" "The reason that the sun don't blind His eyes is because He is the sun's creator tonight." "Look at my big old God tonight" "That step out that morning and spoke a blooming universe into existence." "God didn't need no hammer or no nail" "God didn't need no pliers or no screwdriver" "God didn't need no cement mixer to pour the foundation" "All my God said is, "Let there be..."" "When God come back" "He gonna to throw away the straw of pity" "He gonna take away the leaves of compassion" "He gonna to take away, I say, the feathers of his mercy" "Ain't gonna be nothing left in the nest" "But the briars of indignation" "Ain't nothing gonna be left in the nest" "But the sharp stick of His mighty wrath" "Let me close here, brethren I say, God will stir you up tonight. I say He'll stir you up." "He stirred me up one day." "He'll stir you up" "If I was you I'd come tonight." "I say I tried Him tonight." "How many of y'all tried Him?" "Do what the spirit say do lf the spirit say pray,you ought'a pray oh Lord" "Do what the spirit say do" "You ought'a do what the spirit say do lf the spirit say do you ought'a do oh Lord" "Do what the spirit say do lf the spirit say moan you ought'a moan oh Lord" "Do what the spirit say do" "You ought'a do what the spirit say do lf the spirit say do you ought'a do oh Lord" "Do what the spirit say do lf shouting, if whooping, if moaning, if singing was good enough for my grandmamma," "I'm going to do the same thing." "Amen." "If it were good enough for them it is good enough for me." "It brought 'em a long ways." "It brought 'em a long ways." "December the seven, forty-one" "That's when the Second World War had just begun." "They tell me Mussolini was holding out his paw" "And trying to get the European countries under Hitler's law." "First have a little patience I'm gonna tell it to you" "The first thing they done, they got rid of the Jews" "But Great Britain got trouble in mind" "She rushed the poor boys to the firing line" "Better than that, the Germans bombed beautiful Paris late one night" "They had to look to America for to get supplies" "They loaded up the vessel and started across" "But the news reached back that the vessel was lost." "Mr. Roosevelt didn't say that, he say "l just can't see" "Why Adolph Hitler trying to rule the sea."" "He sent him a message right straight from the phone say, "Looka here Hitler, leave my vessel alone."" "But ole Tojo looked back in the States" "Him and Mussolini could not communicate" "Old Japan went a hushing by she wouldn't fight on either side." "I don't know, but I was told" "That's the way Pearl Harbor base got stole." "Well here's where we came in at." "Negro soldiers standing at attention" "They were the poor boys in every dimension" "But I'm gonna to tell you about a colored man" "December the seven, forty-one" "That's when the Yanks started mighty manning the gun" "He stepped on deck and he got dead aim" "He brought a Japanese bomber down in flames" "Some got wounded, some got killed" "But naturally we know God's Holy Bible got to fulfill." "I found out later there was a ration on rubber, so was gasoline" "That's where l was, so help me God." "Well, back in the jungle it woods deep" "The bad lion stepped on the signifying monkey's feet." "That monkey say, "Look lion, can't you see?" "Why you standing yourself on my God-durn feet?"" "So, the lion said, "l don't hear a God-dern word you said," "But you say two more and I'll be stepping on your God-dern head."" "Well, everyday before the sun go down" "The lion would kick his butt all through the jungle town." "But the monkey got wise and started using a little of his wit" "He say I'm gonna to put a stop to this old rot-kicking stuff." "So the lion jumped up in a bad rage" "Like a young gangsta, full of gauge" "He lit out with a roar, his tail shot back like a 44." "He went off through the jungle, knocking down trees." "Kicking giraffes til they fell down to their knees." "So, he ran up on the elephant talking to the square," "Said, "Alright you big bad joker, gon be yours or mine."" "Said, "Go ahead on you little funny bunny mother and pick on somebody your own size."" "So the lion jumped up and made a fancy pass" "The elephant side-stepped and kicked him dead in the grass." "It messed up his neck, messed up his face." "Broke all four legs, snatched his you-know-what out of place." "He picked him up and slammed him through the trees" "Nothing but that stuff as far as you could see." "So he drug his butt back to the jungle more dead than alive." "Just to run into that monkey with some more of his signifying jive."