Newspapers / The Carolina Times (Durham, … / July 3, 1976, edition 1 / Page 22
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Boll CKy BI;Bprt;p;:6ddl ,Tic'Qa'::iE3--ILocIi By Glenn Hinson The rtory Hambone tells could ; be repeated by anjr of a number of the bhiespeople who once played in -iJurham. These were working people, men and women who made music in their spare time to entertain them selves and their frijtnds; they played their music by eat and sang songs reflecting their own experience. In addition to their entertainment value, these songs served a far more impor tant social function, for they acted as transmitters of local Black culture and a focal point for group identity. The lyrics addressed themselves directly to the concerns of working class Blacks, with the slower blues telling of "bad luck and trouble," and the upbeat rags talking about the good time to be had. No matter which type was sung, the songs were always a strong affirmation of Black ness in the face of intense white oppression. ; It was this common condition which allowed the blues and rags to speak of Black experience in America as well as of local experience in their source of origin. The distinctive Piedmont style of Black folk riiusic was heard through out North Carolina at the turn of the century, flourishing in the area's rich tobacco belt,The songsters were to be found wherever people gathered-at corn shuckings. at barn raisings, at country dartces-playing their music and singing the songs that reflected their lives. From the early 1900s to the 1940s, Durham was the home of one of the largest Black musical commu nities in North Carolina. During the spring and summer months, blues musicians with guitars, banjos, har monicas andor washboards could be seen around the Black business sections along Pettigrew and down Fayetteville St., playing on the sides of the unpaved roads or in barber shops and small grills. With fall came the tobacco auctions, and the blues people moved to the Bull City ware houses, where farmers, with cash in hand from recently auctioned to bacco, made up- an appreciative and well-paying audience. In the winter, and indeed al through the years, these musicians "ragged the blues" at the many weekend dance-parties in houses from one side of Durham to f the other. The blues that the 'musicians' sang spoke of the physical and emotional conditions of everyday life in the Black community. Their lyrics were direct and concrete; their themes were solidly based in experience. These were the songs of the Black working-class, ex pressing their anger and their joy, their failures, and their triumphs, their frustrations and their relief. Richard Trice, one of the Durham . bluesmen, expressed his understanding of the blues as follows: I think there are songs made up now that had no parts of their life or anybody else's in the song. And till a song is actually made' up from your life, or some experience in some body else's, then there's not too much to it. And I think that most of the songs made up back in the thirties and forties was some kind of experi ence in somebody's life that these songs was made from. Because all of 'em carried some kind of message. I never will forget the day. they transferred me to the county jail. Lord, I never will forget the day, they transferred me to the county jail. I had shot the woman I love, and ain't got no one to come go my bail. -'Big House Bound," Blind Boy Fuller Many of the Durham musicians were among the many Blacks who 'migrated! to the city in an effort to escape the fields sharcropped by their parents and to seek a more profitable means of living. For the most part, the blues people had very little education, having had to farm ' Or do "public work" at an early age to help boost the family income. In the city, they generally held a series of low-paying menial jobs during the period in question, being as often out of work as gainfully employed. When they could find no jobs (not uncommon during the Depression years!) the bluespeople would turn to their music to help them eke out a living. Usually, however, this music was a part-time activity that promised nothing more than a little spare change and guaranteed entrance to house-parties and dances. The blues were a social music, heard wherever working-class blacks congregated. On weekend nights, the people would gather at house-parties held all over Durham. Here they could relax and unwind from the long week drinkingv- dancing, and sometime ' gambling. In many ca'hfese gatherings were actually means of survival, where, as the bluesman Arthur Lyons has said, "People coiihT give a party and make a .little fast money. "They would accomplish this end by selling concessions and bootleg liquor. "That liquor had to be there,' Lyons adds. "That's what carried the party!" Such house-parties were com monly called "sellins" (or "fish fries" or'chitlin struts," depending on what was sold). Whereas this sort of party occurred on somewhat of a haphazard basis, there were also those places that could be depended upon to hold a' party every weekend. These were the "joints" run by local boot leggers. Their incentive was entireiv ecdnomic-the parties provided a constant outlet for moonshine and a steady source of income from other concessions. These bootleggers could afford to pay musicians (especially piano players) well to stay with them and to pay off policemen to stay away from them. And of course they also provided a convenient and safe place to gamble, since they were so "protected." The party might be at a friend's place down in Buggy Bottom, or over at Peachtree Alley, or maybe out at Camel Grove. Or perhaps it's at one of the "houses" run by Minnie Ihe Moocher, Big Mattie, or any of the other local bootleggers who worked in and out of Durham. The room you're in is large, with a few chairs off against the walls and a battered upright piano in the corner. A jar of moonshine for the musicians lays on the piano top. In a small room off to one side there's a table laden with barbeque, fried chicken and fish, chitlins, cakes, and maybe some ice cream, all for sale. Behind that, a woman pours bootleg from a jar into small glasses. There's a one-eyed man tinkling the keys on the piano-that would be Murphy Evans-a guitarist picking a rag lead, a second guitarist playing the bass lines, and a washboard player rubbing his board with thimbles on his fingers. As the night wears on, the musicians take breaks to dance or eat, and are -replaced by others with banjos or harmonicas. The room is crammed with people dancing the "Charleston Strut" or the "Hollywood Skip." , , Every once in a while a -man will": break into a fast buckdance, and th'!"'' musicians will oblige' hinY-'By- Wo'ptf) :t timing their music. . Arthur Lyons remembers: "Yeah, y they'd shake a house, man. It could If V 1 Q7 V'r ' !.; o PEG LEG SAM be a good house, stationary, you know, and they'd make that house pure rock. . . Along the time you'd get to playing a song and they'd get to dancing, they would never want you to turn them loose. A lot of times I'd be getting ready to sign off andthey's holler, 'Keep it up! Don't stop now!' Lord, I'd be getting so tired seems like I was out of breath. I'd say, 'Y'all must got 'lectricity in your legs or something ' They'd never get tired." A couple of times in the evening, a hat is passed for the musicians, and it is returned to the top of the piano filled with nickels and dimes. As the night passes, the musicians play ,fewer rags and more blues. The dances slow down accordingly, and everyone's doing the "mess-around" a Says, I'm gwine up town, hat in my hand, looking for the woman :ain't got no man. It's baby lookin for a needle in the sand, lookin for the woman ain't got no man. Oh, rag! Oh, rag ! Rag, baby, say do that rag rag! Rag, baby, say do that rag! -"Rag Mama Rag," Blind Boy. Fuller or the "slow drag." At about two in the morning, the host signals the end of the party, and the musicians close with a spiritual, sung with all the force of the lowest blues. The tobacco warehouses provided another center of musical activity. There, every tobacco season, Black and white farmers from all over the Carolina piedmont would gather to auction their tobacco. Many of these farmers would literally spend days in the warehouse, waiting to sell to the highest bidder. They provided a captive (and otherwise bored) au dience .for the musicians, who were assured of good tips when the tobacco was sold. Peg Leg Sam, a harmoica player who often played with medi cine shows in the Durham warehouses, commented, "Any musician any good would come to Durham to play in the warehouses." The vast space of the tobacco warehouses engulfs the farmers sitting between the long straight rows of tobacco bails. As these farmers talk amongst themselves, others are arriving with their tobacco-laden mule-drawn wagons or second-hand trucks. They start the long process of weighing the bales and getting them ready for the sales they hope will come tomorrow with the weekend. Many of the farmers have been here since Tuesday, and are still holding out for higher tobacco prices. They've spent their nights sleeping on blankets spread over flattened tobacco bales in the bare quarters on the side of the warehouse. Off near the entrance, two Black men, one with a guitar slung over his back and the other with a washboard under his arm, amble in and take a place against the wall. Within a minute, the quiet warehouse echoes with trie sound of an upbeat rag. A crowd, as much Black as white, begins to form around the musicians, urging them on with their . cries: "Play that thing now!" "Make that guitar pure talk!" Those who have some change toss it into the cup on the end of the guitar's neck, requesting that a favorite tune be played. The blu&men play blues, hillbilly songs, and some vaudeville numbers. Within fifteen minutes in strolls Pud Lucas, a warehouse favorite. He tosses his hat on the floor and launches into the fastest buck-dance ever seen in Durham. Quarters fly into his hat, and those that miss are scooped up by Pud, who never even misses a step. The blues musicians were an integral part of the Black community. Their songs reflected the pulse of Black life in Durham. They were heard on the street, at parties, and at the warehouses. The Black theater would hire blues pianists to play be hind the films; the bcal cafes would welcome bluesmen, giving them free food and drink in exchange for enter- -taining their customers; circuses and medicine shows would employ blues men to draw their crowds. The musici ans addressed the overwhelming prob lems facing poor Blacks. Yet they could at best offer only partial answers for the bluespeople were caught in the same system of oppression as their neighbors. As Peg Leo Sam puts it, "I was born for hard luck." For the most part, the blues singers no longer have an active role in the Black community. Some say that this is due to the destruction of Hayti by urban renewal, and the subsequent "killing of Durham's soul." Others blame it on the police, who prohibited street singing in the forties. Still others simply attribute it to changing times and musical tastes. They all agree, however, on one point-that the conditions which caused the bluespeople to sing the blues have not gone, and are still very much with us. The foregoing article , a condensed version of "Bull City Blues" from the N. C. Bicentennial Folklife Festival Program Booklet which will be on sale for 50 cents at the festival. The research for the article was sponsored by grant number 76-19-2435 from the N. C. Bicentennial. The Bull City Blues group will be gathered together during the festival on the Piedmont Stage at 12 noon, Saturday, June 5th. Into mm iKNr ... :fl3tK. n iiiiiuii. .j km i in run am - 'IV. KINGS CLUB, Inc. H i)t , i President, Donnell Austin ' i Vice, President, Michael Harris & Corresponding Secretary, Robert Bailey $ Recording Secretary, Ervin Johnson Treasurer, Arthur-Saunders CLUB MEMBERS Assistant Treasurer, Raymond Hayes Comptroller, Claude Daniels Public Relationi, George Suggs HISTORY Of THE KINGS CLUB, IX Chaplain, Harold Hayes Assistant Chaplain, Joe Weathers Sick Committee, Andrew Jones Athletic Committee. Paul Weeks Social Committee, Claude Daniels eon pw pd&sft i a If you bank at one place and save at another, you may be paying unnecessary service charges on your checking account. Maybeas muchas$40-$50ayear. .. .. If you brought your savings account of $1 00 or more to Wachovia, you'd get not only daily interest on your money, but free checking, free traveler's checks and something no other bank or savings institution can offer: your own Personal Banker. That's the Free Way. And that's why Wachovia is opening more new accounts these days than any other bank. If you d like your savings account to earn free checking for you . . . and save you from $40-$50 a year in the bargain, talk to a Wachovia Personal Banker, this week. I Ml i i S to V ,0D. v" 8 I I 1 I 1 V. I I The Kings Club was chartered by the state of North Carolina as a non profit making corporation October 9, 1969. Membership in the corporation at this time was twelve members. We are now very proud to have a membership of twenty-two young men. The purposes for which the corporation was organized are: A. To provide recreation for the members, their families, and the public, including the furnishing of equipment andor fa cilities. Games of skill athletic and other type contests and exhibitions for participation by the members, their families, and the public be provided andor supported. B. To provide assistance to individuals and groups engaged in civic, cultural and economic endeavors motivating the culturally deprived and economically disadvantaged to become self sustaining members of the community. To assist in the beautification of the community and to help in any other way toward making the community a better place which to live for everyone. C. To promote fellowship and extend acquaintanceship by means of social gatherings and lectures. To promote social gatherings among the members by means of dances, din ners, musicals, and other kindred forms of entertainment. In keeping with our purposes, every year we try to reward someone for his or her work in the field of our purposes. In the past we have rewarded Bobby Johnson, Mrs. Carrie Hargrove, David Parker, Lee Smith, and Coach George Quiett in the field of recreation and sports. In the civic field Nathaniel White, Howard Clement, Ben Ruffin, Joseph Becton and Nathan Garett. We have also given scholarships or funds to following , institutions; Hillside High School, Durham Business College, DeShazor Beauty Col lege, South Eastern Business School and Oxford Orphanage. We have pledged $1000.00 to the Scarbourgh Nursery School and a pledge to the N.C. Cerebral Palsy Foundation. Each year we have provided eggs for a city wide Easter Egg Hunt. This year we provided eggs for each city sponsored recreation center, consist ing of more than 6.000 eggs. We sponsor a little league baseball and basket ball team in the city recreation league. These teams are fully outfitted with uniforms, equipment, and qualified instructors. Recreation and sports are support in and out of town. This is done by arranging at cost, trans portation, lodging and game tickets. Our biggest affair each year is our "Black and Gold Ball". This affair raises money for the numerous activities previously described. The success of this affair depends heavily on the contestants who work diligently to be crowned our "Queen". We are now in the process of opening our private lodge for club members, their families, invited friends, and for rental to groups for meetings and private parties. . Our long range plan is to construct a private lodge with recreation and play ground areas for children. We have done so much with so little, but not without the support and encouragement from you, our friends and public. Thank you. 1 i 1 i v. 8 1 1 3 I V. 1 I V. I 1 1. BUMPASS GROCERY 105 DUNSTON ST. CHRISTUN-HARWARD 118 E. PARRISHST. C0I1EGE a 1306 FAYETTEVILLE ST. DELUXE BARBER 9)0? 1220 FAYETTEVILLE ST. USHER FOtAl PARL02 MUTUAL SAVERS & LOAN ASSOOAMI 112 W. PARRISHST. PETER PAN MARKET 517 BACON ST. SERVICE PRIB CO. 504 E. PETTIGREW ST. SCARBOROUGH & HAKGETT MEMORIAL CHAPEL & GAEDEtiS 306S.ROXBOROST.
The Carolina Times (Durham, N.C.)
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July 3, 1976, edition 1
22
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