Here's a link to a video that appeared recently on Youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w6v-hz3ER0c
Here's the description : "Silent footage. Max Moore, owner of Interstate Grocery in Helena, Arkansas, was the sponsor for radio station KFFA's "King Biscuit Time" program. We believe he shot this home movie circa 1942. In it, renowned blues musicians Robert 'Junior' Lockwood and Sonny Boy Williamson perform on the front porch of a small-town Arkansas grocery store. This is likely the earliest footage of these musicians performing together. The second portion of the clip is a 1952 tour featuring Williamson and his band. This film was preserved with a grant from the National Film Preservation Foundation. Max Moore Home Movie Collection."
arguably one of the best blues harp player of all time playing on a porch for a few dozen people for pennies- could you see kim wilson, lee oskar, etc, doing this daily?
probably a sound system that was useless by todays standards and the guitar was not amplified
segregation sucks (still alive and well today)
poverty sucks (still alive and well)
how accessible the greats were and still were up through when I saw them
how much most of us have taken from and not given back to the blues.
People still live like this. Be fortunate for all we have in our lives today and dedicate ones life to erradicating poverty, segregation, and help make equality for all a reality.
This footage put a lot of stuff in perspective for me. thanks for posting it. Walter
---------- walter tore's spontobeat - a real one man band and over 1 million spontaneously created songs and growing. I record about 300 full length cds a year. " life is a daring adventure or nothing at all" - helen keller
in the first scene of sonny hes singing keep it to yourself. in the second hes singing 99. in the third no telling just a ride. and you can take that to the bank word up jack! because i know sonny and he told me so.
This is, or was, indeed some rare footage. It was shown publicly for the first time about a year ago at the Blues Archive here at Ole Miss. Walter is wrong on one count: SBW was playing for several hundred people, not a couple of dozen. Actually, he's wrong on several. Segregation does indeed suck, but segregation of the sort that existed in Mississippi during the years this footage was taken not only doesn't exist today--legalized, de jure segregation, with "colored" and "white" water fountains--but it doesn't noticeably press on the performers here. In fact, what's notable is that they are STARS, with real charisma that draws people from near and far. And white folks are holding the cameras, acknowledging the power and genius. I also don't particularly see poverty in these clips. I see people during their leisure hours, Saturday afternoons, relaxing.
As for pennies: Honeyboy Edwards glories in the way the nickels, dimes, and quarters that people threw at him and Big Joe Williams enabled him to make a decent living by PLAYING, rather than slaving all day in the cotton fields for a dollar a day. So I see some canny operators getting over and having a good time while they do so, not oppressed musicians.
Adam: the footage I watched was a few dozen and that was an overestimate from my view. I must have missed something? My friend Jeff Konkel owns Broke and Hungry Records. He has been going down to the delta for a long time to meet and record the guys still doing blues there. He told me the hardest part of his trips is the intense poverty that still exisits in Miss. We still have it all over this land. Yes the people were relaxing and enjoying the music and segregation has legally been abolished but in reality it still is way deep in our land. Lightning hopkins told me he basically went music because working in the cotton fields for next to nothing was the other option.
Lack of education fuels poverty. I have worked in impoverished schools my entire teaching career (TX, CA, OH) and this is the one common thread that is present in every place I have taught. It gets to the point where I can easily read between the lines in a film clip like this. When I watched the dvd M for Miss. the part that stuck with me the most was seeing the kitchen stove burners going with no pots on them and the oven door open in one of the houses they were filming music at. That was their heating system. I have been in too many of these places to forget such things. Did SBW have the opportunity to make the money the Dorseys and sinatra made? The black people had the option to buy white records but the whites never knew about the black records, unless it was a crossover like nat king cole, because the black records never made it to thier record stores. Anyway, I come at this from 25 years of living in poverty while being a full time musician and 20 years of working in federally certified impoverished schools. this is why so many of my songs deal with poverty, depression, anger, and hopelessness. I pray everyday people find the inspiration in their hearts to devote their lives to ending this not by giving money but by teaching the lifestyle/skills that are needed to escape poverty. Walter ---------- walter tore's spontobeat - a real one man band and over 1 million spontaneously created songs and growing. I record about 300 full length cds a year. " life is a daring adventure or nothing at all" - helen keller
Kudzurunner - Yes, Adam you are right about Sonny Boy playing to hundreds in the sense of the King Biscuit radio show audience. However Walter is also right in the sense that there are only a few dozen people present at the "actual live show".
With regards to the issue of segregation. Whilst you are indeed correct that it doesn't truly exist in the legal sense that it did back then. It still exists in many forms throughout America and indeed all the other countries of the world. Only these days it wears different clothes and is often more subtle. Although of course just as degrading and offensive as it's always been.
As for the mixed race audience. I'd venture that entertainment was not exactly an "everyday" occurrence in many rural areas. So people would most likely have turned up at any kind of show and been "wowed" by the people doing something they couldn't. Regardless of colour.
I grew up in the 50s and 60s and believe me things are much better in regards to racial segragation-it will certainly never be perfect but nevertheless we have come a long long way toward what is right and wrong....thanks for your posting reedsqueal,its awesome
groyster: I grew up in the same era- lived through the newark nj riots and saw a man stabbed to death........ Yes things are better but they will never be good enough for me until we see a world free of color/race discrimation, segregation, and all are educated. I dream big! Walter
PS: On a musical note from this clip- I wish there was some music to go with it! ---------- walter tore's spontobeat - a real one man band and over 1 million spontaneously created songs and growing. I record about 300 full length cds a year. " life is a daring adventure or nothing at all" - helen keller
yes walter we are on the same page-my parents raised me to never be prejudiced against anyone regardless of race,creed,color or religion,especially...I was once anti-semitic against a family from israel due to older peers influence...dad caught on to that and said son jesus was a jew...never forgot that
I don't see "only a few dozen" present at the live show, even in the brief extract of video present here, but it's also true that I saw the significantly longer original footage when it was premiered at the Blues Archive last March and in that footage, when the camera panned back from the porch, it was plain that hundreds were, in fact, hanging on Sonny Boy's every note. The footage not shown here also showed that King Biscuit Time bus--which does appear briefly here--as it pulls into several communities, and there, too, it's clear that Sonny Boy's radio appearances had made him a star, with a star's drawing power over the general public. It was almost a riot, there were so many people falling over themselves to get a look at the stars.
There's no question that de facto segregation of a sort exists in many parts of the country that have urban black populations. Still, the Civil Rights movement, at the cost of lives, blood, and treasure, tore down the "colored" and "white" signs, and the U.S. South--including contemporary Mississippi--is an infinitely more humane place as a result. I don't make that statement lightly. My son is black/biracial--product of his black mother and white father, aka Mrs. and Mr. Gussow--and the education and social system here in Oxford, Mississippi, has treated him like any other 5-year-old boy. He's smart as hell; the speed with which he can manipulate various sorts of on-line age-appropriate video games is quite staggering. And he can drink at any water fountain he wants. That's a blessing, and one that many people fought to achieve.
thanks for that clarification Adam and much success to continue for your child!
Miles: I think we hit a generation gap moment with the segregation/racism? When I was growing up the words went pretty much hand in hand for african americans. The racism forced segregation to happen. Underlying that was poverty and underlying that was lack of education. I lived in New Jersey, a state that never had legal segregation but it was there in black and white for the majority of african americans and almost exclusively to those that had little to no education. Walter
this is the world I grew up in. It has left an imprint on me that will never leave. I use to have run for my life way too many times once I found blues music existed past the boundry line white people passed. I was lucky to get out of those days alive.
---------- walter tore's spontobeat - a real one man band and over 1 million spontaneously created songs and growing. I record about 300 full length cds a year. " life is a daring adventure or nothing at all" - helen keller
