Preserving the blues....one story at a time

Posted by Blues Society of Western Pennsylvania - Maria K Saturday, April 7, 2012 11:17 PM

A Blues collaboration by Maureen Elizabeth and Jonnye Weber 
(Representatives of American Blues News (www.ameriblues.com)


The blues...an American made product... was years in the making. It took decades to cultivate the many sounds that we know today. The blues players and singers of that era were a hearty breed who endured much to play their music and have it accepted as a genuine craft. They lived, breathed, and nurtured the music... drawing on their life experiences to enrich and enhance the stories that they put into music form. Their numbers have dwindled at a fast clip over the last few years. Their music and their real life stories from the past are heartfelt and colorful.


It is alarming that the last of an era, Honey Boy Edwards, has also left us. It is also frightening to think that a generation of players has been lost to the ravages of time. Will their memory and their music endure the test of time? Will their stories and the music of those who have lived and breathed life into the blues be preserved?  Will their rich legacy be cherished and passed to the next generation...or risk being forgotten. Many of those stories are quickly drifting away and are being lost in the layers of time. When someone shares the story of a player from "back in the day," it is "our privilege; our duty" as blues fans to rescue those bits of cultural, historical and musical memories. It is a "right" that we should share, relish and bestow that wealth of knowledge onto others for its continuance in the years to come. If children are the ones to hear those anecdotes...all the better.


The Blues in the Schools Program is a fast growing project throughout the world. It is an undertaking that takes the music to the children, increasing its chance of survival.  Three years ago, I was  honored to meet with Ken Lockette, (principal of Avonsworth Schools in the Pittsburgh area), while listening to the blues presentations in the Children's Music tent at the Pittsburgh Blues Festival. We later worked together on several projects (Blues in the Schools) where Eugene Morgan was asked to take the blues to the Avonsworth School. Eugene Morgan, a blues man from Georgia who has made his home in Pittsburgh, was also an integral part of a cultural presentation for the student body and their families. Ken, a true blues fan, had once lived in Chicago. We began talking about the Chicago Blues scene. I shared my story of my  meeting with Honey Boy Edwards and his long time music partner and manager, Michael Frank, on the Legendary Rhythm and Blues cruise. Pittsburgh native  Michael was quick to share many of the chapters of his and Honey Boy's life together as blues men. Hearing that, an excited Ken Lockette told how  he had crossed paths with Honey Boy Edwards and Michael Frank.  Ken then shared his story of how he introduced a class of young people to the blues via...Honey Boy Edwards.


The following is Ken Lockette's (BSWPA blues member) story...I was at the end of my first year as a teacher. I worked in a middle school in Springfield, Illinois, teaching 7th grade language arts. It was the Spring of 1993, and I was planning a unit on American folklore. Previous to moving to Springfield to teach, I lived and went to graduate school in Chicago. I spent whatever change I had going to see and listen to music, mainly at the north side blues clubs, and I would comb the used record stores for folk and blues CDs. I had run across a documentary on Robert Johnson and the "crossroads' myth," which prominently featured Honey Boy. I also had recently bought a Honey Boy Edwards CD produced by Michael Frank at Earwig Records. When I noticed the address, I realized that the Earwig location was on Pratt Avenue, the same street where I used to live in Chicago. On a whim, I looked up Michael Frank's phone number and gave him a call. I was astonished that I got a hold of him. I told him that I was a young teacher and what I was doing. Springfield was a couple hours away, but I inquired if Honey Boy Edwards could be a guest in my classroom. Michael Frank called me back a day or so later, and said that Honey Boy would come down for $250 and a bus ticket. I had not involved anyone else in the planning. I was going to foot the money but knew that I would need to tell my principal. When I told him what I was going to do, my principal did not chide me, but told me that the school would pay for the visit, and that they would invite the whole school to hear Honey Boy play!


When the day arrived, Michael Frank called me and said that Honey Boy would not be taking the bus but that he would drive him himself. I took Honey Boy up to my classroom for a Q & A session. The students had seen Honey Boy on the documentary, so he had instant credibility. He cut a venerable presence with an old dark sport coat and a baseball cap with a blue "Pearl Jam" emblem emblazoned on the front. After Honey Boy spoke about Robert Johnson, a student asked him, motioning to Honey Boy's hat, "Hey, Honey Boy, I see you have a Pearl Jam hat; do you like Pearl Jam." Honey Boy paused for a second, realizing the student was commenting on his hat, and replied, "I saw this hat when I was in Portland, and saw that it had 'jam' on it, and I like to jam, so I bought it." He did not have any clue who Pearl Jam was, and it was his genuine nature that further endeared him to the kids. He went on and played a 40-minute set in the school gym for the whole student body, plugging in and ripping through several blues classics. I had the pleasure to take him and Michael Frank out to dinner, and Honey Boy was still full of stories and was going on about "hobo-ing" from train to train with Kansas City Red. I wished that I had a tape recorder and am sorry that I only have a spotted memory of that conversation nearly 20 years ago. I am now a school administrator and have a signed photo of Honey Boy on the window sill in my office.  


American Blues News (Maureen Elizabeth) spoke with Michael Frank, CEO of Earwig Music Company, Inc. and originally from Pittsburgh) about the stories Honeyboy left behind and the things that he will miss the most...“There’s always room on the neck, there’s room on the neck to learn more.” That’s what Honeyboy would say. Morgan Freeman has dubbed t Honeyboy Edward's  offerings as “quintessential American music.”


Maureen: How did you come to know Honeyboy?
Michael Frank: We had a unique relationship. I met Honeyboy as a result of being a record collector in High School and college...buying several thousand LP’s and reading liner notes and Blues magazines. I was interested in the black music. The culture of black music, soul, jazz and especially the blues- on an emotional level -it somehow spoke to me. I always was interested in language, and the lyricism of the Blues got my attention too. As I read more and more, I realized what a commitment it took from a Blues musician or a Jazz musician to stay working at that, their entire life, with the choices they had to make. I wanted to meet these folks and just hang around and hear their music in the local communities they were making it in. I got to Chicago in the first week of June in 1972 and met Honeyboy in November of 1972. I had some compilation albums that he had a few tracks on – he had no full length albums at the time. He was playing at a club with another guy named Jim Brewer, a.k.a. “Blind” Jim Brewer, from Brookhaven, Mississippi- so I just started talking to them. They were down to earth and very approachable. I just started going to visit them at their houses, taking them to the few jobs they had, getting them a few jobs and then I started playing harmonica with Honeyboy at his house -and that’s how it started.


M: At the time you met him, you obviously knew who he was- but did you feel that the general population, at the time, were aware?
F: No. Honeyboy was a minor figure in the history of the Blues at that time, in terms
of being known, because he had never had a full album out and only a few of his tracks were available. He had made a few recordings for different labels in the 50’s and early ’64 but none of those had been released until 1970. So nobody knew who he was, much, except a few Blues fans. The older guys in the black community knew who he was. He was playing in all the taverns in the 50’s and 60’s. He played with Carey Bell, Little Walter, Big Walter Horton, Floyd Jones – those are all the people I had met.


M: So you not only watched the evolution of his popularity but you also helped him...
F: I decided I wanted to hear him more often and the only way that was likely going to happen was if I got him to work! So that’s what I did. He got a few things on his own and he got calls to play at things like the University of Chicago Folk Festival and he went to Austria. In ’72 to ’76 I did some local booking for him. After that, I was much more involved in managing his career- he went to Canada and Europe in 1979-I booked both those tours. When I wasn’t working a full time job I would go with him, but he was young enough at the time to go on his own.


M: What is it that you miss most about him?
F: One thing I just noticed. The night before last, there was a show on prohibition on Public Television, and he and I had talked, in his book and in various stories, about bootleggers and illegal whisky and such – there was so much I wanted to talk about with him after watching that show and I realized that I couldn’t. You know, I can’t go to his neighborhood and stop by anymore. We had a good time playing shows. In the last 15 years he wanted a rhythm guitar player with him too, so we had a half a dozen rhythm guitar players scattered around the U.S. and Europe that we booked and those times were a lot of fun- playing and hearing stories and making stories of our time together.


M: Was writing the book his idea or did you encourage him?
F: It was both of our ideas. Around 1988, I don’t know where we were, he was probably telling me some stories, and we both said we should document these stories, get them down and do a book! He, at that point, liked that idea and we made a commitment together to work on the book by recording his stories. At that time we did it with a little cassette recorder and sometimes a lapel mic, sometimes not. Once we made that commitment, then he allowed me to record for years. I booked Honeyboy, Kansas City Red, Floyd Jones and Sunnyland Slim on the King Biscuit Blues Festival –I believe it was in 1988- that was the first time they played in Helena probably since the 40’s. They allowed me and Paul Schen, a filmmaker, to drive Honeyboy and Kansas City Red and Floyd Jones down there. Sunnyland decided to drive on his own. We recorded them with a beta-cam camera and a boom mic at the festival and while telling stories all the way down. Honeyboy and Red agreed to stay down there another week with us and so we went around to places that later ended up in the Honeyboy documentary and the book. That was the first time that we really started recording Honeyboy’s stories. I have 17 hours of beta-cam taped of that week in Mississippi with Honeyboy and Kansas City Red. After that I would go to his house and record on my little cassette recorder and when we’d go on tours, he would allow me to stick the mic on in the car. I'd turn it on as I’d be driving and he would tell me stories.


M: The title, The World Don’t Owe Me Nothin’- how did that come about?
F: That was one of Honeyboy’s favorite sayings. He said it a lot- not just to me."The world don’t owe me nothin’" was how he felt about how his life had played out, the experiences he had, and done, in his life and how he felt satisfied with all of that. He felt that he did everything and had everything that he really, essentially, wanted.


M: No regrets... F: Yeah.
M: That’s a good way to live one’s life.
F: That’s how he saw his life at the time we were doing the book and that’s how he saw his life at the end of his life- which is pretty powerful.
M: Yes it is – that says volumes about his philosophy on life and his perspective.