Tag Archives: Lyrics

Paul Robeson and Ol’ Man River

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Ol’ Man River is a song that has been performed many times, analyzed, and critiqued for its lyrical depth and cultural significance. While exploring archives of the Chicago Defender, I came across a 1936 article about the film Showboat, titled: Paul Robeson Makes Film ‘Showboat’ One of Finest1.

August 8th, 1936

The article offers a broad summary of the film, highlighting a few of the actors and key scenes. Notably, it praises Robeson’s vocal performance, describing his voice as:

“His deep vibrant voice ringing above the din of noise, the blare of music, the harmony of voices, fills the listener’s ears and hearts with gladness.”

The description of his vocal quality is vivid and reverent, capturing the power of Robeson’s performance. However, it glosses over the song’s lyrical content and deeper implications. Given that the article was published just three months after the film’s premiere, one might expect some discussion of the song’s meaning, especially in the context of race and labor. It simultaneously reminds us of its perceivedness during a different time. 

The article does briefly touch on the presence of Black characters in the film, stating:

“Pictures portraying the South are incomplete without the richness and colorful figure of the Negro. He is an integral part of the land of toil, deeply and firmly entrenched.”

Yet this framing reduces the portrayal of Black characters to a scenic element rather than addressing their narratives or the systemic struggles they represent. The lack of critique is understandable, as the article is descriptive rather than analytical, but it shows how the significance of Ol’ Man River, a song central to the film, was overshadowed.

In following performances, Robeson himself addressed this oversight by altering the lyrics of Ol’ Man River to reflect his evolving understanding of Black identity and resistance2. In 1938, for example, Robeson made changes that transformed the song’s tone:

Instead of the original: “Dere’s an ol’ man called de Mississippi, / Dat’s de ol’ man that I’d like to be…”

Robeson sang: “There’s an ol’ man called the Mississippi, / That’s the ol’ man I don’t like to be…”

Similarly, he replaced: “Ah gits weary / An’ sick of tryin’; / Ah’m tired of livin’ / An’ skeered of dyin’; / But Ol’ Man River, / He jes’ keeps rolling along!”

with: “But I keeps laffin’ / Instead of cryin’; / I must keep fightin’; / Until I’m dyin’; / And Ol’ Man River, / He’ll just keep rollin’ along!”

Through these changes, Robeson reimagined the song as a declaration of perseverance and resistance.

1 Berry, Tommy. “Paul Robeson Makes Film ‘Showboat’ One of Finest.” The Chicago Defender (National Edition) (1921-1967), Aug 08, 1936. https://www.proquest.com/historical-newspapers/paul-robeson-makes-film-showboat-one-finest/docview/492501551/se-2.

2  Lennox, Sara. “Reading Transnationally: The GDR and American Black Writers.” In Art Outside the Lines: New Perspectives on GDR Art Culture, edited by Elaine Kelly and Amy Wlodarski, 111–30. Brill, 2011. http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1163/j.ctv2gjwvkc.10.

 

“The Memphis Blues” Becomes The Memphis Joke

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While I was looking through Sheet Music Consortium to determine my topic for this blog post, I decided I wanted to talk about representations of my hometown, Memphis, TN, and the perfect piece came up to do just that: “The Memphis Blues” by W.C. Handy.

“The Memphis Blues” originated as an instrumental piece1. This is important. Lyrics can totally change the impact of a song, especially if the lyrics do not match the initial message, or “vibe”, if you will, that the instrumental version conveyed. To demonstrate this, I decided to do a little experiment. I passed my headphones to a friend this weekend and asked him to tell me what thoughts and images came to mind as he listened to this instrumental version of the piece2. I made sure that he had not heard it before and that he did not know the name.

Unprompted, he said, “I feel like I’m walking down the street in a city, like a southern city, maybe Tennessee vibes… Oh, now I’m in a restaurant, like a barbecue restaurant, about to devour some ribs.” WOAH!!! That’s Memphis! (Granted, I think Memphis barbecue started closer to the mid-late 20th century, but still.) I said, “Wait, I didn’t accidentally say the name of the piece, did I? It’s called ‘The Memphis Blues’.” He affirmed that I hadn’t told him the title.

I then asked him to listen to a 1915 recording3 with lyrics by George A Norton, a white, non-Memphian, although, again, I said nothing about the version before passing the headphones.

He said that this version had a very different feel, and reminded him of New York, appropriated, white ragtime. Interesting. “The Memphis Blues” no longer seemed to reflect Memphis in the way that the original instrumental version did, but the lyricised version is what became popular.

So how and why did a white, non-Memphian’s lyricised version of a Black Memphian’s instrumental song about Memphis become more popular? It all began when Handy sold the song to the music publisher Theron Bennett (Handy later said that he felt he was cheated out of the rights to his song)4. Then, Bennett hired George A Norton to write the lyrics. Why? I believe Bennett was aware of the lucrative nature of minstrelsy, and knew that adding lyrics would help turn “The Memphis Blues” into a minstrel song. If you read the lyrics, you’ll notice there is lots of dialect, as well as commentary about the accepted musical roles for white people versus black people in the lyrics. Once the lyrics were written, Bennett convinced The Honey Boy Minstrels to perform the piece.

cover for the sheet music performed by the “Honey Boy” Minstrels5

It only took a few years for the song to enter into the mainstream, but once popularized, the song was forever changed. While the song has always been upbeat, I believe the initial, un-lyricised version sounds like a simple, genuine, upbeat nod to Handy’s home. Every recording I’ve listened to with lyrics seems to be for the purpose of a laugh.

In conclusion, if a song once was instrumental but now has lyrics, we should perhaps ask ourselves the question: Are those lyrics serving the original composer’s intent and the mood of the instrumentation? Or was the purpose to make money?

 

Footnotes

1 “Memphis Blues” by W.C. Handy. Auburn University Digital Library, Memphis: Theron C. Bennett Co., https://content.lib.auburn.edu/digital/collection/pianobench/id/18.

2  Handy, W.C. “The Memphis Blues by William Christopher Handy (1912, Blues piano)”. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6w88NLQTPS4

3 Collins, Arthur & Harlan, Byron G. “Collins and Harlan ‘Memphis Blues’ by W. C. Handy (‘Mister Crump’ early blues) 1915 Columbia A1721”. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CdRA8BdJQ0k

4 Charters, Samuel. The Country Blues. New York: Da Capo Press, 1975.

5 “Memphis Blues” by W.C. Handy and George A. Norton. The University of Alabama Libraries Special Collections, Theron C. Bennett Co., https://digitalcollections.libraries.ua.edu/digital/collection/p17336coll5/id/4100

“Carry Me Back to Old Virginny”–how should we feel about it?

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In our readings and listenings on minstrelsy, we have come across the minstrel song, “Carry Me Back to Old Virginny,” a sentimental tune seeming to long for simpler slave life back in the South. In an address to the State Legislature of Missouri, Dr. Joseph McDowell mentions this song as “the song of the old African,” arguing that it holds such a special place in the hearts and minds of former slaves because “no negro over left her soil but carried in his bosom a desire to return, and a vivid recollection of her hospitality and kindess”.1 The lyrics, pictured below, begin “Carry me back to old Virginny, There’s where the cotton and the corn and tatoes grow…. There’s where the old darkey’s heart am long’d to go.”

“Carry Me Back to Old Virginny” notated music, composed by James Bland. https://www.loc.gov/item/ihas. 200000735/

“Carry Me Back to Old Virginny” notated music, composed by James Bland. https://www.loc.gov/item/ihas. 200000735/

Written in 1878, the song was a “longtime staple” of minstrel shows2, a renowned favorite, bearing what we would deem now to be controversial lyrics. It was performed by many minstrel troupes, notably by the Georgia Minstrels, the “first successful all-black minstrel company,” of which the composer of this song was a prolific member.3 Furthermore, in 1940, the song was adopted by the state of Virginia as the official state song, and remained as such until 1997 when it was withdrawn due to complaints that the lyrics were racist, and was instead made the state song emeritus (an honorary state song).4

James Bland’s 3 Great Songs
http://www.blackpast.org/files/ blackpast_images/James_A__Bland __public_domain_.jpg

The element of this that I find most intriguing and complex is that the song was written by a black man, James Bland, to be performed in blackface minstrelsy. As we discussed in class, white people performing in blackface is an inappropriate and, quite frankly, a disgusting practice, but the morals get a bit trickier when it comes to black people performing in blackface. Bland used minstrel shows to his professional and financial benefit, using the stage as a platform to broadcast his musical compositions.5 In light of this, should we reconsider his song, “Carry Me Back to Old Virginny”? Is this a racist song? Or could it be a satire, “illustrating Southern white slaveholders’ longing for the past when they were masters and African Americans were under their subjugation”?6 Either way, is it wrong to discount a song that was a prominent feature of a man’s career that likely would not have come to fruition if it wasn’t for the popularity of minstrel shows, for better or for worse, blurring the color line and giving blacks the opportunity to participate in American popular culture?

What’s a Stavin’ Chain?

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In 1938, American ethnomusicologist Alan Lomax and the self-proclaimed inventor of jazz Jelly Roll Morton came together to lay down the definitive timeline for the birth of jazz. Their recording session resulted in a 9-hour collection of Jelly Roll Morton songs and interviews between Morton and Lomax. In the first song recorded during these sessions, Winin’ Boy Blues, Morton sings the lines

I’m the winin’ boy, don’t deny my name

I can pick it up and shake it like Stavin’ Chain’s

 

(Caution: this song contains some of the most explicit lyrics I’ve ever heard)

The phrase Stavin’ Chain stood out to me. What exactly is a Stavin’ Chain? Upon investigation, I found that this is not the only instance of a blues/jazz singer singing about Stavin’ Chain. There were songs by Lil Johnson (Stavin’ Chain) and “Big” Joe Williams (Stavin’ Chain Blues) that refer to Stavin’ Chain. From browsing various blues forum websites, I have found a variety of interpretations to what a Stavin’ Chain is. Some say it is a tool used to make barrels. Others claimed that Stavin’ Chain is a figure in African-American folklore famous for conducting trains. One man claimed that it’s an expression for having sex. Luckily, I was able to find an interview between Lomax and Morton about this very subject in Jelly Roll Morton: The Complete Library of Congress Recordings.

Taken from the recording Bad Men and Pimps

Lomax: And what about Stavin’ Chain?
Jelly Roll: Stavin’ Chain, well he was a pimp. Supposed to have more women in this district than any other pimp.
Lomax: Did you actually know Stavin’ Chain?
Jelly Roll:  No, I heard everybody talk about him, never get into his way…
Lomax: What what did you hear about him, this is very interesting cause, you know, they have a song about Stavin’ Chain
Jelly Roll: Well, you know, he slept like Stavin’ Chain.
Lomax: Good tune, too.
Jelly Roll: Yes, I like the tune, I can’t, couldn’t  memorize the tune, you know…
Lomax: Popular around New Orleans as well.
Jelly Roll: Yeah, at one time it was. Let’s see… that was around….19….8.
Lomax: Was Stavin’ Man a white man or colored one?
Jelly Roll: A colored one.
Lomax: Supposedly good looking.
Jelly Roll: Yes, he………. Women was supposed to be crazy about him.

As it turns out, Lomax knew this Stavin’ Chain character that Morton was singing about. Stavin’ Chain, also known as Wilson Jones, was an American blues musician that Lomax photographed and recorded in 1934. Stavin’ Chain was famous for his sexual prowess became a legend in the American blues scene. I’ve found that American blues music is one with an extremely rich history and is full of similar, obscure references. Hours of research can be done unpacking and contextualizing the lyrics from this music. For being able to do this, we owe much gratitude to Alan Lomax for preserving this music for future study and enjoyment.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GX_QKr_mssM

Sources

“Bad Men and Pimps.” YouTube. February 11, 2015. Accessed October 02, 2017. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iwxP8uT-zQ4.

“Jelly Roll Morton – Winin’ Boy Blues – Library of Congress 1939.” YouTube. June 02 2015. Accessed October 02, 2017. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fxkvu_gWlQI

Lomax, Alan 1915-2002. “Lomax Collection.” [Stavin’ Chain playing guitar and singing the ballad “Batson,” Lafayette, La. (fiddler in the background)]. January 01, 1970. Accessed October 02, 2017. http://www.loc.gov/pictures/collection/lomax/item/2007660070/.

“Winin’ Boy Blues.” Community Guitar Home. Accessed October 3, 2017. http://www.communityguitar.com/students/Songs/WininBoy.htm.