On Friday afternoon we “motorvated” over to Memphis and the O.K. Houck Piano Company, a place of true beauty. Guitars ran up and down the walls forever, as I had imagined in a dream. I tried out a red Gibson 335 semi-hollow-body, like Chuck Berry played. The body was a little bulky, but I liked it. The sound was smooth and wide, different from solid-body Fenders, Gibsons, and Gretsches, which had a tighter, brighter sound. James Burton, Roy Buchanan, and Fred all played Fender Telecasters, maybe because they had all come through the Louisiana Hayride school. These guitars were lighter in weight and didn’t kill your shoulder when you had to play long hours in a club. I strapped on an unusual white Fender six-string bass with a tremolo bar, a halfway point between a bass and a guitar. This was new and different. I wanted it.
Back in the car Fred said the magic words. “Let’s give it a shot. Let’s go see Howlin’ Wolf. If they stop you at the door, you can wait outside and just listen. I’ll go in and tell you how great it was.” I hoped he was kidding.
As we approached the entrance to the Cotton Club on Broadway Street, a huge African American bouncer looked at me and said, “How old’re you?”
Fred answered for me. “He’s with me, and we’re musicians from over in Helena playing with Ronnie Hawkins. We’re just here to listen to some good music.”
The bouncer asked if we had any booze with us, and we both shook our heads no. “Well, make sure he don’t drink any,” he said, pointing at me.
We entered a music haven: a combination bar, restaurant, dance hall, and juke joint. The odor of stale cigarette smoke, perfume, liquor, and spicy food hung thick in the air. The crowd was almost entirely black, and I was too new to know whether it was cool for Fred and me to be here. Wolf and his band were already in the middle of their set, sweat glowing on their faces. Wolf’s stage attire was a white shirt and dress pants, but on him it looked like straight-arrow blues. Above the stage a blue spotlight shining down on his face made him look like a haunted man, but this was no voodoo; this was hoodoo and the spirit of the “new blues,” different from the traditional folk blues of Josh White or Big Bill Broonzy. This was down, dirty, and hard.
I was tripping over myself trying to get closer to that sound and fury. Wolf’s vocal style came from another planet, sliding from his big growlin’ tone into his pinched bullhorn stinger, then just as quickly lifting us with his hoot-owl falsetto. And those guitar parts from Hubert Sumlin, king of the blues riff—to hear them live was like hearing them for the first time. On Howlin’ Wolf’s records the music came bursting out of the speakers with a powerful authority, but when the band played live it had a surprisingly delicate blend. All the parts sounded beautifully balanced.
I was mouth breathing, my jaw hanging down. Fred looked at me and broke out laughing but I was locked in. This was Wolf in his element, in his backyard, with his devotees egging him on. When they hit the last blast of their set, the house lights came on and it was like snapping out of a spell. That night was the most frightening musical experience I’d ever had, and it felt way too good.
—
Ronnie came back from England with a deeper, more worldly look in his eyes. It sounded as if he and Levon had had a bloody good time. Ronnie kept preaching of England’s glories. “Boys, if we could spend some real time over there, we could be big, we could stir it up big time. They love our music and I don’t think they’ve got much music of their own, or maybe it’s not very good.”
Levon confessed he’d caught a case of albino crabs there. “Never seen anything like it,” Ronnie said. “I swear, they were white. Hard to see those little albino suckers.”
During the trip they’d run into Eddie Cochran and Gene Vincent, who were touring there. I’d played Gene’s “Be-Bop-A-Lula” on the jukebox at the soda shop across from my high school nearly every day—just hearing about Ron and Levon seeing him was enough to give me a rush. “Gene was singin’ good,” Ron told us, “but he looked to me like he was missing his band, the Blue Caps.” Not long after Ron and Levon got back, Eddie and Gene were in a car wreck while they were still on the road in England. Eddie was killed, and Gene was terribly hurt. The news devastated us. They were true rock ’n’ roll heroes in our book.
I could tell Ronnie was trying to figure out if it was worth the trouble hiring an underage Canadian kid like me, who might bring down the law if I got caught by an inspector. It was virtually unheard of to consider hiring a sixteen-year-old to play in these nightclubs, where you had to be twenty-one. Levon was Ronnie’s go-to guy, his musical ears. It was his job to figure out whether I could play worth a damn enough to take the risk of getting busted. But slowly I was convincing him. When we practiced, he could see we wanted to go musically to the same place. He could feel my hunger. When he saw the records I had bought while he was in England and heard how blown away I was by his meeting Eddie Cochran, he saw how much this southern music meant to me, how deep it was in my soul. All this made me feel like I was starting to get through to Levon, not just musically but on a personal level.
Then one day Levon said, “Hey, Robbie, come with me. Let’s go visit my folks. I’m gonna show you Marvell, Arkansas, gateway to Indian Bay.” We’d be driving up in Ron’s big white ’59 Cadillac Sedan DeVille. He smiled. “That’ll turn some heads.”
On the way he searched the radio dial, lit a Winston cigarette, told me about local legend Sonny Boy Williamson, and drove, all at the same time. Sonny Boy had a show on Helena radio station KFFA. “That’s over on Cherry Street, 1250 on the AM dial,” Levon told me. “At twelve fifteen King Biscuit Flour presents Sonny Boy Williamson and his King Biscuit Boys. Brought to you by Sonny Boy Cornmeal!” Levon mouthed the sound of a blues harp. “Wah-oo-whaaa! And that’s just how the show gets started.” He laughed. “They call it West Memphis Blues!”
It just sounded so good, all of it. To my ears, this was poetry coming to life. The names of the towns and rivers, the names of all these characters, everything had its own rhythm down here. Images and sounds started getting stuck in my head. I was sixteen years old and very impressionable.
Levon told me about all the folks I’d be meeting. “There’ll be Jasper Diamond—that’s Daddy—who you’ll see is a one of a kind. And Mama, her name is Nell, but we all call her Shuck.” I wondered why they called her Shuck but didn’t want to interrupt. “Then there’s Modena, my older sister. She might be there with her husband, Ralph. My younger sister Linda, that’s who I played music with. She played washtub bass and I played guitar and sang. We were called the Jungle Bush Beaters. And my little brother Wheeler, he’ll be there for sure.” I felt privileged to have Levon introduce me to his family and show me his old stomping grounds.
When we arrived at his house, the first thing I noticed was how the house was raised well above the ground. “The water can get pretty high around here,” Levon pointed out. “Sometimes you need a little boat to get to where you’re going. They don’t call it the Delta for nothing.”
His sister Linda was the first one to burst out the front door, laughing and yelling, “Lavon, there you are! Hi, y’all. So nice to meet you!” Next came Levon’s mom, with her arms stretched out toward her boy. “You better come here and hug my neck, right now.” Then Jasper Diamond, smiling, coughing, and blowing cigarette smoke. “What kind of car is that you drivin’?” he hollered. “That’s the biggest damn car I ever seen.”
“Yeah, it’s a beauty,” Levon said, grabbing Wheeler’s crew-cut head. “Look at this big old boy.” As we chatted, Modena came out of the kitchen, shaking a spoon with joy. “Somebody’s got to keep this food from burning!” she called out. As they swarmed Levon, you could tell how much they loved their guy.
We sat down to an authentic, health-be-damned southern meal. Real corn bread, fried chicken, wilted greens, ham, biscuits and gravy, iced tea, pecan pie, the works. I looked around the table and felt a deep warmth and contentment—good people, good food. Levon had brought me into his world; it was all new to me, and wonderful.
We moved to the living room for an after-dinner smoke, everybody moaning about how full they were. As I sat down on the couch, Diamond passed wind like a foghorn. He looked back toward the kitchen and called out, “Hell, Robin, was that you? Sound like you stepped on a big ol’ bullfrog.”
“Diamond, you stop that,” said Shuck. “You’re embarrassing poor Robbie.” But Diamond was grinning from ear to ear and knew he had me going. He jammed his cigarette out in the ashtray, coughed, and asked me, “Robin, tell me something. They got many niggers up there in Canada?”
I was stunned for a moment. “No,” I told him, “we got mostly ‘ofays’ up there.” Levon laughed out loud.
“Well, we got eight colored to one white round here,” Diamond explained, lighting another cigarette, thumbnail on match. “I ain’t saying anything bad about niggers. I know some hardworking, good folks, but we got some bad ones too. When I was sheriff here, I’d be throwing one too many of those drunk old boys in the pokey every Saturday night.”
“Daddy, you better quit that,” Linda chimed in. “You’re ’bout to scare young Robbie all the way back to Canada.” She reached for a mandolin and handed it to Diamond. “Here,” she said, laughing, “stop talking and sing something.”
Diamond looked around the room and smiled like he had pulled a rabbit out of his hat. He hit a couple chords on the mandolin and started singing an old-time story song. The timbre of his voice was gentle and deep-rooted. Levon passed me a guitar and motioned for me to play along. I did, and it made everybody sit back, just right. Levon had told me on the drive out, “My mama and daddy worked so hard all their lives, growing cotton. One of these days I’d like to give them some comfort and easy living. They deserve it.” I saw what he meant.
—
Back at the Rainbow Inn, Ronnie had worked out a rough timeline with Fred, who had agreed to stay in the band until things were up and running with the new inexperienced blood he was trying out. When Levon and I returned, we ran over some of the tunes from the repertoire, including many songs from Ron’s first two albums, like “Mary Lou,” “Forty Days,” “Southern Love,” and “Someone Like You,” which was one of the tunes I had written for him. Ron was not known to be shy about making his band rehearse relentlessly. Levon showed me driving rhythm parts on the bass, twin-string and upper-octave stuff, playing it Chuck Berry style. I practiced on my own too and ran over the songs until my fingers were bleeding. I couldn’t have been happier.
The Hawk was becoming half pleased with the possibilities of a lineup that featured Magoo, Fred, Levon, and me on six-string bass. This band was starting to have confidence and a “look,” something that Ron was always very conscious of. He said, “If my band is good-looking, that’ll bring the girls into the clubs…and sure enough the boys will follow.” Fred was a handsome man with a weathered complexion and a more mature, southern manner, old-fashioned in many ways and proud of it. Levon was the opposite. He looked young, shiny, and magnetic with his blond hair, gleaming smile, and highly contagious laugh. Ronnie himself always had a unique, sharp style. He looked the part, mischievous and dangerous in a lovable way—a lethal combination. Magoo had thick glasses creeping down his nose and a blind man’s smile. He looked a bit overly educated in Ronnie’s eyes, but he sure could rattle those ivories.
Ron saw me as more of a work in progress, but he went out on a limb and offered me the job. “I can see how hard you’re working, and you’re hungry,” he said. “I like that.”
“Great, thanks!” I gushed. “What’s the pay gonna be like?”
“Well, son,” he said, “you won’t make much money, but you’ll get more pussy than Frank Sinatra.”
A couple days later Ronnie announced that Harold “the Colonel” Kudlets, his booking agent, had called: we were booked for two weeks in London, Ontario, at the Brass Rail Tavern, then three weeks at Le Coq d’Or in Toronto. Ron liked playing up in Canada because the hours were easier and we made more money. This was exciting news: I’d be returning to my homeland a member of the Hawks. But nothing was certain: Magoo and I were still inexperienced Canadians trying to make it in a southern band, and Ron could boot us at any time. And while I was bangin’ it out on the bass for now, I was sleeping with my guitar.
As we packed up at the motel for the drive, Charlie Halbert came over to say good-bye. I told him that his Rainbow Court Inn had to be one of the hippest places ever. He patted me on my back all fatherly and said, “Well, you’re young and you ain’t been anywhere, but I’m sure the Hawk is getting ready to show you places you never dreamt of.”
Levon arranged our instruments in the trailer methodically so that nothing would get damaged. We had three Fender Bassman amps, the amp of choice around these parts, one each for Fred, Magoo, and me. Levon put his red sparkle Gretsch drums in their black cases inside the front of the trailer, the amps at the back, and the guitar and bass cases in the middle, and sat the suitcases on top. It made for a tight, secure fit. Our whole musical lifeline was back there in that trailer, hitched under the bumper with two safety chains to the back of Ronnie’s white Caddy.
Levon always took the first driving shift. He knew how to back that trailer full of instruments into tough spots and maneuver it in rain, sleet, and snow. That impressed me, mainly because I didn’t even know how to drive yet. And handling a huge ’59 DeVille with a heavy trailer on the back could be dangerous. We would move to pass a truck on a two-lane highway, see an oncoming vehicle up around the curve, and have to abort the pass. Ron would grab the dash and scold Levon, “Boy, I want to get to Canada alive. I ain’t into that James Dean shit.” Levon would just crack up.
Watching Ron and Levon, I could understand their bond. They had a strong friendship and connection, like Cisco and Pancho. Ron had discovered Levon when he was still in high school in the Delta, and had to wait until he’d graduated to hire him full-time. It was apparent to everyone who met him that Levon was special, and Ron saw the light immediately. Levon could play like fire, but more, he had personality. The two of them had a wonderful dependence on each other: Ron was the older brother and teacher, but Levon had special musical instincts that Ron totally relied on—Levon elevated Ronnie’s musicality. And they had developed their own rapport, based on a shared Arkansas sense of humor.
The idea of returning to Canada after a month down south seemed like a whole new program for me. I felt different on the inside and I looked different on the outside. Coming home was stirring up old memories.
—
My mother, Rosemarie Dolly Chrysler Myke Robertson, was born February 6, 1922, on the Six Nations Indian Reserve of the Grand River in southwestern Ontario, nestled between Lake Ontario to the east, Lake Erie toward the southwest, and the wide, beautiful flow of the Grand River on its northern border. Six Nations was then and still is the largest reserve of its kind in Canada, and the only one on which all six of the Haudenosaunee/Iroquois nations—Mohawk, Cayuga, Onondaga, Oneida, Seneca, and Tuscarora—live together.
My mother’s family was of Mohawk and Cayuga descent—could be some Irish snuck in there too, which she would speak of proudly on occasion. At school on the reserve, it was made perfectly clear to her that this was a white man’s country now, and being of native blood was no advantage. It was similar to the Carlisle Indian Industrial School in Pennsylvania, where they would take Indian kids from their homes, cut off their hair, and forbid them to speak their native tongue or practice any of their bloodline traditions. We heard the story of one kid at the Carlisle who was found in the bathroom trying to scrub the Indian off his skin with an iron bristle until he was raw. From a very early age I remember a phrase being quietly passed around among our relatives at Six Nations: “Be proud you are an Indian, but be careful who you tell.”
My mother was raised by her mother and grandparents. Her father, Mr. Chrysler, lived at Six Nations but wasn’t around much during her childhood. She remembered him as a good-looking man who sometimes came to visit, like a distant relative or drifter
. But my mother adored her grandfather. He was kind, caring, and understanding and told her he believed she was something special. My mother didn’t cherish much about her childhood on the reserve, except for playtimes with her cousins and school friends and those special moments with Grandpa Myke. He hunted and worked the land, and they lived by very simple means. They drank from a well, raised most of their own food, and had a strong basic connection with the earth.
When Rosemarie turned fifteen, her mother grew extremely ill and died soon after. This devastated her grandparents and broke up the family. Her younger brother Bun stayed on the reserve with their uncle Ferd and his family, but my mother was sent off to the city, to Toronto, where her mother’s sister Beatrice lived. Aunt Beatrice welcomed her, but in Toronto my mother would find no more schooling, only work. The move completely changed my mother’s world, but not for the worse. She took to city life naturally over the next few years. It helped that she was very pretty and could pass for a suntanned white woman.
She got a job working at Coro Jewelry, a gold- and silver-plating factory, and there she met James Patrick Robertson. She already knew his brother Albert, so they became easy friends and soon started going out. But war in Europe was brewing and soon it disrupted their lives—Jim Robertson joined the Canadian Army and shipped off to Newfoundland, ready to be deployed to Europe in the war effort. Dolly, as my mother was called for her strikingly pretty face and figure, began getting a lot of attention from gentleman admirers. But when Jim visited Toronto on leave, he and Dolly grew closer, and during those brief respites from his service, they would ponder the idea of someday getting married. He was twenty-three, she was twenty…and uncertain.
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