But there was something else besides talent and hard work that helped Robert change the way blues guitar was approached: he apparently had a eidetic memory. One of the keys to being a successful traveling musician was the ability to play whatever songs people requested. This usually meant performing a lot of standards as well as the latest hits of the day, and this never seemed to be a problem for Robert. Whatever song was asked of him he was always able to perform a version of it, if not a true note-for-note rendition. His ability to do so never failed to amaze those around him. “Robert was a man who could sit and talk to you like I’m talking to you now, and be listening to the radio at the same time,” Shines explained. “And whenever he got ready he’d play whatever he heard on that radio. Note for note, chord for chord, whether he knew the chord he was making, I don’t think he knew it, but they just fell on his fingers, you know? He did it. He played it and sing it. Whenever he got ready. He didn’t have to go for it a second time. I had to go for it a third time. But he didn’t. He could hear it one time and do it. In other words I think he had a photographic memory, he was way before his time or something like that.”16 Once, when Shines and Robert were sitting in a house in Arkansas with the windows open, a radio in the house next door was playing swing band music. Robert shocked Shines that night by playing several of the pieces that they both heard.17
Since Robert never spoke about his family or background, none of his musical acquaintances had any idea that he had received music lessons in school in Memphis, that his older stepbrother Charles had given him some lessons on the guitar and piano, that he literally got beatings for devoting his time to music instead of field work, that he had apprenticed with Ike Zimmerman, one of Mississippi’s finest guitarists, nor that he might have had an eidetic memory for music. To them he was just a natural genius. They had no idea of the hours, months, and years he had devoted to learning his craft. Instead, his contemporaries attributed his abilities to some unseen talent that none of them possessed.“He had a built in computer,” Shines said. “Everything he heard was there. All he had to do was punch the button…. Any kind he heard: Polka, Irish, Jewish, well, like ‘Stardust,’ ‘Danny Boy,’ ‘Willow Weep for Me.’ He’d play and put the hat down and people’d put money in it.”18
This ability went beyond simply memorizing blues songs, too. “Robert could play anything. He could play in the style of Lonnie Johnson, Blind Blake, Blind Boy Fuller, Blind Willie McTell, all those guys. And the country singer—Jimmie Rodgers. Robert used to play a hell of a lot of his tunes, man. Robert was good at ragtime, pop tunes, waltz numbers—shoot, a polka hound, man. Robert just picked songs out of the air. A whole lot of them things nobody else played with a slide, he played them with a slide. It was just natural to him.”19 Henry Townsend was similarly impressed with Robert’s prowess for just picking songs out of the air. “He didn’t ask nobody, How does it go? He just listened and done it. That was it.”20
Given Robert’s seemingly effortless abilities, it’s understandable that some people attributed his skills to supernatural forces. How else could one man be so good at so many different styles of playing? And Robert, as protective of his playing techniques as he was, was certainly not going to reveal any of his secrets to anyone. Townsend recalled, “When I first met Robert he would run from me when I would start watching him play. He didn’t appreciate that at all. None whatsoever. I don’t know how he did Honeyboy but he didn’t allow me to see him play, he’d turn his back on me. And if I got around in front of him on that side he’d turn his back on me. I didn’t get in front of him no more ’cause he’d walk off.”21 While Robert’s secrecy could be interpreted as simply not wanting to share his techniques, it also complemented his view of his songs as fixed compositions. Both stemmed from an acute self-awareness and protectiveness of his identity as a performer. Robert and Shines’s first encounter was short, only about three weeks, but it was long enough to forge a good enough relationship that they would meet and travel together again. It was also enough time for Shines to notice particulars of Robert’s personality, including one behavior that Eula Mae Williams had noticed a few years earlier. Robert wouldn’t say goodbye; whenever he was ready to go he just left quickly without any notice. “Well, Robert was a loner,” Shines bemoaned. “He didn’t care for the company of other people too much. You know he didn’t want people to get too close to him. And, uh, he would leave ya…. We was staying here in town [Helena] … and I looked around for Robert and Robert was gone.”22 As much as people tried to get to know him, something about Robert prevented him from sharing himself with anyone. Whether he was ashamed of his illegitimacy, still too hurt from Virginia’s death, and pained by his inability to create a life with Virgie and Claud, he never opened himself up to anyone. “Robert never talked about himself that much. He never talked about himself, his home life or anything like that to me,” said Johnny Shines, the man with whom Robert would spend more time than anyone else.23 “I didn’t know he had relatives. He never mentioned his people.”24
Robert’s secretive nature did nothing to eliminate any rumors that were developing about him, and it certainly didn’t help him win many close friends. But the one thing Robert would talk about was music. Shines said Robert admired few musicians, but that he highly respected another pair of Johnsons—Lonnie and perhaps Tommy. “As far as musicians he liked, he only mentioned the Johnsons, Lonnie Johnson and some other Johnson who was a good guitarist at that time. He often talked about Lonnie Johnson,” Shines said. “He admired his music so much that he would tell people he was one of the Johnson boys from Texas. He’d give people the impression that he was from Texas and was related to Lonnie Johnson.”25
But Robert didn’t have to be Lonnie Johnson. His records would soon be sold side-by-side with those of his hero throughout the South.
14
GOTTA KEEP MOVIN’, BLUES FALLIN’ DOWN LIKE HAIL
With the release of his songs, Robert became a proud young musician. He had a name now and had little trouble getting playing jobs in the centers that knew his music. And then there were the women. Although he never lacked for company before, women actively wanted to be with him now: he didn’t need to pursue them, especially not in a place like Memphis, where his recordings were easily heard on jukeboxes, people’s Victrolas, and on the radio. Robert was a local star.
In New York, Art Satherly realized that Robert had produced good sellers for Depression days. A company began to break even on its costs when a record sold five hundred copies, and Robert’s first records had more than done so. Wanting to quickly capitalize on that market, Satherly instructed Law to find Robert for another session. Robert had given Law his family’s address on Georgia Street in Memphis, and Johnny Shines confirmed that that was how he was found for his Dallas recording sessions.1 Robert received notification asking him to come to Dallas in June for the new session, during which the company would also be recording more selections by Western swing and Mexican groups. When Robert accepted by collect telegram, Law wired him a one-way ticket that was uncashable. Sending money, even to a known quantity like Robert, was frowned upon by record companies. Money could be spent and the artist could end up a no-show, but a ticket could only be used for one thing.
Elated by the opportunity to make more records, Robert bragged to anyone who would listen that he was going back to Texas to make more hits. That included Shines, with whom Robert reconnected in Memphis, giving him the exciting news and asking Shines to go with him. “I met [Robert] again in Memphis. That was my home and I wanted to be anywhere but there. So Robert was telling me about how he had to go to Dallas to make some records, and I told him ‘Let’s go,’ but he had a ticket and I didn’t.”2
Normally Robert would have traveled south from Memphis into the Delta and visited the rest of his kin throughout Mississippi, but Shines was afraid of that state because of its intense racism. Since Robert’s train ticket would have taken him through Misssissippi, they decided instead to hitch and hop train
s together through Arkansas as long as they could, and then Robert would use his ticket to go the remaining way. Shines was partly raised in Arkansas, and Robert had lived in Helena, so they made that town their first stop on their southwestern journey. From there they headed west to Little Rock and Hot Springs (about which Robert had already sang on record), then down to Highway 67 that took them all the way to Texarkana. Sitting on the border of Arkansas and Texas, Shines told Robert to use his ticket to finish his trip into Dallas and that he would remain behind playing whatever small towns he could find work in. He would meet Robert in a week or so in Red Water, Texas, only a dozen miles from Texarkana. The two musical partners separated and, in something of a coincidence, Robert arrived in Dallas during another celebratory week. The only two times he recorded—in San Antonio and Dallas—were each around a holiday. The year before, when he was in San Antonio, the state was celebrating the end of the Texas Centennial Year and Thanksgiving week. In Dallas, the African American community was enjoying several weeks of revelry surrounding Juneteenth.
That celebration recognized the abolition of slavery in Texas in June 1865. It also became known as Black Independence Day or Freedom Day, since it also marked the final official emancipation of slaves in the South. The 1937 activities in Dallas were especially extravagant and featured at least one nationally recognized black entertainer, Bill “Bojangles” Robinson. Both the Dallas Express and the Houston Informer advised black Texans throughout the state that Dallas was the place to be. The Houston Informer even ran a headline saying everyone should “Be in Dallas June ’Teenth.”3
A 1937 ad for Dallas Juneteenth Celebration. Dallas Express/ Bruce Conforth
Robert arrived on Friday, June 18, and found boarding in the section of Dallas known as Central Track, an area that went north from Elm Street (marking the section known as Deep Ellum) to the black community known as Freedmantown or Old North Dallas. Founded adjacent to Dallas proper after the Civil War, Freedmantown was an African American enclave where many black businesses and residences were located, and by the 1930s it was a thriving community that provided some respite from the harsh vagrancy laws that targeted freed blacks. Deep Ellum, originally developed as a low-scale commercial district with pawnshops and secondhand stores was, like Chicago’s Maxwell Street and Memphis’s Beale Street, populated by Anglos and Eastern European Jews who sold their goods to both blacks and whites. While Deep Ellum and Central Track were more racially mixed, most of Dallas was segregated and under heavy influence of the Ku Klux Klan.4 The pronunciation “Ellum” or “Elem” was a kind of syncretism of the pronunciation used by Jewish inhabitants and rural blacks who also populated the area. During the 1910s and 1920s blues musicians, including Blind Lemon Jefferson, Huddie “Lead Belly” Ledbetter, and Blind Willie Johnson, played on the sidewalks for tips, and barrelhouse blues pianists such as Alex Moore performed in cafes and houses of ill-repute sometimes along Central Track. Ella B. Moore’s Park Theatre hosted variety shows and the city blues of Bessie Smith and Lillian Glinn, among others. Years before Robert came to Dallas, Blind Lemon Jefferson had been discovered by Paramount’s J. Mayo Williams and brought to Chicago to record.
Because of its early heyday, Deep Ellum received more notoriety than Central Track, even though many consider them to be parts of the same neighborhood. Businesses on Central Avenue (Central Track) spread from the H&TC (Houston and Texas Central Railroad) tracks south to Main Street and even onto Elm Street (Deep Ellum). But in spite of this commonality, Deep Ellum became the focus of much romanticizing and misunderstanding. The WPA Federal Writer’s Project created The WPA Dallas Guide and History (unpublished as a book until five decades later) that was full of faulty, but colorful, information. It, along with the works of other authors, painted Deep Ellum as a place in which all manner of culture, both legal and illegal, could be found. Street prophets proclaiming the second coming allegedly mingled with hoodoo practitioners, pickpockets, and legitimate business owners. There, it was stated, you could find the goods to add to one’s appearance: clothiers, barbershops, and tattoo parlors. If you were in need of something more personal it boasted drugstores, prostitutes, and drug dealers. If you were short of money there was no dearth of pawnshops and loan offices. For sport there were domino and pool halls. And when you needed privacy there were many walk-up hotels that rented rooms by the hour, day, or week. Finally, it was claimed, if you ran afoul of the many scam artists, card sharks, or crap shooters who frequented its streets there were also the local gun shops.5
Dallas, 1937. Bruce Conforth
While only portions of this perception had validity, it was true that because of the more tolerant racial atmosphere and the musical culture, white string bands became influenced by black music and even sung about Deep Ellum. The hillbilly Shelton Brothers played on Dallas radio stations and had a major hit for Decca Records in 1936 with their “Deep Ellum Blues.”
When you go down in Deep Ellum, put your money in your shoes,
’Cause them women in Deep Ellum, sure take it ’way from you.
Oh, sweet mama, daddy got them Deep Ellum Blues.
Both Lead Belly and Blind Lemon Jefferson were known to perform the traditional song “Take a Whiff on Me” that addressed these deeds:
Walked up Ellum an’ I come down Main,
Tryin’ to bum a nickel jes’ to buy cocaine.
Ho, Ho, baby, take a whiff on me.
Although Jefferson sang about Deep Ellum, he never recorded “Take a Whiff on Me.” Much of Jefferson’s repertoire was rooted in oral tradition, and the songs he recorded were largely based on his experiences in East Texas. In Dallas, Jefferson performed at the corner Elm Street and Central Avenue in front of R. T. Ashford’s “shine parlor” and record store. Located at 408 North Central Avenue, Ashford’s business catered to African Americans, many of whom worked in downtown Dallas. The young pianist Sammy Price brought Jefferson to Ashford’s attention. Like H. C. Speir, in the 1920s and early ’30s Ashford sent numerous musicians to Paramount, Victor, and Brunswick/Vocalion. Of these, Lemon Jefferson was unquestionably his most successful find.
Gypsy Tea Room. Dallas Public Library
By the 1930s, however, Deep Ellum was changing and the black population was being pushed toward Central Avenue and even further north. By the time Robert arrived, Deep Ellum had become largely a collection of pawnshops and secondhand stores. There were no nightclubs in which to hear the blues, and Central Track would have been where he was able to get lodging and food and to prepare himself for his Saturday recording session. The makeshift Vocalion recording studio was located on the third floor of 508 Park Avenue, about ten blocks away from Deep Ellum.
Central Track, and what was left of the culture of Deep Ellum must have seemed to Robert quite similar to the Beale Street environs he had known in Memphis. The daytime hustling and the nighttime partying were old friends of his. As he walked along North Central Avenue, the familiar smells of collard greens, chitlins, pork chops, barbecued beef, catfish, and beer must have filled the air. And also like Beale Street, the black section of Dallas had practitioners of hoodoo who sold the local handmade tobys—mojo bags—and conjures juju doctors. Although flawed in some respects, the WPA Writer’s Project documentation of these practices was testimony to the prevalence that these beliefs were important not only in providing additional context to the currency of such beliefs during Robert’s life and culture but could help explain several references he made in his lyrics during the Dallas sessions.6
The songs Robert recorded during those days in Dallas were very different in style, tone, and message than his San Antonio recordings. Robert had changed a great deal over the last eight months. When he entered the 508 Park Avenue studio that Saturday morning he was equipped with songs that were even more autobiographical and introspective than those of his San Antonio sessions. His entrance, however, would have been uncomfortably familiar to his sessions at the Gunter Hotel in San Antonio the year before. Like the whites-only hot
el where he was required to enter through the rear of the building, the extreme racism of Dallas would have again required him avoid the front, and public, entrance.
An imposing Zigzag Moderne building, 508 Park was built in 1929 as the Vitagraph/Warner Brothers Exchange Building. The first floor was devoted to film vaults from which Vitaphone (short subjects and cartoons), First National Pictures (contemporary comedies, dramas and crimes), and Warner Brother Pictures (motion pictures and musicals) were stored and distributed. The second floor housed offices, and the third floor (ultimately used as a makeshift recording studio) was open storage. The building also housed accommodations for executives and visiting movie stars.7 Remnants of recording efforts on the third floor could still recently be seen from the outline of an enclosure on the floor and rusty nails on window cornices used to hang heavy burlap to deaden the sound.8
Robert still relied on the four musical styles he favored: the open-tuned bottleneck style dependent upon a signature riff and prevalent on pieces such as “Terraplane Blues” and “Cross Road Blues”; the standard-tuned straight blues such as “Kind Hearted Woman Blues” and “Dead Shrimp Blues”; the boogie bass beat songs such as “I Believe I’ll Dust My Broom” and “Sweet Home Chicago”; and his hokum and East Coast–style pieces such as “They’re Red Hot.” But in Dallas he fit these musical styles with a new type of lyrics.
Up Jumped the Devil Page 16