The Blues-Part 2-Discovering The Real Deal

From White Boy Blues To The Originals

Robert Johnson

1957 was the year I decided to jump out and spread my little wings and check out what was rolling on planet Earth. Elvis was all shook up, Little Richard was looking for Lucille, Sam Cooke was being sent and Jerry Lee Lewis, well he just had great balls of fire.

All of this music was leaking into my little ears and that was the birth of rock and roll for me. It coloured my world because it certainly seemed like the radio was on non-stop. As I got older I started to see these people on the black and white TV and I was captivated.

Albert King

Born too young to be a rockabilly greaser, which I am sure I would have ended up being if I had been a teen in the year I was born. That’s a weird thought anyway, imagine being physically born as a teen. The complications and computations are endless.

Freddie King

Some jazz slipped in, rock reigned supreme and some pop and the constant hum of the transistor alerted me to new forms of music. At first, I was deep into rock and roll, but then the songwriters on albums from the Rolling Stones, Beatles, and others clued me into something more profound. These bands were covering some artists that I then found in the record racks. There was no internet search engine. We learned from books and the radio.

BB King

These blues gods were from the South or maybe Chicago and they were black.

Now in my neck of Long Island, with over 1500 kids in my junior/ senior high school, there were 3 or 4 people of colour that I recall. Not 3 in my class, 3 in the entire school.

The Fair Housing Act of 1968 legally prohibited discrimination when it came to renting and selling properties.

John Lee Hooker

Laws are written but members of society always find a way around them.

Long Island was so white that when I was a young boy the most exotic gentleman I came in contact with was Willie. Now, Willie, he worked at the Shell Station in my hometown. He had a deep southern accent, he may have been from Mississippi, and I just loved to hear him talk. Willie looked like he had lived a hard workingman’s life. But back in the day when it was full service and check your oil, pump your gas and clean your windows, his style and demeanor made a young boy smile.

The Man….Muddy Waters

I wanted to know more about this man, but I was too shy and young to enter that conversation.

Long Island, the geographic island that makes up the 4 counties of Brooklyn, Queens, Nassau, and Suffolk is a melting pot.  Brooklyn and Queens may be more of a true mix of races and ethnic groups. To this day, Nassau, and Suffolk, which most people call The Island, is still one of the most segregated places you can reside.

Slim Harpo

Chew on this data from 2022:

Long Island has 291 communities

Most of its black residents live in just 11.

Laws change but real estate practices and zoning laws are like fences.

From the planned white communities of Levittown to 2023, we certainly have not come that far.

Racism was hushed or someone said “Don’t say that” when I was a kid if someone made a remark that was just not right. You knew in your heart and soul we were all the same. We all bleed red. But the undertones were never far away.

Rev. Gary Davis

Living in Australia and paying close attention to our societal makeup, I am not sure how progressive we are when it comes to our racism.

The only way to be progressive with racial bigotry is to stamp it out.

Some of this gives me the Blues.

Previously, I had given you a playlist of some white rockers who turned me onto the Blues. As I shook off my racial stereotype and learned more about music, these are the first bluesmen I discovered when I was a teen.

There was a period in my life when I was riding the Blues Highway all the time. I could not get enough of it. Blues festivals, discovering new blues artists, and delving deeper into collections of all the great masters. More to come in another piece on some of my favourite blues artists over the decades.

Enjoy.

And remember, be it your sister, be it your brother, or your lover, if you have a racist friend, now is the time, for that friendship to end.

Love one another. We all need each other and we all need love.