tag:barrelhousebonni.com,2005:/blogs/blog?p=2Blog2022-03-24T21:05:54-05:00Barrelhouse Bonnifalsetag:barrelhousebonni.com,2005:Post/69314272022-03-24T21:05:54-05:002023-10-16T09:56:34-05:00Doing What you Can, One Day at a Time<p>Something told me, that morning in May 2021, I shouldn't have gone out for a third trip on the bike. The boy's bicycle with a straight bar was intended to fit my partner, not me. With my gimpy right hip, I could barely swing my leg over the bar, and my body was saying “Tired. Take a rest.” </p>
<p>I want to go, I said. I pulled my leg over the bar and started down the street. To stop, I braked and put my left foot down. But now I couldn't lift my weary right leg over the bar, nor lean on it to lift my left leg either. The bike started rolling out from under me. I lost control and fell abruptly on my behind. Down came the bike, on top of me. I didn't need to ask, “God, why did this happen to me?” Ruefully I beheld the lesson: a hairline compression fracture in one of my vertebrae. </p>
<p>Luckily, my legs still worked. Painfully, over weeks, I learned to roll out of bed, dress, cook, hobble around the apartment, down the stairs, and along the street. Compared to those who've lost jobs or suffer from serious, costly ills, I wasn't that bad off. I just would have to slow down. </p>
<p>I did not want to slow down. Family movies show me as a toddler, flapping my arms to say “let's go, let's go!” Energy was my lifelong gift, and impatience the sin that tagged along. Thanks to personal foolishness, the Creator took part of my energy away. “But don't worry,” God said. “I am fair and also generous. I will give you different gifts.” </p>
<p>“I don't see the gift in this,” I grumped to my partner. All I could see was my loss. I could not lug music equipment or play the piano for more than an hour, so I couldn't well play on stage. Gone were my fresh-air wheels to tool around the neighborhood. Walking is still painful and difficult, as is sitting for long stretches of writing on the computer. </p>
<p>Whether trying chiropractic, physical therapy, massage therapy, or exercise on my own, I get little reminders from God: PATIENCE. Think before you move. Be content to do what you can, and rest when you're tired. </p>
<p>I've had to cooperate more with Nature and the Creator. Because I've had to plan ahead more, what I manage to do now often turns out better. </p>
<p>I still miss my years of flash-and-dash. But I'm grateful for the abilities God still gives me. I do what I can do. One day at a time.</p>Barrelhouse Bonnitag:barrelhousebonni.com,2005:Post/67189562021-08-16T22:31:38-05:002022-03-02T11:10:57-06:00Now Helping Writers Develop and Polish their work with Editing!<p>After a lifetime of writing, I'm now helping other writers edit their work. <a contents="Email me" data-link-label="" data-link-type="email" href="mailto:bonni@barrelhousebonni.com" style="">Email me</a> if you want me to take a look at your memoir, essay, short story, novel-- even your bio and how you present yourself. (No porn or extreme violent material--enough of that!) Rates are $25-35 an hour, based on word counts, total job quoted before we start. How does editing work? See this<img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/427567/e3966a8181918d43a43ba3eb4429805614d9751e/original/bonni-mck-mug-from-duke-dedication-2016-12.jpeg/!!/meta:eyJzcmNCdWNrZXQiOiJiemdsZmlsZXMifQ==/b:W1sic2l6ZSIsInNtYWxsIl1d.jpeg" class="size_s justify_right border_none" alt="" />: <a contents="What's an Editor Do" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://www.janefriedman.com/comprehensive-guide-to-finding-working-with-editors/" target="_blank">What's an Editor Do</a>?</p>
<p>CLICK and read FURTHER to see recommendations from people who've found that my editing services helped them in their writing.</p>Barrelhouse Bonnitag:barrelhousebonni.com,2005:Post/66176072021-04-29T21:54:30-05:002022-05-11T07:08:28-05:00West Side Blues & Culture Center in Laramie Bank Building?<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/427567/b1aaa9c277346abf82dfe91268afc16a4331789d/original/larbank-bvm-closeup-selfie-2021-4.jpg/!!/b:W10=.jpg" class="size_l justify_center border_" />In March 2021, , Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot announced plans to redevelop the historic Laramie Citizens Bank building at the corner of Chicago Avenue and Laramie. It will offer housing, business and culture through the neighborhood program Invest South and West. An easy ride on Bus 66 along the designated Chicago Avenue “Soul City” business corridor, this striking popular landmark can draw both locals and visitors. If carried out in a thoughtful and inclusive manner, the Laramie bank project can truly benefit the economy and morale of West Side residents as we recover from personal and economic losses of COVID 19. </p>
<p>Oak Park Housing Center and its affiliate Austin Alliance offered the winning bid for the building redevelopment. Their <a contents="presentation" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://youtu.be/R-uTOEjiovs" target="_blank">presentation</a> included plans for a “blues museum.”</p>
<p>We brought up the idea of blues and soul as a local cultural asset in a series of <a contents="public meetings in 2017" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="http://austintalks.org/2017/06/west-siders-look-to-turn-blues-heritage-into-tourist-attraction/" target="_blank">public meetings in 2017</a> at Crystal Dyer's Gone Again Travel office.</p>
<p>Worldwide, blues fans respect the West Side for its deep-rooted blues music, brought directly from the South by Black workers. Prior to that, a white/Jewish West Side jazz history dates back to the Benny Goodman days of the 1920s and 30s and the Austin High School bands. An early 20th century Jewish migration from the Maxwell Street area to North Lawndale was followed by the post-WW II Great African-American Migration. North Lawndale, Garfield Park and Austin hosted a thriving music scene with dozens neighborhood lounges along the Madison, Chicago, Division and Roosevelt east-to-west main business streets. Howlin' Wolf performed in many dens on the West Side. Otis Clay, Otis Rush, Tyrone Davis, Eddie Taylor, Artie Blues Boy White, Taildragger, Jimmy Dawkins and many other talented artists made their mark here. The Delta Fish Market, an indoor outdoor eatery and stage, carried this southern-born blues legacy into the 1990s. </p>
<p>As the West Side suffered economic decline and disinvestment, its music and culture declined. West Side history, musical and otherwise, has been neglected and under-documented in the common narrative of Black Chicago. This leaves West Siders feeling undervalued and under-validated. Cultural groups have lately begun addressing this gap, but there is no museum or cultural/history space yet devoted to the West Side. We need to reinvigorate neighborhood music, history and culture for the benefit of West Side residents, including those of limited means, and for the delight of visitors.</p>
<p>A “West Side Blues and Culture Center”at the Laramie bank building could emphasize living nature of music and culture, and welcome ongoing neighborhood participation. </p>
<p>As part of the Austin Alliance proposal, exhibitor Gregg Parker's “Chicago Blues Museum” has offered an attractive, well-prepared collection of photos highlighting Muddy Waters and other world-known Chicago blues artists. This display would serve as a good introduction for visitors. </p>
<p>Several people interested in West Side blues and soul music history are offering to help compile an additional exhibit of photos and artifacts which directly represent West Side blues and soul musicians and locations. General West Side history can be shown in local photos, paintings and interpretation cards about Black Panthers, early Austin High jazz, photos of area industries, sports, churches, schools. Much history remains to be unearthed from neighbors' attics and basements. </p>
<p><a contents="Maxwell Street Foundation" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="http://maxwellstreetfoundation.org/" target="_blank">Maxwell Street Foundation</a>, a 501c3 educational group dedicated to the history of the Near West Side street market, birthplace of electric blues, is looking to exhibit some of their artifacts including <a contents="Maxwell Street Blues Bus" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://blockclubchicago.org/2021/03/02/fore-decades-the-blues-bus-was-a-musical-staple-of-maxwell-street-its-time-to-bring-it-back-to-chicago-group-says/" target="_blank">Maxwell Street Blues Bus</a>, from which Rev. John Johnson sold records. The bus has been damaged and the Foundation is looking to restore part of it to exhibitable condition.</p>
<p>A community learning space, and a small indoor performance venue, would bring arts and music education, and live music including blues to the Laramie bank building. <a contents="Chicago Blues Revival" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://www.facebook.com/ChicagoBluesRevival/" target="_blank">Chicago Blues Revival</a>, </p>
<p>a 501c3 nonprofit that brings blues bands to perform in neighborhoods, offers expertise and assistance with performance space planning and music programming. </p>
<p>The Austin Alliance proposal video mentions that the bank building would be governed by a board to be formed from West Side citizens. The housing part would be run by Heartland. </p>
<p>Alders Emma Mitts, 37th Ward, and Chris Taliaferro, 29th ward, have a hand in appointing the citizens board, according to Athena Williams, executive director for Oak Park Housing Center and head of the Austin Alliance. </p>
<p>Chicago's<a contents=" Austin Chamber of Commerce" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://chicagoaustinchamber.com/" target="_blank"> Austin Chamber of Commerce</a>, which recently reorganized with Tina Gulley Augustus as acting executive director, is monitoring the Laramie bank redevelopment as it unfolds. </p>
<p>Everyone's support is appreciated for a Laramie Bank Building project result that truly offers West Side Blues and culture.</p>Barrelhouse Bonnitag:barrelhousebonni.com,2005:Post/66129952021-04-24T18:31:40-05:002021-04-24T18:31:40-05:00Bonni Reviews books<p>Barrelhouse Bonni's continuing education continues! For 2020-21 she's digging into books on anti-racism, humanity and nature. Read some of her reviews via Goodreads: <a contents="" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://www.goodreads.com/user/show/87884768-bonni-mckeown" target="_blank">https://www.goodreads.com/user/show/87884768-bonni-mckeown</a></p>Barrelhouse Bonnitag:barrelhousebonni.com,2005:Post/65121642021-01-02T11:15:20-06:002021-01-02T11:15:20-06:00Bonni's 2020 year end report and THANKS <p>A big THANK YOU to everyone who donated in 2020 to keep the boogie going . thanks to you I'm on track to have my novel edited (see "Chicago Blues Plantation" below, and be ready for musical opportunities. Read my year end report /fundraiser to catch up <a contents="HERE" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://barrelhousebonni.com/campaigns/659824" style=""><strong>HERE</strong></a></p>Barrelhouse Bonnitag:barrelhousebonni.com,2005:Post/65010792020-12-16T15:48:21-06:002021-04-24T14:56:11-05:00New Novel in the works: DELTA SONG<p><strong>DELTA SONG </strong></p>
<p>A Novel under construction by Bonni McKeown </p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>Chapter 1: Two Brothers </strong></p>
<p style="text-align: right;"><em>Marcus Sr., Mississippi Delta, October 1948 </em></p>
<p>Saturdays in October, the cotton bosses paid off. Marcus Manning and his younger brother Luther, guitars strapped across their backs, headed to Rendell to cash in. Just in their teens, the Manning brothers had built a musical reputation around the Delta. People pointed them out—Marcus, the tall, dark and rangy one; Luther, shorter, more rounded, a little lighter. </p>
<p>“Sure easier to pick a guitar string than that damned prickly cotton,” Luther said as they plodded the dusty road from the family’s four-room white frame tenant house toward the crossroads. </p>
<p>Marcus kicked a stone with the toe of his new sneaker. Back in the summer, they were still walking barefoot, having outgrown last year’s shoes. “You got that right,” he said. “Lotta hard work for practically nothin.’” </p>
<p>Secretly Marcus felt proud he could pick nearly 100 pounds of cotton, ignoring the burning sun and prickly bolls, and stuff it in a sack in just a few hours. But he saw no future here. The Delta soil in northwest Mississippi was rich, and cotton was in demand, but the Black elders had nothing to show for years of work except stiff bones. Sharecropping was only a step above slavery. Plantation owners promised tenants a share in the proceeds of the crop, but the market price, and the share, always seemed to fall short. Good thing the Manning family knew how to raise a garden, skin a rabbit, catch a fish. Country folks can survive. </p>
<p>Both Manning brothers had finished eighth grade, more schooling than most. One day when Marcus had ridden his bike over to the Clarksdale train station on an errand for his mother, a brakeman had handed him a copy of the Defender, a Colored newspaper from Chicago. It was full of ads wanting people to work in factories up North. The brakeman told him, “You oughta jump on the train and go, son. Go to Chicago, Detroit. Make you a lot of money.” </p>
<p>As the road turned into hot black asphalt close to Rendell, he heard Luther grumble, “I wish Mama and Daddy hadna spent all our cotton money. I told them I wanted a pair-a good shoes. Something to look proper in a show.” </p>
<p>“Me myself, I’m kinda glad they fixed the roof and bought us a refrigerator,” Marcus said. “You don’t see they got five more kids to worry about? ‘Sides, you be doing all right on your own. Always got a pocket of money. You’ll get them fancy shoes some ways. Real soon, if I know you.” </p>
<p>Luther chuckled, not disagreeing. They trudged on three or four miles, passing flat, gray-brown fields with their green, white-flecked rows of cotton. Then he said, “Well bro, how much you plan on making today? You know we only have one more weekend before cotton season be over.” </p>
<p>“I’d like to take home, like, ten dollars. That’ll get me a good strong guitar case. Put some in my jar toward a car,” said Marcus. </p>
<p>“Around our house? You better hide that jar,” Luther ribbed. </p>
<p>“No one in our family ever stole my money from it, not yet.” </p>
<p>“Just wait. People always be after money when the pile get big enough. Me, I’m gonna up the ante. I’ll go for fifteen. And spend it before anyone find it.” </p>
<p>They could hear Rendell before they could see it-- the crossroads where two thousand-acre plantations came together. Car engines cranked, wagons rumbled, mules brayed. Saturdays in cotton harvest season, the two-block main street turned into an African market bazaar, straight out of Marcus’s geography book. Truck farmers called out from wagons and pickups: “Sweet potatoes! Corn! Greens! Eggs!” </p>
<p>Newly-paid field workers and sharecroppers were happy to tip a nickel or dime if you could sing their favorites with a feeling. Both brothers knew dozens of blues and popular country songs. Coins would soon pile up in their hats and tin cups. </p>
<p>Pointing to the biggest group of potential tippers clustered around the general store, Luther declared, “I’m-a play down there.” </p>
<p>Marcus set up his own guitar spot outside the same weigh shed where the Manning family had brought their wagonloads of cotton the week before. As sharecroppers got paid for their loads, some stopped to listen and give him a little tip. </p>
<p>After two hours his fingers grew numb, and he went inside to take a break. The shed’s three corrugated metal walls and roof kept the sacks of cotton dry, but it felt no cooler than outdoors to the waiting line of sharecroppers. Black and white, they all dressed like Marcus in straw hats and blue denim overalls. As he leaned against a table in the corner, Marcus saw a wiry old farmer, a shade or two darker than himself, emerge at the front of the line. Squinting through thick cataracts in his eyes, the old man coughed and mopped his forehead with a faded blue bandana as he unloaded a cotton bale onto the scale. </p>
<p>Marcus could clearly read the numbers as the old farmer stood waiting, sweat now pouring down his face. Almost ancient enough to have claimed his freedom during the Civil War, here the man was working hard like a youngster, still not getting paid right. The weighmaster, a stout white man with a sour, grizzled square face, called out, “76 pounds.” </p>
<p>“Hey,” Marcus heard his own voice say. “Sir, I think that says 86 pounds.” </p>
<p>The old farmer looked at the ground and shifted his weight to one foot. He looked like he wanted to run away. All the other sharecroppers’ eyes followed the weighmaster’s glare as it landed on Marcus-- guitar star with the big mouth. </p>
<p>Marcus looked silently at the scale, then at the ground. He’d heard the stories of Colored people being whipped, even shot, trying to claim what they were rightfully owed. But the numbers didn’t lie. Eighty-six pounds. The definite number gave him strength. He stood quiet, feeling a cool spiritual breeze at his back. He did not need to say anything more. </p>
<p>The weighmaster stared again at the scale. “Uh, it’s 80 pounds,” he conceded. Still lying, but a better lie. </p>
<p>The old man’s face lit up as he held out his hand for the just-enlarged small handful of cash. The other farmers exchanged their looks in silence. </p>
<p>The square-faced weighmaster called no one to move against Marcus. “Boy, you standin’ in the way,” he growled. “Take that guitar outside, and don’t let me see your face back in here.” </p>
<p>Marcus shouldered his tan-colored Sears guitar and weaved through the crowd of people, cars, wagons and mules in search of a new guitar spot. At the general store he found Luther, finishing up a song: “Fannie Mae, baby will you please come home…” </p>
<p>“I told the truth,” he recounted the story to Luther. “They put me out the weigh shed.“ </p>
<p>“Fool.” said Luther. “Boy, for a big brother, you a Bi-ig fool! Next time they ain’t just gonna put you out, they gonna punch you out." </p>
<p>Indeed I am a big fool, thought Marcus. To think my brother might be proud of me getting that old Pops a few extra dollars. But maybe he is right. A big risk for a very small victory. But that man was lying about the weight and stealing from people. And he'd keep right on with his tricks if no one spoke up. </p>
<p>He continued to ponder as Luther gave him a sneering look, picked up his guitar, and began to walk away. "Just play here at the store. I’ll go someplace else.” </p>
<p>Marcus looked around at the handful of people outside the store. They stood around and pointed to his guitar. They were waiting for songs, but Luther's comments had made him feel too foolish to even open his mouth. </p>
<p>He tried clearing his throat, lifted his guitar, and took a breath. “I got the blues,” he willed himself to sing. His guitar trilled a few notes in response and then stopped. What was he going to sing for the next line? </p>
<p>“Well, everybody here got the blues,” a woman wisecracked. </p>
<p>But she had to step back. Words began to flow from Junior's mouth, almost to his own surprise, forming with a familiar tune. Making up a blues verse was easy. Think of a problem or situation for your first line, repeat it in the seccond line, and by that time you could think up a third line with a rhyme. </p>
<p>“I got the cotton pickin’ blues, </p>
<p>I got the cotton pickin’ blues, </p>
<p>Headin’ north to Chicago, Windy City the place I choose. </p>
<p>Gonna board the mornin’ train, </p>
<p>Gonna board the mornin’ train, </p>
<p>Gonna ride the Illinois Central, pickin’ cotton all in vain…” </p>
<p>Judging from the rain of nickels and dimes into his cap on the ground in front of him , the people liked his new song. Marcus began to feel better. </p>
<p>Later that afternoon, he took another break and walked back up from the store to the weigh station. There, in his old spot, he found his brother flailing his guitar as the boisterous crowd hollered for more songs: “Liza Jane!” “Comin’ round the Mountain!” “Saturday night fish fry!” </p>
<p>Luther’s pockets now bulged with nickels, dimes and quarters. Back at the company store, the brothers traded their coins for crinkly greenback dollars. The weighing now done, people lounged on the store porch. Some of the men passed around a jug of moonshine. Kids hung from the railings while their mamas carried their purchases, sacks of sugar, flour and cornmeal. They gossiped and munched on hotdogs, candy, soda pop and ice cream until Mr. Cleve Hanson, the plantation owner, got ready to close the place. Some kept the party going on the street. They wanted more music. </p>
<p>“Why don’t we play together?” Marcus suggested. But Luther wanted to split up again and compete for the money. He held his guitar upright on the ground, staking a personal spot in front of the store. </p>
<p>Marcus crossed the street. The crowd was smaller there, but he had a good feeling someone would like his music. Sure enough, a woman in a bright green head wrap came dragging her main squeeze by the hand, a tall man with reddish hair. </p>
<p>“Play us a grinding song. Wendell and me, we wanna dance!” </p>
<p>Marcus, tired from playing all day, drew a blank. What song did he know about grinding? He could only think of coffee— one thing people had been buying all day at the store. He loved the smell when his mama perked it in their tiny kitchen at home. Words began to form, to a tune he’d heard the blues elders sing. </p>
<p>“Grind my coffee, grind my coffee all night long,” he sang. </p>
<p>“Man, you too young to grind coffee,” Wendell looked at Marcus with just a hint of a grin. </p>
<p>“Oh, you don’t know about the young fellas these days,” his lady bantered back. She grabbed Wendell’s waist and put her hips right next to him. They swayed back and forth, up and down. </p>
<p>Another couple joined them and the crowd gathered tighter as Marcus finished the line, “You can grind my black coffee, til I can’t do no wrong.” Laughs and cheers. Tips flew into his hat. </p>
<p>“Where you get that coffee song?” quizzed Wendell’s woman in the green head wrap, who introduced herself as Margaret. Several of her family had joined the group, all laughing and smiling. </p>
<p>“Uh, I made it up, just now,” said Marcus. “Part of it I heard somewhere, part of it just came into my head.” </p>
<p>“That is one ba-ad blues tune!” said Wendell. </p>
<p>“We gettin’ married in two weeks,” said Margaret. “Havin’ a party. I want you to come and play us some songs.” </p>
<p>“Yay! I wanna hear more songs!” called a bright-eyed schoolgirl in long pigtails and a pink and yellow flour-sack dress, a younger version of Margaret. </p>
<p>“This my baby sister GloryAnna,” said Margaret. “When she want something, she keep talking til she get her way.” </p>
<p>“Babygirl, I think you got a good idea,” Marcus said. He playfully yanked little Glory's pigtail and she blushed under her chocolate-brown skin. </p>
<p>Margaret told Marcus the address for the party. “Rolling Creek Road, last house on the right. We got stilts on the house ‘cause it next to the swamp. When it rains hard, we just throw out our lines and catch fish off the porch.” </p>
<p>Marcus looked around the crowd, feeling a second musical wind from the sisters' vote of confidence. He started a one-chord pattern on his bass strings and built up to an insistent boogie. </p>
<p>“Hey-hey-hey hey!” he sang, voice growing hoarse. “Gonna boogie, gonna boogie, all night long!” Folks stopped their conversations, put down shopping sacks, and began to clap their hands and stomp their feet. An old man nodded his head in approval. An old woman smiled as she patted her feet. Young people formed into couples and circles, leaping and bumping and grinding. “All night long!” </p>
<p>As the music wound down and the crowd broke up, a few of the moonshine drinkers burst out from under a tree. They staggered and swore, not wanting to leave. Hanson shooed them away as he locked the store, grumbling, “Yall hangin’ around like a bunch of damn flies!” </p>
<p>Marcus picked up the tips in his cup. He told Margaret, Wendell and Glory good night and looked for his brother to walk home. They had promised their mother they'd leave before dark when things could get wild. </p>
<p>As they set out for the moonlit road, Luther asked, “How much you make today?” </p>
<p>Marcus’s face fell as he pictured the face of the old farmer whose cotton the weighmaster had under-counted. </p>
<p>Luther read his mind, “Why you open your mouth about that man’s cotton weight? Don’t you know, it’s good business to keep quiet? Go along, get along. That’s my motto.” </p>
<p>Marcus said, “My big mouth paid off some way. Squareface had to give the old fella a few more dollars for his cotton. And oh, I still did all right for myself. Made me some new friends. Got ten dollars, enough for my new guitar case and some more to save in my jar. Couple more left over for Mama and Daddy.” </p>
<p>“Well, I ain’t givin’ nothin to nobody,” Luther said. “I made sixteen dollar by myself, I’m-a keepin’ it all.” </p>
<p>“The way I see, it ain’t all by ourself,” said Marcus. “God is what give us our music. Give it to our mama and daddy, and they passed it down to us.” </p>
<p>“Goody two-shoes, that what you is,” Luther spat. “If there’s a God, he ain’t payin’ much attention to stuff here on earth. Can’t nobody get ahead being nice.” </p>
<p>Marcus’s voice was tired. So were his feet. He had no energy left to dispute, and Luther was walking on ahead with no energy to listen. </p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>Chapter 2: Up the Mississippi </strong></p>
<p style="text-align: right;"><em>Glory </em></p>
<p style="text-align: right;"><em>Mississippi Delta 1958 </em></p>
<p>“Be good. I’ll see you real soon.” GloryAnna Manning kissed her new husband Marcus at the Clarksdale train station as three year old Marcus Manning Junior watched. For over four years, they’d gathered money, determination and wits to start their own household. It would be in Chicago, not Mississippi. You could more money working for a week in the city than a whole year of sharecropping a farm in the Delta. </p>
<p>Tall, long legged Marcus had driven them from Rendell in a wagon drawn by Mel, the Hanson plantation’s most dependable mule. They stood on the platform next to a heavy suitcase and an olive green duffel bag. In two weeks, Marcus would have a car to bring all their things. She was leaving early to help her older sister Margaret, who’d broken her leg. </p>
<p>“You be good, your own self,” she semi-scolded Marcus. “Don’t spend up all your money at Jukin’ Joe’s. And watch out for that crazy Zelda woman.” Zelda, the head waitress at Joe’s, was always chasing after Marcus, even after he’d made his choice clear. </p>
<p>“I’m playin’ there to make money, not spend money.” Marcus Sr. held up her hand, with its shiny gold ring, and kissed it. Gotta make every dime I can here, I’ll need it for gas for the trip. Don’t you worry about Zelda neither. She ain’t nothin’ to me.” </p>
<p>She teased Marcus to avoid showing her nerves. “Well, my relations gonna keep an eye on you. Just like they been keepin’ all their eyes on me. Don’t tell nobody, but I be glad to get away from ‘em.” </p>
<p>She watched Junior look wide-eyed up and down the platform. This was going to be a big new world for him. People on the move, mostly with dark skins like himself, many of the men in overalls and women in the same loose skirts they used to pick cotton in the fields, carrying their sacks and suitcases. Glory had put on one of her slimmer skirts, ankle socks and saddle shoes. She wanted to get used to city clothes. </p>
<p>Marcus Sr. put his arm across Glory’s shoulders and talked serious. “Tell Margaret I hope her leg gets better soon. I know she needs you now. I really do appreciate her putting us up. Tell her we ain’t gonna be moochers and stay too long.” </p>
<p>“l tell her. She say I won’t have no problem finding us an apartment. I’ll get domestic work. I guess the music and the factory job, you just have to find for yourself.” </p>
<p>“Don’t worry. Soon as Mr. Hanson pay me for our share of the crop this week, my cousin gonna sell me his car and I’ll load up and start rolling up the 61 Highway.” </p>
<p>He picked up his fast-sprouting son and rubbed his head. “Junior, we be getting you some fine new clothes. You be good and help your mother out til I get there.” </p>
<p>Glory watched Junior look into his father’s eyes, a mirror of his own. Dark brown, like chocolate. Full of sunshine. Full of bright future. “Okay,” Junior said. </p>
<p>“Whoooo!” The whistle was Junior’s cue to wriggle out of his father’s arms and dash toward the track. He leaped and shouted. “Train! Train!” </p>
<p>“Junior, you get back here!” Glory yelled. That engine big! It’s hot! You’ll get hurt!” </p>
<p>Junior let her grab his hand. Hissing to a stop in the Clarksdale station, the smoking, huffing Illinois Central steam engine didn’t seem to scare him. The rhythm of the drive wheel reached out and grabbed him. Chuff! Chuff!. The engine bell clanged. The boy waved at the smiling fireman in the striped cap who had begun to shovel more coal into the barrel of the engine. The fireman’s skin was even darker than Junior’s, as black as the coal. </p>
<p>Marcus set the suitcase on the baggage cart and handed Glory the heavy, olive-drab duffel bag—the one her brother had brought home from World War II. “Be there in no time! I love you,” he said, and kissed Glory. </p>
<p>Glory felt a wave of love and fear. Fear she’d never see the sweet man again. How could that be, when he stood smiling at her? She was afraid to kiss him again; she might fall apart and start bawling in the middle of the platform. She gave Marcus a brave smile, grabbed Junior’s hand and helped him up the steps into the train. “Come on big boy! We goin’ to Chicago!” </p>
<p>“All aboard!” called the conductor, and the engineer pulled the steam whistle: Toot, toot. They found a pair of seats in the “Colored” car. As the train pulled out, they looked out the window and saw Marcus, standing next to Mel and the wagon. She blew him a kiss. Junior watched his father and Mel and the station shrink in the distance and vanish. </p>
<p>Warned about the whites-only diner, Glory had wrapped a round of freshly baked skillet cornbread in tin foil and stuffed it in the duffel bag, along with a peck of fresh peaches. The Colored car smelled of fried chicken and potato salad; many others had packed their dinners. She traded a peach and a piece of cornbread to the older gentleman across the aisle, in exchange for a slice of sweet potato pie which Junior quickly devoured. </p>
<p>As she wiped the pie off her son’s face, the old gent asked, “You going North? Now they got machines to pick cotton, there’s more work up there than down here. Without so much of the yassah boss.” </p>
<p>“That about right,” she said. “My husband and I, we wanna get away from all this mess. He play guitar, say there be a lot of work in Chicago.” </p>
<p>“He gonna do just great. Everybody moving up there still wanna hear that down-home music. I wish you all the best. You got a fine boy there.” </p>
<p>“Thank you,” said Junior. Decked out in a little blue sailor suit, he was swinging his feet over the edge of the seat. “Where you goin’?” he asked the old man. </p>
<p>“Oh, I’m gettin’ off in Carbondale, visit my sister, then I’ll go back south. I spends a lot of my time ridin’ the train.” </p>
<p>“I like the train,” Junior declared. He stood up and looked out the window. They could smell the smoke from the coal-fired steam engine. The train was stopped in a small town and the wheels were starting to drive forward again. He waved to a boy and girl, just a year or two older than he was and just a shade lighter, as they ran alongside the train. They waved back. He laughed out loud. </p>
<p>“‘Scuse me,” the old man got up out of his seat. “Gotta go see about these games.” Using a cane, he poked and meandered to the back end of the Colored car to join three fellows who’d turned their seats to face each other and set up a makeshift table on top of a cardboard box to deal cards. Junior crept down the aisle to see what they were doing. Cards flipped; dice rolled. The air was filled with smoke from their cigars and words like “Time to fold’em… “I’ll see your Jack… you cheatin’! Loadin’ the dice!” Other words flew in the air, and Glory went to pull him back to their seat. </p>
<p>As darkness fell, Junior stood up and looked out the window again. The green curves, the hills of southern Illinois, faded into into purple shadows. He sat down, captured by the lines of the telephone wires, one pole passing after another. He curled up in Glory’s lap. Soon she heard the sound of her baby’s sleepy breath. </p>
<p>Later that night, the sounds of a fiddle drifted from the direction of the game table. Half asleep, Junior climbed over his mother and followed the music, toddling past the huge snoring forms of blanket-covered people, dodging their stocking feet that stuck out in the aisle. Half asleep, Glory, in automatic child-chasing mode, got up and followed him. At the far end of the train car a fiddler in overalls, a khaki work shirt and bowler cap sawed away with a long bow. The music flowed out of narrow curly holes in the shiny wood of his instrument. The old man with the cane pulled a harmonica from his pocket and began to huff and chug along like the train. </p>
<p>Then they heard a rooster. No, it was the man with the cane. He was making his harmonica crow like the rooster in their yard down in Mississippi. He sang, “I got a little red rooster, he too lazy to crow for day…” After a few verses, Junior began to doze again. Glory carried him back to their seat and the train rocked them to sleep.</p>
<p>By morning they saw rows of houses and freight tracks, stockyards and factories roll by. The train slowed and crawled past the tallest buildings they had ever seen, with big windows, offices full of desks and file cabinets. Great big bridges spanned the river; people streamed across them, walking to their jobs. Cars and trucks lurched forward in the streets as traffic lights turned from red to green. Suddenly it rolled into a dark tunnel and lurched to a stop, exhaling steam in a loud hiss. Junior was startled and began to cry. </p>
<p>Glory herself began to feel overwhelmed by the bigness. She calmed herself by talking to Junior. “Don’t worry honey. We in Chicago. It’ll be just a minute. We gettin’ off the train and goin’ outside.” </p>
<p>“Where Daddy?” Junior wailed. </p>
<p>“Daddy driving to Chicago next week,” she reminded him. “He gonna see you real soon. He gotta stay and pick up our sharecropping money and play guitar at Jukin’ Joe’s.” </p>
<p>“Jukey Joe,” repeated Junior, fixing on the familiar word. </p>
<p>They weaved their way up a wide stairway into a grand hall where hundreds of people streamed, carrying suitcases and briefcases. Outside they looked up at the massive Illinois Central train station. The clock on the tower showed quarter past ten. </p>
<p>“We gotta find the Roosevelt bus. Carry this.” Glory, lugging the duffel and suitcase, handed him a flour sack to carry: “Your clothes in here. Stay with me boy, don’t go nowhere.” </p>
<p>Junior slung the sack over his shoulder, just like he’d seen his daddy and mommy sling cotton sacks. His new life was going to be way different.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><em>Readers, what do you think of this piece so far? Send an email on Bonni's CONTACT form. Thank you</em></p>Barrelhouse Bonnitag:barrelhousebonni.com,2005:Post/62573302020-03-21T10:50:22-05:002021-04-24T18:32:08-05:00Bonni's Austin Weekly News Blog "West Side Blues"<p>Local neighborhood papers these days are rare, but since I've had the privilege of writing a blog and news articles for the <a contents="Austin Weekly News" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://www.austinweeklynews.com/Community/People/Bonni-McKeown/">Austin Weekly News</a>. Mainly I write about people, arts and culture of the West Side of Chicago. Austin is located on the far west of the West Side. It turned very quickly from a white working class area into a Black neighborhood in 1970, right as the Great Migration era was ending and jobs were beginning to leave the city. People here have survived in a slow economy ever since. The blues is still here. .</p>Barrelhouse Bonnitag:barrelhousebonni.com,2005:Post/62573272020-03-21T10:37:44-05:002020-03-21T10:42:06-05:00Chicago still isn't promoting blues on West and South Side<p>Three years ago in 2017, I spearheaded, with West Side travel agent Crystal Dyer, a series of<a contents=" community talk" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="http://austintalks.org/2017/06/west-siders-look-to-turn-blues-heritage-into-tourist-attraction/"> community talk</a>s on West Side blues and culture.</p>
<p>This was after a <a contents="Crain's Business article" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://www.chicagobusiness.com/article/20170121/ISSUE07/170129975/chicago-blues-music-an-untapped-economic-asset">Crain's Business article</a> showed the city is losing millions for failure to promote its local music.</p>
<p>In 2020, Mayor Lori Lightfoot launched "<a contents='Year of Chicago Music"' data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://www.chicago.gov/city/en/depts/dca/supp_info/music.html">Year of Chicago Music"</a> and spent thousands of dollars on a cute logo, "Music in the Key of Chicago." The program was set to highlight 18 days of downtown festivals of various genres, which arenow in question due to the coronavirus. </p>
<p>But where are the concrete plans for the city to help the small, mostly Black owned lounges which nurture the heart of the music? These clubs for years have been suppressed by licensing bureaucracy. The places where you find music like this <a contents="VIDEO" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://youtu.be/HU0RkKHX6Q8">VIDEO</a> of Larry Taylor singing with the late Killer Ray Allison's band at Linda's Lounge.</p>
<p>By the way, presidential candidate Bernie Sanders (not supported by the mayor nor IL governor JB Pritzker) has come out strongly for national arts programs to <a contents="integrate the arts" data-link-label="" data-link-type="url" href="https://loudwire.com/bernie-sanders-support-local-music/?fbclid=IwAR3FQASgGVM7waLF2BEIcjnjKdG0rYPK-eE2nw-Nyc4217Km8InbDWWa6x4">integrate the arts</a> with small biz and community.. </p>
<p> </p>Barrelhouse Bonnitag:barrelhousebonni.com,2005:Post/61417852014-02-17T02:20:44-06:002020-01-21T21:50:22-06:00The New Normal. Time for some Rhythm 'n' Rage!
<p style="margin: 0px; font-size: 14px; font-family: Helvetica;"><span style="font-weight:bold; letter-spacing:0px">The New Normal</span></p>
<p style="margin: 0px; font-family: Helvetica; min-height: 14px;"><span style="letter-spacing:0.0px"> </span></p>
<p style="margin: 0px; font-family: Helvetica;"> </p>
<p style="margin: 0px; font-family: Helvetica;"><span style="letter-spacing:0px">The fraying of nerves</span></p>
<p style="margin: 0px; font-family: Helvetica;"><span style="letter-spacing:0.0px">as democracy crumbles--</span></p>
<p style="margin: 0px; font-family: Helvetica;"><span style="letter-spacing:0.0px">“The new normal.” “Get used to it.”</span></p>
<p style="margin: 0px; font-family: Helvetica;"><span style="letter-spacing:0.0px">Work til you’re 85, chained and indexed,</span></p>
<p style="margin: 0px; font-family: Helvetica;"><span style="letter-spacing:0.0px">Minimal wages.</span></p>
<p style="margin: 0px; font-family: Helvetica; min-height: 14px;"><span style="letter-spacing:0.0px"> </span></p>
<p style="margin: 0px; font-family: Helvetica;"><span style="letter-spacing:0.0px">Get used to schools that teach nothing</span></p>
<p style="margin: 0px; font-family: Helvetica;"><span style="letter-spacing:0.0px">but how to stand in line.</span></p>
<p style="margin: 0px; font-family: Helvetica;"><span style="letter-spacing:0.0px">Get used to poison rivers</span></p>
<p style="margin: 0px; font-family: Helvetica;"><span style="letter-spacing:0.0px">Smelling like licorice.</span></p>
<p style="margin: 0px; font-family: Helvetica;"><span style="letter-spacing:0.0px">Get used to city hall</span></p>
<p style="margin: 0px; font-family: Helvetica;"><span style="letter-spacing:0.0px">abandoning neighborhoods</span></p>
<p style="margin: 0px; font-family: Helvetica;"><span style="letter-spacing:0.0px">to build stadiums </span></p>
<p style="margin: 0px; font-family: Helvetica;"><span style="letter-spacing:0.0px">Roman circuses. No bread involved. </span></p>
<p style="margin: 0px; font-family: Helvetica;"><span style="letter-spacing:0.0px">Get used to Daddy Mega Warbucks</span></p>
<p style="margin: 0px; font-family: Helvetica;"><span style="letter-spacing:0.0px">sucking in tax dollars,</span></p>
<p style="margin: 0px; font-family: Helvetica;"><span style="letter-spacing:0.0px">exhaling fire: bombs and drones;</span></p>
<p style="margin: 0px; font-family: Helvetica;"><span style="letter-spacing:0.0px">Get used to Big Brother</span></p>
<p style="margin: 0px; font-family: Helvetica;"><span style="letter-spacing:0.0px">perching on your computer</span></p>
<p style="margin: 0px; font-family: Helvetica;"><span style="letter-spacing:0.0px">echoing in your cell phone</span></p>
<p style="margin: 0px; font-family: Helvetica;"><span style="letter-spacing:0.0px">loitering at the post office</span></p>
<p style="margin: 0px; font-family: Helvetica;"><span style="letter-spacing:0.0px">staring wide-eyed into your bank vault</span></p>
<p style="margin: 0px; font-family: Helvetica; min-height: 14px;"><span style="letter-spacing:0.0px"> </span></p>
<p style="margin: 0px; font-family: Helvetica;"><span style="letter-spacing:0.0px">Get used to super size crabgrass,</span></p>
<p style="margin: 0px; font-family: Helvetica;"><span style="letter-spacing:0.0px">germs thriving on antibiotics</span></p>
<p style="margin: 0px; font-family: Helvetica;"><span style="letter-spacing:0.0px">Months of flu wracking your lungs.</span></p>
<p style="margin: 0px; font-family: Helvetica;"><span style="letter-spacing:0.0px">Get used to answering the voices of machines.</span></p>
<p style="margin: 0px; font-family: Helvetica;"><span style="letter-spacing:0.0px">Real music would make you</span></p>
<p style="margin: 0px; font-family: Helvetica;"><span style="letter-spacing:0.0px">feel your feelings. Numb is normal. </span></p>
<p style="margin: 0px; font-family: Helvetica;"><span style="letter-spacing:0.0px">Feel nothing. Don’t protest.</span></p>
<p style="margin: 0px; font-family: Helvetica;"><span style="letter-spacing:0.0px">Get used to quarrels set by politicians,</span></p>
<p style="margin: 0px; font-family: Helvetica;"><span style="letter-spacing:0.0px">their hands in all our pockets.</span></p>
<p style="margin: 0px; font-family: Helvetica; min-height: 14px;"><span style="letter-spacing:0.0px"> </span></p>
<p style="margin: 0px; font-family: Helvetica;"><span style="letter-spacing:0.0px">Get used to billionaires</span></p>
<p style="margin: 0px; font-family: Helvetica;"><span style="letter-spacing:0.0px">shooting for the stars</span></p>
<p style="margin: 0px; font-family: Helvetica;"><span style="letter-spacing:0.0px">trying to exit their earthly mess.</span></p>
<p style="margin: 0px; font-family: Helvetica;"><span style="letter-spacing:0.0px">If the 2032 meteor hits</span></p>
<p style="margin: 0px; font-family: Helvetica;"><span style="letter-spacing:0.0px">they bank on escape. Maybe their rocket</span></p>
<p style="margin: 0px; font-family: Helvetica;"><span style="letter-spacing:0.0px">will turn another way</span></p>
<p style="margin: 0px; font-family: Helvetica;"><span style="letter-spacing:0.0px">--straight for the sun,and leave us here </span></p>
<p style="margin: 0px; font-family: Helvetica;"><span style="letter-spacing:0.0px">Trying to not be like them. </span></p>
<p style="margin: 0px; font-family: Helvetica;"><span style="letter-spacing:0.0px">God help us. <span style="white-space:pre"> </span></span></p>
<p style="margin: 0px;"><br></p>
<p style="margin: 0px; font-family: Helvetica;"><span style="letter-spacing:0px"><span style="white-space:pre"><span style="white-space:pre"> </span> </span><em>--B. McKeown</em></span></p>
Barrelhouse Bonnitag:barrelhousebonni.com,2005:Post/61417842012-02-10T12:04:54-06:002019-12-13T21:31:28-06:00The Loss of Maxwell Street: A Gaping, Ironic Hole
<p>As we mourn the passing of Little Scotty, yet another Chicago bluesman and Maxwell Street icon, Roosevelt University professor Steve Balkin asks why the city of Chicago can't put more value on People's History:</p>
<p><a href="http://blues99percent.wordpress.com/2012/02/11/our-city-hasnt-seen-the-value-in-peoples-history/" data-imported="1">http://blues99percent.wordpress.com/2012/02/11/our-city-hasnt-seen-the-value-in-peoples-history/</a></p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/427567/e045da5772e99488c4d4c2bb61db998173b23831/original/2007scottybobby2tuff.jpg/!!/b%3AWyJyZXNpemU6MTc0eDE0OCJd.jpg" class="size_orig justify_inline border_" alt="2007ScottyBobby2Tuff.JPG" height="148" width="174" /></p>
Barrelhouse Bonnitag:barrelhousebonni.com,2005:Post/61417832011-12-03T03:56:34-06:002019-12-13T21:31:28-06:00Tribune critic: Black blues clubs essential to art form
<p><strong>Tribune critic Howard Reich points out that Black clubs are essential to the art form</strong></p>
<p> </p>
<p><a href="http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2011-11-26/entertainment/ct-ae-1127-blues-clubs-20111126_1_chicago-blues-lee-s-unleaded-blues-blues-landscape/4" data-imported="1">http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2011-11-26/entertainment/ct-ae-1127-blues-clubs-20111126_1_chicago-blues-lee-s-unleaded-blues-blues-landscape/4</a></p>
<p> </p>
<p>Chicago Tribune music critic Howard Reich, in a long article Nov. 27, 2011, nudged the arts community toward recognizing and promoting the blues as a Chicago treasure. <img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/427567/2d504ee02399ddc37ee40bee4bf93dc4a187da27/original/hreichtribune.jpg/!!/b%3AWyJyZXNpemU6OTR4NzMiXQ%3D%3D.jpg" class="size_orig justify_right border_" alt="HReichTribune.jpg" height="73" width="94" /></p>
<p>"How long," Reich's article asks, "can a music that long flourished on the South and West sides — where the blues originators lived their lives and performed their songs — stay viable when most of the neighborhood clubs have expired? How long can a black musical art form remain dynamic when presented to a largely white audience in settings designed to replicate and merchandise the real thing? At stake is a music that gave rise to jazz, gospel, pop, rock, rap, and hip-hop — the pillars, really, of the American sound."</p>
<p>Reich quotes veteran harmonica player and author Lincoln T. Beauchamp Jr. (aka Chicago Beau): "The consequence of what's happening is that people will play other types of music in order to be paid — not that they ever got paid worth a damn working at Chicago clubs anyway...Places like Kingston Mines will always sell the blues brand...But you can't look to the clubs and the club owners to pursue blues as a culture. It is to them purely a commodity, nothing more than a bottle of whiskey, and how much money you can make off of it."</p>
<p>Poet and critic Sterling Plumpp notes: "I don't know the business of blues, but it seems that the bookings that the North Side blues clubs do is incapable of identifying and nurturing young talent... I'm reluctant to say it, but it's probably true: At some point, the African-American community has been remiss in thoroughly supporting the best of African-American blues. I have to say that. They are not in the clubs... It's going through a phase where the premier (blues) places are not located in the African-American community."</p>
<p>"We need to market this music the way New Orleans and Austin have marketed their musical legacy, says Janice Monti, chair of sociology at Dominican University in River Forest and the driving force behind an international blues symposium there.</p>
<p>"In the South, soul blues is played on the radio. Where is blues played on the radio in Chicago? If you want to create a vibrant climate for the clubs, you have to educate the audience."</p>
<p>Reich concludes, in a call to action: "And you have to build it. You have to ensure that the music hasn't been repositioned to serve conventioneers and expense-account visitors above all others. For without a healthy local audience and a network of neighborhood listening rooms, the blues becomes a shell of what it once was."</p>
<p>see also the accompanying video, featuring club owners and sax man Eddie Shaw:</p>
<p><a href="http://www.chicagotribune.com/videogallery/66302960/Entertainment/Blues-clubs-in-Chicago#pl-66304233" data-imported="1">http://www.chicagotribune.com/videogallery/66302960/Entertainment/Blues-clubs-in-Chicago#pl-66304233</a></p>
Barrelhouse Bonnitag:barrelhousebonni.com,2005:Post/61417822011-08-25T00:00:00-05:002020-03-21T10:55:59-05:00Endangered Blues V: Black sons and daughters of blues need more promotion<p>Aug. 25 to Sept. 1: A time at the end of summer to look into the history of the blues, find out how greed and racism are impacting the music, and envision a new future of peace, justice and fun.</p>
<p> What's wrong with this picture? It's the cover of a 1969 album "Fathers and Sons" produced by Marshall Chess, featuring Muddy Waters with some of his talented young white blues students. <img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/427567/81002f3aaca09f7cc78a55788787e5c07ec9ca60/original/chessfatherssonsalbum.jpg/!!/b%3AWyJyZXNpemU6MjE4eDIxNCJd.jpg" class="size_orig justify_right border_" alt="ChessFathersSonsalbum.jpg" height="214" width="218" /></p>
<p> Yes, people of all ethnic groups can play and enjoy the blues. I'm blessed to play the piano. But blues is an art form rooted in the black community. Cut off the roots and the tree will die. And without strong Black kings and queens to lead us into the future, this beloved American music is in great danger.</p>
<p> So where are the Black sons and daughters of this blues Father who is passing on the spark of life? From the lineups of many so-called blues festivals today, one might think they don't exist. They exist all right, in Chicago and across the country, but only a handful manage to get promoted while the music business continues to churn out phony acts and imitators. </p>
<p> Too many dreams have been deferred. Feelings came to a head this past week following racially insensitive remarks by Bruce Iglauer, CEO of the successful blues and roots label Alligator Records, in the <em>Chicago Reader</em>. Iglauer explains, and many people comment:</p>
<p> <a data-imported="1" href="http://www.chicagoreader.com/gyrobase/alligator-records-40th-anniversary/Content?oid=3834565&show=comments">http://www.chicagoreader.com/gyrobase/alligator-records-40th-anniversary/Content?oid=3834565&show=comments</a></p>
<p> But it's easy to criticize Bruce. What are we going to do instead? One man alone did not build up this complicated System that is keeping good blues artists down. As in the New Jim Crow mass incarceration system, many forces are at work. Please look at some of the history in my Facebook Notes, duplicated in my blog at <a data-imported="1" href="http://bonniblues.blogspot.com/">http://bonniblues.blogspot.com</a></p>
<p> and in the BLOG section of my website <a data-imported="1" href="http://www.barrelhousebonni.com/" style="">www.barrelhousebonni.com</a></p>
<p> Ask yourself these questions:</p>
<p>1. What are the racial and economic dynamics keeping good African American blues men and women from promotion and success?</p>
<p>2. What do we want to see instead? Can we get a critical mass in consensus?</p>
<p>3. How can blues business people, media, musicians and fans act to change things from the way things are to the way we want them to be?</p>
<p> Please post your comments (respectful, and focusing on the System rather than personalities) on this BRAVO Week page. Knowledge is power, and truth speaks louder than all the lies that have built up over the past 50 years.</p>
<p> I'll report the results in Facebook Notes and blogs. Thank you for taking time to think about this.</p>Barrelhouse Bonnitag:barrelhousebonni.com,2005:Post/61417812011-08-09T09:40:00-05:002019-12-13T21:31:28-06:00Endangered Blues Part IV: Big Biz Squashes Out Good Music
<p><img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/427567/f663922504af967edd68547bf484495a3d688f56/original/billybranch611blues.jpg/!!/b%3AWyJyZXNpemU6MTEweDE1NSJd.jpg" class="size_orig justify_left border_" alt="BillyBranch611BLUES.JPG" height="155" width="110" /> This month Latin jazz musicians are suing the Recording Academy over a controversial decision to eliminate two dozen Grammy awards categories for ethnic and roots music</p>
<p><a href="http://www.billboard.biz/bbbiz/industry/record-labels/neil-portnow-on-latin-jazz-grammy-elimination-1005304552.story" data-imported="1"> http://www.billboard.biz/bbbiz/industry/record-labels/neil-portnow-on-latin- jazz-grammy-elimination-1005304552.story</a></p>
<p> Some observations of Chicago Tribune jazz critic Howard Reich, just before the 2011 Chicago Blues Fest, shed some light on the under-valuing of American roots music. Like many things it can be traced to the shortsighted non-leadership of big business.</p>
<p> HOWARD REICH , <strong>21<sup>st</sup> Century Blues: Can an Ancestral Art Form Survive?</strong> Chicago Tribune June 3, 2011 (print version June 5)</p>
<p><a href="http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2011-06-03/entertainment/ct-ae-0605-blues-three-generations-20110603_1_chicago-blues-festival-country-music-21st-century-blues" data-imported="1">http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2011-06-03/entertainment/ct-ae-0605-blues-three-generations-20110603_1_chicago-blues-festival-country-music-21st-century-blues</a></p>
<p>Reich quotes singer Shemekia Copeland, age 32: "My big dream was to make blues music mainstream…I love the music so much, and I think it has a right to be just as big as, say, country music is. But, unfortunately, we just don't have the resources."</p>
<p>The infrastructure of music in America, Reich points out— the ways in which sounds are disseminated <a href="http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2011-06-03/entertainment/ct-ae-0605-blues-three-generations-20110603_1_chicago-blues-festival-country-music-21st-century-blues" data-imported="1">online</a>, through the airwaves and via cable — gives little push to any musical genre that doesn't already command massive sales. This doesn’t mean one can’t make money on blues, jazz, folk, Native American music—maybe just not millions. But who is to say what might be possible if promotion were put behind it?</p>
<p>"Why is the blues marginal? Because in America, everything is about what's new, what's new, what's new," Reich quotes Copeland, daughter of the late blues-guitar master Johnny "Clyde" Copeland. "They don't respect old people, they don't respect anything old. And it irritates me when I go to other places (such as Europe) and I see how they treat things, and how much they respect things. Here, it's like: Who's got the new album? Who's got the No. 1 thing? When's the new iPod 6 coming out?"</p>
<p>The irony is that all this new stuff is here today, gone tomorrow—while blues and other rooted music that expresses true human feelings, goes on for years and years.</p>
<p>Like Copeland, veteran Chicago singer-harmonica player Billy Branch — a generation older — also bristles at the neglect accorded this music, which is why he has been bringing it into the Chicago public schools for more than three decades. His Blues in the Schools program has introduced songs of Muddy Waters and Howlin' Wolf, Willie Dixon and Big Walter Horton to kids who otherwise wouldn't hear them.</p>
<p>It's about cultural heritage — that children don't know their past," Branch, 59, told Reich. "I have talked to every ethnic group on the planet. I've even done Blues in the Schools in Japan. But in the case of younger African-American children in the inner city, they have very little to hold on to, and a lot of times they come in, their <a href="http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2011-06-03/entertainment/ct-ae-0605-blues-three-generations-20110603_1_chicago-blues-festival-country-music-21st-century-blues" data-imported="1">heads</a> are down and they look sad. This isn't all the time or across the board. But the main thing I try to impart to them is that this is your people's music, and without this there would be no Beyonce, there would be no Michael Jackson.</p>
<p>Branch notes that the blues blossomed from the bloody fields of slavery. Ever since, the blues and the culture that created it have fought mightily to be heard.</p>
<p>"Willie Dixon sent a mimeographed letter to every member of Congress … (saying) there was a conspiracy to keep the blues off the radio," recalled Branch, who toured and recorded with Dixon for years. "His reasoning was this: If it becomes apparent that my music is just as rich or valuable as your music — or even more so — then what basis do I have to discriminate against you?</p>
<p>"So he linked the culture and discrimination and social injustice to the lack of airplay of the blues. Which was pretty deep. Willie also used to say that we were fooled into believing that blues was low-class and dirty, lowdown music."</p>
<p>So this may be one reason that blues men and women have gone along for years with their second class status, while the industry passes them by in favor of the bland, robotlike, noisy, insulting trash that now fills the airways. Hiphop artists even complain that within their genre, thoughtful songs seem to get bypassed in favor of dirty lyrics.</p>
<p>Maybe it’s time to quit accepting this state of things. Billy Branch tells young Black kids: "This is something to be proud of. Your people gave birth to this music we call the blues." </p>
<p>All of us as Americans should lift up this music. These days, we need the blues to combat the blues being politically and economically forced upon us. Shemekia says there are no “resources” to promote blues and soul music. But Frederick Douglass said power concedes nothing without a fight. Maybe we need to demand a share of the pie. </p>
Barrelhouse Bonnitag:barrelhousebonni.com,2005:Post/61417802011-07-22T00:00:00-05:002020-03-21T10:52:41-05:00Endangered Blues III: The Unhandy Truth about Blues Foundation<p>Look around the country at the lineups at so-called “blues festivals.” You’ll often find they’re headlined by a rock star or by one of a handful of famous aging African American blues men or women. The rest of the lineups tend to be white bands. Where are the baby boom generation of Chicago’s African American musicians—the ones who learned directly from Howlin Wolf and Muddy Waters? Do they exist?</p>
<p> Yes. They’re here! But they’re not getting hired or promoted, thanks in large part to a national organization whose stated purpose is “preserving our blues music history, celebrating recording and performance excellence, supporting blues education and ensuring the future of this uniquely American art form.” The Blues Foundation in Memphis is a much more influential nonprofit organization than its membership roll of less than 4000 would indicate. It affiliates with over 200 local blues societies around the world, and its two annual awards contests set the tone for blues festivals everywhere. Its annual budget is around $650,000.</p>
<p> The Blues Foundation could potentially be a force for spreading blues music into new markets and educating school kids. But its board is dominated by record companies who closely guard their small market share instead of trying to win new fans. So far the Foundation’s main activities are two annual contests: the International Blues Challenge, and the Blues Music Awards, formerly named after the African American composer W.C. Handy.</p>
<p>The BF took Handy’s name off the Blues Music Award around 2006--not a good sign. To enter this annual Grammy-style award judging, an artist must issue a record within the current year. It’s hard for locally known, non-wealthy African American artists to get records out every year. The record business has suffered from pirated downloads and store closings. Older record companies, including Chicago’s Alligator Records, have been signing only a tiny few emerging African American blues artists, and Alligator owner Bruce Iglauer has drawn fire for admitting it. <a data-imported="1" href="http://www.chicagoreader.com/chicago/alligator-records-40th-anniversary/Content?oid=3834565" style="">www.chicagoreader.com/chicago/alligator-records-40th-anniversary/Content?oid=3834565</a></p>
<p>A newer label, Calfornia’s Delta Groove, likewise promotes white artists and a sprinkling of older black musicians. These labels buy lots of ads in American “blues” magazines, which are increasingly lacking in articles about black artists. </p>
<p> In 2010, a majority of Blues Music Award winners were white; an Elvis Presley style act from California took three major awards. Of Black winners, only one was younger than 65, and there were NO Black nominees for Best New Artist. <a data-imported="1" href="http://www.blues.org/">www.blues.org</a> This year Black winners slightly outnumbered whites, 14 to 11, but are still mostly old.</p>
<p> Blues Foundation’s International Challenge includes even a lower percentage of black artists. Each blues society chooses its top solo-duo act and band in a local contest. Each act has to raise money to travel to Memphis for the annual competition. Professional African American acts have a hard time in these local contests, because the judges tend to be white and the Foundation offers no definitions of “blues” to guide their decisions.</p>
<p> Examples: In 2002, I watched Chicago soul singer Nellie Tiger Travis and guitarist Tyree Neal, grandson of Louisiana bluesman Raful Neal, bring down the house in their semifinal and final rounds, only to lose to a little known rock band sponsored by a Canada restaurant owner</p>
<p>In 2006 I saw my friend Larry Hill Taylor’s band of 30 year professional Chicago West Side bluesmen lose a local contest in Marietta, Ohio after playing their own arrangements of traditional tunes by Howlin’ Wolf, Muddy Waters and Magic Sam. The winner was a local rock band that had added a few blues tunes to its repertoire of head-banging noise featured on Myspace.</p>
<p> I was told later that Larry’s band lost because they played no original tunes. But as Larry points out, clever lyrics may add to the fun, but feelings are the main point of the blues. “Blues is a tradition, all down from the time of slavery, then coming up here from Mississippi. It’s just like an old religion. Artists always start out by playing favorite traditional tunes people like, then they create their own.” Go to any hole in the wall club on the West and South Side and watch how blues performers build community spirit through familiar tunes, feeling and groove. The contest judges may not understand how blues works in the community.</p>
<p> None of this would matter so much if the IBC was just a fun contest. But the winners get slots at national festivals. Also, promoters often fill their festival rosters with amateurs they see on stage at the IBC, who come cheaper than professional heritage musicians. One hand washes another, and the Blues Foundation has created one big happy family. An increasingly color-less family.</p>
<p> Does racism motivate these promoters and contest-makers? One cannot judge their hearts but the results are obvious. The current generation of professional blues men and women in Chicago, sons and daughters by blood or by spirit of the Howlin’ Wolves and Muddy Waters—are being passed over in favor of imitators, even in so-called blues festivals. And unlike the 1960s and 70s, rock festivals are not offering blues acts. (Are the rock boys scared of being shown up by our blues men and women on stage?)Unless this generation show success in their careers, younger African American artists will not take up the music.</p>
<p>So why do I care?</p>
<p> Let me put it this way. If I ever go to Scotland, the home country of my father’s parents, I would be dismayed if I found nobody playing bagpipes. The pipes are the soul of Scotland and Ireland.</p>
<p> Just like that, blues is the root of American popular music—an expression of true human feelings. It goes back to Africa, the birthplace of all humanity.</p>
<p> Blues will never die. People will still sing and play the blues in some cottonfield or back alley. But what America offers on stage might end up only a pale, watered-down version of this nation’s greatest contribution to world culture. We can’t be satisfied. Not with so many talented blues men and women ready to shine. Their time is now. </p>
<p> It’s time to wrestle with Alligators. Or maybe to start some new record companies and radio stations, and blues magazines that tell the truth. Not easy in this economy. But the blues is truth, and truth finds a way.</p>Barrelhouse Bonnitag:barrelhousebonni.com,2005:Post/61417792011-07-05T06:37:52-05:002019-12-13T21:31:27-06:00Endangered Blues II : Losing Out in the 1950s
<p>In addition to the overall American neglect of history and the arts, the natural progression of music being handed down in African American families and neighborhoods has been interrupted. And while some promoters in the majority European-American culture prize Black music, they don’t respect the people who are its creators. Disrespect and greed have led to the music ripoffs that nobody wants to talk about, but we must try to get an understanding of the history behind this.</p>
<p> We only need to go back to the 1950s, when black musicians like Chuck Berry, Bo Diddley, and Fats Domino revved up the blues a little bit and created rock’n’roll. In his Sun studio in Memphis, the white promoter Sam Phillips was recording Howlin’ Wolf, Rufus Thomas, Ike Turner and other Black blues, R&B and rock’n’roll artists. Not only did he see black teenagers buying their music; white teens started combing through the R&B record bins as well. On dance floors everywhere, even in the segregated South, the music was bringing young Americans of all backgrounds together.</p>
<p> There was just one obstacle to his sales. Phillips found that some white radio DJs refused to play his artists’ records, even though white fans wanted to hear them. Phillips decided to find a white artist to sing black music. Elvis Presley always acknowledged where the music came from. The tragedy was not that Elvis succeeded, but that Phillips stopped promoting the blues men. He and other white promoters went on to make a lot of money, and the originators of the music got left behind. White music biz usurpers took blues licks and lyrics without permission, failing to pay songwriters like Arthur Crudup who penned Elvis’ famous “That’s All Right.” ( See the story in Chapple and Garofalo’s book <em>Rock n roll is here to pay</em>.). </p>
<p>History repeated itself in the 1960s, when British rock bands rediscovered the blues and made records based on blues songs. American music media constantly credits the British invaders for popularizing blues among the white audience after the music business focus had moved on to soul and funk. And for awhile, blues leaders like Muddy Waters rode the wave. But during the 1980s and 90s, rockers and their promoters intercepted the blues, turning their backs on many black audiences who still treasured their own music. Jim O’Neal editor of <em>Living Blues</em> Magazine, March/April 1990, acknowledged: “The young black bluesman has no easy road to success even when he is heard.”</p>
<p> The 1969 album <em>Fathers and Sons</em>, produced by Marshall Chess of the famous Chess label in Chicago, features Muddy Waters playing with young white blues adopters like Paul Butterfield. On the cover, imitating Michelangelo’s painting, a Black human deity passes the spark of life to a white Adam. Where were the African American sons and daughters of this black music god?</p>
<p> Art Tipaldi’s book <em>Children of the Blues,</em> 2002, portrayed a few heirs, like Lonnie Brooks’ sons Ronnie and Wayne, carrying on their dad’s blues guitar tradition. But the book omitted other inheritors, replacing them with chapters on white musicians. For example, guitarist Eddie Taylor’s active musical sons were not mentioned: Eddie Jr. on guitar, Tim on drums, and stepson Larry on vocals and drums. (Daughter Demetria is now an active singer as well.) Instead, Tipaldi wrote up some white Texas musicians who learned the blues trade from Eddie Taylor Sr. and other Chicago bluesmen who played during the 1970s and 80s at Austin’s famous club, Antones. I won’t mention names.</p>
<p> Chicago’s African American musicians are not much of a position to protest their lack of recognition. Over 40 years after Martin Luther King and Malcolm X, the economic effects of racism continue to haunt them. Because of high unemployment and less-than-equal city services in the city’s poor black neighborhoods, wages are meager in the West and South Side clubs where musicians start their careers.</p>
<p> Politicians often consider these little juke joints and lounges to have no cultural value. Brushing off protest letters from around the world and musical pleas from the blues men and women, Mayor Richard M. Daley’s administration in 2001 tore down the historic stores on Maxwell Street, the birthplace of electric Chicago blues. The same year, the city padlocked Gerri’s Palm Tavern, a South Side landmark where Count Basie and Muddy Waters once hung out. </p>
<p> Chicago’s downtown clubs used to be the place where black musicians could earn good money. But today’s handful of tourist blues clubs are drastically underpaying the musicians. While patrons pay $10-20 at the door, wages have dropped, not increased, over the last 20 years. Club owners have exploited rivalries among the band leaders who squabble over the handful of spots. Today most musicians are lucky to take home $60 to $100 for an evening’s work. Other tourist clubs promote and pay white imitators ahead of hometown African American heritage musicians. This has become obvious even to the conservative <em>Chicago</em><em> Tribune’s</em> critic Kevin Williams, who mocked the “talking dog act” featuring Buddy Guy’s latest young white guitar protégé in a writeup Jan. 28, 2011. </p>
<p><a href="http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2011-01-28/entertainment/ct-ott-0128-quinn-sullivan-20110128_1_buddy-guy-s-legends-blues-quinn-sullivan" data-imported="1">http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2011-01-28/entertainment/ct-ott-0128-quinn-sullivan-20110128_1_buddy-guy-s-legends-blues-quinn-sullivan</a></p>
<p> Many musicians hesitate to speak out. They don’t feel they can change the rivalries or the unfair wages. When harmonica player and bandleader Billy Branch criticized the promotion of young white guitarists ahead of veteran African American players in 1998, he lost work and declined to talk any more about the issue when critic David Whiteis interviewed him in the 2006 book <em>Chicago Blues : Portraits and Stories</em>.</p>
<p> When Larry Hill Taylor, a singer and drummer, protested and spoke to French <em>Avergne Blues Society</em> magazine in 2005 about working conditions in the Chicago tourist clubs, including instances of unnamed club owners paying addicted musicians in helpings of drugs instead of cash, he lost his bookings in the clubs. Read the whole story in his autobiography, which I co-authored: <a href="http://www.stepsonoftheblues.com/" data-imported="1">www.stepsonoftheblues.com</a></p>
<p> West and South Side heritage musicians do not have the resources to promote themselves; they stretch to even own a car and fill it with gas. Alligator Records CEO Bruce Iglauer does pay royalties to musicians. But he told an audience at the 2011 Chicago blues fest that poverty plays a part in his decisions not to record some of these local blues masters. He admits he's been criticized for these decisions. <a href="http://www.chicagoreader.com/chicago/alligator-records-40th-anniversary/Content?oid=3834565" data-imported="1">www.chicagoreader.com/chicago/alligator-records-40th-anniversary/Content?oid=3834565</a></p>
<p> These are a few examples of how ignorance, poverty, disrespect, racism and greed have nearly destroyed the soul of America’s greatest music. Heritage musicians are underpaid, persecuted for speaking out. Worse, their music platforms are now being invaded by imitators from all corners of the world, who pay good money for guitars and contest slots. But no one is paying the creators of the music these imitators and hobbyists are trying to play.</p>
<p> White musicians who do care about these injustices have a problem speaking out because, as I mentioned before, the whole American arts community is underpaid. I feel we must speak anyway. </p>
<p> <em> NEXT: the Un-Handy Truth about Blues Festivals.</em></p>
Barrelhouse Bonnitag:barrelhousebonni.com,2005:Post/61417782011-06-27T06:35:31-05:002019-12-13T21:31:27-06:00Endangered Chicago Blues I: The Root
<p> <strong>I. BLUES IS THE ROOT</strong></p>
<p> Feeling vulnerable to the Great Recession and at the mercy of illogical governments and corporate bullies, we can all use a little musical relief. The futuristic writer Kurt Vonnegut, shortly before his death in 2007, called African American music “America’s greatest contribution to the world.” He added, “Blues is the remedy for a world-wide epidemic of depression.” </p>
<p> Blues is music of survival. It’s about real feelings. It grew up from the ground. It gives voice to the human spirit. As Chicago’s esteemed producer, composer and bass player Willie Dixon said, “Blues is the root. Other music is the fruit.” </p>
<p> Singing together about feelings, joys and sorrows, both in church and in the juke joint, helped African Americans in the early 20<sup>th</sup> century South cope with long work hours, low pay, unfair and racist bosses. Blues shares one’s personal story with the community. Blues has a call and a response, a rhythm and a swing. The music makes you feel better. Watch a blues audience, eyes half closed, tapping their toes—or in a lively mood, shouting out their comments on the singer’s story.</p>
<p> If it’s so good, why is real live heritage blues so hard to find?</p>
<p> Some say Chicago blues is dead. It died the same year as America’s innocence, in 2001, when the city tore down the historic musical haunts, Maxwell Street and Gerri’s Palm Tavern.</p>
<p> Still, 10 years later, you can find African American bands playing to their neighborhood crowd in a handful of tiny juke joints on the West and South Side. A few musicians sling a guitar, bass or drumsticks in downtown clubs for mostly-white tourists, but they are underpaid. Why is the blues, the root of all rock’n’roll, R&B and parent of hiphop, revered around the world—barely visible in Sweet Home Chicago and other American cities? Some possible answers:</p>
<p> As baby boomers growing up, we were exposed to all types of music on the radio: classical, folk, bluegrass, R&B, jazz. It’s hard to tune in anything now except hiphop, rock, country, and a bit of Christian contemporary music. Some of the words are clever but the music is often very lame. Most pop music these days is not created but manufactured by corporations who design and mass-test it to reach what they think appeals to the greatest number of people.</p>
<p> Many young people are not developing a taste for different kinds of music, because music and other arts have been cut out of the schools. They can find blues on the internet, including videos of Muddy Waters, Bessie Smith, Koko Taylor and Howlin’ Wolf—if they know to look for it. But unless they’ve seen the movie <em>Cadillac Records</em>, many youth have never heard of the blues. </p>
<p> American corporate culture constantly preaches the next new thing to buy. Music from the past is scorned: old school, old hat. The media has reinforced this amnesia so we’re no longer aware of our own cultural heritage. We forget to respect our elders and fail to inherit the musical soundtrack of their lives.</p>
<p> In addition to the overall American neglect of history and the arts, there’s a racial dimension. The natural progression of music being handed down in African American families and neighborhoods has been interrupted. And while some promoters in the majority European-American culture prize Black music, they don’t respect the people who are its creators. Disrespect and greed have led to the music ripoffs that nobody wants to talk about, but we must try to understand. I will address this history in the next column.</p>
Barrelhouse Bonnitag:barrelhousebonni.com,2005:Post/61417772011-02-04T00:00:00-06:002020-03-21T10:21:37-05:00Letter from an Arts Enterpreneur<p>Dear Readers,</p>
<p>Like many folks in the uncertain economy these days, I’ve had to focus more clearly on my mission and how I make my living. Because I no longer have energy to live any kind of a double life, I’ve concluded that my mission is my life and my living. In fact, I’ve been getting a Higher Power message:</p>
<p> “Everybody get in your places. The show is starting!”</p>
<p> The Creator/God/the Spirit of the Universe put me here for a purpose. Over a lifetime my purpose has changed. One goes through being a student, learning a trade, raising a family, attempting to change society for the better, and passing life’s insights on to the next generation. The last part is where I have arrived at now. Somewhat reluctantly, a crone or elder.</p>
<p> It’s my mission at this time, and a great honor, to help transfer some of America’s greatest music, and the stories behind it, to the next generation.</p>
<p><em>Stepson of the Blues: A Chicago Song of Survival</em>, the autobiography of Larry Hill Taylor which I’ve co-authored and published in a limited edition in my Peaceful Patriot Press, is one man’s life story with a lot of my own insights. As I asked Larry to recount his exciting, often traumatic journey, the clash of our cultures gave violent birth to a lot of strange questions. I commend his patience. </p>
<p> Even as the means to create works of art, literature, theater and music become sparse as wealth keeps concentrating upward in 21<sup>st</sup> century America, the arts become more and more necessary. The factual data and technology keeps changing too fast for the human mind to process what’s going on. The arts help us understand the meaning of life. </p>
<p> There was no way I could NOT have written <em>Stepson of the Blues</em>. Just as there was no way that Larry, age 2, could have NOT picked up drumsticks. As the late John Lee Hooker would say, “Let that child boogie woogie. It’s in him, and it’s got to come out.”</p>
<p> So in spite of corporate control of radio and publishing, the closing of bookstores, the cutting of arts grant funds, and the slowness of American business to realize that culture is what builds a town, we artists keep doing our thing. It’s in us, and it’s got to come out.</p>
<p>Someday if Larry is into it, I want to do a second edition of <em>Stepson of the Blues</em>—complete with historical chapter end-notes and an index, to officially document Larry’s first-person story. I’m writing a screenplay based on <em>Stepson</em>--a movie both musically entertaining and hair-raising. And, along with the sparkling and savvy dance teacher Miss Taj, I’m reconnecting generations. We're bringing Chicago’s finest heritage blues men and women before the kids, teaching youngsters how to sing their own blues tunes, through Chicago School of Blues. <a data-imported="1" href="http://www.chicagoschoolofblues.org/">www.chicagoschoolofblues.org</a></p>
<p> The futuristic writer Kurt Vonnegut, not too long before he died in 2007, said, “African American music is America’s greatest contribution to the world. Blues is the antidote to a worldwide epidemic of depression.” Chicago School of Blues is part of this medicine for our world!</p>
<p> Do you think this work is important? Would you like to help support it? Please email me (see feedbackk form below or CONTACT page of website) or send a private message if you’re a Facebook friend.</p>
<p> Especially for larger donations of $50 or more, I’ve set up a tax deductible donation fund through the New York arts group Fractured Atlas. <a data-imported="1" href="http://www.fracturedatlas.org/site/fiscal/profile?id=2881">http://www.fracturedatlas.org/site/fiscal/profile?id=2881</a></p>
<p> Please help support my work. We got to keep on with the boogie to survive.</p>
<p> Yours, Bonni</p>
<p> PRAY FOR PEACE * WORK FOR JUSTICE * BOOGIE FOR SURVIVAL!</p>Barrelhouse Bonnitag:barrelhousebonni.com,2005:Post/61417762011-02-01T14:16:42-06:002020-12-02T09:45:17-06:00Stepson of the Blues Book tour
<p>Can blues help us survive the Great Recession?</p>
<p>Larry Hill Taylor, West Side blues singer and drummer, and myself as co-author are out there raising both questions and spirits, playing a few blues tunes while we discuss his autobiography, <em>Stepson of the Blues: A Chicago Song of Survival</em>. I co-authored the book, which deals with a heritage bluesman's struggle to survive and recognized for his music.</p>
<p>The eccentric writer Kurt Vonnegut, before he passed three years ago, wrote that blues and jazz, the music of African Americans, is one of America''s greatest contributions, and that "the remedy to our worldwide epidemic of depression is the blues."</p>
<p>One of the few books dealing with the generation of blues musicians following the Great Migration, <em>Stepson of the Blues</em> points out that blues helped African Americans survive harsh working conditions and racial persecution in the Jim Crow South. If you look for it, you’ll find this older form of Black music doing the same thing in little holes in the wall on the South and West Side today. But for the music to survive<em>, </em> the musicians themselves must be able to make a living and appear on the radio, in the community, in the schools. Keep the blues alive? You gotta keep the musicians alive. And that's not always easy, since a lot of them come from rough backgrounds. But they're tough. All they need is a little help from fans.</p>
<p> Larry Taylor grew up in North Lawndale during the 1950s and 60s, with blues musicians for parents and Black Panthers for neighbors. He survived gangs, family abuse, prison, and drugs. But he’s still taking a beating in the music business for speaking out about racial discrimination against (of all things!) emerging African American blues artists. </p>
<p> Chicago’s blues musicians are an under-appreciated cultural and economic resource. As Larry and other musicians have pointed out, “Unless our music starts to get on the radio more, and in the schools, our kids won’t have the chance to know it.”</p>
<p> We were glad for the chance to bring up these ideas beginning in October at the Books Ink Author Showcase at Carter G. Woodson Regional Library, and at the WVON Writer's Walk at DuSable Museum. Our talk Oct. 20, 2010, at Beverly Library on the southwest side of Chicago was taped and shown several times on citywide CAN-TV. Larry was interviewed on WVON's late night blues show Jan. 22 by Henry Cheatham, substituting for Pervis Spann. Bonni was interviewed Jan. 14 by Joanne Cole on her blues show on KGNU, Boulder, CO. We're visiting 18 Chicago area libraries and community centers for a Black History Month tour in February 2011.</p>
<p> Larry and/or I are available to give book talks at book clubs, community groups, schools and churches. More info at the website: <a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.stepsonoftheblues.com/" target="_blank" data-imported="1">www.stepsonoftheblues.com</a></p>
<p> </p>
<p></p>
Barrelhouse Bonnitag:barrelhousebonni.com,2005:Post/61417752010-07-01T03:38:52-05:002020-01-21T21:50:19-06:00Farewell to the Great Byrd
<p><strong> <img src="//d10j3mvrs1suex.cloudfront.net/u/427567/8b85c1dd80f2313366109db1f04a9ad84a19f293/original/240px-robert-byrd-official-portrait.jpg/!!/b%3AWyJyZXNpemU6MTgweDIyNSJd.jpg" class="size_orig justify_inline border_" alt="240px-Robert_Byrd_official_portrait.jpg" height="225" width="180" /><br></strong></p>
<p> </p>
<p>Senator Robert C Byrd has died at 92, with his boots on, the way he wanted to, a U.S. Senator til the end. In our sparsely populated Mountain State, everyone had a chance to know him. All you had to do was show up when they cut the ribbon to one of the many projects he funded, or come to any county’s annual Democratic dinner. Fried chicken. Country ham. Cornbread and beans. Introduce yourself and shake hands with one of the most powerful men in the country.</p>
<p> Senator Byrd remembered everyone he met; the hallmark of any skilled politician. But he was also a very learned and principled man. With his grip on parliamentary procedure, he would outwit and outmaneuver all the other senators to get what he wanted, with great dignity and sometimes a smirk. He had the whole U.S. Constitution memorized. While other Congress members went to parties and made fun of his homespun, halting talk, he stayed home with his wife Erma and studied.</p>
<p> Senator Byrd was always trying to get “pork” in Congress: money for projects in West Virginia. He and I did not always agree on what our state needed. In the 1990s we fought a seven year battle. He and other politicians wanted to build a four-lane highway, Corridor H, through the Potomac Highlands of northeastern West Virginia, where there is almost no traffic. I was one of the leaders of a citizen group, Corridor H Alternatives, that favored improving existing roads rather than tearing up farms, rivers and forests to get a few cars through our area faster. We campaigned to cut the money for Corridor H but he got over half of the road built. All the while, the Senator and I never called each other names—except the title “King of Pork,” a name which he proudly claimed.</p>
<p> What our senator and I did agree on was the importance of passenger trains. Twice our group Retain the Train called on Senator Byrd (as well as Congressman Rahall and the late Senator Jennings Randolph) to save the Amtrak Cardinal, which runs through southern West Virginia between Chicago and D.C. and New York. To keep our train in 1982, he had to compromise; Amtrak only runs it three days a week. Now our passenger group in Charleston, the state capital, Friends of the Cardinal, is lobbying to get the train restored to daily service. The train should be a key connector between the Northeast Corridor and the upcoming Midwestern high speed rail lines.</p>
<p> Coming from where he was raised in rural North Carolina and southern West Virginia, Byrd was on the reactionary side of some heavy national issues. In the 1940s, always looking for groups to support his political aspirations, he joined the Ku Klux Klan, and in the 1960s, filibustered the civil rights bill. Later he realized his prejudices and errors, and voted accordingly. In 2007, some of my friends heard his eloquent apology at the 100<sup>th</sup> anniversary of the founding of NAACP in Harpers Ferry, WV. Byrd also supported the U.S. war in Vietnam, but after seeing the results he was one of the handful of Congress members to oppose the war in Iraq in 2003. During the past year, after a lifetime of supporting the coal industry, he called for alternatives to the destructive removal of mountains by mine operators.</p>
<p> It takes a big person to admit publicly that you are wrong and you need to change direction. But this is exactly the kind of humility required of both ourselves and our leaders. That is, if humanity and this planet are to survive.</p>
<p> I’ll be out there in the crowd, with a lot of my friends for the memorial service on the lawn of the state capitol Friday. President Obama, Vice President Biden, and every politician in the state will be there. May our Great Byrd rest in peace.</p>
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