Just like Zimmerman taught me, I pluck these blues from my strings
Watch me sing my heart out on corners, like an angel floats on wings
Call me invisible, call me ghost – you won’t forget my name
Number 11 of my mama’s children, you won’t forget my name
Hear blues, rock and roll playing and know I changed the game.
Ma Rainey
Can’t nobody hold me back, baby, Ma Rainey is my name
I always made my own damn way, Ma Rainey is my name
I wear a collar, tie and gold teeth when I come out to play
First hit me in Missouri, been singing the blues ever since
Gripped me like a lover’s thighs, I’ve been hooked ever since
Went on the road like See See Rider, my smile gleaming like flint
Did I come in April or September, Georgia or Alabama?
See I’m hard to pin down, I’m slippery as a spinning spectre
Why go to the crossroads when the world spins around my centre?
I’m the first, I’m the mama, I’m nobody’s coon shouter
Call me names, I’ll knock you down, you can’t prove it on me after
I worked hard, paid my dues, my songs will ring in the hereafter.
Slim Gaillard
Slim slam flim flam vouto is my McVouty voodoo
If you know the blues, ain’t no need to translate for you
You can jive and have a ball, it still reaches into you
Every pack has a wildcard and I ran wild all my life
If you ask me what the blues is, I’ll open the book of my life
Stranded in Greece as a boy, but, man, I turned out fine
My guitar weeps blues, my voice scats in jazz
If music were a crossroad, I’d be the question to ask
There’s no deal to hold down a language that moves so fast
The twelve-bar is everybody’s bar; we all drink out there
Jelly Roll, Louis and Duke, they all hang out there
I scat around the crossroad, cos there’s no devil to fear.
Muddy Waters
My grandmama called me Muddy, the Waters came with the harp
You might think you know my blues, but you don’t know the half
(A) sharecropper’s measly wages is how I bought my first guitar
Had my own joint by eighteen, listened to the blues all day through
Like the waters of the Mississippi, the flow of it stays inside you
Anyone from the hell of plantations, loves water and feels the blues
A boy raised in hell don’t make deals with the devil on the side
(I) heard my own voice played on the juke and knew I had heaven inside
Stayed with my grandmama a little longer, but I knew I had heaven inside
Only deals I ever make are with good ole Willie Dixon
He gives me all the right words when my blues need fixing
My archive runs deep as water, all rolling stones need my benediction.
Big Mama Thornton
A church singer’s daughter from Alabama, I’m the original Big Mama
Bessie Smith and Memphis Minnie, their voices were my teachers
I can sing high, I can sing low, cos my daddy was a preacher
I was on stage before Elvis, he ain’t nothing but my hind dog, I say
And when Janis Joplin copied Ball & Chain, Bay-Tree took all the money
When you’ve met real-life devils, who needs to go to the crossroads to play?
I can beat my own drum and I play the harp pretty good
I made music with all the good guys, with Muddy and BB too
And everybody knows I don’t need no microphone to sing my blues
You’ll find me where there’s good singing and the liquor supply’s ample
I may not be wearing no dress, but you’ll know me by my dimple
Feet on the ground, singing from my heart; I’m one of the blues’s finest examples.
Blind Lemon Jefferson
East Texas streets is where I fine-tuned my blues
In bootleg corners with bad men and fine women, a blind man singing blues
Couldn’t work with the sharecroppers so this is how I put my hands to use
Been at a hundred crossroads, but I ain’t heard nothing but revelling
Stories about devils is how they pretend we didn’t rise by struggling
I’ll record 100 songs in thirty-six months and every one will be sterling
See I’m so damn original, even the devil couldn’t copy me
With my quick-fingered magic, there ain’t many that can play like me
When B.B. King holds Lucille sometimes he tries to sound like me
They call me Blind Lemon Jefferson, sweet and high is how I sing
When T-Bone was starting out, he walked with me and I guided him
My sound is so indescribable, I leave black snakes moaning.
Big Bill Broonzy
Odd jobs by day, guitar by night; that’s how I made it
One of seventeen kids, I know how to work till I make it
From the fiddle to the guitar, I pulled strings till I nailed it
Played the two-stages but went to war for everyone as one
Now I write my own tunes; don’t need no crossroads plan
Got rights to more than 300 songs and the devil ain’t got none
(I) got the keys to the highway so I ain’t afraid of the road
Opening for folks who don’t know struggle, but I ain’t afraid of the road
I’ve got a boy out down under; I made him on the road
Got the blues from childhood and I’ve played it near thirty years
I cooked, swept and carried loads. but the blues still rang in my ears
So I picked up this guitar and you’ll be hearing me for years.
Interpretation
You must not have heard
the one about the butcher who became
a classical conductor: it is
said he coaxed blood from warm flesh
the same way he makes strings whine
and horns mimic a bull’s lament in allegro.
His feeling for time signatures as true
and unshifting as an Accra sunset,
you can set a seed’s germination into pale
clef-shaped shoot by his baton,
his restless foot, the shapes his body forms
as he conjures sound and silence.
Audiences flock to see him lead
virtuosos from the highest high to the deep;
he gives new life to the Mendelssohn woman –
Fanny – buries old notions of Beethoven and Rachmaninov,
but, as with all music, interpretation varies
and the historic
