The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #121617 Message #2657953
Posted By: meself
16-Jun-09 - 03:05 PM
Thread Name: what do the KKK sing?
Subject: RE: what do the KKK sing?
Fred McCormick, who has just joined the discussion, is the author of the article in Musical Traditions that I mentioned earlier - even if he is almost as rusty on the details as I am!
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The story about Charley Patton may not be so bizarre - W.C. Handy had a story about his entire band being commandeered by a drunken and bellicose white guy, who instructed them to play a popular song of the era called something like "The First Shot Got Him", as soon as he put a bullet through one of his neighbours. The neighbour wouldn't co-operate, though, so finally the band was dismissed. Later, they saw the same guy leading a Black man along with a noose around his neck; Handy presumed that that unfortunate was going to pay for the real or imagined offences of the neighbour.
Handy relates the story in his autobiograhpy, Father of the Blues.