Lyr Req: Mean Talking Blues (Woody Guthrie)

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Mean talking blues--Woody Guthrie
From: Frank Hamilton
Date: 29 Aug 99 - 07:03 PM

Hi Art,

Love your CD. Warm, straight-ahead sincere renditions of the folk music I love. Like that 9 string guitar too! Gets a full sound on the trebles and a good solid single-string bass note. Refreshing!

Guy Carawan, Ramblin' Jack Elliott (who was called Ramblin by Odetta's mother not because he traveled so much but because when he got wound up on a story, there was no end. "I gave my love a Jack Elliott story that had no end." Mrs. Felious, Odetta's mother said about Jack after being treated to a Jack "tale", "That man is the ramblinist man I ever heard!" Hence, Ramblin' Jack.

Did we dance naked in the rain? I didn't. But I know the girl Jack is talking about. She was a red-headed modern dancer and seemed stoned to the gills. Jack may have done this. There's nothing that he wouldn't do. 912 Toulouse had a palm tree in the courtyard that was walled off from the street by a high wooden fence. There was an escape back door to the alleyway in back. When the rain bucketed down on New Orleans Vieux Carre the steam would rise out of the streets in a mist. That historic "dance" might have taken place. It was probably one of many.

I spent about two days with Woody in Topanga Canyon in Will Geer's seed shack where Woody lived. I had to learn to play Sonny Terry's style for a local Los Angeles City College production of Finian's Rainbow. I made the pilgrimage up the winding Topanga Canyon Boulevard to the Geer residence to elicit Woody's expertise. He showed me cross-harp (he was generous and would show anyone anything any time) and we wound up playing for about 16 hours straight or so with breaks for shooting the shit. I did learn to play credibly for the show from Woody. The "Dance of the Golden Crock" that Sonny played on Broadway for the original cast with David Wayne and Ella Logan.

What was Woody like as a teacher? Like the rest of us I suppose. He just showed you how to do it. Then you copied him. Nothing formal. Just like how we all learned folk music for the most part. Monkey see, monkey do. And that may be the best way of all.

Dr. John,

Jack, Guy and I met Bascom Lamarr Lunsford in Ashville in 1954. We appeared on the notorious Ashville folk festival where a year preceding, he had introduced our own Dick Greenhaus, (then married to Kiki) and his performance group as "the three Jews from New York City". I guess if he knew Jack's and my Jewish heritage he would have introduced us as "two Jews from New York City and a Gentile". As it was, I think he introduced us as "Commonists".

In the first ten minutes of meeting Bascom, he was convinced that Jack, Guy and I were "Commonists" Guy blanched, Jack looked non-plussed and I laughed my head off.

Bascom warned Red Parham, (the great harmonica player who played with "Crazy" George Pegram, the "Mayor of Statesville") that we were not to be trusted. "Got Commonists in town".............

Jack got so mad that when we talked about Bascom, he referred to him as Bastard Lampoon Lunchfart.

Had a puny Sunday morning breakfast with him, the kind where you get served cold coffee, and he lectured us on how these outside agitators from New York were coming down and interfering with the folk songs. "Take that song, Robertson's Farm, for example. Pete Seeger changed it to Penney's Farm. Them sharecroppers were happy with their lives. Seeger's the worst of the lot."

Next, he went out to his mailbox to receive a new album that he'd just recorded for Folkways Records. He seemed excited about it. He sputtered when he pulled it out and read the liner notes. It was a glowing chronicle of Bascom and his contribution to American folk music. Well, Pete wasn't wrong. Bascom was one of the greatest of the old time traditional folk singers even if he was a crusty, cantankerous, prejudiced, mean old country lawyer. But he also loved folk music and put on a great show. The Ashville folk festival was one of the best I've ever been to. It showed Bascom's dedication. George Pegram, Red Parham, old time unacompanied ballad singers, Ashville cloggers, (not the crinoline set but vigorous high school kids. You can hear something like this when Chub Parham accompanies the Asheville cloggers Library of Congress Vol 1. Don't know if Chub and Red were related but theyu might have been.

Sorry to be so long-winded about all of this, but you did ask.

Frank Hamilton

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Mean talking blues--Woody Guthrie
From: katlaughing
Date: 29 Aug 99 - 07:32 PM

And, we will keep asking! This is wonderful, Frank, Please don't stop! Anyone else, if you have more to add, please do!

Katlaughing

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Mean talking blues--Woody Guthrie
From: Art Thieme
Date: 29 Aug 99 - 07:57 PM

Frank,

I always thought Bascom was a great guy!! ;-) **HUGE SMILE**

Art

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Mean talking blues--Woody Guthrie
From: Art Thieme
Date: 29 Aug 99 - 10:41 PM

THAT WAS A JOKE!!!

Art

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Mean talking blues--Woody Guthrie
From: dick greenhaus
Date: 30 Aug 99 - 03:10 PM

Hi-
You had to be there. I was.

The year I encountered Bascomb Lamarr Lunceford was 1953; the place The Asheville
Folk Music Festival (organized and run by Lunceford).
Lunceford (he was too dignified a man for me to think of him on a first-name basis)
did, as a matter of fact, introduce the two guys I was with (Bob Rachlis and Arnold
Feldman) and myself as "three Jewish boys from up north". Which, needless to say, was not
appreciated at all.
If one wishes to get into motives and excuses for what I consider (and I'm not sure
Lunceford considered) improper behavior, you should remember that this was a man who
had spent much of his life collecting, presenting and playing the traditional music of his
region, only to see a bunch of people like Seeger and other carpetbaggers (I'm presenting
his views, not mine) "take over" and pervert the music to their own Communist ends.
I suspect that he viewed us rather as an MC of a present-day show might introduce an
Eskimo bluegrass group--our Jewishness made us an oddity at this mostly-local festival.

Bypassing the introduction for a moment, he did allow three rather scruffy
individuals to perform at his festival, and did let us in for free (which we greatly
appreciated). He also spent a fair amount of time talking to me about folksongs (including a
bit of fulminating about Cecil Sharp, who mis-heard Swannanoa Tunnel as Swannanoa
Town, and perpetuated the mis-iunderstanding in print).
Keeping this in mind, and remembering that he was a fine singer and banjo picker,
and that he was a tremendous force in keeping Southern Appalachian music alive, and that
he was a fine songwriter (Mountain Dew was his) I still disliked (and still dislike) the man
as a bigoted reactionary. Much the same way that I recognize Woody's importance, and
creative genius, and enjoy listening to his recordings, but disliked (and still dislike) him for
being an irresponsible, pathological egotist. (Yes, I knew him, too)
Who cares, anyway? Lunceford and Guthrie can still be listened to and read and
appreciated as artists; nobody's apt to meet them in person, so it makes no never mind to nobody
whether they were mean, or nice, or whatever.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Mean talking blues--Woody Guthrie
From: Rick Fielding
Date: 31 Aug 99 - 12:33 AM

Dick. I want to thank you your thoughts on those times and places. It's interesting to me that with all the reading I've done on the resurgence of old time music I've never once seen anything in depth about the personal relationships between the rural old time players and the young city fans (and collectors). I gather that many of the latter were Jewish (and from the north) and that initial meetings might often be strained (to say the least) and I wondered how the folks involved got around the cultural issues.

In an article, Ralph Rinzler was quoted as saying that he didn't find the "usual southern attitudes towards race" in Doc Watson. I suspect from what Frank said earlier that a thick skin and willingness to laugh (at least on the outside) was very helpful at times.

Steven Calit talks at length about how he viewed the personal relationships between black blues artists and the white collectors in his book on Skip James.

It's not an easy issue to talk about, so thanks.

Rick

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Mean talking blues--Woody Guthrie
From: Frank Hamilton
Date: 31 Aug 99 - 07:05 AM

Rick,

I think it's important to talk about. It puts things in proper perspective. I agree with Dick that these folk artists have to be appreciated for what they contributed but they are not saints. Nor are many of them nice folks probably.

As to "who cares?", Dick, I care. I'm not going to say I don't. When someone does something offensive and indulges in racism, bigotry or meanness, I'm not going to white-wash it.

Good. So we can diffuse a "phoney" idolatry of the folk artist and evaluate his/her contributions independently of their character. Healthy.

Frank Hamilton

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Mean talking blues--Woody Guthrie
From: Art Thieme
Date: 31 Aug 99 - 11:45 AM

I surely agree. PLEASE check out Alan Lomax's book "THE LAND WHERE THE BLUES BEGAN" (Pantheon Books---New York---1993) for the first, allegedly, "truthful" look at what he and his dad, John Lomax, encountered in the south when they were doing their collecting work there. Some of it is terribly hard to read. And Alan does not gloss over the fact that he, and especially his father, had southern racist views too. We are all victims of our inheritances and our upbringing.

Art

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Mean talking blues--Woody Guthrie
From: SandyBob
Date: 31 Aug 99 - 02:46 PM

Hi Frank,

I laughed so hard at "Bascom Lampoon Lunchfart" that my work colleagues wanted in on the joke. That was more fun than one is supposed to have on a computer. Thanks for the stories and de-constructions.

Sandy Bob

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Mean talking blues--Woody Guthrie
From: Frank Hamilton
Date: 31 Aug 99 - 02:59 PM

Art,

Alan told me he couldn't go back to Lubbock after he decided to tour with Leadbelly. His father disowned him for his association with Leadbelly and his liberal views on race.

Sandy Bob,

Jack will probably not own up to Bastard Lampoon Lunchfart these days. But I can't stop thinking about it too. His version of "I Wish I Was A Mole In The Ground" is one of the best I've ever heard. Kinda' definitive. Truth is, he was a bully. But he did give us some enduring folk music. An early friend of mine, Derroll Adams patterned his style of singing on Bascom's. Derroll can be heard with Jack Elliott in European recordings. They were great together. Derroll now lives in Brussels. Donovan wrote "Epistle to Derroll" for him.

Frank Hamilton

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Mean talking blues--Woody Guthrie
From: dick greenhaus
Date: 01 Sep 99 - 12:08 AM

Y'know...for some idiotic reason, the word "folk" has become a value judgment, rather than an adjevtive or noun with any real meaning. There is good folk music and bad folk music; "real" folksingers can be nice, liberal, leftish, populist types; they can just as easily be nasty, reactionary, rightist, misanthropes. Or any combination thereof.
There are a lot of nice people that are musically of negligible interest to anyone; there are some brilliant musicians, folk and otherwise, that are miserable bastards.
And then there are mudcatters who are (with maybe one exception) lovable, brilliant and folky as hell.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Mean talking blues--Woody Guthrie
From: Rick Fielding
Date: 01 Sep 99 - 02:02 AM

Dick, you old charmer you!

Boy, the creeping thread here has really got my wheels turning.

Frank mentioned Derrol Adams, and my first thought was "There's a name that I've seen so many times, but I barely know what he sounds like". A song that Sing Out printed and re-printed again and again was Portland Town, with Adams listed as composer. I guess he has lived in Europe for many years, but I don't know whether he actually played "professionally" or whether music was a sideline.
A few years back I bought an album from a discount bin called "Karel Bogard" "Blues From Across The Border". It had a striking cover - a group of (what appeared to be) European buskers, and a small much older man with an open back banjo. The music was bizarre to say the least. American traditional blues sung by folks with very thick German and French accents: "Zay gall it Starmmy Moandayy"! The last cut on the album was a simple little rythmic "drop thumb" banjo instrumental, with the credit: D. Adams. Still would like to hear him sing sometime. ('specially Portland Town)

Rick

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Mean talking blues--Woody Guthrie
From: Doctor John
Date: 01 Sep 99 - 01:05 PM

Thanks for the information on Derroll Adams, Frank. There was a thread about him a little while ago but no one knew what had happened to him. I had a couple of Jack/Derroll LP's when I was at school years ago; now lost. We thought they were really excellent together and an escape from the "pop" stuff that we were supposed to like. And a link back to Woody and Cisco who were our big heroes in those times; still are but in a more mature (hopefully) way these days. Met Jack briefly in the late 50's but not Derroll. There are several CD's of both of them individually available but I have found one of them together. You were wondering somwhere about anyone producing "folk" material these days. I don't know about the situation in the USA but in the UK here there are several excellent performers singing traditional material and a series of singer/songwriters doing rather personal introspective (and dreary) stuff; not folk to me. However, Jez Lowe from the North East writes and performs some wonderful stuff, some of which I'm sure will pass into the folk process. Dr John

Subject: RE: fresh
From: Mark Clark
Date: 06 Feb 02 - 11:10 PM

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Mean talking blues--Woody Guthrie
From: Rick Fielding
Date: 07 Feb 02 - 12:07 AM

Possibly my all time favourite Mudcat thread. As I said wayyy back then, hearing the personal anecdotes is sheer Gold to me.

Thanks for bringing it back mark

Rick

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Mean talking blues--Woody Guthrie
From: The Shambles
Date: 07 Feb 02 - 11:15 AM

Odd timing indeed. In the UK BBC TV is showing a programme on BBC2 tonight at 09.50 about Huntington's disease.

It follows the Day family, who are struggling to come to terms with the inherited degenerative condition of the brain and nervous system that Woody and his family had to struggle with.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Mean talking blues--Woody Guthrie
From: Mark Clark
Date: 07 Feb 02 - 12:29 PM

You're welcome, Rick. I vacillated on whether to refresh it or not. It is such an amazing thread and no one interrupted the exchange to post something trivial and meaningless... until right now that is. Perhaps I should have started a new thread and left this one as it was. I just wanted people to see it.

      - Mark

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Mean talking blues--Woody Guthrie
From: Amos
Date: 07 Feb 02 - 10:39 PM

No, Mark -- I never would have seen it if you hadn't stepped in, and it has added real value to my life just reading it. Tanks -- I think ya done right.

A.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Mean Talking Blues (Woody Guthrie)
From: Art Thieme
Date: 01 Dec 07 - 09:55 PM

And here we are, nearly 6 years later. Once afain, it's time others saw this thread.

Art

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Mean Talking Blues (Woody Guthrie)
From: Art Thieme
Date: 01 Dec 07 - 10:03 PM

I noticed that my song "Mean Talkin' Blues" is attributed to Woody in the Digitrad. If that could be amended/changed I'd appreciate it.

Art Thieme

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Mean Talking Blues (Woody Guthrie)
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 03 Jun 08 - 03:40 PM

Getting back to the song MEAN TALKING BLUES, most of which was posted by Dani above on 23 Aug 99 - 10:53 PM – I haven't heard the whole song, but I listened to several sound samples at Allmusic.com, and I think I can make a few additions/corrections:

1. In the first verse:

"And I push folks down and I cause train wrecks"

2. These lines belong somewhere in the song, probably after the verse that begins "I'm mean in the East"

Ever'body in this world looks mean to me.
There's nothin' good on earth that I can see.
I steal the nickels off o' dead people's eyes
And I spend 'em tryin' to learn how to get a little wiser.

3. "keep you without no vote" (not "clothes")

4. There are several peculiarities in Guthrie's list of bugs. He mentions some I've never heard of, but here's my best attempt to spell them phonetically:

And the roaches,
And the ternamites*,
And the sand fleas, and the tater bugs, and the grubworms,
And the stingarees, and the vinegar-roans, the tramplers, the spiders,
Childs o' the earth, the ticks and the blowflies—

[*a dialectical or whimsical pronunciation of "termites"?]

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Mean Talking Blues (Woody Guthrie)
From: Desert Dancer
Date: 03 Jun 08 - 05:01 PM

Vinegaroon, also here (though the picture is more exciting in the first link!).

~ Becky in Tucson
(we have 'em, but I've never seen one...!)

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Mean Talking Blues (Woody Guthrie)
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 05 Jun 08 - 09:15 AM

I now think the word that I transcribed as "tramplers" must have been "tarantulas", which, with Woody's pronunciation, probably came out "t'rant'lers".

Subject: Lyr Add: MEAN TALKING BLUES (Woody Guthrie)
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 05 Jun 08 - 09:18 AM

Copied from The Woody Guthrie Foundation web site. These lyrics seem authoritative, but I think Woody recorded the song more than once, so that's why there are some variations.

Talking blues typically consists of four-line rhyming verses each followed by several free-form unrhymed lines. I have reformatted the song to emphasize this structure.

MEAN TALKING BLUES

I'm the meanest man that ever had a brain.
All I scatter is aches and pains.
I'm carbolic acid, and a poison face,
And I stand flat-footed in favor of crime and disgrace.
    If I ever done a good deed -- I'm sorry of it.

I'm mean in the East, mean in the West,
Mean to the people that I like the best.
I go around a-causin' lot of accidents,
And I push folks down, and I cause train wrecks.
    I'm a big disaster -- just goin' somewheres to happen.
    I'm an organized famine -- studyin' how I can be a little bit meaner.
    I'm still a whole lot too good to suit myself -- just mean.

I ride around on the subway trains,
Laughin' at the tight shoes dealin' you pain,
And I laugh when the car shakes from side to side.
I laugh my loudest when other people cry.
    Can't help it -- I was born good, I guess,
    Just like you or anybody else ---
    But then I... just turned off mean.

I hate ev'rybody don't think like me,
And I'd rather see you dead than I'd ever see you free.
Rather see you starved to death than see you at work --
And I'm readin' all the books I can to learn how to hurt.
    Daily Misery -- spread diseases,
    Keep you without no vote,
    Keep you without no union.

Well, I hurt when I see you gettin' 'long so well.
I'd ten times rather see you in the fires of hell.
I can't stand to fixed... see you there all fixed up in that house so nice.
I'd rather keep you in that rotten hole, with the bugs and the lice,
    And the roaches, and the termites,
    And the sand fleas, and the tater bugs,
    And the grub worms, and the stingarees,
    And the tarantulas, and the spiders, childs of the earth,
    The ticks and the blow-flies.
    These is all of my little angels
    That go 'round helpin' me do the best parts of my meanness.
    And mosquiters.

Well, I used to be a pretty fair organized feller,
Till I turned a scab and then I turned off yeller,
Fought ev'ry union with teeth and toenail,
And I sprouted a six-inch stinger right in the middle of the tail,
    And I growed horns...
    And then I cut 'em off. I wanted to fool you.
    I hated union ever'where,
    'Cause God likes unions
    And I hate God!

Well, if I can get the fat to hatin' the lean,
That'd tickle me more than anything I've seen,
Then get the colors to fightin' one another,
And friend against friend, and brother... and sister against brother,
    That'll be just it.
    Everybody's brains a-boilin' in turpentine,
    And their teeth fallin' out all up and down the streets,
    That'll just suit me fine.
    'Cause I hate ever'thing that's union,
    And I hate ever'thing that's organized,
    And I hate ever'thing that's planned,
    And I love to hate and I hate to love!
    I'm mean. I'm just mean.