[09] Hell Hound on My Trail |
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Fattening Frogs For Snakes
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Saturday, 24 December 2005 12:19 |
Hell Hound on My Trail
for Celia Sinclair
I got to keep movin' I got to keep movin' Blues fallin' down like hail blues fallin' down like hail Umm mmm mmm mmm blues fallin' down like hail blues fallin' down like hail And the days keeps on worryin' me There ²s a hellhound on my trail hellhound on my trail hellhound on my trail
--Robert Johnson
Just south & west of Greenwood, Mississippi "The Cotton Capital of the World," where Robert Johnson was staying with Honey Boy Edwards in the summer of 1938,
just south & west of Greenwood, like west over to Itta Bena & south out of Itta Bena on Highway 7, just a few miles to a little junction where a general store was, called Three Forks, Mississippi,
a gentleman out there ran a juke joint out of his house, in 1938, out there in the country, down the fork road from the general store which is closed down now but it thrived 50 years ago
as much as anything could thrive in Mississippi in 1938--down the fork road maybe right there by Highway 7 or maybe it was three or four miles down the fork road, to where
there's a little settlement down there by the riverbank where they're building a new bridge now down at the end of the fork road where six or seven little houses be at right next to the river--
somewhere in there on the fork road close to Three Forks, this man called Ralph ran a juke joint out of his house every Saturday night, & peoples came out there in the country from all around there, to have their fun,
buy some likker, dance, gamble some, rub up against each other for sex or violence, maybe cut up somebody, out in the country, Saturday night,
& the man would have a guitar player & maybe a harmonica, maybe two guitars, musicianers from Greenwood or maybe just passing through,
like Robert Johnson in the summer of 1938, every Saturday night out by Three Forks Robert would play at the man²s juke joint in the country & peoples would line up to get in
because Robert was getting very well known & his records had been coming out steady for the past year, 78 rpm Vocalions cut in San Antonio & Dallas, Texas, starting in November, 1936,
"Terraplane Blues," "32-20 Blues," "I Believe I'll Dust My Broom," "Cross Road Blues," "Come On in My Kitchen," "Sweet Home Chicago," "Stones in My Passway," "Hellhound on My Trail,"
these were the records peoples heard all through Mississippi & Robert Johnson was a name to be reckoned with in the blues world of the Delta where he had spent all his life
& the ladies would crowd around him to press their favors upon him, the mens would enjoy the music & the womens dancing & the excitement rising up in the womens, pressing up into them on the floor
in the juke joint on the fork road, peoples crowded around inside the joint & outside, everything was nice & smooth there out by Three Forks, the man was selling his whiskey
& making his money, & Robert was getting paid real nice, & then the man²s wife, see, she got up next to Robert & she threw her love on him so strong with some of that real good trim
& she went so far with her infatuation as to take off from her husband out there in the country & go on into Greenwood to lay up with Robert one or two days in his room, like a Monday
& a Tuesday, say, before she go back to Three Forks & her husband, with some cock & bull story about what she was doing over in Greenwood, her cousint or something,
some kind of lame bullshit excuse which her husband knew was not right but he kept his mouth shut, & when Robert come back out to the juke joint the next Saturday night, with his mind stuck dead on that sweet pussy
& the concurrent joys of a Mississippi Saturday night-- peoples having their fun in the woods, whiskey flowing, fish sandwiches, money changing hands under the coal-oil lanterns in the dark--
the girl's husband slipped Robert his usual bottle of spirits to get the night started, but only this time he put some shit in the game & dropped in a few shots of poison to fix this cocky motherfucker
who thought he could take the man's wife & use her as he pleased, with his jive-ass guitar & shit, his little bullshit records out & that bitch on his dick, the man's wife,
the man burned up inside every time he saw the pictures in his mind, the bitch be pleasing Robert & probably be giving the motherfucker the man²s hard-earned money too, and the pussy,
he would fix Robert Johnson's ass & he would call himself doing a favor for the legion of endangered husbands whose ladies were lined up by the stand trying to mash some stuff on Robert, the dirty rotten motherfucker,
he had to go, his time was come, & if he wasn't but only 27 years old it was still time to go said the man with the poison & he put it in with the whiskey
& had the bottle given to Robert & Robert drank from it, took a few swallows to start the night off right, & while Robert played his first set the poison was eating away at him & death was inside of him
before he knew it, he was coughing & gagging, & shivering on a hot night, he fell to the ground outside the juke joint & couldn't go back on the stand, he couldn't stand up,
he could see that hell hound that he had that song about, hell hound on my trail, got to keep moving, but he couldn't move his hand or get up off the ground,
Robert Johnson, he couldn't get up to move, he laid there on the ground, poison eating away his life, looking up into the drooling jaws of the dreadful hell hound
standing dead up over him, blood dripping from its eyes, its foul breath in his face-- Robert Johnson on his way to the spirit world, catch that Greyhound bus & gone
Whitfield Baptist Church, Tutwiler, Mississippi July 16, 1987/
Greektown, Detroit July 22 -August 5, 1987/
New Orleans December 11, 1995
3.1.658 |
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