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We Just Change The Beat
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Wednesday, 28 December 2005 09:26 |
The Delta Sound
Ain t too many left
that plays the real deep blues
. . . ain t too many more left . . .
There ain t too many left
sings the type of blues
that I sing . . . .
Muddy Waters,
to Robert Palmer
in Deep Blues
From the lobby
of the Peabody Hotel
in Memphis
where the Delta begins
down Highway 61
through Tunica
& into Clarksdale,
Mississippi
This is where the music
was born and bred
in miles & miles
of cotton fields,
one room shacks,
dirt roads stretching
across the countryside,
standing at the crossroads
where 49 meets 61
or waiting in the dark
for the train
to make it
down the track
& jump on board
because anywhere else
is better than this place
This is where the music
came to be,
boogie lightning
against the sky,
Tommy Johnson
& Charley Patton
making their pacts with the devil
at the stroke of midnight,
Legba
at the crossroads
of Africa
& America,
black men & women
dragged in chains
& shippped in chains
& whipped
into Mississippi
where the music
came to life
under the whip
& the gun
& hours of relentless sun
beating down every day
on the slave peoples
cutting trees,
pulling stumps like mules,
plowing the cleared land,
planting,
picking cotton
dawn to dark,
the music deep inside them
coming out in grunts
& groans
& the moans of the spirits
of the ancestors
in the train whistles,
in the air,
everywhere,
the land soaked
with their blood,
the night alive
with the spirit voices
wailing
over their crops,
the fruits of their labors,
the richness of the land
a constant mockery,
everything they made
was taken away,
everything
was stolen
from them
but the music
made life go on
& moved peoples
to stay alive
& led them out
of the Delta
to Chicago
or Detroit
but some big city, some
other place
where no cotton grows
& the crackers
wear suits
or carry lunch pails
& the plants
pay that good money
& the music gets harder
& louder, lightning
electricity
leaping from the walls
The Delta Sound
brought to bear on the City,
deeper than deep, from where
all feeling rises
The Delta Sound . . . .
Ain t too many left . . .
Ain t too many more left . . .
Ain t too many left at all . . .
New Orleans
May 10, 1982/
Detroit
June 3, 1982
3.1.669 |
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