Extract from The Blues Muse
The Blues Muse: Amazon.co.uk: Goodwin, Opher: 9781518621147: Books
Tupelo
Tupelo was a small town and like most of them places had two sides to it. One was black and one was white and never the twain shall meet. Ceptin’ that wasn’t strictly true. The truth was that some of those white sharecroppers were worse off than the blacks and certainly lived no better. They lived a hundred to a room in wooden shacks the same as the negroes. They worked the land and hoed weeds just the same, walked the mules, ploughed, sowed and owed the man the same as everybody else. There was no difference. And many of them weren’t too proud to share some music, a bottle or some dice.
Of a night, when the heat was cooling off, we’d sit on the veranda and rock on our chairs with a guitar on our laps and a bottle at our feet. Sometimes someone would strike up a diddy-bow on the side of one of them huts and some of the youngsters would try out some of their moves. Even the old folks would join in. It was kind of spontaneous and neighbourly.
If you wanted the real action you headed for town. The white folks would Honky Tonk but if you wanted something a bit earthier you hit the black side of town where the beat sizzled and the boots hardly hit the floor. The big mamas would jive their asses and shake like jelly. Their bodies shimmied while the guys, dressed to the nines in their dapper suits, ties and loud shirts, shoes shined, hair slicked and a hat tilted at a crazy angle, would strut their stuff and make their moves. Why – I would watch that floor and sometimes it looked like those cats had bones of rubber.
Elvis Presley was one of those real young white cats who liked to hit town and soak up the sounds. He was a rare one, that young kid. He did not fit in with most of his white group. With his long hair slicked back into a ducks-ass DA and combed into a tall pompadour of a crest like Esquerita, side-burns that he could tie under his chin and bright clothes of contrasting colours, he put the coolest black dudes to shame. He was a young skinny kid and had a mind of his own. His black eyes would look right through you and shine with some inner light when he saw something he liked. I guess it was that Cherokee blood set him apart. He was untamed and wild at times and, I declare, if he hadn’t have been so quiet and shy by nature, I’d swear he was pushing the numbers for some gang or other.
Many’s the time we’d sneak into the back of one of those clubs where the lights were so low you couldn’t tell the colour of a man’s skin and we’d watch. Tupelo was small but we’d get all the Blues Guys come through. Elvis’ eyes would pop outa his head when he saw Jimmy Reed, Big Maybelle and Arthur Crudup.
I saw him talking to Arthur after his show. Arthur had come down from Chicago when he was supposed to have lived in a packing case under the station in Chicago Central. If he ever did, he was not doing that now. You could see the man was eating good.
Elvis soaked up Howlin’ Wolf, Roy Brown and Big Mama Thornton. I could see it. His eyes were glowing and he never missed a beat. That sound was driving into his head and swirling round in there with all that Bill Monroes and Hank Williams. I knew it was all going to come bursting out one day.
