Hellhounds, Headstones, Hell & A Lawsuit Against a Church

By Bob Darden - 2001

A crowd of 45 people gathered Thursday at Little Zion Missionary Baptist Church on Money Road to celebrate the erection of a headstone marking the grave of blues great Robert Johnson.

"I think it is going to be real good for the church and the community. This guy was popular,” admitted Sylvester Hoover, chairman of Little Zion's Deacon Board.

The exact location of Johnson’s grave has been a source of disagreement over the years, and the marker probably won’t change a lot of people’s minds about the location of the musician’s final resting place.  

It wasn’t until last year that Little Zion member Rosie Eskridge told blues historian Steve LaVere of Greenwood and the Commonwealth that she remembered that her husband, Tom, was in charge of Johnson's burial Aug. 16, 1938. Gaylon Wardlow of Pensacola, Fla., who describes himself as a “blues investigator,” said with other little-known Eskridge's version fits details of the Johnson case.

Wardlow said he uncovered Johnson's death certificate in 1968. Although the document did not list a doctor, it did list that information about Johnson was provided to the coroner by Jim Moore. Wardlow said Moore had been a worker on Luther Wade's plantation at the time of Johnson's death. The plantation was directly across the Tallahatchie River from Little Zion church, he said.  Wardlow said he picked the Commonwealth's story off the Associated Press wire and wanted to pursue it further.

Two months ago, Wardlow said, he came to Greenwood to interview Eskridge. "She told me she knew Jim Moore.  It fit.”

Eskridge attended Thursday’s ceremony but did not speak with reporters. Wardlow said Eskridge confirmed another detail disclosed on the back of Johnson's death certificate that Johnson was buried in a homemade coffin supplied by the county.  "She didn't know about the back side of the death certificate," which contained the details about the coffin and Moore.

Some confusion was created when the death certificate listed Johnson's burial as taking place in "Zion Church” Cemetery and not Little Zion, he said. Little Zion's Hoover said he knew little about Johnson and his influence on the world of music. "I went to school here, and they didn't teach me nothing about this guy," he said. "I'm glad he's here. He's in the right place."

Wardlow said he believes Johnson was the victim of syphilis and not foul play when he died at the age of 26. One popular story is that Johnson was poisoned by the jealous operator of a juke joint. "Robert Johnson knew he was going to die from complications of syphilis. He had the bad eye," Wardlow said. Wardlow also said the story that Johnson sold his soul to the devil in exchange for supernatural musical talent is a myth. "Robert Johnson did not sell his soul to the devil at the crossroads," he said. When Johnson died, he "went to a spiritual heaven, not with Satan and the devil," Wardlow said. Wardlow said he provided the $684 granite headstone veneered in black. Although an inscription hasn't been made on the marker, Wardlow said he had a few ideas. He’ll probably write 'Legendary Mississippi Bluesman' or 'Most Influential Bluesman of All Time. May He Be in the Heavenly Way,"' he said.

The Rev. McArthur McKinley, pastor of Little Zion, said the celebration of the marker was appropriate. "I'm glad we finally found him.  We'll take it from here," he said. 

"Take it" is right.  The next week, they took it right out of there, allegedly planning to erect a taller marker.

The Greenwood Commonwealth, Aug 27, 2001.

A headstone was finally placed in the early months of 2002.  Whereas Gayle Dean Wardlow had graciously agreed to pay for the first marker as well as contribute to the supposedly massive second marker, Steve LaVere ended up footing the bill for his specialty marker, which contained the highly questionable handwritten letter supposedly written by Robert Johnson. LaVere, however, never allowed anyone to examine the letter to verify its authenticity.  Thus, still today, it remains highly dubious.  Not only that, but his purchase of the marker gave him and the Johnson estate a fair amount of discretion as to how or if the church might maintain its own cemetery.  He was not above filing a lawsuit against the church, which created much tension within the congregation.  Instead of unifying the church by supporting the pastor, who was put in a very precarious situation by supporting the installation of a bluesman's grave marker, LaVere instead thwarted his efforts to prove the marker would be a boon to the church.

The Greenwood Commonwealth, Feb 22, 2004.

Pensive Blues Still Ring in Yazoo County

Pensive Blues Still Ring in Yazoo County

By Johnny Langston - The Yazoo Herald - 1972

Old Juke Joint in White Station, Mississippi.

About five miles outside Bentonia, in the middle of a cotton field, is an old, white washed house that used to be Jack Owens' cafe. It was opened only on weekends, like tonight, and also, like tonight, was usually filled with the soft blues of Jack's guitar and the harmonica of his partner, Bud Spires.

The main room is now a kitchen, but the crowd of people, including those who have come to hear Jack play, bring back its old atmosphere. Along one wall is a wood stove which, as soon as it is fired up, warms the room, and Jack begins playing "Cherry Ball."

A short, stocky man whose wide grin reveals four gold teeth, Jack Owens has been playing the guitar and singing blues "ever since I was a baby crawlin' around on the floor." His harmonica accompanist, Bud Spires, has been wailing with Jack so long that "if he can pick it, I can blow it."

Together they make the kind of music that the Southern black man is famous for—a soft but hard-driving blues that speaks from the bottom of his emotions.

Mostly, he sings about love. About losing his best woman and getting drunk on Saturday night, or chasing after the younger and prettier girls.

Jack plays an ancient National guitar which is made entirely (except for the neck) of steel covered with peeling silver paint. [This guitar, a steel-bodied National, was purchased under rather dubious circumstances by  a visiting Virginia Cavalier, who paid a visit to Bentonia in the winter. Sometimes in , Owens would find himself in financial straights; he sold that National for $60 cash to one early blues tourist in the mid-1970s.]

"About 40 years ago a group of us had a band," explained Owens, "but as time went on, we went our separate ways, some died, and some got married, and I was just left with the box."

Bud Spires, Jack Owens, and Tommy Lee West 
warm up their spirits with "Catfish Blues."

Last summer a representative of Testament Records in Los Angeles, Calif., was traveling through the Delta and recorded some of Jack and Bud's blues on a record titled The Mississippi Blues of Jack Owens and Bud Spires.

Guzzling some "nerve comforter" (a half-pint of Jim Beam) Jack and Bud are just getting warmed up, but it's getting late and time to go. "When are ya'll gonna come back. Why not tomorrow. Well, before you leave, I want to play you a song off my album."

And a few minutes later, outside, on the quiet, moonlit Delta, "Good Morning, Little Schoolgirl" can still be heard.

Jack Owens: Jammin' on the Box Keeps Him Happy

Jack Owens: Jammin' on the Box Keeps Him Happy 
By Lisa Nicholas
Sunday magazine of The Yazoo Daily Herald, June 11, 1978.

He puts on a hat to play. Usually it's a cowboy hat, propped up on his grey head, but this time, it's a brown straw fancy-hat, with a brown band. He likes to drink that 'medicine' while he plays, to oil his fingers, and he likes to see people dance while he plays. He doesn't dance much himself anymore. He's Jack Owens, and he plays Bentonia Blues.

Anybody can drive out to Bentonia to hear Jack play. Just jammin' on the 'box' and a little talking in between songs will keep him happy. Blues is the only music he knows. He didn't learn to play; no one can learn the blues. A singer has to be born into it, has to feel it as naturally as sitting down. There's a mystery to knowing exactly where to put those subtle pauses, those twangy, twitchy notes that catch the listener off guard, right in the middle of the back. Few people can resist the urge to jump into some dance.

Jack's eyes are just starting to blue around the edges. They look kind of fuzzy and muddy, and are just about the only way to guess at his age. He says his uncle thinks he must be about 67, but the welfare people say he must be 75. Jack just doesn't know.

His guitar is old, too. It's a dusty Yamaha, fingerworn and as soft as his singing. The strings are old, and the ends of them hang limply from the tuning heads, until he starts to play, and then they dance and jiggle as if they knew how good he can make them sound. He's been playing this box for awhile, but he doesn't remember when he got it. He used to have a national steel string, but somehow it was swapped off for the guitar he sings to now.

All the old folks in his family, on both sides, sang the blues. Listening to the blues as a child, Jack loved it and fooled around with it until he could play. He dragged his guitar around with him, playing for birthdays, schools, follies, anything else until people started to hire him. He would play joints in the area, sometimes with a guy everyone calls Bud Spires, even though Jack claims that's not really his name. With Bud on harmonica and Jack caressing his guitar, many roadside clubs could swing up into the night.

Jack thinks electric blues are alright. Before his daddy died in Chicago, he gave Jack an electric box—one that sat on the floor with a long cord. Jack couldn't quit his old wooden guitar, though; electric was just too much trouble.

Jack says he has never written a song in his life, but he can boast that he has made up more than he remembers. All it takes is a little hittin' on the ole box, until the music comes, and then, before he knows it, he has got a pretty good song.

He just starts picking those strings. He wears a pick on his thumb and silver picks on three fingers. The listener eases back into a rocker, and slides into the beat—slow and mellow. Jack doesn't sing loudly, but with just enough volume to tell his story. He sings songs like "Love My Cherry Bowl," "Please Give Me Your Money," "Hard Times Where I Go," and "Nothing But The Devil Can Change That Woman of Mine."

B.B. King and Lightning Hopkins are two of his favorites to listen to, but it's unclear how much of an influence the big-time blues singers have had on Jack Owens. He has got a style that's so delicate that his songs are plainly labeled as his.

Sometimes Jack must think about getting old. He says he tried to write a letter once, but found out he'd forgotten how to write. But even if he slacks off his guitar for a while, he doesn't forget how to play. His music is too much of a feeling, a state of mind, too much of his life to forget.

There used to be a lot of blues singers in Mississippi, but Jack says most of those old boys are gone. Maybe they went up North, maybe they died. Jack doesn't play around in the area much anymore, because people are too wild to be trusted. Even though he's scared to go out to play all night like he used to, people-still come to listen to him. A woman from England once interviewed him while she sought out blues singers, and somebody from California came to record him. Jack just barely remembers this.

People in Bentonia know that all they have to do to get Jack to sit and play in the living room of his house for hours on end is to just show up there. Jack will run into another room and pull out the electric fan, if it's hot, and plug it up.

He'll leave his guests sitting, listening to the goats climb all over that old beat up pickup with the rusty bedsprings on it while he hunts down his picks. He'll put on his hat and sit down in front of the wood-burning stove. His untied shoes will slap down on the tile floor—a medley of worn colors.

Those gold front teeth will show under his broad grin, and his world will begin.

He might not remember his visitors' names when they leave, but he'll be there to sing for them again. His living room always has the sound of tapping feet and slapped knees in it, out in Bentonia, under a tin roof.

Before the Blue Front

Before the Blue Front: 

Community Action Association (CAA) Sponsors Basic Education

By Photo-journalist Ken Smith - in the Yazoo (MS) Herald, March 1973

Jimmy Holmes checks the paper of his 88-year-old

student, Mrs. Ollie Little, who didn’t “miss a class" 

in an effort to upgrade her third-grade education.

The Community Action Association building in Bentonia was once a small store. It isn’t very big and facilities are sparse, but on Wednesday evenings there is a hum of activity and mood of earnest determination.

From the street it’s likely one could not correctly ascertain the number of people crammed between the walls, because there is a definite lack of automobiles in the few parking spaces in front. The people, nearly 30 most nights, do not own cars or much of anything else. They are the poor and illiterate folk who lived in Bentonia, who never got a chance for much education in Yazoo County before the 1970s.

With the help of a 24-year-old native son, the students, ranging in age from 22 to 88, are doing something about their plight.

Jimmy Holmes, a senior at Jackson State College, is leading them and from all accounts, they are most willing to follow.  An athletic looking young man--and well he should be for his major is physical education--Holmes sports a slight mustache and an Afro.  “Hopefully,” writes photo-journalist Ken Smith, “he is the ‘new breed’ of black leadership.”  He is a teacher and his 30 pupils have an average of only seven years of schooling.

Holmes dedicates his free time to helping the people of his community find a path from the darkness of ignorance. He called it teaching the “three R’s,” but technically the course was “basic education.”  Assisting him in this project were the center operators, Willie Mae Johnson and Vidine Hilderbrand.  

The students included Mattie Roberts, Ollie Little, Geneva Owens, Iola Gregory, Vernilla Wilson, Jerry Dean, Ira Hudson, Mattie Wilson, Cloritha Wilson, Georgia Hudson, Cliff Berry, Luretha Mason, Alberta Mason, Eva Margiu, Johnnie Walker, Fate Hammond, Christine Demus, Alfreda Shaffer, Lizzie Lee Hammond, Elvia Henderson, Matter Courthous, Vertistine Hubbard, Isaiah Johnson, Leslie Hudson, Flora B. Griffin, C.M. Harrelson, Josie Lee Anderson, Alma Williams and Ella Luckett.

One of these students, Mrs. Ollie Little, is 88 years old, “but she never misses a class” said Mrs. Johnson. The students have a thirst for knowledge, for the education they missed, Walking a few blocks—or a few miles—to get to the one room school house isn't too much, and they are grateful for the opportunity.

The Yazoo Herald, Mar 15, 1973.