Satan's Eyes are White just like Willie aka Second Sight

By Karen Freeman for the Greenwood Commonwealth 1990

Willie Cobbs wants to win a Grammy Award,

and he's giving it his best shot.

To win such an award and to be recognized by one's peers is the goal of countless musicians. For some, like veteran rhythm and blues singer Bonnie Raitt (who can count among her recent Grammys a shared win with blues great John Lee Hooker) the recognition is decades in coming. For others, it appears to happen overnight. Some never make it.

Blues musician and singer Cobbs, 58, better known in Greenwood as Mr. C. of Mr. C's Barbecue, hopes it won't take too much longer to find his name in the book of winners. But more important, he just wants to make good music.

"I write songs about my way of life. I get visions for songs, and that's where they come from," said the relaxed Cobbs during an interview at his home in Greenwood.

Cobbs has much to be thinking about these days, and he says he has all the work he can do. His career takes him from Greenwood to Memphis, where he has a home, and to his family home in Smale, Ark. "Population 39, when I'm there," Cobbs joked.

His latest single is "Feeling Good," the flip side of "May the Years Be Good to You." Both receive a fair amount of air play from Greenwood radio station WGNL-FM, an urban contemporary station. And to showcase his talent, he has a couple of performances lined up for the people of Leflore County.

He will play with local musicians at CROP Day Saturday, Aug. 4, and on Aug. 5 he and his seven-member band are booked to play at Pine Acres Ranch in Itta Bena.

For Cobbs, it will be a nice change to be able to play for home folks. Most of his shows are in blues festivals and clubs in Memphis and Chicago and overseas in Japan and Europe, ,where blues is enormously popular.

In fact, because there is a larger market for blues in Europe and Japan many blues artists choose to go there to make their records. But to be accepted on one's own turf is a good indication of success.

Cobbs doesn't worry about not being enormously famous. He just keeps playing and singing, and gradually he's finding his success.

His latest project is to participate in a British documentary called "In Search of the Missing Chord," which will tell the origin of blues music and how it has spread to other countries and influenced many other artists. Cobbs and his manager have extended an invitation to the London production company to film part of the work at CROP Day and at the Pine Acres show.

Another promising sign for Cobbs is the interest a couple of record labels have shown in signing him. Cobbs said he turned down two recent offers, preferring instead to wait for a deal with a larger label that would bring him more distribution. His latest single is on Wilco Records, his own independent label.

Cobbs remains optimistic about his career and blues music in general, which he sees as having a largely white audience.

He noted that for many of his performances, such as at the Chicago Blues Festival which attracted hundreds of thousands of people, most of the crowd is white. In fact, all of his band members except one are white.

"That doesn't bother me. I just want a band that's like family, one that just wants to make music," he said.

Cobbs is glad of any audience attracted to blues music, and he believes that, if it were not for people's interest in it in the past few decades, blues as a distinct musical form would not have survived.

When pressed to name his favorite artist, he says he can't. "I like everybody. Whenever I hear I song that I like, that's just it."

Cobbs is encouraged by signs of renewed interest in blues music, both traditional and non-traditional.

"The Delta is the birth of the blues. I’ll bet many people around here, if they look far enough back, will find they are relatives of some famous blues artist," he said.

Bud Spires: Bentonia Bluesman

Bud Spires:
Bentonia Bluesman Plays only as Half of Partnership
By Lisa Nicholas for the Yazoo Herald in 1978

© Bill Steber

Bud Spires can blow a blues harp, but only with one man, Jack Owens. They've been playing together for about 15 years.

Spires says Owens just "ran up on me playing the harp and we started fooling around until we commenced to play notes together."

"You know how a kid plays a harp? He just sucks the air in and blows out. Well, I could play like that before I met Jack, but no notes. After I heard him, I could play notes. It's got to where now anything he can pick, I can blow. And it's getting better, too. Some other guys tried to blow with him, but they couldn't."

Spires feels training with one partner for a long time allows them to play like one person. Although Spires can't play the guitar, he knows when Owens is playing wrong and usually can tell what he is going to do next.

When they first started playing together, Owens had an electric guitar. Spires had a double noted harmonica. He's never played an electric harp, but thinks he could.

"I could play that double noted harp so hard and loud that you could hear it over that guitar."

The two sit close together to play. Spires says he has to sit close to Owens so he can hear what notes to play. They've sat like this in houses and clubs, in Luckett's Club and the Blue Front in Bentonia.

"I can't play by myself. They'll be waiting for me to play all the time, but I can't get Jack. I'll blow the best I can, but I can't blow with nobody else."

Spires cups both his hands over his harp to play, conjuring a whining, wistful sound. He can't tell anyone how to play harmonica, because "you just have to know."

"Sometimes I volunteer and come on in there and sing a little, too. Me and Jack take turns. Like in 'Catfish Blues,' first it's his turn, then mine. 'Your Buggy Don't Ride Like Mine,' too."

Spires will stop and talk o Owens while he's playing, commenting on his verse, or telling him to speed up the music.

When Spires was young, listening to the blues was all he had in mind. His daddy used to pick a guitar, and blow a harp.

"He could sit on a sidewalk and play. He used to draw the people out of the stores. He was named Authur Spires. I guess I could do it, too."

He got his first harmonica as a child for 25 cents. He doesn't know what brand he plays, and doesn't care. Sometimes he dips his harp in water to loosen up the keys. He plays them until they wear out.

"I've blowed the sides off this one. I had to nail them back on."

Before they play, they tune. Some nights it's easier to get it right. When things aren't going fast enough, Spires says either the guitar is drunk, or the harp is sober.

Spires’ favorite harp is an A. He will blow a C if he can't get an A. If he plays a G, Owens has to "drop his strings way low, almost loose" to get in tune. The high notes on Spire's harp are like brand new because they are never used. They just don't play songs that go up in that range of notes.

"I ain't got nothing to do but this here. I grew up in Mississippi, ain't hardly been out. I'll get together with Jack anytime to play. I could play everyday."

Spires jokes around a lot when he plays, and usually catches the listener off guard with some belly cracker. When he starts grinning, he's set to play. 

Larry Hoffman remembers getting directions from Bud Spires:

I remember being dispatched by Jim O'Neal in Clarksdale, to take our friend photographer Jim Fraher down to Bentonia to pick up Jack and Bud and bring them back to Clarksdale to play in the Sunflower River Festival. We were told to first stop at Duck Holmes' store and get directions from Mr. Holmes to get through the winding brush-laden roads leading to Bud's house, and he would take us to Jack. The interesting thing about this errand was that Bud was stone blind! "Naw, don't worry about that, Bud will take you right there," promised Holmes. After a brief visit with Duck we traveled on to meet Bud and his mom who lived a few miles from the store. From there--as promised-- Bud gave us flawless directions to Jack's place. I have to smile thinking about Jack and Bud and the conversation that ensued as we speeded from Bentonia to Clarksdale. I was in a speedy mood, and was really trucking down those smooth Mississippi highways when Jack shouted out, "I feel like im flyin'!!" It was a great trip, and it was hard not to become immediately taken by both of those great bluesmen. RIP -- one thing that unites the really fine bluesmen is that -- to a man or woman-- each is one-of-a-kind, and never forgotten.

Belton Sutherland Project

An Unmarked Biography of Belton Sutherland 
Produced by the Mt. Zion Memorial Fund​

Clarion Ledger, Oct 15, 1983.

This short film offers new details about the life of a largely undocumented musician from Madison County, Mississippi named Belton Sutherland, who recorded for Worth Long and Alan Lomax in 1978 for the documentary film, The Land Where the Blues Began. We have located his burial records and hope to erect a marker for this fiercely iconoclastic artist, whose clever lyrics and true tone grabs any listener almost immediately.

Belton Sutherland was born on February 14, 1911--the same year as the legendary Robert Johnson. His parents, William and Hallie Sutherland, already had eight children, and they would have four more after Belton, making a total of thirteen. He lost his mother shortly before his eighth birthday, and he had married and moved to Holmes County by the age of eighteen. By the late 1930s, however, he came back to Madison County, got arrested for forging a $25 check, and served eight months of a two year prison sentence before the remainder got suspended by the governor.

Clarion Ledger, Mar 10, 1937.

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.