T.J. Wheeler: Blues in the Schools and the Graveyard

Sonny Boy Williamson II

T.J. Wheeler's 1990 Blues in the Schools (BITS)
and the Graveyard Tour: Part I

Written by T.J. Wheeler

Edited by T. DeWayne Moore

[Author's Note: In a reversal of the status quo, the author does not identify most folks as African Americans. Except for Jake Jacobs, his personal acquaintances in the Sonny Boy Blues Society, and himself, everyone referenced is African American--unless otherwise noted.]

To read more about the headstone of Sonny Boy Williamson II

Since seeing the posts on the early 1990s efforts to maintain Sonny Boy Williamson's (Rice Miller) grave by the Mt. Zion Memorial Fund and the overall resting place was kept clean as well as kept up,. I've been promising to pony up on my recollections of that effort. I've been partially procrastinating on doing this because it would take a while to fully explain & express not only my facts but also my feelings. So I'm going to have to do this in drips & drabs. Here is the prelude.

In the spring of 1987 my good friend and harp man Rockin' Jake Jacobs took 61 Highway (and byways) sojourn from NOLA to Memphis. We made a few stops along the way, as well as in Memphis, visiting our friend James "Son" Thomas, Wade Walton, visiting the late Bukka White's family (in Memphis) doing a gig set up by Joe Saverin on Beale and a follow-up meeting with his fledgling nonprofit org., known then as the W.C. Handy Blues Foundation. 

Neither of us felt the trip would be complete if we didn't make a stop in Tutwiler to pay our respects at Sonny Boy's gravesite. Who says you can't teach an old dawg new/old tricks about even older prejudices? After spending about 20 min. in the town graveyard (which we assumed would be the logical place to start looking for a grave) checking various graves, many of which also had pictures of the deceased inserted in the headstone, like the one in Sonny Boy's) we came to a mutual conclusion. Not only was it unlikely we'd find Sonny Boy's grave, but it was also unlikely that we'd find the graves of any African Americans.

This certainly was not my first time in the South. 

Throughout the 70s, I had made many trips including about four months in Memphis in 1974, hanging out daily between Bukka White and Furry Lewis's house. I had just about kicked myself for being so naive...racism was so embedded in so much of the South that people could not live together under the rule of Jim Crow; they couldn't even die and be put to rest in the same graveyard together.

T.J. Wheeler c. 1990

After the realization that Jim Crow segregation extended into the afterlife, our search literally and figuratively became more grassroots.

I remembered Furry Lewis’s words from well over a decade before, in response to my question for directions to Sleepy John Estes’s house in Brownsville Tennessee. “Just take that right-hand road," he informed, "and then just ask the first person you see how to get there.” Though I had my doubts at the time, I followed not only his advice but a young boy on a stingray bicycle (who was the very first person I saw) all the way to Sleepy John’s house.  With nothing to lose, we tried the same tactic in Tutwiler. It was a tall, thin elderly gentleman walking with his young grandson, hand-in-hand, down the street that first appeared.  Bingo! He knew right where it was, gave us directions and wished us luck. 

Wheeler: Blues in the Schools and the Graveyard - Part 2

Wheeler and the grave of SBW II after he
and his team cleared it in 1990.

T.J. Wheeler's 1990 Blues in the Schools (BITS)
and the Graveyard Tour: Part II

Did you get to read Part 1?

Written by T.J. Wheeler
Edited by T. DeWayne Moore

Thanks to a “seed” project grant from the Ben & Jerry’s foundation, my first national “Hope, Heroes’ & the Blues” (in the schools) tour allowed me to bring the program to a cross section of co-sponsoring blues societies, foundations and clubs across America. Destinations included (1) Portsmouth, New Hampshire, (2&3) Boston & Worcester, Massachusetts, (4&5) Springfield & Chicago, Illinois, (6) Davenport, Iowa, (7) Memphis, Tennessee, (8&9) Clarksdale & Tutwiler, Mississippi, (10) Helena, Arkansas, (11) Atlanta, Georgia & (12) Seattle, Washington.

The mission of BITS, in essence, was to break down the encrusted and malicious negative stereotypes about the blues in the public's memory--black & white and all shades in between. One of my personal missions was the eradication of all notions that "the blues was the Devil’s music” and that "its originators had accommodated Jim Crow, standing passively by as the New South industrialists pushed their products onto consumers using horrid caricatures" of African Americans. An anti-drug abuse theme was also part of the program, which partially came out of the CIA's intentional dispersal of cocaine in black communities. It also addressed the advent of crack cocaine and the damage it was doing in those neighborhoods.

The BITS program itself never depicted country blues artists as saints. I did (and still do) maintain that the actions and music of blues artists was heroic in many ways.

As opposed to only being “crying in their beer” music, the Blues could just as rightly be called music of transformation, music of the survivor, and indeed a music of hope--"the sun is gonna shine in my back door someday." The majority of students (and often their teachers & other adults), however, seemed unable to see what I could see in this music. I identified this disconnect early on. The Blues was and is, and always will be, music that developed not inside the African nor the American consciousness. It is intrinsically tied to the experiences of the formerly enslaved and their descendants--African Americans. That simple fact seemed to get so lost in America. I wanted to get it on home.

HH&B informed them that the Blues was the bedrock of so much American, and arguably a good percentage of world music. It's one of the exquisitely American influences in the world of music, and one certainly to be proud of. Instead of starting with the origins of the Blues (such as work songs, field hollers, spirituals, underground railroad, and old string band music,) I started with contemporary popular music, or “back chained” the limbs & branches of the music back to the roots. By starting off with music familiar to the students, it helped me gain the trust of my young audiences. I reaffirmed that their musical tastes were valid, and made my respect for this product of acculturation most visible, which seemed to get them on board mentally for the journey back to the roots of where “their music” came from.

Wheeler at a club gig during the 1990 BITS tour

Randy Labbe was friend and a booking agent from the pine state of Maine. He was a liaison with most of the Blues societies/foundations; he helped set up some gigs along the way to help subsidize the tour, (plus I love playing for adults as well as kids.) Booking the club gigs was also supposed to help in getting the school gigs lined up. If the club owners/managers used their local contacts and booked a school for me, we would list them as a supporting co-sponsor for the tour. Buddy Guy’s Legend’s Club in Chicago and Blind Willie’s in Atlanta both signed on to this arrangement, (to the best of my knowledge.) 

Unfortunately when I arrived in both locations, the schools had not been arranged. In Chicago the bar manager told me “Oh yeah…that’s right. We were supposed to do that weren’t we? Well, don’t worry, you’re going to get paid the same. So relax…less work for you!”

Kenny Brown: Master Musician

Kenny Brown: Master Musician

By Sue Watson for the (Holly Springs, MS) South Reporter - Aug 11, 2004

Somewhere in the red clay hills near the Tippah River at Potts Camp lives a man who plays the blues.

Kenny Brown, formerly of Nesbit, and living in Memphis until year 2000, moved to his 30-acre estate to get back to the peace and quiet of the country - the roots of the Mississippi blues whether it be in the hills or the delta.

Brown is a fourth or fifth generation blues guitarist who has been influenced and taught by some of Mississippi’s second generation bluesmen living in the red clay hills area of Mississippi stretching from the state line in the north down through the center of the state to Jackson or more.

Now 52, Brown was just a boy when his interest in guitar sparked when he began taking lessons and trying to read music.

Fortuitously, by age 12 he was situated right across the road in Nesbit, from an aging blues great, Joe Callicutt.

“When I was growing up in Nesbit, when I was about seven, the place we lived was across the road from a place where they had picnics, and they usually had fife and drum bands and guitar players there,” Brown said. “I met Joe when I was about 12. I was already playing some and knew most of the basic chords. My brother told me about Joe and went and asked if he could show me some stuff. That’s how we got started. It got to where I was at Joe’s place every day. If my parents couldn’t find me, they would go to Joe’s place first.”

Brown was soon introduced to Fred McDowell, another second generation blues musician by another blues enthusiast, Bobby Ray Watson of Pleasant Hill, Miss., at one of the Memphis Blues Festivals around 1969.

“Right after Joe died, Bobby Ray introduced me to Johnny Woods, a famed harmonica player and vocalist from Marshall County.

Aspiring young musicians have a way of meeting and being influenced or taught by those around them.

Brown met R.L. Burnside, a bluesman. He worked and travelled on and off for the next 30 years in Hernando with Junior Kimbrough.

“I met Burnside when he was opening for a rock band at a little concert in Hernando that a friend of mine was putting on,” he said. “Johnny Woods first took me down to Junior Kimbrough’s house when he lived out on Marianna Road just outside Holly Springs.

It is the way musicians pass on what they have learned either directly or through records and tapes to the next generation that provides continuity to music, guaranteeing it will live on, though it may and does evolve from generation to generation. Or, as in the case of rock and roll, one genre can be the springboard for another.

As with any serious artist, sooner or later they mature, write some of their own music, and cut some records. And they begin to influence the next generation - assuring what is learned and appreciated is passed on.

That’s where Brown is today, out on his own, spreading his wings, and teaching aspirants.

He will be giving formal instruction to his godson, Jocco Rushing, a 17-year-old, with the assistance of a grant from the Mississippi Arts Commission. Brown has taught several other apprentices - a student from Oxford and from Hickory Flat - with assistance from the Delta Blues Educational Foundation.

Brown can’t put his finger on just what it is that sparks interest and fans the flames until a youngster gets enough of a start to continue development.

“I’m not sure what it was,” he said. “I was always interested in music, especially guitars. There’s a place I play in Taylor, The Taylor Grocery Catfish place, where families come in. And I’ve noticed lately that the ones who pay the closest attention are the real young kids. I love playing there mainly for that reason. I’m sure a lot of times it’s the first time these kids get to see someone performing up close.”

Brown explained how he was drawn to Potts Camp.

“I have some friends who live down here and had been coming down riding horses. I liked it here a lot and I was living in Memphis for a while. I was ready to get back to the country.”

Jocco moved in with Brown for a couple of years. Like when Brown was young, music could be heard coming from somewhere in the red clay hills.

Jocco has moved to the Mississippi Gulf Coast to be with family and there is not as much music being made on the porch near the Tippah River on Brown’s 30 acres now. He continues to enjoy riding horses and keeping chickens and some dogs. He will work with Jocco again, formally.

“He is teaching me, too,” Brown said.

He and the Burnsides are all now out on their own, he said.

“I am doing my own thing since R.L. retired,” Brown said. “He (R.L.) is going to be 78 in November.”

Brown said he still visits Burnside at his Wall Hill Road home off Highway 309, when he can.

He is now rated as a Master Artist, by the Mississippi Blues Commission.

He will continue on his own or with other artists as a part of the evolving blues of the red clay hills of Mississippi and the Delta Blues.

“We still carry it on - the Burnside and Kimbrough kids,” he said.

Coming up for Brown is a chance to write or play for some movies. He has been talking with producer Robert Muggie about a “Native Sons” series being filmed at Ground Zero, the food and music hall in Clarksdale, Miss., owned by actor Morgan Freeman and Clarksdale attorney Bill Luckett.

As with all blues vocalists and musicians, the attraction to the blues is because it comes from the heart, Brown said.

For more about Kenny Brown visit www.kennybrown.net. or www.fatpossum.com.

Frank Little’s Blues: Hey Y’all Here I Am

Frank Little’s Blues: Hey Y’all Here I Am

By Connie White – Clarksdale Press Register – Nov 4, 1979

It was a grey morning with drizzly rain and dark cloudy skies and Frank Little was walking, walking down U.S. 61, going from the Delta Blues Museum to Wade Walton's barber shop on Fourth Street.

Little had flown in for a visit with friends and his 67-year-old mother who still lives on McKinley Street.

In the barbershop, Little talked with his friend Wade Walton. The memories were punctuated with chords from blues songs, songs the two had played together when Little had first moved to Clarksdale.

"I used to play for quarters on the corner," Little said, strumming Walton's electric guitar. "In fact I made some quarters on the corner right there when I first came."

Little pointed out to the corner of Fourth and Issaquena Streets.

"People used to say 'play that guitar for me boy and I'll give you a quarter,"' Little said accenting his words with strummed guitar chords. "Well a quarter was a lot of money back then."

"You know a young black kid wan-ting to go to school and buy a hot dog or something," Little said. "Somebody say 'play me a tune' and, man, I'd light into it.''

"I lived down by the Ellis flats on Sunflower Street back near the jailhouse," Little said. "That was back when if they threw you in jail you knew you were in jail."

"When I moved here I got attached to Ike Turner, to Wade Walton, you know, and that started really my interest in the blues," Little said.

Little still holding the guitar picks the first chords of a song. "You remember that one Wade," he said.

Little went into military service in 1960 and got out in 1967. He made his home In New Jersey and only comes to Clarksdale once a year now.

Little played In special service bands during his years in the service and began playing with the big blues bands in 1967.

"I play with the Duke Anderson Orchestra," Little said. "We play something like the high society quarters so to speak, play for the governor and the mayor."

"I had the privilege of working behind Aretha Franklin's sister Norma, and Judy Clay who did Storybook Children," Little said leaning back in his chair and picking out a few more chords.

"I played with Gloria Gaynor when she first started out in Newark, New Jersey," Little said. "You can't touch Gloria Gaynor now. I bet she's even forgot that I was once her guitar player back in 1968."

Little is giving himself two years to pull in that same kind of success. He even has his own record label now; the label's name is Shucks.

"Do you ever say that — Aw Shucks — when you make a mistake?" Little said starting to laugh. "I do."

Little is pleased with his label rights, and the protection it will give royalties from his records. But he admits he made a mistake with the producer of his last single. "I made a mistake by picking the wrong producer for the last two songs that I cut," he said. "He didn't have the capital to push the record like it should have been." "I'm looking for another producer to push the 25 tunes that I have ready for an album," Little said. "Because of the way the economic situation is now it's hard to get the investor, the producer, to throw the money out behind you," Little said. "Because many records are going to the warehouse and stacking up."

Little will be speaking on the subject of commercial blues, giving pointers to young artists or any blues enthusiasts Saturday at 2 p.m. at the Delta Blues Museum in the Myrtle Hall Library on U.S. 61.

Besides talking about the different problems facing blues artists, Little will play some songs and possibly be accompanied by Walton. "People are not buying blues records like they were at one time," Little said. "You're taking a chance when you produce a blues record or a blues album — you're taking a chance."

Little is looking for a producer to "take a chance on him." But he says if he doesn't make it in two years he will go into the song writing end of the business.

Sitting in the barber shop though, looking out on the corner where he used to earn quarters playing tunes, the dreams of big success come back. "If I run into the right producer," Little said laughing. "They'll put me on T.V. and I'll get my teeth fixed good."

"I'll be saying 'hey y’all here I am,"' Little said. "Shucks."