Memphian is 'Gold Mine' for Museum

By Connie White - Clarksdale, MS Press Register - April 17, 1980

Slightly over a year ago some folks over at the Carnegie Public Library came up with a good idea — a blues museum in Clarksdale.

Now, only a month before the grand opening of the museum's first major exhibition, a Memphis man with music credentials stretching through two decades is helping to turn the idea into a full scale reality.

Don Nix, a musician and record producer from Memphis, has turned into a blues hunter for the museum, and during the past month has collected an impressive number of items that will be displayed beginning May 15. Among the varied items are a saxophone once owned by W.C. Handy, overalls and a jacket donated by former Beatle George Harrison, and instruments owned or made by early blues artists.

Nix came to Clarksdale several months ago to visit Danny Green, a local musician. He heard about the museum and decided to take an active volunteer role. He began searching for blues musicians, their old instruments, and any pictures he could find. That search has turned into a literal blues gold mine for local Blues Museum backers.

Nix describes his blues search as a matter of beg, borrow and buy. "Some people donated or loaned the items," he said. "If it was really good 1 just went ahead and bought it." "Everybody I talked to in Memphis wants to see it really happen down here," Nix said. "They like what we're doing here because Memphis isn't going to do anything.

But some Memphis politicians seem to be at least aware of the fact that many items reflecting blues history are crossing state lines. Two weeks ago Nix was made an honorary County Commissioner.
"I think they're trying to get me to stop bringing that stuff out of Memphis," he said. The honorary position came complete with two big gold certificates. Nix plans to hang the certificates in Clarksdale's Blues Museum.

Nix's loyalty to the Clarksdale cause is a little unusual since his personal music career began in Memphis, or at least at a Memphis high school. It all started one day when a performer named Elvis Presley made an appearance at Nix's high school.

"We had never heard girls scream like that," Nix said as if still a little amazed. "We had never heard rock and roll music." Nix walked out of the auditorium and into the principal's office. "I told him I was quitting school," he said. "There was no need to go to school. I knew what I wanted to do — play rock and roll music."

Nix's first venture into music was the purchase of a guitar. "I knew I'd never get away with that," he said. He settled on a saxophone "I didn't know how to play," he said. "I just bought a saxophone and figured it out." After a stint in Oklahoma playing with Indian bands, Nix came back to Memphis and ran into a group of boys from his high school that were also trying to learn to play music.

"Everybody had bought instruments," Nix said. He said the group would go to all the black night clubs and listen to the bands to pick up technique and sound. The group of boys from the high school became the Mar-Keys.

The Mar-Keys went on to sell 31/2 million records which included the number 14 chart song in 1961 —"Last Night." The group was on the road for about four years traveling by bus through 48 states. They became the house band for the famous Stax recording label playing behind artists like Otis Redding, Rufus and Carla Thomas, Eddie Floyd and William Bell.

The Mar-Keys broke up and Nix moved on to California and an association with singer Leon Russell. During those years he commuted between California and Memphis to continue his work with Stax.

His musical career has moved from performing to record producing to performing. He has produced 46 albums for other artists and recorded several of his own.

Nix says that the high point of his career was the Concert for Bangladesh in 1971. He still carries a medallion commemorating his participation in the concert. His association with the benefit con-cert produced another bit of memories for the blues museum. When the exhibit officially opens May 15, a letter to Nix from George Harrison will be among the collection.

This week Nix is in the Memphis area again using his contacts and knowledge in the blues field to conjure up more items for the blues museum. He lived in Europe for several years and has an appreciation of love Europeans have for blues music. His albums always sold better on the other side of the Atlantic, and perhaps one reason for his concern for the local project is rooted there.

"They come to this area expecting to find something here," Nix said of the tourist's hunt for blues artifacts. "But there is nothing." Through Nix's efforts there may soon be something for blues lovers to see in the area that gave birth to the music — that something will be the Delta Blues Museum.

WHAT IS THE MATTER WITH LEROY CARR?

By Louis Barnewitz - International Discophile, Issue No. 3, Spring 1956

Who will tell me why the blues singer Leroy Carr always has been a step-child in the steadily growing jazz literature ? Where do we find a jazz writer or collector willing to remedy this neglect?

Apart from discographical material, nothing has been written by any ,American jazz writer about this outstanding folk singer. Maybe you have read a short article which included a very important discography in "The Record Changer" of May 1947, written by the English collector and writer, Albert J. McCarthy, or an article in the English magazine "Jazz Journal" a couple of years ago. Besides, you may have had the opportunity of reading a few opinions expressed by a couple of contemporary American blues singers, but you are unable to look up as much as a single article dealing with Carr's biography. Not even Rudy Blesh took the trouble to mention any of Carr's recordings in his book, "Shining Trumpets." He mentions him in passing only, and calls him great. That's all! Such negligence is unpardonable.

It was a great disappointment to me that Big Bill Broonzy, of all people, does not mention Carr in his autobiography, "Big Bill Blues. "In this connection, it is of interest to quote the remarks Big Bill made in "Jazz Record" (March 1946 issue);

"I never worked with him but I think Leroy Carr was the greatest blues singer I heard in my life. I know him from seeing him around and listening to him, and he was the best guy you ever met. "

If it is correct that Big Bill has met Carr in person and listened to him, I wonder how he could write his book without mentioning this wonderful blues singer, even if his lyrically accentuated and relaxed singing was a kind of city blues far away from the primitive and untrained blues singing, which for example, Blind Lemon Jefferson was a typical exponent. Can this be the reason why American jazz writers so entirely ignore this fascinating interpreter of the blues?

The guitarist Scrapper Blackwell accompanied Carr in his more than 120 recordings issued on the Vocalion and Bluebird labels. His playing in these records places him among the most pleasing blues accompanists, and moreover his ensemble playing with the piano-playing Carr was taken as a model, and has been imitated by lots of piano-guitar duos with varying success. A great similarity in thought and musical expression must have been a condition for the splendid ensemble playing. As this amazing oneness is apparent already in their first record, Carr's melodious composition, "How Long Blues, " it seems safe to assume that they had been playing together long before 1928, the year they started recording for Vocalion.

Besides "How Long Blues," which is one of the classic blues compositions and maybe Carr's most beautiful work, he has composed such tunes as "Blues Before Sunrise" and "When The has Goes Down. "His record-ings of these tunes as well as "Midnight Hour Blues.' and "Alabama Woman Blues, " belong to his very best vocal performances. "Muddy Water" should also be mentioned because of Blackwell's very exciting guitar accompaniment which is played with a growing rhythmical excitement.

The words in Carr's songs are not much different from the lyrical poetry in the blues sung by most of the blues singers from the South, but in Carr's melodious form of expression this simple and artless poetry seems to take on a deeper meaning. His intonation is often melancholy but never sentimental. I should think that the only objection against Carr may be that too many of his songs and compositions were built on the same themes. He often used the same theme three or four times (perhaps even more; I am not familiar with more than half of his production), and even if he chose different titles for his records and used different words, it tends to make his repertory slightly monotonous, Nevertheless, it is an incomplete collection that does not have some of Leroy Carr's recordings, and for my part, I feel that he ought to have a seat in the Library Of Congress, side by side with America's finest folk creators!

May I finally express a hope for a Long Play record comprising some of Carr's best recordings. There is no doubt that such a record would fulfill the wish of record collectors the world over, and at the same time it would widen the knowledge of the performances of one of the best blues artists who ever existed. 

101 Reasons Not to Stop Someone from Dancing on the Train Tracks

Album Review: 

Tony Manard - Know Why 

http://tonymanard.com

The above listed site, on the main page, will get you to a place where you can pick up the above album by Tony Manard, who perhaps goes around wanting to "know why" everything is the way it is. I don't "know why" that's the name of his album, but if a man was to use his intuition and intellect and think of what might be on said album, he might not be all that surprised to find six of these songs coming from Manard.  In truth, I'm no Manard expert, but like all plural beings, I possess the ability to profile and judge folks, perhaps cold-read is a more acceptable term in our times. So I make assumptions and speak truth to power despite the offensive potential to a gracious and cordial individual who seems a genuinely kind soul. 

In my own mind, "Mississippi (Why You Gotta Be So Mean?)" is the artist taking on the role of a blue-collar southerner who wants to murder his employer, yet also desires some sort of job security so that he can grow old with a little grace and get a taste of the not-so-complicated twilight of life. There is also a tinge of sympathy for the plight of the unskilled laborer (read: redneck) in today's society whose job prospects are dwindling. While it's not mentioned directly in the song, it's implied that the increasingly diversified population and economy in the southern states is going to require folks to attain a different skill set to maintain their productive status in society. Of course, many of our brothers and sisters find themselves lost and feel as if they have no options, nothing to lose, and many people go the same route of our protagonist, learning the hard way that they had more than most. I think I hear Cecil Yancy back there on a harmony, and Alice Hasen demonstrates her abilities as a catgut scraper too on the opening track.  A full-length video directed and produced by Libby Brawley, one of the newer filmmakers in the Memphis-New York connection, is embedded below. 

The track that stands out to this lifelong admirer of the music of Beck and Leonard Cohen is "Track 6: B-Movie Actor," which contains lyrics that remind me of a love affair between two beatnicks.  The most interesting aspect is the rhythm and the melody and even the vocal. It's a shake up for Manard. Granted, it may be a bit groggy on the highs, but compared to the tone on the rest of the album, I'm actually quite refreshed and invigorated by its steadiness. Manard's skill as an instrumentalist cannot be denied by any sober critic, but I always felt that Robert Jr. Lockwood said it well when he said, "Don't play too much." Unlike a few other places on the album, the business of filling up space is abandoned in favor of pedantic, progressive rhythm on this aural delight, which should not fail to peak the curiosity and interest of Manard's more dedicated following. It is notable for nothing else if not Vincent Manard's closing with the Aztec Death whistle.  It makes you feel as if things will be all right despite a lot having gone wrong.  With no more ado, enjoy the show - TDM

"Mississippi (Why You Gotta Be So Mean?)"

Tony Manard

Muddy Waters' Obituary

The Clarksdale Press Register - Monday, May 2, 1983

Muddy Waters, the little boy who came to live with his grandmother in Stovall in 1918 and grew up to be a blues music superstar, died Saturday in Chicago.

Waters died of "cardiac arrest" at home in the Chicago suburb of Westmont, said his manager, Scott Cameron. He was pronounced dead at 2:17 a.m. Saturday at Good Samaritan Hospital in suburban Downers Grove, spokeswoman Roberta Butler said.

The rotund singer hadn't been ill and had planned to make another album this summer, Cameron said. He had earned six Grammys during his career.

Waters was born April 4, 1915, in Rolling Fork. His name was McKinley Morganfield and his father Willie Morganfield was a farmer and musician. After his mother died, he moved in with his grandmother in Stovall.