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Mississippi Saxophone Jeff Kerr |
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They say I revolutionized the Mississippi Saxophone. Took it to the front of the stage. I got to play in Muddy’s band. I cut a few sides myself. Some became hits like “Blue Mood” and “Blowin’ My Top.” All that don’t make no never mind. About the time the sour mash and the dope starts to working is when I start to remembering. I was Shorty McDaniels, just a light-skinned kid from the Mississippi Delta country. Too pretty to work and too dumb to run a pimp game. I blew harmonica for change on the streets of the cotton town I was from and then caught a freight train to Chicago. I played Maxwell Street for change and other things. It was just after World War II and the Southside was jumping with steel mill paydays, big legged women, new cars and electric blues. I was playing Maxwell Street blowing my harmonica and singing while another boy hit some chords on a Sears Roebuck guitar with an amplifier with the plug running through an extension cord into the window of the dope man’s house. I played them all: Good Morning Little School Girl, Saddle Up My Pony, Key to the Highway and even made up my own tunes. Instrumental things that was more like jazz where I got down on the low end of the harmonica messing around the dark notes. When I hit town there was only one harp man that mattered and that was Booger Man Moore. He was a middle-aged man, sleepy eyed and big. He blew a harp, sang, danced and had come up through medicine shows and landed in Chicago about ten years ago. He played all of the clubs and house rent parties. Every house on the Southside had at least one of his records. His most famous song was “Where Did You Go?” I couldn’t get no club dates or slots in any band. No one was interested in a little raggedy boy like me. I practiced every day and every night. I made my own sound. The more I listened to Booger Man, the more I realized how sloppy he sounded. It was like he didn’t take no pride in his music. It was just background noise for a party. One Sunday I was playing a slow blues, making up notes swooping and soaring around the out of tune guitar. My eyes were closed and the sky was white and hot up above me. Every time I inhaled to make notes I could smell stale beer and rotting fruit. I opened my eyes and a small crowd was watching. A fat man with tobacco colored skin was watching me, nodding his head and smoking the stub of a cigar. He looked familiar to me. I finished up the tune, knocked the spit out of my harp and took the money out of the cigar box we used for tips. “Thank you very much.” “Hey, boy, you got a different style with that Mississippi Saxophone there,” the fat man said. “Thank you. Do I know you?” “Maybe. I’m Vance McComb. I work down at Royal Flush Records. I pitch acts to the Levy brothers. Do some songwriting. Pound a piano. Whatever needs doing around there.” “Maybe you can put in a word for me. I’m lookin’ to cut some sides.” “Shit, you ain’t what no one wants to hear.” “How you mean?” “There ain’t but one harp player in Chicago.” I felt my face trembling. “Booger Man Moore got the harp thing all tied up. Ain’t nobody can beat him. Ain’t no use to call nobody else but him for a record date.” McComb dropped the butt on the filthy bricks and ground it out with a two-toned wingtip. “But you keep it up. You keep hustlin’ those nickels and dimes.” He laughed as he walked away. I gripped my harp so hard that the metal edges cut into my hand. I felt blood run across my palm and through my fingers. It was one of those hot nights in Chicago where it was like walking underwater. Any breeze from the lake was welcome but it also brought every stink from every alley and pile of garbage. I found myself down at the Zanzibar Club drinking tap beer and watching Muddy Waters work out on the tiny stage. Muddy shook his gleaming face as his guitar sang under the bottleneck. It sounded like a taut piece of barbwire. The band stayed “Rollin’ and Tumblin’” right with him, powerful like a regal beast of sound. I nodded my head with the music. Muddy sang: “Roll and tumble the whole night through. Woke up this mornin’ and all I had was gone.” The club was packed. Money was flying across the bar. It was payday and two days before folks had to get back to the steel mills and cleaning white folks houses. Time to pitch a ‘do. I sat at the bar and a sloppy drunk woman kept bumping up against me and saying “’Scuze me, mister.” I’d nod and get back to my beer and cigarette. After the fifth time I said, “You tryin’ to tell me somethin’, sister?” “How you mean?” “The way you keep bumpin’ me? Am I in your way or somethin’?” “Look at little man here. No, honey, you ain’t in my way and I’m not tryin’ to rub up on you if that’s what you’re gettin’ ready to ask.” “I ain’t asked.” “Got a smoke?” I held the pack out to her. She took a cigarrette. I lit it off of mine. “What you do?” she asked. “Music man.” “Oh, yeah? Have I heard of you.” “Name’s Shorty McDaniels.” “I ain’t never heard of no Shorty McDaniels.” “I play down on Maxwell Street.” “Oh, you’re one of those.” “What you mean?” “Never mind, honey,” she said, patting my arm. Muddy wrapped up his tune and spoke to the crowd, “Ladies and gentlemen, help me welcome a very special guest...Booger Man Moore!” I hadn’t seen him before, but now I recognized him from pictures. A large man in a rumpled green suit and undone red tie with yellow flowers got up from a table in the back and staggered across the floor. People clapped and yelled out his name. He got up on the stage and grabbed the microphone stand. He fished a large Hohner harp out of his pants pocket. He smiled, his eyes were at half-mast. “Evenin’ everybody!” he slurred. He took the microphone off of the stand and held it up to the harp and blew into it like a trumpet call to arms. Then he yelled into the microphone, “Everybody ready?” The crowd yelled back. “I say, “Everybody ready?” The crowd yelled back louder. “OK then...” Booger Man started blowing his harp making a boogie. The band fell in right with him. Muddy stood back and grinned clapping his hands. Booger Man clowned and blew his harp. He threw his harp up in the air and caught it in his mouth. He stomped the stage with his feet. He finished up the tune, bowed and left the stage. He walked past me. The lady next to me grabbed his arm. “Hey, Booger Man, you was real good.” “Thank you.” “This boy here say he a musician.” “Whatcha play?” he asked me. “I blow a little harp.” He looked me up and down. “Man, you know ain’t nobody can cut me on harp, dontcha?” “I can play better than you and I don’t got to be nobody’s clown while I’m doin’ it,” I heard myself say. “Who you callin’ a clown, boy?” Booger Man’s eyes narrowed and he showed his teeth. I could make out a scar across one cheek. “You just a tired old man doggin’ that harp, man. You too old timey.” “He say he play down on Maxwell Street,” the lady said, grinning.
“Maxwell Street?
You one of them nickel and dime niggers.
Shit, don’t be botherin’ me with that,” he said,
waving me away and staggering back to his table.
I finished my beer and smoked my cigarette to the filter. It was still hot as I followed Boogerman down the dark side street. He was singing and talking to himself as he staggered along. I walked quiet as a panther behind him. The street light was busted. He paused in front of a three-flat and walked towards the steps. I gripped the lead pipe and stepped up. “Hey,” I said.
Boogerman staggered back, “Say what?
Oh, it’s you.
Pissant harp player.”
“Ain’t got to hear you play. Motherfuckers come and go. You ain’t got enough ass in your pants to worry me none.” I swung the pipe and cracked him across the front of his head. I dropped the pipe and heard it clang and echo on the sidewalk. Boogerman fell to his knees. A hand shakily sought out his wound. In the moonlight I could see blood wind over his fingers. “Why you...” he said, falling onto his face. I stared down at him and then looked around to see if anyone was watching. I ran back to the boardinghouse I stayed at. The only sound was the soles of my shoes hitting pavement. *** The years passed and I got to be top harp man in Chicago, hell, the world. The hits came and went. The sharkskin suits got raggeddy. The Cadillacs got took away by the repo man. The women took it on down the road. Them cats over in England call me a genius and all, but it don’t matter none. I got blood on my hands I can’t never get off. When I’m not drinking myself into a stupor, I’m shooting dope into my arm. I do all that mess to myself to try and forget what I done. I went from being the top man in the harp game to being unemployable. No band will have me. No studio will cut me. Sometimes some white boys from England will let me sit in with them while they trample all over “Sweet Home Chicago” or “Mannish Boy” over and over again like some skipping record in Hell. I just grin and blow my harp, play along and remind myself that I’m no clown. It was the song I made for myself and I got to play it. The End
Copyright(c) 2007 by Jeff Kerr
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