The More You Cry (The Matchbox Blues Blues, Pt. 1)

[Note 1:  These are long.  No, seriously.  I don't expect anyone to read any of it.  But there are 33 mp3s in these two entries and, as they're pretty much taking up all my online storage space, they won't be up very long.  A week, maybe.  The text and the stitched-together comparison track up will stay up, but grab whatever else you might want while you can.]

[Note 2:  There's no consistency re: recording/release dates; in each instance I just grabbed the earliest one I could find.  If you have corrections, please share them!]

Dangerous, firing up the PBS at three in the morning.

Channel 13 was running a couple packages of performances from ABC's old (‘69-'71) Johnny Cash Show a while back.  A lot of good stuff (all included in this recently released double-DVD set); the clip below's a hoot.  It's November of 1970, and after Derek and the Dominos finishes playing "It's Too Late" their frontman finds himself in a Sun Legend sandwich:

Not a baton-passing moment - the middle man's hardly heir to either of the others' styles; nor was it an official coming out - that's Clapton's sixth band, he'd already done the sold-out international arena tour thing a few times over.  So you can sit back and not worry about history crowding out the experience.  Take Clapton's humility and gratitude and Cash's appreciation at face value (or just assume they're both really fucked up on something).  Enjoy Carl Perkins' and Clapton's quick nods and smiles as the mutual love of good geetar.  Bask in the glow of an "all-star jam" that lasts less than two-and-a-half minutes.

Carl Perkins never changed his tunes.

As much as Chuck Berry in St. Louis and Fats in New Orleans and Little Richard in Georgia and Diddley in Mississippi and Bill Haley in PA and fellow Tennessean Scotty Moore and who all else you want to mention, Perkins was instrumental in getting at and getting out the mix of honky-tonk and blues boogie that had been percolating under American consciousness since forever.  His spare riffs, natural, yodeled grace notes, and intense interjections wound up wherever there was a God and a Satan and a Saturday night.

Arguably the smallest of the four Sun giants, he had the label's first million-seller, a record that ran high on the country (#1), pop (#2), and R&B (#2) charts... and if that song is sometimes remembered as Elvis' it weren't for lack of trying.  Presley was the first one to take that tune to television, see, after Perkins and his band got in a nasty car wreck; Carl cracked his skull, his rhythm guitarist brother broke his neck.  As if to remind everyone of his authorship, Perkins would always wear blue, dropped the words "Blue Suede Shoes" into other numbers ("All Mama's Children," "Put Your Cat Clothes On," "You Can Do No Wrong"), peddled other footwear-oriented knock-offs ("Pink Pedal Pushers," "Pointed Toe Shoes").   He had other songs, better songs, but none of them sold as well.

Maybe people were just excited by the idea that you were suddenly allowed to do anything - anything - just as long as you avoided that one dude's loafers.

Music's a wild, living thing, music is movement.  Sam Phillips' other boys followed their steps:  Presley settled into superstardom and schmaltz; Cash created his own dark mythos and married into country royalty; Jerry Lee kept the crazy going, damning himself out of the limelight, redeeming himself in Nashville, somehow singing survivor's songs.  Perkins was never as complicated.  For him there wasn't ever any devil's music, just stuff that "makes people forget and feel good."  In one of his best, "Boppin' the Blues," he sings:  "The doctor told me, ‘Boy, you don't need no pills/Just a handful of nickels - a jukebox'll cure your ills."  Rhythm and Blues helps his crippled grandfather walk again!

Rockabilly was cure, not conflict, so there was no reason for him to change.  Sure:  If you don't move forward you're often left behind.  But stand still long and tall enough, you're given landmark status.  You're there for new generations who need to find their way.

"This is Rock n' Roll School, children!  You're doin' good!"

Blowing through Elvis' first A and B, the songs that drove Perkins to Sun in the first place, an old Roy Acuff number thrown in for good measure.  "Here we go, class:  Hallelujah!"  There's Edmunds and Clapton and a pair of ex-Beatles and a couple stray Stray Cats and a whole ‘nother generation of Cash, all of whom'd made a trip back to the well.  That 1985 Rockabilly Session (available on DVD/CD) doesn't just serve as just a reminder/reclamation of Perkins' legacy.  It's good times, tunes.  When's the last time you saw famous folks having such unguarded fun?  Who wants to change any of that?

*

"Talk to me little box!  Let's-go-now-let's-go!"

[Tex Ritter's Ranch Party (The video says 1956, but various sources say the show didn't even start airing until ‘57, ‘58, or '59; I couldn't find anything with specific airdates.)]

The set-up's too-neat:  Perkins was born in 1932 to a family of sharecroppers, was in the fields picking cotton by age six.  A black field hand, Uncle John Westbrook, sold him a guitar and taught him the blues; he'd go home and play along with the Opry broadcasts on his daddy's radio.  Two great tastes and all that.  Perkins formed a band with his two brothers and wrote his first song, the shotgun-sweet "Movie Magg," when he was thirteen.  Ten years later, Sun subsidiary Flip Records would release that as his first single.

My needle's stuck on "Matchbox."  If you've been pressing Play you've heard it three times already.  The rockin' little number - Perkins' fifth 45 on the main label, SUN261, released 1-23-1957 - may not have burned up the charts or have been any kind of watershed moment, but history's got its hooks in it.  The song's widely considered an uncredited makeover of Blind Lemon Jefferson's "Match Box Blues."  But Perkins - who wrote or co-wrote the bulk of his music - didn't shy from crediting both the black and white artists he covered; proper nods were given to reworkings of Piano Red's "Right String, Wrong Yo-Yo" and The Platters' "Only You."  Was Jefferson shrugged off because he'd been dead for almost thirty years and had no acknowledged heirs?  Or was Perkins' rockabilly ditty - which shared only a single verse with its blues predecessor - a substantially different beast, one that plugged in and played with the same floating verses that had long been quilted into our sonic pastime?

There's something rattling around in that song about notions of authorship and how music moved and changed between genres and times and groups of people.  My aural lab's not equipped to do any kind of intense musicological DNA-work, I'm not going to engage in any research that doesn't come up at the top of a quick Google, and I don't believe in definitive histories of anything.  But I thought it might be interesting to - O, the phillumeny! - gather together every version of the song/songs, from a bit before Jefferson to on beyond Perkins, let them rub up against each other.

Punch that arrow below and you'll go through forty years in eight minutes:

• Various Artists - Match Box Variations (1924-1964)(mp3)

Eighteen takes on the key stanza from "Match Box Blues" in a mostly chronological assemblage (always go out on Sam Cooke, if you can).  Those tracks and more, below.

(Before I get too far into reappropriated facts, general legwork props to Michael Taft's Web Concordance of Pre-War Blues Lyrics, Nick Tosches' Country, AllMusicGuide, the ever-reliable Wikipedia.  Also, God bless Document Records.)

Most of the sentences in Blind Lemon Jefferson's biography end in question marks.  He was born blind (probably), his given name was Lemon (or "Lemmon").  His birth year is in dispute (1893?  1897?), as are the cause (Heart Attack?  Exposure?  Poison?) and date (some time in December, 1929) of his death (There were rumors Paramount delayed announcement of his passing so they put together a package of tribute albums, record companies having been as reputable then as now.).  He was "a grotesque creature, a beastly fat man who cared for nothing but sex and whiskey;" he was so religious (and he recorded spirituals under the names "Reverend L.J. Bates" and "Elder J.C. Brown") that he refused to play on Sundays.  He was married once, or four times, or not at all; he sired one son, or he didn't.  His funeral was attended by two or three hundred people, but his grave went unmarked for almost forty years.

He also wrestled for money! (Maybe!)

It's known that he was relatively well-travelled.  Starting from the now-nonexistent Texas town of Couchman, where his family were sharecroppers, he'd wander nearby towns like Wortham; eventually he settled in Dallas, where he played for black and white, at barbershops and whorehouses.  He supposedly played in Oklahoma and throughout the South, but there are few specifics known beyond recording sessions in Atlanta (March 14-15, 1927) and Chicago and Indiana (multiple dates, 1926-9).  No one knows from whom he learned how to play guitar.  Itinerant, traditional bluesmen?  Immigrant Mexicans?  How much of his style was there before he started travelling, how much of the "Texas Blues" sound was brought back from other places?

• Blind Lemon Jefferson - Match Box Blues (80524) (March 14, 1927)(mp3) (buy)
• Blind Lemon Jefferson - Match Box Blues (4424) (April 1927)(mp3) (buy)
• Blind Lemon Jefferson - Match Box Blues (4446) (April 1927)(mp3) (buy)

It's amazing they got his voice and his guitar to stick to the wax.

Blind Lemon Jefferson was the first "important" self-accompanied blues singer-guitarist on record, the first blues guitarist to be recorded using a slide, the first commercially successful male blues recording artist.  He mostly recorded original songs, though there were some credited covers and traditional material; he put down more than 90 sides for Paramount, another eight for Okeh Records.

Only one single was released from the Atlanta Okeh sessions (possibly due to contractual conflicts with Paramount):  "Match Box Blues" backed/with "Black Snake Moan."

The Okeh version (80524) (All lyrics on this page, unless otherwise noted, have the standard three line stanzas wherein the first line is repeated; assume all odd lines are sung twice.):

I'm going to the river : going to walk down by the sea
I got those tadpoles and minnows : arguing over me
Sitting here wondering : would a matchbox hold my clothes
I ain't got so many matches : but I got so far to go
Lord mama : who may your manager be
He asked so many questions : can you make arrangements for me
I got a brown across town : she crochet all the time
Baby if you don't quit crocheting : you going lose your mind
I wouldn't mind marrying : but I can't stand settling down
I'm going to act like a preacher : so I can ride from town to town
I'm leaving town : crying won't make me stay
Baby the more you cry : the further you drive me away

The single was such a success that Paramount had Jefferson record "Match Box Blues" two more times a month later.  ("Black Snake Moan" had already been released on Paramount as "That Black Snake Moan.")

2nd version - Paramount (4424):

I'm sitting here wondering : will a matchbox hold my clothes
I ain't got so many matches : but I got so far to go
Brown across town : going to be my teddy bear
Put that thing on me : and I'll follow you everywhere
I say a peg leg woman : just can't hardly get her dough
I left one in Lakeport last night : and I'm selling jellyroll
I don't see why : these women treat me so mean
Sometimes I think : a good man these women ain't never seen
Well I got up this morning : with my [sure-enough, same thing] on my mind
The woman I love : she keeps a good man worried all the time
Now tell me mama : who may your manager be
I asked so many questions : can't you make arrangements for me

3rd version - Paramount (4446):

I'm sitting here wondering : will a matchbox hold my clothes
I ain't got so many matches : but I got so far to go
I said fair brown : who may your manager be
He asked so many questions : can't you make arrangements for me
I got a girl across town : she crochets all the time
Mama if you don't quit crocheting : you going to lose your mind
I can't count the times : I stoled away and cried
Sugar the blues ain't on me : but things ain't going on right
If you want your [lover, baby] : you better pin him to your side
If she flag my train : papa Lemon's going to let her ride
Ain't seen my good gal : in three long weeks today
Lord it's been so long : seems like my heart going to break
Excuse me mama : for knocking on your door
If my mind don't change : I'll never knock here no more

Jefferson was admired for his ability to drop in improvisatory licks and fills, and none of these performances are musically identical.  Lyrically - and blues lyrics are rarely sacrosanct - he was flexible, if not arbitrary.  He wasn't spinning narratives, so he could shuffle phrases in or out as long as they didn't mess with the mood.  (Though I think the Okeh version, more consistent in its defiant hoboism and arms-length love, is more powerful; better recorded, too.)  The same "crochet" stanza that appears in versions one and three also appears in "Easy Rider Blues," which was released as the flip side to the second version; the "teddy bear" line in the second version appears in a slightly altered form in "Teddy Bear Blues."

The only two stanzas common to all three versions are the one about hiring a prostitute ("Who may your manager be?") and the one from which the title is drawn:  "Sitting here wondering will a matchbox hold my clothes?  I ain't got so many matches but I got so far to go."  That's the phrase with the power, the one that both intrigues with its odd proposition and establishes the singer as homeless, penniless, loveless.

It's also the only phrase from this Jefferson song included in Carl Perkins' "Matchbox:"

I'm sitting here wondering : would a matchbox hold my clothes
I ain't got no matches : but I got a long way to go
I'm an old poor boy : just a long way from home
Guess I'll never be happy : everything I do is wrong
(solo)
Let me be your little dog ‘til your big dog come
When the big dog gets here show ‘em what this little puppy done
I'm sitting here wondering : would a matchbox hold my clothes
I ain't got no matches : but I got a long way to go
(solo)
I'm sitting here wondering : would a matchbox hold my clothes
I ain't got no matches : but I got a long way to go 

Jefferson had those two lines etched in shellac before Perkins was even born.  But he wasn't the first one to get the key phrase on record:

• Ma Rainey - Lost Wandering Blues (1924)(mp3) (buy)

Ma Rainey (born Gertrude Malissa Nix Pridgett on 4/26/1886 in Columbus, Georgia) was known as "The Mother of the Blues;" she'd been singing them since near the turn of the century (Bessie Smith was a protégé), started recording with Paramount in 1923. 

"Lost Wandering Blues:"

I'm leaving this morning : with my clothes in my hand
I won't stop to wandering : till I find my man
I'm sitting here wondering : will a matchbox hold my clothes
I've got a *sun to beat* : I'll be farther beyond the road
I went up on the mountain : turned my face to the sky
I heard the wind say : it said mama please don't die
I turned around : looked into my right hand
Well I looked there to see : if I was closer to my man
Lord look a-yonder people : my love had been refused
That's the reason why : mama's got the lost wandering blues 

Ma toured the South with her husband under the awesome billing of "Rainey & Rainey, Assassinators of the Blues."  Jefferson also travelled the South, and recorded the first version of "Match Box Blues" in Rainey's home state.  In Screening the Blues, Paul Oliver raised the possibility Rainey's lyric was inspired by Jefferson's, noting that Rainey's track abandoned her usual jazz band backing for a stripped-down guitar and banjo accompaniment.  But he also acknowledged that both artists "may have absorbed [the line] from traditional usage."

• Luke Jordan - Church Bell Blues (2nd Take)(8/16/27)(mp3) (buy)
• Will "Casey Bill" Weldon - Turpentine Blues (10/27)(mp3) (buy)
• Willie Baker - Weak-Minded Blues (1/10/1929)(mp3) (buy)
• Ed Bell (as "Sluefoot Joe") - Shouting Baby Blues (1929)(mp3) (buy)
• Jimmie Davis - High Behind Blues (2/1932) (mp3) (buy)

The line turned up, unattributed to Rainey or Jefferson as far as I can tell, in full or in part in several subsequent recordings. 

Just five months after Blind Lemon recorded his Okeh single, Virginia-based Piedmont blueser Luke Jordan dropped the following into the second take of his "Church Bell Blues:"  "She squawk about my supper, she kick me outdoors/She had a nerve to ask me, ‘Would a matchbox hold my clothes?'"  Ed Bell, the country blues singer-guitarist from Alabama responsible for "Mamlish Blues," recorded "Shouting Baby Blues" under the name "Sluefoot Joe" in April of 1929 in Long Island City, New York:  "Lord I seen her at the station and I seen her on the road (2x)/And I'm sitting here wondering will a matchbox hold my clothes?"

More interesting are the full-stanza recurrences:  In October of 1927, Arkansas-born African-American singer-guitarist "Casey Bill" Weldon recorded "Turpentine Blues" in Atlanta; the first half of the song supplies some fierce race-rile ("monkey-woman," "don't want no jet-black woman... because black is evil," "some men love high yellows, boy you give me my black or brown") before using the "Match Box" stanza as an excuse to escape.  It's a sharp number, one smart enough to include bite-back barbs - "What kind of man are you?" - presumably from Weldon's wife, Memphis Minnie.

Georgian twelve-string guitarist Willie Baker put the stanza up front in his "Weak-Minded Blues" (recorded 1/10/1929). 

The first white performer to record the phrase seems to have been then-future Louisiana governor Jimmie "You Are My Sunshine" Davis.  In February of 1932, he sang "High Behind Blues" for Victor Records:

Gonna wash my face : in the Gulf of Mexico
I’d like to hang around : but I can hear that freight train blow
I wonder if a matchbox : would hold my lonesome clothes
Ain’t got so many gal : got so far to go
I ain’t got no good gal : ain’t got no lady friends
Ain’t got no one to say : when you coming home again
May ride a freight train gal : may ride a Pullman blind
Makes no difference what I ride : I’m getting high behind
When I get to Mexico Lord : gonna get me a big big brown
No matter how big she is : I’m the man who can hold her down

"High Behind Blues" is credited to Jimmie Davis and frequent partner Buddy Jones... but it isn't inconceivable that the two bought the song and rights from others (as it's suspected Davis did with "Sunshine").  Or otherwise acquired its lyrics.  Compare the first two stanzas of "High Behind" with two consecutive stanzas from Baker's "Turpentine Blues:"

Said I wonder : would a poor matchbox hold my clothes
I ain't got so many : Lord I got so far to go
Going to wash my face : in the dear old Mexico
Going to eat my breakfast : thousand miles or more

[African-American Jack Kelly recorded a song called "High Behind Blues" with fiddler Will Batts and the South Memphis Jug Band at some time between 1933 and 1939; it appears to be completely unrelated.]

Lemon Jefferson's recordings were immediately successful.  After his producer at Paramount made a gift of a new car, the blind singer had two; he employed at least one driver.  His royalties - in a time when black performers often didn't see them - put $1500 into the savings account of the sharecropper's son.

The records gave Jefferson an influence that reached beyond his travels and his short lifetime.  He'd already assured himself a local legacy, having taken fellow Texans Huddie "Leadbelly" Ledbetter and Sam "Lightnin'" Hopkins - both of whom would record versions of "Match Box Blues" - under his wing.  But follow even that single song through the first twenty years of its life and you'll go through jukejoints and hillbilly hootenannies and New York jazz clubs.

CONTINUE TO PART TWO

tags: matchbox  tldnr  

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