Say what you will about Alabama, the state will always greet you with weirdness. That doesn’t mean some inbred clan is waving hello at the state border. Alabama could never be that organized. There was one 10-year stretch when the first thing travelers saw when entering Alabama was a marker for a visitor’s center with a big "Closed" sign.
I’ve arrived just in time for the grand opening of a water park in Birmingham that’s already $90 million in debt. A lovely one-armed girl has wowed the judges at the Miss Alabama pageant by twirling her baton to "Something’s Coming." And there’s a big breaking story from the town of Aliceville, where Kimberly King was just jailed without bail for cutting off nearly all of her boyfriend’s buttocks. "This ain’t right," she explained to a local tv news crew.
Aliceville is my destination, but I’m not looking for a bloodthirsty butcher babe. This bright June day sees me off to Willie King’s annual Freedom Creek Festival toward the Mississippi border. King’s doing pretty well for a backwoods bluesman, with a new album, Living in a New World, on the Rooster Blues label. He isn’t a legitimate great find like R.L. Burnside, but he’s got a soulful sense of activism and innovation. The guy’s earned whatever attention he’s just started getting at the age of 59.
King’s certainly doing well for a guy who lives way past the Aliceville metro area. Getting to his house puts you on roads that haven’t been paved since Big Jim Folsom kept a campaign promise in 1946. This is encouraging. I’ve had my doubts about what’s going to be King’s fifth Freedom Creek Festival. I’ve been promised a humble get-together where Willie builds a stage in his backyard and invites all his old friends who don’t have record deals. The only problem is that this humble get-together has a publicist and an advertising budget and official t-shirts.
Still, I like that I’ve driven about 15 miles without seeing any storefront that’s more than simple cinderblocks. I start feeling confident enough to put some T. Rex in the CD player. Marc Bolan–now there was a bluesman.
I’m also pleased when I finally find Willie’s home and see a crappy piece of wood with "Freedom Creek This Way" scrawled upon it. I was expecting a banner adorned with the Poland Spring logo. I also like having to drive across the yard next door and around to a field in the back. The 10 bucks I hand over doesn’t involve a Ticketmaster surcharge, either.
I park my SUV next to five other SUVs. All of the Volvos are farther in the back. A well-groomed dog goes bounding past. I’m pretty sure it’s a Shih Tzu. It’s certainly not any kind of hound.
The stage really is a shabby construction of bricks and wood blocks. I’m beginning to realize that this will be a mixed experience. I decide the true signs of trouble will be Port-A-Potties, A&R men and hacky-sack. I keep thinking this even as I take my place in the small audience surrounding the stage. The crowd looks like a Communist Party rally at an old-age home. There’s a serious NPR vibe. As of my 1 p.m. arrival, the only black people around seem to be a bunch of old musicians gathered in one corner. A few young white kids are also strolling around. The crowd isn’t so hip that I can’t immediately spot the publicist from NYC. When a brotha comes rolling up in an SUV blaring out hiphop, it’s De La Soul.
The willowy white guy onstage doesn’t look like he should be playing a blues festival. He looks like he should be hosting Blue’s Clues. He quickly affirms this as he finishes the song: "There’s nothing like this up in Minnesota," he announces. It’s darn nice of the fellow to spend his tourist dollars down here. I’m settling in for a theme-park kind of day, where the humble black folk have put together an event that’s defined by the rich white people who visit.
This is really kind of common in the South. I’ve seen it happen a lot in similar situations. You can sometimes still have a good time. In fact, I could stand to be wrong about the Port-A-Potties. But instead the bathroom accommodations consist of two miserable wooden constructions. The words "Men Only" and "Women Only" are crudely painted on the sides. They’re selling barbecue over behind the stage, but I decide to pass this up when I see the cooks using those bathrooms. I decide to save my appetite for a restaurant where the Board of Health is keeping it real.
Something called the "Alabama Blues Project" has a van parked next to the stage. A sign nearby solicits donations and claims that the organization is "Keeping the Blues Alive." Yes, that has always required a great deal of money.
•
Whitey McWhitey finally finishes his set, and Willie King strolls up to the stage. He’s serving as an informal master of ceremonies. He seems to be having a good time. The event has a nice, informal feel. All of the old musicians look totally at ease. They’re sitting around like old pros just waiting to blow through their set lists.
And, of course, local journalists are present. They all look very serious and are taking copious notes. They also all have very nice ponytails.
One sign of weirdness is a wandering psycho sporting some fine burgundy polyester pants. He’s not easy to miss. He’s spending the whole day wandering at the foot of the stage, carrying a beer and playing air guitar. Every once in a while he’ll stop to stare out at the audience. Then he’ll wade out among them and make people really uncomfortable. His main shtick seems to be an icy stare, followed by a request for a cigarette. People who smoke quickly accommodate. Those who don’t look like they really wish they did. Then he goes back to doing some kind of hoochie-koochie dance in front of the stage.
There’s a multiracial combo onstage now. The instrumentals are bluesy enough, but there’s always the feeling that they’re mere chords away from slipping into "Black Magic Woman."
I’m not exactly in a position to be celebrating authenticity. I’m walking around in a shirt from Old Navy. I’m still wise enough to appreciate the sad spectacle of the kid from the Alabama Blues Project van. He’s walked up to the stage and is holding up a microphone to make a field recording. Can’t he tell that this is the same primal blues that gets regularly played every night in college-town bars all over America?
The zealots of the Alabama Blues Project don’t seem to hear it that way. The reason becomes apparent when a woman emerges from the ABP van with a guitar. She strides onto the stage and makes a big announcement. "No matter how hard America’s tried to keep everybody apart," she announces, "the music keeps bringing us together." She says this to all of the whites facing the center of the stage. All the black people are still off to the side. Then she announces that she’s going to play us one of her originals. I think to myself this means she’s about to play us an old blues standard that she’s rewritten for the 200th time. "The rain," she sings, "the rain keeps falling down..." It seems that I kind of lowballed that number.
Later, she’s singing another original about how the river is going to watch her drown. This reminds me that a lot of college girls end up flipping a coin between Sylvia Plath and Howlin’ Wolf. The more she goes on, the more we learn why there’s an Alabama Blues Project. A blueswoman this lame could never compete on the open market. She’ll always need charity to fund her chance to be onstage.
She does make one important contribution to the event. After way too many of her own songs, she finally allows a guitar player to step up to the mic. After two hours, this is the first time I’ve heard a black man sing at the festival. He’s in the proud blues tradition of ham-and-eggers, too. It appears things aren’t so crazy out in the sticks, after all. Maybe the suburbs really are the next logical birthing ground for the blues.
Willie King seems to think so. He’s often onstage talking about how important it is to keep bringing up the youngbloods. He points out this one kid who’s been sitting in on piano, a spotty little nerd who looks like Marilyn Manson. The biggest hope for the blues is if this kid doesn’t learn that playing Ani DiFranco will get him laid faster.
But all is not lost–although it certainly seems that way as the day creeps by. The audience can all still fit under the shade that’s at the base of the stage. The ones who don’t look like commies bear a close resemblance to my parents’ friends from the country club. A few large black families have shown up, though, which means the crowd is now racially integrated along the edges.
And then Taylor Moore steps in to save the day. After more blues straight from the frathouse, Willie King introduces Moore as being from neighboring Macon, MS. He adds that the man is worthy of comparison to John Lee Hooker. At this point, that’s a good sign to expect a lesser Robert Cray.
Instead, out strolls that same cretin who’s been wandering drunkenly around the foot of the stage. He’s sporting an electric guitar that looks like it was swiped from an Iron Maiden roadie. He starts playing, and it’s sheer greatness. His chord changes border on the chaotic, but his fingers keep taking on a strange fluidity. He’s probably singing pure poetry, too, but nobody can tell. He insists on murmuring and shouting directly into the space between two microphones. He also tends to forget about the audience, turn his back and wander to the back of the stage for a while.
This kind of relieves the tension, since otherwise he’s staring at the crowd like they’re conspiring to take away his last beer. The audience is pretty uncomfortable with meeting his gaze. They respond with a practiced indifference. For the first time today, you can hear people speaking over a performer.
I’m thinking that the crowd is showing criminal neglect of an important musician. On the other hand, any half-assed madman could easily steal this show. It’s possible that I’m projecting too much crazed greatness on the guy. I pass by where all the other old black musicians are sitting. One turns to the other: "He’s fuckin’ ’em up!" This is not said in an approving manner.
Willie King picks up on all this. He strolls up onstage while Moore is still playing, takes the mic and announces that this performance is now over. Moore has been given less than half the playing time of the previous acts. Maybe King knows things can get dangerous if you let Moore go on for too long.
The next act up includes the old black guy who was pissed off that Moore was scaring the white people. This old guy churns out happy-dappy blues stylings that wouldn’t even cut it out on the college circuit. He sounds more like the blues that I’ll hear played in an Atlantic City casino a few days later. He’s backed by a volunteer yuppie horn section that goes past primitive and straight to amateurlike. They perform what sounds like a blues take on "Takin’ Care of Business," and then move on to "The Thrill Is Gone." I finally wander off to get a drink from my car.
•
The crowd’s gotten a little larger, approaching a very generous estimate of 250. It hasn’t gotten any less vapid. A few official Freedom Creek Festival frisbees are being thrown about. Someone from the Alabama Blues Project is very excited about a $1000 contribution. A stylish woman in a BMW gives me a disapproving look when I compulsively check my car door to be sure it’s locked. "I hear it’s a black neighborhood," I tell her. She doesn’t find that funny.
I’m becoming less amused myself. Freddie Feelgood and his Funky Little Five-Piece Band have left the stage, and probably to thunderous applause. Now two other old guys are hammering out some more traditional blues tunes. It’s okay, but nothing great. They’re entertainers.
Taylor Moore, meanwhile, is back at the foot of the stage. He’s dancing around just like before. He’s also constantly berating the onstage musicians. The acts try to ignore him, but Moore keeps pointing and aping some air slide guitar. He seems a little frustrated and angry at what the bands are playing–although he’s friendly enough always to shake their hands once they get offstage. He still needs cigarettes, you know.
The woman from the Alabama Blues Project is starting to restring her guitar, which suggests it’s time to leave. Besides, I’d like to make it to Birmingham before my favorite barbecue place closes.
Maybe it’s rude to leave before Willie King himself takes the stage, but I’ve already gotten my money’s worth. I’m reminded of this as I walk past the stage and toward my car. Taylor Moore is wandering the edge of the crowd. The white folk are still either ignoring or laughing at him. Earlier, I saw him being patronized like an excitable child at a company picnic. Aren’t all bluesmen supposed to at least once kill somebody for something like that?
Anyway, I tap him on the shoulder. "Mr. Moore," I say, "it was really great to see you play."
He looks at me like I’m a giant pink elephant straight out of an old copy of MAD magazine. "Yeah," Moore nods, with his cigarette dangling. "Yeah. Yeah, yeah. You got a cigarette?"
And I don’t, and that’s why they call it the blues.
