American Folklife Center, Library of Congress
Alan Lomax Collection (AFC 2004/004)
folder 09.04.33
field work 
Coahoma County, Mississippi, 1941-1942
transcripts

Fisk, 3. p.1 David Edwards.
        County Town Blues.

Oh, you got t[he]o [wrong] roll
Just like a hunter's hound, [he's lying right here on.]
Lord, if you can't roll [Boy, when you can rough, roll]   
Get your britches down. [Get you into town.]

Whoa, you got [the] to [wrong] roll
Just like a wagon wheel.

Lord, you treat me, baby, [Lawd, to se you, baby,]
Heart made out a sheet iron steel. [Hardly did I seen the scene.]

Whoa, it got to be mornin, Lord
[S]To git up soon.
Whoa, I ain't got many mornins
By the light of the moon.

Oh, Captain, please don't [drown Willie] drive me away
Oh wait, Captain, until another [around]  pay -day.

Whoa, you got to roll [the wrong]
Just like a wagon wheel.
The way you treat me, baby, [Hardly did I see that scene.]
Heart made out a sheet iron steel.

I ain't got many mo mornins
hard [Oh], to git up soon      
Oh, you got to git up, baby,
Just [Yes], by the light of the moon.
  
Whoa, you got [to git the wrong] to roll 
And you dont [donna] feel well.
If you can't you catch a lot of doggone hell. [Whoa, you captain sittin on a doggone hell.]
Whoa, Captain, how come you treat me so?
Oh, you treat me dirty [bad and trun] drove me from your door.

A: Why did you change the words to baby instead of white folks? The
way you sang it to me in the [w]car/it was white f olks treat you like your heart was made of sheet iron steel.
E: Oh, I merely changed it [may sing it] and [change] turnt the words around.
A: What is [H]hunter's Hound anyhow?
E: Hunter's hound mean just like a greyhound. When you get him on the
run like that, when you be owrking and you say you got to roll like
Hunter's hound, that mean they rawhid[e]ing you.
A: But wasn't that a chaingang song?
E: Oh, that was off [for] a county gang.
A: Who was Hunter?
E: He was a hunt[er,]sman, you know. [t]That why you say you got to roll like
Hunter's hound, you see. You be on that chain [chanin] gang, you see, and you

Fisk, 3. 2. DAVE EDWARDS

say you have to roll like Hunter's hound.

A: Where did [xxxxxx] that come from?

E: I guess I don't know where that come from.  That was just around

A: Who'd you learn it from?

E: I learned it from lots of old levee camp boys - a boy in our county, name of Robert Smith.

A: Where?

E: Well, we be together [Pitttsburgh] Vicksburg and Memphis & sing a lot of levee camp songs.

A: You have probably been on chain gangs?

E: yessir.

INTERVIEW ABOUT EARLY BLUES.

A: You don't remember any like the corn field song from your own home 
place? Would he sing a chain gang song -- your father?

E: I never heard him sing. He played music all the time but he played old time blues.

A: What kind of music did he play?

E: He played violin and guitar.

A: He did? Where did he learn to play?

E: Wel, he learned south [of] Mississippi, so he said.

A: What were some of the tunes that he played, do you remember the names of any 
of them?

E: Stagolee and Joe Turner [Connor] -- dif pieces like that. [Pone poor?] Just a group of old numbers he played.

A: Did they have a different time than the blues do now?

E: They had old time; they just played old time in a way. They just [--railed?] in the old time wa[?]y

A: Give me a notion how it sounded.

Stagolee, Stagolea, Stagolee, Oh, Stagolea
And they kilt po' Stagolee.
Stagolee was a man, Stagolee he was a man;
[I'm gonna get that Stagolea.] And they kilt, etc.
Stagolee, Stagolee, Stagolee, oh Stagolee
Stagolea, Stagolea, [and got those Stagolea] & they kilt etc.
Stagolea.
Stagolee, Stagolea, was a man, Oh, Stagolee was a bad man, 
Stagolee.

a violent harsh strubbing of the guitar -- in exactly the same spirit as the music of Sid Hemphill's group. 
[*The rhythm is /___ uu, / ___ uu, / ___uuu    
___uu, uu __ __ __ __ __ .*]

Fisk, 3. 3. DAVE EDWARDS.
JELLY ROLL BLUES.

Jelly roll, jelly roll,
Hanging on my mind -
It hypnotized my daddy
And run my mamma blind -
I love my jelly
I love my jelly roll.

Lords have mama
Why don't you stop in
She's standin round the corner
Doing the double belly twist
Chorus - first verse

Lot's of fancy guitar picking

It by - my mama
Run my brother blind
-
Sister got the rubboard
Brother got the tab
Sister got the rubboard
And brother got the jie?
Chorus is first verse
Toola have mama
Can't you see
- ? -
Is killing po' me.
Chorus is first verse

A: When did they use to sing that?
E: That was a long time ago.
A: Did you like it real well?
E: I like it at that time.
A: How old were you?
E. I was about 7 or 8 years old.
A: You must have been a pretty bad boy!
E: Well, I just listen at everything heard my father sing. I heard it, yes. The reason why I know many verses, there's more than that.
A: You mean, you just always were musical?
E: There was always the music and he'd always be singing, I'd try to pick them up.
A: Was that song popular in your town then?
E: No, that was after then - in them times.
A: You go to dances or whenever you'd hear music
E: Yes.
A: Well, why do you suppose you did that?
E: I just liked it.
A: Did you want to be like your daddy?
E: I wanted to play and be a musician like he was.
A: He was a farmer, too?
E: Yes he was.
A: How much money did he make, you suppose?


Fisk, 3.  4. DAVE EDWARDS.
E; Well at that time, [he made] sometimes $500 a year. [With] When the war [work] was, he [got] made most $1500.
A: What would he do with it?  [Find] Buy more music?
E: [Find] Buy more music, [dig a furrough (?) for the] bought himself a hack & some horses,[m]that's what he'd do with the money.
A: Well, did you have a pretty good time or did you have a hard time?
E. As far as I can [shin] remember he had a good time, to my idea.
A: [Was he ever blue?] Did he have the blues much?
E: [Oh, he played the blues.] He liked blues?
A: No, was he ever blue, did he worry?
E: Well, He never acted like he [was] worried much. But he didn't have much to say -- neither talked much.
A: Well, what did your momma think of all this music g[l]oing on in the 
house?  Did whe think it was all right or did she ever protest?
E. Well, sometimes she'd think it was all right and sometimes she wouldn't.
A: Was she a religious woman?
E: [At] Around that time when he was playing-she hadn't been converted yet --?-- [But we'd go to dances.]  
Would she go to dances?
She'd go dan - 
A: Did your father ever give up his music after he got older?
E. Yes, he give it up.
A: Why?
E: I don't know; he give it up.
                             (end of section?)
A: Sit down [,stranger?] & put my fingers on the fingerboard.
[E:Yeah, sit down on the bed.] 
A:  What names did he know? What would you call the chords?
E: That would be D; that would be A; that's [D]G; [C][?]; [F]F; F; B flat, [like] back to [a] C; A long; [Flat] short; [C seven] G 7th-
A: He knew all those chords? And he also knew how to play the fiddle?

Fisk, 3. 5. DAVE EDWARDS.
E. Most about.
A: Well, did he ever join the church and quit music alltogeth er?
E: Wel, he joined the hurch and quit music, but he played my guitar 
sometimes[.] [B]ut he'd just [play] hit a tune and put it down; he never [took] take 
it for regular.
A: He [just] gave up the world?
E: He gave it up.
A: Well, what do you think, Joe, do you think there's any harm in this 
music?
E: I don't believe there's no harm in [some of] it.
A: Well, what if you got shot? Do you think you'd go to Hell?
E: Oh, now,[yes, I'd go to hell now] naturally I would now.
A: You would, huh?
E: I imagine I would now.
A: You just hope you'll be lucky and not get shot?
E: Hope I be lucky and not get shot.
A: If you were playing at a dance with a guitar right in your hands, + drinking 
and [all] carrying on like that, you think you'd just go to hell if you got killed?
E: I believe I would.
A: You think Robb[ie]ert J[a]ohnson went the [long] wrong way?
E: Yes.
A: You think he [had] did, huh?
E: Yes[m], I don't believe he was saved.
A: So you think blues and all this is the Devil's business?
E: Well, I believe the blues is.
A: So you're just the Devil's child right now, aren't you?
E: I'm the Devil's child rightnow.
A: Joe, [P]lay me a little of that Hellitation (?) Stocking (?) Song.

Fisk, 3. 6. DAVE EDWARDS.
[*Hellitalsin*]
[Hear the hesitatin tune; hear the hesitatin tune;] 
[Hear the hesitatin tune; why don't you hie along?]
[Hesitatin momma, take it for the dollar down.] 
[You get a hesitati stockin and a hesitatin shoe,]
[Hesitatin tune. Why don't you hie along?]
[Hesitatin momma, take it for the dollar down.]

[*The hellitalsin stockings*]
[* " shoes*]
[*The hellitalsin woman*]
[*Give you the hellitalsin blues*]
[*Cho: Why don't you >-*]
[*How long?*]
[*If you be my brown]
[*I'll pay you $40 down.*]

A: When did you learn that one?
E: What I heard the song there about along in 1917, [*-*] 1916.
A: God, you weren't very old.
E: I was about 4, 5 years old. [*--when I could remember the folks singin it.*]
A: Did you learn any church songs[?] [*in those early days too? Or did you like them?*]
E: I learned a few of em. [*then, (Very uninterested *]
A: What did you think about go ing to Sunday school? Did you enjoy
it?
E At that time, I enjoyed it. [A]t that time. [I enjoyed it.]
A: How long since you've been to church now? Tell the truth now.
E: [*How long since I been to church?*] Well, I guess [by] about sever year[s].
A: You just stay away from it alltogether? You don't try to be
a hypocrite or anything like that.
E: No, I [don't try to] be a hypocrite. If I8m not a church man, I just
don't go. [*there much.*]
A: So tell me about the first guitar you [got] had.
E: The first guitar I owned my daddy bought [*h*] it. He paid $I8 for it.
I played it all the time. [*Used to beat me [and] a many a day about it. (Why?)*] You know, [*I'd be [?]*] I'd slip [away when I used to be] 
[working go and slip home and play bt when they wanted me to be working]
[*off from work & go home & play he'd want me to be working and I *]
and then they'd get angry and beat me. [like.]
A: What did he beat yu with?
E: He beat me with a switch.
A: What could you play? You couldn't play much. 
E: I couldn't play much. [*then. The biggest -*] I played on the old blues I heard [*him play.*]

Fisk, 3. 7. DAVID EDWARDS.
A: Just played? How did you learn to play? Did you just play the
same little part over or would you play the whole song?
E: I’d just play the blues — as much of it as I he[a]erd, that much of it I’d play.
A. How long [did] was it before you could play [a song?] & sing at the same time?
E: Oh, about a year. I couldn’t play - one and couldn’t sing alltogether. If
I[f] started singing, I’d lose my tune, [I’d] lose my chords. But as [I got] the
older I got playing, why, it didn’t worry me none.
A: And then what happened next? After you got the first [good chord] guitar?
You started playing for dances?
E: I started playing for country dances, [then] play for them all the time.
I thought I could play & the people thought I could play. But since I learned, I know better.
A: How old were you when you first started playing for country dances?
E: I was about 12 years old or 13.
A: They'd hire you out? How [sis] would they pay you?
E: Well, they just give me [a (    ?)] everything because I didn't [have] have sense
[no expenses.] enough to want nothing.
A: How long did you play a tune at that dance -- for an hour or two hours?
E: Play from about 8 to 12.
A: Were they pretty rough dances?
E: They was rough dances.
A: What would happen.
E: Well they'd drink whiskey & beer and they'd get drunk.
A: Did you ever see anybody do the [crawl] scrawnch? You know, [creep] going clean down to
the floor?
E: Sho. They'd do that. Call that - sweet tail - snake hipping.
A: What would they do?
E: They'd go down to the floor and [creep] [?] out. Go right down to the
floor - shimmying and come up.
A: Slow?
E: Slow.
A: Everybody hollered?
E: Everybody laughed.
A: What were some of the other steps that were popular back then?
E: Well, they [had] do a dance called Black Bottom, [keeping step] Chicken Scratch. Well,
they danced on steps.
A: Did you ever see one of those?
E: I seen em once or twice. [One time I was working for]
A: What kinda music did they have?
E: They had a violin and sometime they'd pat [clap] their hands fast like a ring play.

Fisk, 3. 8. DAVID EDWARDS.
[A: What kind of music did they have?]
[E: Well, they had a violin and sometimes something that had a rang 
to it.] They'd [You'd] pat their hands and steal your pardner & you
holler
A: You don’t remember any of these.
E: No.
A: Well, now after you started playing country dances for a while, how
long did you do that?
E: How long I played?
A: unh-uhn, how many years?
E: I followed the country dances, I reckon about four, five years til
I got tired of em. When [til] I got good [and] I called it, I quit following the country dances.
A: What would you do?
E: I’d [still] just play[ed] in towns and different places, been famous & things like that.
A: Would[n’t] people come out to your house and listen to you play there?
E: They’d come, [somtimes] some of um, and [hear] listen at me play at home.
A: How often would that happen? How many people would come?
E: Oh, sometimes there’d be a [good] gang of em; cause there - right smart of um - sometimes there wouldn’t 
be so many.
A: What did the white folks think? Did you ever play for white folks
in that part of the country?
E: Yessir, I played at white dances.
LEFT HOME FIRST TIME ** FRIENDS IN MEMPHIS
A: How did you happen to leave home [and go to town] the first time?
E: [Well,] How I left home the first time [before I come to the] a boy came though, name Old Willie and
[I'd never been away from home except my paw took me to the country] he carried me away to Memphis. I hadn't never been further than Greenville in this
and carried me away from home] part the country. When I come back, it was about a year
and I [didn't] knowed more about music.
A: What did you do all that time for your living? [How'd you live?]
E: [They just took me] He just had me around out playing at different places -- different white dances,
[at] their taverns, and different things -- taking little jobs seometimes when [you] I would[n't be] not be playing.
A: How [did] would you live in those circumstances? Just any place you could get.
You'd get a room --
E: You'd get to town and get a room and stay there.. The after we'd book
[dances the]

Fisk, 3. 9. DAVID EDWARDS

dances then.
A: Did you have a good time?
E: Good time, yessir.
A: Tell me about how it would go. Remember anything that happened to you?
E: Well, I don't remember anything happened to me much move in we just had a good time, drank and different girls and things. We'd found a lot of different friends, girls and boys.
A: Remember the names of any of the girls you liked particularly?
E: Oh, I know of a gang of em I liked.
A: Do you think girls particularly like musicians more than other kinds of people?
E: Some of em do - the biggest portion of em do.
A: Why is that
E: Just the idea not. I say they have. Just want their friend - boy to play music. If they can play music, they can sit down and play to em.
A: They take that as a compliment?
E: They take that as a compliment.
A: How many girls do you suppose you had?
E: In that year?
A: No, I mean, since you've been going travelling around.
E: Oh, I couldn't call the number (laugh) I couldn't call it
A: Would you take a freight train between places or would you generally buy a ticket or something?
E: I'd take both ways. Any way I'd want to get to a place - that would get me there - I'd go. Sometime I'd be made good, I'd buy me a ticket and ride then. Then if I wouldn't feel like riding, I'd say "Let's us take a --- and we'd get on the freight train anyway.
A: Ever get kicked off?
E: Never have get kicked off. Got caught once up in Illinois, and we thought we'd get thrown on the pea-farm, but we played for the special agent and he turned us loose.
A: What kind of fellow was this Joe Willie
E:



Fisk, 3. 10. DAVID EDWARDS.
E: He was a little [bouncer] slim, brown [one] skin fellow. 
A: Was he a good musician?
E: He was good.
A: What did he play?
E: Guitar. Guitar and piano, he played both of em.
A: Who were the people that you met in Memphis when you first went
there?
E: Well, when I first went there, I met Dewey -- he was a [jazz player] jug blower-
[I met [?] piano player] I met Tab - he was a piano player.
and I met Ukele Pete -- He played a ukele-tip[ped] violin . Well, I met
Buddy Doll [Dailey] -- he was a midget, bout two feet, something like that; he played guitar [he played the guitar]
I met his wife Hattie . Jerry, Osa [O. k.] Brown -- yes, I know all of em --
Jack Kelly - Tim - of [?] every musician in Memphis - nearly 'bout. Tango Allen, Shorty - 
[Tangolaylo Shore.]
A; What kind of people were they? Did they do a lot of drinking?
E: That's the biggest they done -- drinking. [laughing]
A: Did any ofthese people take anything more than whiskey? Would they 
take c o caine or anything like that?
E: Well , take Tommy John - he snuffed [sniffed] cocaine, drink [drank the raw-cut] this alky-rub
alcohol, they drink that [something like that].
A: What happened to him?
E: Well, he live in Jackson City.
A: Still making music?
E: Still making music. He was called a dope-fiend. He drink [drank] anything --
shoe polish, strain it through light bread, canned heat, take it out the can, burn it up and drink it [anything]. [He'd take it out the
Azz can and burn it up and drink it.]
A: What would it make him do?
E: Make him [jigger] jigified, make him feel good. he'd get limber, he could play that guitar, then.
A: Well, were these people, did they make up songs [easily] easy?
E: The biggest majority [made more than] the songs, but they made more
blues. That's the way these people in this part of the country do.
They didn't know about them [those] old songs like m y daddy [did] knew when he came along. [What they]

Fisk, 3. 11. DAVID EDWARDS.

[What they know now is what they been recording like Mr. Melrose] up in
Chicago sent for [??]

He'd get in tech with the good blues players he'd get them and they'd play blues for him -- he records And old numbers - they don't know nothing about old numbers. [They didn't know that old melody.]

A:   How would he contact you [them] down in there Memphis?

E:  Well, he'd have some boys write up talents for him, you see.  Now
he got a boy in Saint Louis [Robert__________) write talent for him.  I don't
know [any [?????] writes talents for him], but I think that someone in
Memphis gits up talent for him; I know they do.  He has a man [Itiene?]
& when he gets read to book them out, he have them on the road.

A:  Would the musicians that you know make pretty good money?
E.  They used to make good.
A:  What kind of money did they make?
E: Well, when they recording there, they got $25 a side for a record,
that's $50 a record.  But now they pay $7.50 a side, $15 a record.
A:  That's all you get?  What about the royalties?
E:  Well, they won't give no royalties now, not unless you're blind
or afflicted; they don't give no royalites.  Not unless they're started lately.
A:  Why is that?
E:  I don't know.  They just cut them clean out.  The records just got cheap; they cut from $25 a side to $7.50 a side -- why they cut that royalty off.  But [yet and] still they want you to record; there must be something in it.
Didn't, they [????} want to all the time [if they didn't want you] to
record,
A:  Well, what about the songs?  Who owns the songs when you get together
and record it?  Do they put your name on it?
E:  They put your name on it.  Whom'sever sing the song that's your
record, (not about music, you see?)
A:  Out side of records, how would these midgets and [all these] characters that
you talking about [how would[ make their living?



Fisk, 3. 12.  DAVID EDWARDS.
E: Well, [Eddie and] he would do nothing - his mother [work. or Ham and] worked for him near about of Lee. he [wouldn't] didn't make [any] his money [and] by [his] him being so little and [the farm and] deformed the people give him [money ? and pay right smart.] might smart for playing music
A: He plays pretty good?
E: He [play good.] is good player.
A: Is he still around?
E: Still around, right in Memphis now.
A: How much money [do] did these people make would you say, [these musicians] how much would they make in a year?
E: Well in [a] about a year it's pretty hard to guess at.  [I'd say] They'd make about two or three hundred dollars a year; I'd guess, hustlin [,]; that is, what I [b] mean by hustling is playing beer taverns and something like that, [see,] they'd make more thant that.
A: How much money in a night?
E: Well, [the] I was just playing in [a crowd the other night], Memphis last week and the crowd got all together [and they got just] $18 [.] just for the 3 of us.  One night I got $26 for a [swang] strang band. They'[d]s do pretty good sometimes.
A: [Glem White, or --?] Playing white or -
E: White.
A: When you say they [sat] sit down and teach you to play, how would they teach you [anyhow] anyway?
E: Well, they'd show me different chords, how to make. [I didn't know these chords.] Chords I didn't know. Here's one that I learned there - {plays}
A: Did you have to pay them for your lessons?
E: Some I had to pay and some I didn't.  {plays}
A: And then by the time you got through that year you could go with the best of them?
E: I could go with the rest of em. I don't care who [the man] it is, who [he] it is, [he'd] he can just go and tune his instrument up & go to playing and [I'd] I'll catch him.
A: Where have you been travelling?
E: Well, I been all down the South [,] Louisiana, Texas, Illinois, [Missouri] Michigan,



Fisk, 3.  13.  DAVE EDWARDS.

Arkansas, Kentucky, Tennessee, Alabama, different places, [Georgia] Florida,
all the different states.
A:  What place do you like the best [that you been]?  North or South?
E.  Well, I just like some [parts of the North]
A:  You don't have to be afraid; go ahead and tell me why you like it
there.
E:  Well, you just -- everybody is the sme [same?] - they treated just alike.  You don't have
no separate    They
You do's what you want to do there.  But the
South, they don't do that.  We all go to the same [beer tavern together.  Sit down to lunch] at the
same table together, but [they don't do it in the South.]

                                ARMY BLUES.

[Now, folks don't on the bumping,]               [* When I first start out to bumming, babe, *]
Ride a bumping town and country;]              [* Lawd, I bummed from town to town, *]
[Go on folks on out to the bumpin bee.]       [* Lord, if we git in the army now {?} *]
                                                                       [* Lord them Japs will turn you [around?] *]

[* Lawd, I bumped in twon*]
[* Lawd, I aint gon na eat any lean meat now;*]
[* Lawd, them bumpers turned around.*]

Uncle Sam [* ain't [nary?] woman;
[* But he *] [you] sure can [*take*] [pick] your man.
[*Uncle same, see that woman,*]                                [* Lord, he will take & he will carry him *]
[* But he sure can pick your man.*]                             [* To some long old distant land. *]

[* Lawd, he taken he'da carried him; *]                     [* (guitar like distant bells) *]
[* Tomorrow get the land. *]                                     [* Well, lemme tell you now, now *]
[* We aren't in a chain gang. *]                                 [* Lemme tell you, lemme tell you *]
[* But Uncle Sam can do to him. *]                           [* What Uncle Same will do to you, *]
                                                                                  [* He will take you out [a?] jitterbugging *]
                                                                                  [* And put you right in a khaki suit *]

[* O yeah, I would rather be army man*]
[* I'm getting tired [of?] riding these bones baby, 8}
[* Lord, I believe I'll ride some trains *]

[* Oh yeah, I would rather be on the main; *]
[* Oh yeah, I would rather be on the main. *]
[* I'm getting tired or riding these busses. *]
[* Lawd, keep on ridin trains. *]

Fisk, 3.   14.      DAVID EDWARDS.

I made that myself along [about] about three weeks ago -- month
A:  What did you call it?
E:  Well, that's the Army Blues.
A:  What were you thinking [of] about
E:  I [sing my song alone.] was thinking about the army then.
A:  How soon do you think you'll go?
E:  Can't hardly tell about that thing.
A: [Would you like to go?] Have you asked to go
E:  [I'll go if I have to.]  I ain't axed for it, but I will go if I have to go
A:  Who do you think we're going to war with?
E:  Can't hardly tell.  That [thing's] just like [coming] going to the [coast] court -- can't
[hardly] tell how you're coming out.

Fisk,  4.  1.  DAVID EDWARDS.

                               TEAR IT DOWN.

If I catch you in my house again
[Put the kitty in my house,]
And I'm jus gonna tear it down.
[Kit, Kitty in my house,]
And I'm just gonna tear it down.
Tear it down,
Oh tear it down.
And I m just gonna tear it down.

                               JOHN STEALS HOGS.

Old master had a miller named John, so [and] he had a lot for [lots of] the hogs.  Old master said, I been
missing hogs every night.  The last one I seen in the hog
lot was John.  said, "John, I believe you're stealing my hogs."  "O h, no," says,
"Oh, no, "Says, "Massa, I ain't been stealin your hogs." Well, that Sat
night, John 'cided to slip off and take him a little shoat. So the first shoat
he grabbed, old Massa Higgins had him, caught him at the gate bringing the
shoat out.  So Old Massa told him, "well, John, I'm gonna make 
you eat up every damn bit of this hog you been stealing all this time, so, you can't eat up all of this. So Old Massa made old John go to the house and so he went
to the house and he told his cook to cook him a pan of corn bread.
So his cook cooked the pan o corn bread." And he put the hog
in one of these old pots that you cook in--a washpot. Stewed him down.
The first thing Old John grabbed was his head and he shook, shook the  [???] of his head et the head up, he took the middlings and he fold em just like you do like a falpjack and he took then there ham and he knocked the gristles
off and the end of them and he turned and say, "Captain, if you'd give
me any more'n this n it would have killed me."

Fisk, 4. 2. DAVID EDWARDS
Fool him down.

JOHN AND HIS MULE

...Trying that day, Jack had got tired on the road. So John said, 
"Come up, Jack." Jack looked around at him; John coaxed [*report*] back to
him, says, "Come up, Jack." Jack looked around at him. He never could [*+say I ain't comin' up no mo."*]
hear good and he come up no more." John [le rod][*broke on*] back between so [he'd][*to the house & told the massa-"
Massa, Jack talking." Old Massa say, "You lying, Jack." Old Massa [*hadn't*] didn't walk [*ed in about [15]*] and old Massa come out and Jack say, "John, I believe you lying." Say and balding [*broken here*] So John told him, "Come up , Jack." 
Jack looked around, say, "I been coming up thirty years; I ain't comin
[*bad recording*] up no more." Old Massa jumped up to kill him [*that scared him*] and he went [*to*] running. 
[*He hadn't*] He'd been xxxxxing about [*walked in*] seven [*30*] years. So when he went to running 
he went running by the big oak tree, [*before*] and the fine [*tice*] said, 'I ain't 
[*n*]either." And they both went running just like other folks. [*and the fire say, I ain't rest."*]
Conversation unclear
Just like this--they'd pick up one [*once*]
A; Well, did you ever hear about the time that --
E I didn't know him anyway
A: Who was john anyway?
EE:: He [*John*] was an old man back in slavery time. He was sensible [*old*] man, and 
he started working in slavery time - he was just a slave, you know;
he was sensible, you know.
A: He [*You mean,*] was smarter than the other people down there?
E: He was smarter [*;anyway, he was smart*]
A: And he tried to get out of doing as much work as possible.
E: If he could. [*yeah*]
A: Did you ever hear any more stories about Old John?
E: I knowed many more. There[*'s not*] more that I heard but I never
remember. [*learned all of em.*]

 



Fisk, 4. 3.  DAVID EDWARDS.

A:  How'd you learn these?

E:  Well, different people would tell em to me and I'd learn em like that.

A:  Did you learn em from your father?

BRER RABBIT AND THE BULLDOG

Once Marse and Brer Rabbit and Brer Fox was standin on the roadside; they was talkin there was gonna be a society.  So they all was goin to the society.  So Brer Rabbit was talking to Brer Fox; they was standin there talkin about the line of business they had been doin.  Brer Rabbit, he looks up and he seen old bulldog comin down the road.  So Brer Fox say to Brer Rabbit, he'd a' inchin' back over to the bushes.  So Brer Fox say, "Whats the matter with you, Brer Rabbit?  That you keep inchin over to the bushes?  What's the matter?"

He say, "Oh, nothin, Brer Fox."  He just kept on getting toward the edge of the bushes, and he got to the edge of the bushes, Brer Fox say, "What's the matter, fellow?"  He say, "Brother, how in hell can I be still when that big mouth son-of-a-bitch beep a- (?) over there.

DOGS & RABBITS CONVENTION

One time the dog had a convention along and they decided not to interfere with the rabbits.  So two rabbits standing up talking one day, they was talking right over the business probably they'd been doing.  So one rabbit looked way down the road and he seen an old poor dog coming.  So says, "Look here, ain't that's a dog comin yonder?  That dog is so poor, he gonna walk."  So one of the other rabbits says, "Well, sir, we was all in the convention; he's not gonna bother us."  He says, "Brother, that poor son of a bitch

Fisk, 4.  4. DAVID [ED????S]
liable not to been in that convention."  (laughter)
A:  Did you ever hear about the time that [Shorty Vine] poor old colored man went down to the
pond, and he saw a frog who said, "We all gonna be save."  And he
ran back to his master; he said, "There's a frog down there can talk."
Massa he says, "Now look here, that's just not true."  "No sir," he says,
"That frog down there just been talking to me.  Come down there and
I'll show him to you,"  "O.K., then, I'll come down, but if he can't
talk, I'll beat your head off.      [*broken story*]

E.  Ni sir, I never heard that.
                                                 TOASTS

Once I was out on yonder hill;
I met a little old black [*ass*] gal;
She was standing still.
I [roughed my tunnatoat] rustled & I tustled & I throwed that old heifer [fair?]
[That'll help her fair.'
I stuck that old [*dick*] of mine
in a bunch of hair.

99 days sores begin to come
And he go to the doc sat up [still] stool
In time a doc'll pick [any man] [*up his dick*]
I'll [they] can tickle any man's old tool
He say. [Stand still] [*Sit up*] up straight; you nigger;
[ Do you need a lay?
I hav to cut this thing off
To your mother's(     ]
[*You needn't to laugh
I've got to cut this old dick off to your m-fing ass.*]

A:  Did you know The Gal That Wore Fine Clothes?

        (end of section)

Boys, you all come out to the party tomorrow night
We can have each and everything a man would] want to eat,
[Chriss to pea and man eat] 
[*Pistol Pete ain't generally what we have to eat.*]
You'll [for two pick your head in a knot] [*have 42 dick heads looped in a knot.*]
[Put a two aside and snort.] [*52 pussies fried in snot.*]
[Ada, too, had a toast, she had,] [* 82 assholes toasted in shit,*]
[A toast  (    ]  [*If that ain't [Ha?] toast I'm a s - o - b - ,*]

A:  What's the one about the old man?
E.  I forgot that now. -- Next time.

                     ON THE ROADS

A:  [Would]Don't you get the blues awful bad when you were just bumming
 

M   5.1

L:  Don't you get the blues awful bad when
    you're just bumming around on the road.
E. Blues, man you sho does.  I get away from
home sometimes - one or 2 1000 miles & like that ---
- away way from home, - be on a wonder.
Sometimes I been so far away from home I (?) if I ever
get back here no more ___
And when I catch a train to go to a place,
I ask what train I catch out of here to
such and such a place - he says catch
the M & O or The Cotton Belt or the Katy -
either one, sompin like that - catch the Missouri
Pacific & anything like that - Illinois
Central & just different railroads like that,
[now] & I'll git to a crossroad - when I git
to a crossroad, then I'll see my way out to some
other town, see - and I get that connection
well,              another thing on the Southern
may come along, may grab the Southern

4:5.2 
when I get to the crossroad, may catch the 
M - O to [another] place- catch the M.O. & it carries me on, [way] 
catch the Frisco see - change just like that -
just keep a catching different tracks, see - 
(L: blurred portion of dialogue) 
- cause that's the reason they're on the road- 
see - people staying at home, they ain't thinking 
of nothing but working and trying to pull 
a shift somewhere - when you on the road 
you thinking about trying to find you some
way to make you some money, see - and 
they got an attitude, when they git that 
money & they know the way to git that money - 
if you're a good prize fighter, a good boxer - 
something like that, well, you gone a

                            4 : 5 : 2
                                                                            [* V *]
run into some place where you gone get a
break, see where you have the attitude
to git hold of sumpin see-
L: Ever hear any songs sung in the
jungle that told about traveling on the
road, hoboing, stuff like that?
E:  I've heard um sing a few songs like
that, say -
I been hoboing so long, till I take the 
             jungles to be my home [house?],
They git to sing that song, they git
lonesome & they sing
[*rept*}  I been hoboing so long, till I take the
                     jungles to be my home [house?]
Late hours of midnight, the old freight
            begin to reel & rock -
Next station (it come to), this old freight
            train sure gonna stop
They sing in the jungle.  That's the jungle song


           4 : 5, 3
in the jungle. Guys have much fun in the 
jungle sometime (wistfully) I been on
the jungle when they go up town, git um
some pig-foot, git us a becket & go
to [coolsin?] - right down in the jungle.
Go to the market & burn the market
& git um some pig foot & go to eatin -
     Some days like dat, some of the
guys liable to have a quarter in their
pocket that day.  That night, just about -
well, when they git to a city near where
they goin - night or the next day one,
they have 10, 12 dollars in their pocket -
15 or 20 dollars in their pocket -
L:  Where they git it?
E:  Well, there are different ways to git


4:5.4
that money from-They got different
ways to git dat, see. Some do different
things to git their money. Everyman
don't do the same thing to git that
money.
L: Not everybody's a musician-
E: Now sir, they ain't looking for dat.
[?] (?)
L: Well, what kinda guys you meet on
the rod-every kinda guys?-
E: all kinds. Some good guys & bad guys.
There's some guys who'll be a friend to
you & some not.
L: Some guys will steal a penny off a 
dead man's eye.
E: There's some white guys that will.


4:5.5
meet you on the road & treat you better
than your own color [(?) I run]
even will treat you (my color)-
I've run up on some white guys that's
better treatment than I [ever] had in
my life-white buy, [feeling good] say to me-
"I go right on off & [knocks?] up a
little money, come right backs & say
"what do you all want to eat &
drink, see?"

Fisk, 4. 6. David Edwards.
and something to eat, you see.  
Something like that?
Sometimes they just have a quarter in their pocket and when they get to where they're
going that night or the next day, they have 15 or 20 dollars in their pocket.
A: I don't get it.
E: Well, there are different ways of getting that money, sir.
They got different ways to get that; some do different things to get that money.
???? man don't do the same thinggs.
A: Not everybody's a mausician, I suppose.
E: No, they ain't looking for that.
A: Well, what kind of guys did you meet on the road?  Every kind of guy?
E: All kinds.
A: Good guys and bad?
E: Some good guys and bad; some guys will be a friend and some aren't.
A: Some guys will steal a penny off a dead man's ???.
E: That's right.  There are some white guys you meet on the road will
treat you better than your color ever will treat you.
If I meet a shite guy who's as good as my color,
I go out of my way to be nice;
If I got money, I knock em off and sad say,
"What you want to eat or drink?" see.

Titanic Toast
Time when the Titaniic went down,
Old Shine was on that Titanic.
Titania began to sing
And everybody began to think.
And Shine was down in the barroom floor
He says, "Captain, oh captain, water is getting low."
???? to???? keep the water out the barroom door.
When the ship was going down,
When the Titanic was going down,
It sank and Shine was the only one was saved,
There's one white girl, she fell out the ship
She said, "Oh Shine, oh Shine
Would you say ?? me."
Shine say, "You got a godd stuff, true,
That I know,
But there's better stuff on the other shore."
And he hit it.






Fisk, 4. 7.   DAVID EDWARDS.

A: You left something out.
E: That's right.
A: Let's put it in.
E: There's some [if] get left out. You carry it four or five different ways. You know, there's four, five different
ways you [say it] carry every thing near about.
A: Did you know the one about the meaner + bitch?
E: You mean "The Nigger is a Bitch [to] with [Her] His shit"? I heard one guy say
that toast.  I really done forgot that toast.
THE CONJURE DOCTOR (UNCLE TOM)
There's a few right here in this county could  do things [will] would harm you in New
York City.
A: Have you known that to happen?
E: [I seen the foreman do it once.] Uncle Tom can do it if he want. [He could do it, I believe., he could.] He can do it he can.
[If]. You [couldn't walk and got up on his knees and he say, "Walk," and] can go to Uncle Tom crawling on your and he tell you to
walk - if the Lord intend for you to [walk] anymore - he tell you to walk and
you say, "I can't walk Uncle Tom." "Yes, you can.  Get up and [come] go to
walking." You get up and [come] go to walking to him.
A: What kind of a looking man is he?
E: He's a [Southerner] settled man. _ light brown skin man & settled.
A: Farmer?
E: He got his own place -- he ['s a] aint a farmer, but he got his own place.
He don't farm for nobody; He's got his own stuff.
A: Looks like he'[s]d be making so much money he won't have to work any more.
E: He don't work none. Other folks works. See, he got his own place; - operating 'bout.
He's just [the man who] a manager or own his own place -- he don't do nothing.
A: Who goes to him then?
E: Everybody -- wants to go to him.
A: White folks?
E: Sure.
A: Didn't you tell me your wife went to him[?] one time?
E: Sure did. She couldn't walk and she went to him and he told the boys to put her[e]

Fisk, 4. 8. DAIVD EDWARDS.
down and she walked [right] on to him. (She did. They quit?) and he went and
got some nurse from some other conjuror, understand. She didn't come
to Uncle Tom; she went to some conjuror [from] cross over in Arkansas somewhere cross over in there  and he [didn't] had
[know.] her to where she couldn't walk, she couldn't raise [her arm] her hand up over her 
head; she couldn't walk. And she [didn't have -- she went up to town] had thought it was a misery in her side or something like that
[or something like that] and she didn't go to Uncle Tom in two or
three weeks -- and, see, he was about to [cure] kill her, when she went to Uncle Tom. When she [went up] was carried up to Uncle
Tom, he told, say, "If you been much as two weeks [along] longer or two or
three days, say you'd have been a dead woman." And he met her [an] on the
railroad and told the boys, say "Put her down,  - say she [couldn't] can walk." So
he put her down; she say, "I can't walk." And when she say, "I
can't walk," Uncle Tom say, "You [can] ? walk." [And says, "Come walking
? me] And she come[s] walking to him just like a newborn baby,
just [toddling' toddlin to him, [just as] and as she got to him she just straightened up. [Then he]  Sure enough he went in there, 
& there in his office - he didn't let nobody else back in there but him & her & after he and her back in there, she showed him where the pain started from. Well, he
put plaster on [the] her side and as the pain moved, that plaster, [he] it would
come loose. And after that pain [leased] leave that plaster come loose, til
all that pain left that plaster would fall right off.
A: [Do you think it will?] And she got well.
E.  Sure [it will]. Walking around here fat as a Berkshire. Just as fat
as she can
TOASTS
My back is made of whalebone
And my [bed] belly is made of glass.
[I play the guitar for the women] I save this good dick of mine for the working women,
And [Anyone] ? can kiss my ass.
That's all [I can remember] of that
A. Who'd you learn that from?

Fisk, 4. 9. DAVE EDWARDS.
[Some] We have some long toasts and some short ones. That's a short un. That's
what you tell the nogood women what it's made for -- for the 
working women. [He never] And the loafer (?) can do what he wants to, see. That's what
that's for.
BLULEGUM PEOPLE ** CHUCKALUCK SANDERS.
A: Did you ever hear anything about the blue gum poeple?
E: Blue gum people? How does that go?
A. No, I mean to say they have some kind of power when they [strum] from the
blues, the colored folks do.
E. I heard they poison.
A: poison -- what do you mean, poison?
E: If they bite you with their [gums] teeth and the [teeth] gums are blue, [If you have] it'll leave a
sore on your arm [or] -- something like that.  Poison you -- something like that.
A: I heard about a blue gum man who could disapper and nobody could
catch, no sheriff could [catch him.] touch him -- 
E: Few people can do that. (2)
A: Did you ever hear any stoires about people like that?
E: Sure never heard none of em.
A: Wasn't railroad Bill something like that?
(end of section}
I know one man, they called min Chuckaluck [Same] Sanders and you [can] could see him
one day [he'd be] all broken up and bent up, walking with a stick -- and tomorrow
he'd be walking better than you [can] would walk, see. And the next day [when] --
you see him like he could hardly make a day -- just all messed up, just chuckled up, and tomorrow he'd be
running and walking straighter you can. He done a lot of dirt and
they arrest him and, after they arrest him, when they went to hang
him -- he [wasn't there] done so much they have to hang him -- and [On a street in Dallas] when they tripped the gallows & he fell [in] --
it was a bale of hay.
A. Do you know that to be true?
E: That what they say -- that's what my [folk town] foreparents say -- I don't
know nothing about it, but they say they know that for the fact.


Fisk, 4. 10. DAVE EDWARDS
When they [put gas in the cell] tripped the gallows and it fell, it was a bale of hay and he was gone.
You see him today -- walking straight, you see him tomorrow he['s all] can't make a day
all crippled and bongled up, he be all crippled up, couldn't hardly walk, couldn't
make the grade, so crippled, you know.
A. That's the kind of people they blue gum people are that I heard
about.
E: Shoot at em and can't hit em.
A: Yeah, that's right. You put em in the coffin and they open they
coffin -- they aren't [dead] there. Lock em in a cell, they're gone every
time.
E: That's the way they do. Some of em can do that and some of em
can't. That the way that [deal] is.
DO YOU WANT A LITTLE BIT OF THIS?
CHILDREN'S SEX LIFE
People, when [you get a red psider down here,] she got her dress about right down here
Do you want a little bit of this sumgot.
[Sumgosta.] No ma'am no.
When she got her dress about half way her leg?
Do you want a little bit of this sumgot.
Um, maam, a no ma'am
to her knees
Yes'm - yesm
A: What kind of game was that?
E: Well, that's called a play game. Ther's more  than that than what I
[sang] singing. There's [just about two verses] a gang of verses that I forget
A: Who would be playing that?
E: Three or four -- as many as you want to be playing in the game.
A: Little gals?
E: Little gals -- when it get [your turn] good to ?, they'd raise their dress up.
When they raise their dress about to their ankles, they'd ask the boys, Do you want a little
bit of this sumgot.  He'd say No ma'am. When they go the dress
about half up the leg, they ask him Do you want a little bit of this sumgot
He holler[ed] No maam again. When she got the dress up above her knees, she

Fisk, 4. 11. DAVE EDWARDS
ask him do he want a little bit of this. He holler Yes'm, yes maam.
A: Well, when did the children do that? Would they be hiding?
E: They'd be hiding and when they come play just the ring game. That's what that is.
A: Any little children?
E: Any little children would be big enough to know that that means, you
see.
A: How old would they be?
E: Well, they'd be around 11 -- 10, 11, 12, [around] like that, something like
that -- they used to be.
A: Well, would little kids be knowing what that stuff is?
E: Sure, they know what [that] it mean.
A: How young?
E: Well, how young would they know about it? You take from this part of the country - how they do now --
they start out at 10 and 11 years old -- they do everything [and know] everybody else can do
 nearly about it. They don't be doing it -- they trying to do it -- they think
they be doing it if they wouldn't be doing nothing.
A: What happens when the old folks catch them?
E: [Well, they wouldn't be doing it; they just trying to do it; they
couldn't do it.] Well, Some of em [would] did try to beat em, but when they
get too far gone, they just too far gone. You take [some] one of em around
14 years old -- they start doing that & they try to beat em, to stop em, they ain't doing nothing
[anything.] If they [do that] want to do it they leave home, you see.
A: What was the first time that ever happened to you?
E: The first time? Oh, well, the first time that was, that was in '26.
I was a small kid then -- I thought I was doing mighty good.  All right in its way. That's
the first time.
A: Was she an older gal?
E: Sure, she was about [three] two years older than I was, three.
A: She wanted to show you?
E: She wanted to show me; I was trying to show her.




Fisk, 4.  12. 
A:  What did she tell you? 
E:  She told me to come on (laughter). I wanted fun; I wanted to
know what we were going to do. She showed me.  We made everything all
right.
A:  You were old enough then to do it?
E:  Well, I done [*what I was doing*] in my way. 

WIND HOWLIN[*G*] BLUES 

Baby, [*don't you hear the*] [lickin at] the wind howlin,
Howlin all around [too] [*the doors*] 
Baby don't you hear the wind howlin?
[*Howling*] [Hollerin] [*all*] around my baby [down] [*door*]

It [hollers] [*howl*] so [long, so loud], [*lonesome, hard*]
Lawd, it ain't gonna [holler] [*howl*] no mo.
[*>*]
It's thunderin and it's lightnin, baby,
And the wind begin to blow[*,*]
It's thunderin and it'slightnin, baby
And the wind begin to blow[*,*]
[*(*]
Lawd, my baby told me this mo'nin, [*now now,*]
["Now  , now] [*That she*] [If you] don't [love] [*want*] me no mo," 
[*>*]
Lawd, it's [howlin] [*snowing*] outdoors,
Rainin on my old windowpane.
It's rainin outdoors,
Stormin on my window pane, 
[*(*]
I'm gonna quit [blackmailin,] [*black Mary*]
You know[s that 's a might shame.] [*its a low down crying shame.*]
Black Mattie[*'s*] [say it's[*face*] gonna [*got to*] shine [*v*]en 
Baby, just like the risin sun. 
Black Mattie[*'s*] [say it's [*face*] gonna [*got to*] shine[*ing],
Baby, just like the risin sun[*,*]
[*(*]
Lawd, [how about promisin] [*the high brown powder, that stick-lip baby,*]
[A ship to save me now?] [*Lord, ain't gonna help old Black Mattie now.*]
[It's gonna hear folks like Mattie now.]
[He know you look in little Mattie, baby.] 
[She say that sun love my love]
[This mornin]
[Even befor my marriage] door.

[*Well, now you look  have little Mattie, baby,
Do You think that's find,
Take my love this mornin'*

[*[ He said he could make up a 
blues about anything right
on the spot.  So I  tested
him by suggesting the title
"Wind Howling Blues."]*]

Played with
harmonica & 
guitar. 


--- ? --*]

Fisk, 3.  p. 1 DAVID EDWARDS.
Oh, you got the wrong;
-he's lying right here on.
Boy, when you can rough, roll
Get you into town.
Whoa, you got the wrong
Just like a wagon wheel.
Lawd, to see you, baby,
Hardly did I seen the scene.
Whoa, it got to be mornin,
So git up soon.
Whoa, I ain't got many mornins
By the light of the moon.
Oh, Captain, please don't drown Willie
Oh wait, Captain, until around pay-day.
Whoa, you got the wrong
Just like a wagon wheel.
Hardly did I see that scene.
I ain't got many mo mornins
Oh, to git up soon
Oh, you got to git up, baby
Yes, by the light of the moon.
Whoa, you got the wrong
And you gonna feel well.
Whoa, you captain sittin on a doggone hell.
Whoa, Captain, how come you treat me so?
Oh, you treat me bad and turn me from your door.
A:  Why did you change the words to baby instead of white folks?  The 
way you sang it to me in the war it was white folks?
E:  Oh, I may sing it and change the words around.
A:  What is Hunter's hound anyhow?
E:  Hunter's hound mean just like a greyhound.  When you get him on the
run like that, when you be working and you say you got to roll like 
Hunter's hound, that mean rawhide.
A:  But wasn't that a chaingang song?
E:  Oh, that was for a county gang.
A:  Who was Hunter?
E:  He was a hunter, you know, that why you say you got to roll like 
Hunter's hound, you see.  You be on that chanin gang, you see, and you

Fisk, 3. 2.  DAVE EDWARDS
[*David Edward*]
say you have to roll like Hunter's hound.
A:  Where did that come from?
E:  I guess I don't know where that come from.
A:  Who'd you learn it from?
E:  I learned it from a boy in our county, name of Robert Smith.
A:  Where?
E:  Well, Pittsburgh and Memphis.
A:  You have probably been on chain gangs?
E:  yessir.
INTERVIEW ABOUT EARLY BLUES.
A:  You don't remember anys like the corn field song from your own 
lace?  Would he sing a chain gang song -- your father?
E:  I never heard him sing.  He played music all the time but he played 
old time blues.
A:  What kind of music did he play?
E:  He played violin and guitar.
A:  He did?  Where did he learn to play?
E:  Wel, he learned south of Mississippi, so he said.
A:  What were some of the tunes that he played, do you remember any 
of them?
E:  Stagolea and Jo Connor -- pieces like that.  Pone Poor.
A:  Did they have a different time than the blues do now?
E:  They had old time; thy just played old time in a way.
A:  Give me a notion how it sounded.
Stagolea, Stagolea, Stagolea, Oh, Stagolea
I'm gonna get that Stagolea.
Stagolea was a man, Stagolea was a man;
I'm gonna get that Stagolea.
Stagolea, Stagolea, Stagolea, Oh, Stagolea,
Stagolea, Stagolea, and get old [those] Stagolea.
Stagolea.
Stagolea, Stagolea was a man, Oh, Stagolea was a bad man, 
Stagolea.

Fisk, 3.  3. DAVE EDWARDS.
                                        JELLY ROLL BLUES.
There was a roll,
'Twas a high on my mind;
Gonna hypnotize my daddy,
[to get] Then my momma blind.
I love my jelly, I love my jely roll.







A: When did they use to sing that?
E: That was a long time ago.
A: How old were you?
E: I was about 11 years old.
A: You must have be n a bad boy.
E: Well, I heard my father sing it. I heard it, yes. The reason why I know many verses, there's more than that.
A: You mean, you just always was musical?
E: that's right; I always was; everytime he'd be singin, I'd try.
A: Was that song popular in your town then?
E:No, that was after -- a long time, you know.
A: Did he dance?
E: Yes.
A: Well, why do you suppose he did that?
E: I suppose he just like it.
A: Your father was a farmer, too?
E: Yes, he was.
A: How much money do you suppose he had?

Fisk, 3. 4. DAVE EDWARDS. 
E: Well, at that time, sometimes $500 a year. With the war work, he got most $1500.
A: What would he do with it? Find more music?
E: Find more music, dig a furrough (?) for the horses,that's what he'd do with the money.
A: Well, did you have a pretty good time or did you have a hard time? 
E: As far as I can think We had a good time, to my idea. 
A: Was he ever blue?
E: Oh, he played the blues.
A: No, was he ever blue, did he worry?
E:  Well, He never acted like he was worried much. 
A: Well, what did your momma think of all this music going on in the house? Did whe think it was all right or did she protest?
E: Well, sometimes she'd think it was all right and sometimes she wouldn't.
A: Was she a religious woman?
E: At the time. But we'd go to dances.
A: Did your father ever give up his music after he got older?
E: Yes, he give it up.
A: Why?
E: I don't know; he giveit up.
(end of section?)
A: Sit down, stranger?
E: Yeah, sit down on the bed.
A: What would you call the chords?
E: That would be D; that would be A; that's D; G; F; F; C flat; like a C; A long; Flat; C seven.
A: He knew all those chords? And he also knew how to play the fiddle?

Fisk, 3. 5. DAVE EDWARDS.
A: Well, did he ever join the church and quit music alltogeth er?
E: Wel, he joined the hurch and quit music, but he played my guitar
sometimes. But he'd just play a tune and put it down; he never took
it regular.
A: H just gave up the world?
E: He gave it up.
A: Well, what do you think, Joe, do you think there's any arm in this 
music?
E: I don't believe there's no harm in some of it.
A: Well, what if you got shot? Do you think you'd go to Hell?
E: Oh, now, yes, I'd go to hell now.
A: You would, huh?
E: I would now.
A: You just hope you'll be lucky and not get shot?
E: Hope I be lucky and not get shot.
A: If you were playing at a dance with a guitar in your hands, drinking
and all that, you think you'd just go to hell if you got killed?
E: I believe I would.
A: Yo u think Robbie Jaohnson went the long way?
E: Yes.
A: You think he had, huh?
E: Yes, I don't b lieve he was saved.
A: So you think blues and all this is the Devil's business?
E: Well, I believe the blues is.
A: You're just the Devil's child right now, aren't you?
E: I'm the Devil's child rightnow.
A: Play me a little of that Hesitation song.

Fisk, 3. 6.  DAVE EDWARDS

Hear the hesitatin tune; hear the hesitatin tune;
Hear the hesitatin tune; why don't you hie along?
Hesitatin momma, take it for the dollar down.

You got a hesitatin stockin and a hesitatin shoe,
Hesitatin tune.  Why don't you hie along?
Hesitatin momma, take it for the dollar down.

A:  Where did you learn that one?

E:  When I heard the song there about along in 1917, 1916.

A:  God, you weren't very old.

E:  I was about 4, 5 years old.

A:  Did you learn any church songs?

E:  I learned a few of em.

A:  What did you think about going to Sunday school?  Did you enjoy it?

E:  At that time.  At that time, I enjoyed it.

A:  How long since you've been to church now?  Tell the truth now.

E:  Well, I guess by seven years.

A:  You just stay away from it alltogether?  You don't try to be a hypocrite or anything like that.

E:  No, I don't try to be a hypocrite.  If I am not a church man, I just don't go.

A:  So tell me about the first guitar you got.

E:  The first guitar I owned my daddy bought it.  He paid $18 for it.  I played it all the time.  You know, I'd slip away when I used to be working and slip home and play it when they wanted me to be working.  And then they'd get angry and beat me like.

A:  What did he beat you with?

E:  He beat me with a switch.

A:  What could you play?  You couldn't play much.

E:  I couldn't play much.  I played on the old blues I heard.

Fisk, 3.  7.  DAVID EDWARDS. 

A:  Just played?  How did you learn to play?  Did you just play the
same little part over or would you play the whole song?
E:  I'd just play as much of it as I heard, I'd play.
A:  How long xxx was it before you could play a song?
E:  Oh, about a year.  I couldn't play one and sing alltogether.  If
If started singing , I'd lose my tune, lose my chords.  But as I got
older playing, why, it didn't worry me none. 
A:  And then what ha ppened next?  After you got the first good chord? 
You started  playing for dances? 
E:  I started playing for country dances, play for them all the time.
A.  How old were you when you first started playing for country dances? 
E:  I was about 12 years old or 13.
A:  They'd hire you out?  How sis they pay you? 
E:  Well, they just give me a (     ?) because I didn't have
no expenses. 
A:  How long did you play a tune -- for an hour or two hours? 
E:  About 8 to 12. 
A:  Were they pretty rough dances?
E:  They was rough dances.  They'd get drunk.
A:  Did you ever see anybody do the crawl?  You know, creep down to
the floor?
E:  They'd go down to the floor and creep out.  Go right down to the
floor and come up.
A:  Everybody hollered?
E:  Everybody laughed.
A:  What were some of the other steps? 
E:  Well, they had a dance called Black Bottom, keeping step.  Well,
they danced on steps.
A:  Did you ever see one of those?
E:  I seen em twice.  One time I was working for -- 



Fisk, 3. 8.  DAVID EDWARDS.
A: What kind of music did they have?
E: Well, they had a violin and sometimes something that had a rang
to it.
A: Well, now after you started playing country dances for a while, how
did you do that?
E: How long I played?
A:  unh-uhn, how many years?
E: I followed the country dances I reckon about four, five years til
I got tired of em, til I got good and quit the country dance.
A: What would you do?
E: I'd still play in towns and different places, things like that.
A: Wouldn't people come out to your house and listen to you play there?
E: They'd come sometimes and hear me play.
A: How often would that happen? How many people would come?
E: Oh, sometimes there'd be a gang of em; sometimes there wouldn't 
be so many.
A: What did the white folks think? Did you ever play for white folks
in that part of the country?
E:  Yessir, I played at white dances.
LEFT HOME FIRST TIME - FRIENDS IN MEMPHIS
A: How did you happen to leave home and go to town?
E:  Well, I left home the first time before I come to the Old Willie;
I'd never been away from home except my paw took me, to the country
and carried me away from home. When I come back it was about a year
and I didn't know more about music.
A: What did you do? How'd you live?
E: They just took me around playing at different places -- white dance,
at taverns, taking little jobs seometimes when you wouldn't be playing.
A: How did you live in those circumstances?
E: You'd get to town and get a room and stay there.. Then we'd book
dances the






Fisk, 3. 9, DAVID EDWARDS.
dances then. 
A: Did you have a good time?
E: Good time, yessir.
A: Tell me about how it would go. What happened?
E: Well, I don't remember anything happened much except having a good
time, drank and different girls and things. We'd form a lot of different
friends, girls and boys.
A: Remember the names of any of the different girls you liked particularly?
E: Oh, I knew a gang of em I liked.
A: Do you think girls particularly like musicians more than other
kinds of people?
E: I do.
A: How is that?
E: Just the  idea; just somebody to play and play-talk.
A: They take that as a compliment?
E: they take that as a compliment.
A: How many girls do you suppose you had?
E: In a year?
A: No, I mean, since you've been going travelling around,
E: Oh, I can't count em. I couldn't count.
A: Would you take a freight train between places or would your [daddy] boss
get you in the cart
E: I'd take both ways. Anyway that'd get me, I'd go. (Rest of portion
unclear) -- Any way.
A:  Ever get kicked off?
E: Never have get kicked off. Got caught once up North and I thought
we'd get put on a P*farm, but we played for him, and he turned us
loose.
A: What kind of a fellow was this Joe Wiley.
E:




Fisk, 3. 10.  DAVID EDWARDS.

E.  He was a slim, brown one.

A:  Was he a good musician?

E:  He was good.

A:  What did he play?

E:  Guitar.  Guitar and piano, he played both of em.

A:  Who were the people that you met in Memphis when you first went there?

E:  Well, when I first went there, I met Dewey -- he was a jazz blower - and I met Ukele -- He played a ukelel-tipped violin.  Well, I met Buddy Dailey -- he was a midget, bout two feet, something like that; I met his wife Hattie.  Jerry, o.k. Brown -- yes, I know all of em -- Tangolaylo-Shore.

A:  What kind of people were they?  Did they do a lot of drinking?

E:  That's the biggest they done -- drinking.

A:  Did any of these people take anything more than whiskey?  Would they take cocaine or anything like that?

E:  Well, take Tommy John - he sniffed cocaine, drank the raw-cut alcohol, something like that.

A:  What happened to him?

E:  Well, he live in Jackson City.

A:  Still making music?

E:  Still making music.  He was called a dope-fiend.  He drank anything -- shoe polish, canned heat, anything.  He'd take it out the ash can and burn it up and drink it.

A:  What would it make him do?

E:  Make him jigger, he'd limber, play that guitar.

A:  Well, were these people, did they make up songs easily?

E:  The biggest majority made more than songs, but they made more blues.  That's the way these people in this part of the country do.  They didn't know about those old songs like my daddy did.  What they

Fisk, 3. 11.  DAVID EDWARDS.

been recording, like Mr. Merriwell up in Chicago sent to him of em.

(end of section)

They'd get them and they'd record, they'd play blues for em.  They didn't know that old melody.

A:  How would he contact them down in Memphis?

E:  Well, he'd have some boys write up talent for him, you see.  Now he got a boy in Saint Louis, he write talent for him.  I don't know anything about writing talent here, but I think that someone in Memphis write up talent for him; I know they do.  The man living here would book them out and have them on the road.

A:  Would these musicians that you know make pretty good money?

E:  They used to make good.

A:  What kind did they make?

E:  Well, when they recording there, they got $25 a side for a record, that's $50 a record.  But now they be $7.50 a side, $15 a record.

A:  That's all you get?  What about the royalties?

E:  Well, they won't give no royalties now, not unless you're blind or afflicted; they don't give no royalties.

A:  Why is that?

E:  I don't know.  The records just got cheap; they cut from $25 a side to $7.50 a side -- that they just cut em out; they cut the royalties off.  But still they want you to record; there must be something in it.  They wouldn't want you all the time if they didn't want you to record.

A:  Well, what about the songs?  Who owns the songs when you get together and record it?  Do they put your name on it?

E:  They put your name on it.  You never sing the song unless your record, not about music, you see.

A:  Outside of records, how would these midgets and characters that you talked about make their living?

Fisk, 3.  12.  DAVID EDWARDS.

E:  Well, Eddie and his mother work for Ham and he wouldn't make any money by his being so little and the farm and people gave him ( ?) and pay right smart.

A:  He plays pretty good?

E:  He play good.

A:  Is he still around?

E:  Still around, right in Memphis now.

A:  How much money do these people make would you say, these musicians make in a year?

E:  Well, in a year it's pretty hard to guess.  I'd say about two or three hundred dollars; I'd guess, hustlin, that is, playing beer taverns and something like that, see, they make more than that.

A:  How much money in a night?

E:  Well, I was playing in a crowd the other night, and they got just $18.  One night I got $25 for a swang band.  They'd do pretty good sometimes.

A:  Clem White, or --?

E:  White.

A:  When you say they sat down and teach you to play, how would they teach you anyhow?

E:  Well, they'd show me different chords, how to make.  I didn't know these chords.

A:  Did you have to pay them for your lessons?

E:  Some I had to pay and some I didn't.

A:  And then by the time you got through that year you could go with the best of them?

E:  I could go with the rest of em.  I don't care who the man is, who he is, he'd just go and tune his instrument, and I'd catch him.

A:  Where have you been traveling?

E:  Well, I feel all down the South, Louisiana, Texas, Illinois, Missouri,

Fisk, 3.  13.  DAVE EDWARDS.

here, Arkansas, Kentucky, Tennessee, Alabama, different places, Florida, all the different places.

A:  What place do you like the best?  North or South?

E:  Well, I just liked some places.

A:  You don't have to be afraid; go ahead and tell me why you liked it there.

E:  Well, you just -- everybody is the same when you get to like.  They don't have no (sufferers?); they just go on and do that.  But the South, they don't do that.  We all go to the same hotel, eat at the same table here, but the South don't do it.

ARMY BLUES.

Now, folks don't on the bumping,
Ride s bumping town and country;
Go on folks on out to the bumping bee.

Lawd, I bumped in town
Lawd, I ain't gonna eat any lean meat now;
Lawd, them bumpers turned around.

Uncle Sam, heat that woman;
You sure can pick your man.
Uncle Sam, see that woman,
But he sure can pick your man.

Lawd, he taken he'da carried him;
Tomorrow got the land.
We aren't in a chain gang,
But Uncle Sam can do to him.
He would take that jitterbugging
Put him right in your own county, too.

Fisk, 3. 14.  DAVID EDWARDS.

I make that myself along about three weeks ago.

A:  What did you call it?

E:  Well, that's the Army Blues.

A:  What were you thinking of?

E:  I sing my song alone.

A:  How soon do you think you'll go?

E:  Can't hardly tell about that thing.

A:  Would you like to go?

E:  I'll go if I have to.

A:  Who do you think we're going to war with?

E:  Can't hardly tell.  That thing's like coming to the coast -- can't hardly tell how you're coming out.

Fisk, 4. 1. DAVID EDWARDS.
TEA IT DOWN.
Put the kitty in my house,
And I'm [gonna] jus gonna tear it down.
Kit, Kitty in my house,
And I'm just gonna tear it down.
Tear it down,
Tear it down,
Oh tear it down.
Kit, kitty in my house,
And I'm just gonna tear it down.
A flat no.
A flat no.
JOHN STEALS HOGS
My maw had a man named John and he had a lot of hogs. My maw said,"They're
missing hogs the other night. The last one I had [???] missed the hog."
She said "John, I believe you're stealing my hogs." "Oh, no," says,
"Oh, no," says, "Massa, I ain't stealin your hogs." Say, "The other 
night just took [hime] me off and take me a little show." So he first show
he grabbed him old Massa Higgins, caught him at the gate and rang him
show out. So Old Massa told him, "You know, John, it ain't gonna make 
a damn bit of good stealing all those hogs. You can't eat up all of 
these." So Old Massa  mad a[?]ld John go to the house and so he went
to the house. And told his cook to cook him up a pan of corn bread.
So he says, "Cook, cook up a pan of corn bread." And he put the hog
in an old pot, a pot that used for washing, a washpot. P t him down.
The first thing Old John grabbed was his head and he shook, shook the
middle of his head after he had it, he taked him in themiddle just
like a flapjack and he tooked up a ham and he knocked the gristles
off of them and I heard him turn tham and say, "Captain, (
rest unclear) I'll kill you." (Laughter). 
Knocked the girstles off the end of them and turned I hear him, 
"Captain, Captain, you didn't know enough to kill me." (Laughter)

Fisk, 4. 2.  David Edwards. 
Fool him down. 
John And His Mule 
Trying that day, Jack had got tired on the road.  So John said, 
"Come up, Jack." Jack looked around at him; John coaxed back to 
him, says, "come up, Jack." Jack looked around at him. He never could 
hear good and he come up no more. John looked back between so old
Massa Jack talking." Old Massa say, "ou lying Jack."  Old Massa 
didn't walk but 15 and Old Massa come out and Jack say, "John, I believe
you lying." Say and talking. So John told him, "Come up, Jack." 
Jack looked around, sa, "I been coming up thirty years; I ain't comin 
up no more." Old Massa jumped up to kill him and he went running. 
He'd been [running] [working] about [seven] years. So when he went to running
he want running by the big oak tree, and the fire said, 'Iain't 
either."  And they both went running just like other folks. 
Conversation unclear) 
Just like this -- they'd pick it up one. 
A: Well, did yu ever hear about the time that --
E: I didn't know him anyway.
A: Who was John anyway? 
E: He was an old man back in slavery time. He was sensible man and 
he started working in slavery time - he was just a slave, you know; 
he was sensible, you know. 
A: He was smarter than the other people down there? 
E: He was smarter
A: And he tried to get out of doing as much work as possible. 
E: If he could. 
A: Did you ever hear any more stories about Old John? 
E: I knowed many more. There's more that I heard but I never 
remember.

Fisk, 4.  3.  DAVID EDWARDS.

A:  How'd you learn these?

E:  Well, them people would tell em to me and I'd learn em like that.  

A:  Did you learn em from your father?

BRER RABBIT AND THE BULLDOG

Marse and Brer Rabbit and Brer Fox was standin on the roadside; They was talkin there was gonna be a decidin.  So they all say comin to the decidin.  So Brer Rabbit was talking to Brer Fox; they'd been talkin about the night of business they'd been doin.  Brer Rabbit, he looks up and he seen a bulldog comin down the road.  So Brer Fox say, "Brer Rabbit, what you creepin over to the bushes, creepin over right to the bushes?"  Brer Fox say, "Whats the matter with you, Brer Rabbit?  That you keep gettin over to the bushes?  What's the matter?"

He say, "Oh, nothin, Brer Fox."  He just kept on gettin to the edge of the bushes, and directly he got to the edge of the bushes, Brer Fox say, "What's the matter, fellow?"  He say, "Brother, how in the hell can I still your big mouth if you have a charm ( ?)  (Laughter)

A:  What's that?

E:  Say, "It dig my thunder for to you charm me over there."

DOGS & RABBITS CONVENTION

One time the Dog had a convention along with the rabbits and they decided not to interfere with the rabbits.  So two rabbits started talking one day, they was talking right over the business probably they'd been doing.  So one rabbit looked way down the road and he seen an old poor dog coming.  So says, "Look here, ain't that a dog comin down?  That dog is so poor, he gonna walk."  So one of the other rabbits says, "Well, sir, we was all in the convention; he's not gonna bother us."  He says, "Brother, he's so poor, he's

Fisk, 4. 4.  DAVID EDWARDS

liable not to be in that convention."  (laughter)

A:  Did you ever hear about the time that Shorty Vine went down to the 
pond, and he saw a frog who said, "We all gonna be saved."  And he 
ran back to his master; he said, "There's a frog down there can talk."  
So he says, "Now look here, that's just not true."  "No sir," he says, 
"That frog down there just been talking to me.  Come down there and
 I'll show him to you."  "O.K., then, I'll come down, but if he can't 
talk, I'll beat your head off.
E:  Ni sir, I never heard that.

TOASTS
Once I was out on yonder hill; 
I met a little old black gal;
She was standing still.
I roughed my tunnatoat
That'll help her fair.
I stuck that old zeke of mine
in a bunch of hair.

99 dyys saw it began to come
And he go to the doc sat up still
In time a doc'll pick any man,
They can tickle any man (   ), too.
He say, "Stand up straight, you nigger;
Do you need a lay?
I hav to cut this thing off
To your mother's (   )

A:  Did you know The Gal That Wore Fine Clothes?
(end of section)

Boys, you all come out to the party tomorrow night
We can have each and everything
A man would want to eat,
Criss to pea and man eat
You've for two pick your head in a knot
Put a two aside and snort.
Ada, too, had a toast, she had
A toast (   )

A:  What's the one about the old man?
E:  I forgot that now.  -- Next time.

ON THE ROADS
A:  Would you get the blues awful bad when you were just bumming

Fisk, 4. 5.  DAVID EDWARDS.

like that?

E:  I sure did.  When I got way, way from home, it's no wonder.  Sometimes I think I'll never get back home any more and I'd catch a freight to go to a place.  If I got to a county jail or to Katie, something like that, Illinois or something, just different railroads, when I got to a crossroad and walked, I was going way out of town to I may grab a (  ).  And then when you get to that crossroad.  There's just a little chance I may catch to Frisco or thing just like that, see?

A:  Did you meet up with any hobos?

E:  Yeah, quite often.

A:  I suppose any guy that rides the rails will sing?

E:  Yessir, and that's the reason they're riding, see?  He'll sing at home, they won't do nothing but try to pull him into work somewhere.  If he on the road, he'll find some way to try to make him some money, see.  And they get a artist, he's gonna get that money, understand, see.  They knows the way to get that money.  When you got a good firefighter, a good foxer or something like that, why, you got to run someplace where you gonna get a break.

A:  Did you ever hear nay songs that were sung by guys in the jungles that told about travelling on the road, hoboing, something like that?

E:  Sure, I've heard a few songs of something like that.  "I've been So Long I'm Gonna Take the Jungles To Be My Home."  After they get to singing that song, they get mournful.

I've been hoboing so long
I take the jungle to be my home.
Late at midnight the old train began to roll and rock
The next freight I"m gonna take to the town,
Maybe I'll stop.

That's the jungle song in the jungle.  I've hears they left the jungle sometime, got into town and grabbed a roustabout and put him in jail.  -- Left the jungle and go to the market, begged the market

Fisk, 4. 6.  DAVID EDWARDS.

and something to eat, you see.  Something like that?  Sometimes they just have a quarter in their pocket and when they get to where they're going that night or the next day, they have $20 in their pocket.

A:  I don't get it.

E:  Well, there are different ways of getting that money, sir.  They got different ways to get that; some do different things to get that money.  Each man don't do the same things.

A:  Not everybody's a musician, I suppose.

E:  No, they ain't looking for that.

A:  Well, what kind of guys did you meet on the road?  Every kind of guy?

E:  All kinds.

A:  Good guys and bad?

E:  Some good guys and bad; some guys are friendly and some aren't.

A:  Some guys will steal a penny of a dead man's back.

E:  That's right.  There are some white guys you meet on the road will treat you better than your color.  If I meet a white guy who's as good as my color, I go out of my way to be nice; If I got money, I knock em off and say, "What you want to drink?" see.

TITANIC TOAST.

Time when the Titanic went down,
This ship's on that Titanic.
And time, time again begun to sing
And he'd about begin to think.
And Shine over dinner and the barroom floor
He says, "Captain, oh captain, we're getting low."
He wrote a sign out, kick out the barroom door.
When the ship was going down,
When the Titanic was going down,
It sank and Shine was on the face.
There's a white girl, she fell out the ship
She said, "Oh Shine, oh Shine,
Would you say it's a full moon?"
Shine say, "You got a good stuff with you,
That I know,
But there's better stuff on the other show,
And keep it."

Fisk, 4. 7.  DAVID EDWARDS.

A:  You left somethings out.

E:  That's right.

A:  Let's put it in.

E:  There's some I left out.  You know, there's four, five different ways you say it.

A:  Did you know the one about the bitch?

E:  You mean, "The Nigger Bitch with Her shit"?  I heard one guy say that toast.  I really forgot that toast.

THE CONJURE DOCTOR (UNCLE TOM)

There's few here in this county could things will harm you in New York City.

A:  Have you know that to happen?

E:  I seen the foreman do it once.  He could do it, I believe, he could.  If you couldn't walk and got up on his knees and he say, "Walk," and you say, "I can't walk Uncle Tom."  "Yes, you get up and come to walking."  You get up and come to walking.

A:  What kind of looking man is he?

He's a Southern man.

A:  Farmer?

E:  He got his own place -- he's a farmer but he got his own place.  He don't farm nobody; he's got his own stuff.

A:  Looks like he's making so much money he won't have to work any more.

E:  He don't work none.  Other folks work.  See, he got his own place; he's just the man who own his own place -- he don't do nothing.

A:  Who goes to him then?

E:  Everybody -- wants to go to him.

A:  White folks?

E:  Sure.

A:  Did you tell me your wife went to him?

E:  Sure.  She couldn't walk and she went to him and the boys put here

Fisk, 4. 8.  DAVID EDWARDS.

down, and she walked right to him.  She did.  They quite and he w nt and 
got some nurse from some other conjuror, understand.  She didn't come 
to Uncle Tom; she went to some conjuror from Arkansas and he didn't 
know.  She couldn't walk, she couldn't rai se her arm up over her 
head.  She couldn't walk.  And she didn't gave -- she went up to town 
or something like that and she didn't go to ncle Tom in two or 
three weeks -- he was about to cure her.  When she went up to Uncle 
Tom, he told, say, "If you been much as two weeks along or two or 
three days, you'd have been a dead woman."  And he met her at the 
railroad and told the b u to put her down.  She couldn't walk.  So 
he put her down; she says,  "I can't walk."  And when she say, "I 
can't walk," Uncle Tom say, "You can walk."  [And says "Come walking
to me"] And she comes walking to him jus like a newborn baby, 
just toddling to him, just st aightened up.  Then he taken her back 
in there, and she showed him where the pain started from.  Well, he 
put plaster on the side and as the pain moved, that plaster he would 
come loose.  And after the pain loosed that plaster come loose, til 
all that pain left that plaster would fall right off.

A:  Do you think it will?

E:  Sure it will.  Walking around here fat as a Berkshire.

TOASTS

My back is made of whalebone
And my bed is made of glass.
I play the guitar for the women, 
And Anyone can kiss my ass.

That's all I can remember of that.

A:  Who'd you learn that from?

Fisk, 4. 9.  DAVE EDWARDS.

Some have some long and s me have some short.  That's a short un.  That's 
what you tell the nogood one that's what he's made from -- for the 
working women.  He never can do what he wants to, see.  That's what 
that's for.

BLUEGUM PEOPLE ** CHUCKALUCK SANDERS.

A:  Did you ever hear anything about the blue gum people?

E:  How does that go?

A:  No, I mean to say they have some kind of power when they strum the 
blues, the colored folks do.

E:  I heard they poison.

A:  poison -- what do you mean, poison?

E:  If they bite you with the gums and the teeth are blue.  If you have 
a sore arm or something like that.

A:  I heard about a blue gum man who could disappear and nobody could 
catch, no sheriff could catch him.

E:  Oh, people can do that.

A:  Did you ever hear any stoires about people like that?

E:  Sure never heard none of em.

A:  Wasn't railroad Bill something like that?

(end of section)

I knowone man, they called min Chuckaluck Same and yo can see him 
one day he'd be all broken up and bent, walking with a stick.  And tomorrow 
he'd be walking better than you can walk, see.  And the next day when 
you see him all messed up, just chuckled up, and tomorrow he'd be 
running and walking straighter you can.  He done a lot of dirt and 
they arrest him and [?] after they arrest him, when they went to hang 
him, he wasn't there to hang him.  On a street in Dallas he fell in 
a bale of hay.

A:  Do you know that to be true?

E:  That what they say -- that's what my folk-town say.  I don't 
know nothing about it but they say they know that for the fact.

Fisk, 4. 10.  DAVE EDWARDS.

When they put gas in the cell, it was a bale of hay and he was gone.  
You see him to do -- walking straight, you see him tomorrow he's all 
crippled and bongled up, he be crippled, couldn't hardly walk, couldn't 
make the grade, so cri[o]ppled, you know.

A:  That's the kind of people they blue gum people are that I heard 
about.

E:  Shoot at em and can't hit em.

A:  Yeah, that's right.  You put em in the coffin and they open the 
coffin -- they aren't dead.  Lock em in a cell, they're gone every 
time.

E:  That's the way they do.  Some of em can do that and some of em 
can't.  That the way that deal.

DO YOU WANT A LITTLE BIT OF THIS?  
CHILDREN'S SEX LIFE

People, when you get a red psider down here,
Do you want a little bit of this?
Sumgotta.  No ma'am, no.

A:  What kind of game was that?

E:  Well, that's called a play game.  Ther's more verse than hat I 
sang.  There's just about two verses.

A:  Who would be playing that?

E:  Three or four -- so many as you want to be playing in the game.

A:  Little gals?

E:  Little gals -- when it get your turn, they'd raise their dress up.  
When they raise their dress they'd ask the boys, Do you want a little 
bit of this sumgot.  He'd say No ma'am.  When they got the dress 
about half up the leg, they ask him Do you want a little bit of this?  
He hollered No ma'am.  When she got the dress up aboveher knees, she

Fisk, 4. 11.  DAVE EDWARDS

ask him do he want a little bit of this.  He holler Yes'm, yes maam.

A:  Well, when did the children do that?  Would they be hiding?

E:  They'd be hiding and play just the ring game.  That's what that is.

A:  Any little children?

E:  Any little children would be big enough to know what that is, you 
see.

A:  How old would they be?

E:  Well, they'd be around 11 -- 10, 11, 12, around that, something like 
that -- they used to be.

A:  Well, would little kids be knowing what that stuff is?

E:  Sure, they know what that mean.

A:  How young?

E:  Well, you take from this part of the country - how they do now -- 
you start out at 10 and 11 years old -- they do everything and know 
about it.  They don't be doing it -- they trying to do it -- they 
wo ldn't be doing nothing.

A:  What happens when the old folks catch them?

E:  Well, they wouldn't be doing it; they just trying to do it; they 
couldn't do it.  Well, some of em would try to beat em, but when they 
get too far gone, they just too far gone.  You take some of em around 
14 years old, they tries to beat em, to stop em, they ain't doing 
anything.  If they do that, they leave home, you see.

A:  What was the first time that ever happened to you?

E:  The first time?  Oh, well the first time that was, that was in '26.  
I was a small kid then -- I thought I was doing mighty good.  That's 
the first time.

A:  Was she an older gal?

E:  Sur , she was about three years older than I was, three.

A:  She wanted to show you?

E:  She wanted to show me; I was trying to show her.

Fisk, 4. 12.

What did she tell you?

E:  She told me to come on (laughter).  I wanted fun; I wanted to 
know what we were going to do.  She showed me.  We made everything all 
right.

A:  You were old enough then to do it?

E:  Well, I done it in my way.

WIND HOWLIN BLUES

Baby, llokin at the wind howlin,
Howlin all around too.
Baby don't you hear the wind howlin?
Hollerin around my baby down.

[Lord, atainat gonna]
It hollers so long, so loud,
Lawd, it ain't gonna holler no mo.
It's thunderin and it's lightnin, baby,
And the wind begin to blow.
It's thunderin and it's lightnin, baby
And the wind begin to blow.

Lawd, my baby told me this mo'nin,
"Now, now, if you don't love me no mo,"
Lawd, it's howlin outdoors,
Rainin on my old windowpane.
It's rainin outdoors,
Stormin on my window pane.

I'm gonna quit blackmailin,
You know that's a mighty shame.
Black Mattie say it's gonna shine on,
Baby, just like the risin sun.
Black Mattie say it's gonna shine on,
Baby, just like the risin sun.

Lawd, how about promisin
A ship to save me now?
It's gonna hear folks like Mattie now.
He know you look in little Mattie, baby.
She say that sun love my love
This morinin
Even before my marriage door.

Transcribed and reviewed by volunteers participating in the By The People project at crowd.loc.gov.