Johnny Shines: Blues Singer Shines Helped Lay Rock Foundation

Blues Singer Shines Helped Lay Rock Foundation

By Phillip Rawls for the Montgomery Advertiser 1976

TUSCALOOSA, AL — Johnny Shines will tell you, "If you didn't have the blues yesterday, look out for them tomorrow, if you don't have them now because they're as certain as death."

Shines is a 61-year-old delta blues singer and guitarist who lives in Holt, a working class suburb of Tuscaloosa. Like many blues musicians, Shines laid the foundation for modern soul and rock music, but he has never received any recognition.

The delta blues, according to Shines, are the gut bucket blues, as opposed to the Chicago blues, which are more brassy.

Shines was born five miles outside of Memphis in Frazier, Tenn., and learned to play blues guitar by hanging around with famous Beale Street musicians like Robert Johnson and Howlin' Wolf.

Thirty years later, rock guitarist Johnny Winter learned how to play the blues by hanging out with Shines and his friends. Just as Shines once did, Winter "would play a lick like we played it, and then he would change it to suit his style."

Although the blues guitar was learned, blues singing came natural for Shines. The blues "is what we did in the church and what people sang in the fields at the end of the day, but it wasn't called the blues then," explained Shines.

When Shines was a young man, black audiences turned against the ' blues because "they were taught that it represented everything that was bad.

"The blues is not as bad as it is said to be. It's not sinful to sing the blues," said Shines, who had to give up playing from 1957 to 1964 because there was no audience.

In 1964, white audiences flocked to the blues when Cream, an English group with Eric Clapton, hit the charts with an old Johnson song called "Crossroads."

"If it wasn't for whites, there wouldn't be an audience for the blues today," Shines notes.

When asked what's the best song he ever wrote, Shines lets loose with one of his barrel chested laughs and says "I Don't Know," a song he wrote in 1966.

Like all of Shines' songs, "I Don't Know" tells a story.  The song tells of a country boy who leaves his sweet-heart at home and goes to Chicago. Once in Chicago, he begins to miss the girl and sends for her. But when she gets to Chicago, she finds her old boyfriend has been changed by the city lights, and she falls in love with another man.

When asked if the story is true, Shines answers in a whisper, "Yeah."

Like the blues lyric that says, "If it wasn't for bad luck. I wouldn't have no luck at all," Shines had plenty of down and out times before moving to Tuscaloosa in 1969.

Several times he made records but "never got any-thing but union fees and a piece of paper that was no good.  Not until the 1970's did Shines ever see any record royalties.

While he and his wife Hat-tie were living in a kitchenette apartment in Chicago, their daughter died, leaving them seven school age grandchildren to take care of.

Shines decided that Chicago was no place to raise the children, so the family moved to his wife's home town, Tuscaloosa.

Shines is getting old and he knows his musician days are numbered. "I know I don't play as well as I used to, and I don't have the range I once did. But. friends tell me I sound just like I always did," he said.

The Anniston Star, Apr 20, 1992.

The only recognition Shines will probably ever get will be a small obituary in "Rolling Stone" magazine, but that doesn't worry him. Passing on his music is more important.

Through federal and state grants to the Southern Folk Cultural Revival Project, Shines is able to perform in schools, prisons and hospitals.

Elementary school children make a great audience, according to the blues musician. "You will think they're not paying any attention to what you're doing, and then you will see them copying what you're doing. You know you’re getting through,” he said.

Thursday afternoon, the mailman brought Shines a not letter saying that the Alabama State Council on Arts and Humanities is awarding Shines and friends $1,000 to keep playing in schools. "I've got the happy blues today,” he laughed.

The Montgomery Advertiser, Mar 28, 1976.

PANTHER BURN

Sharkey County, Mississippi

In the book It Came from Memphis, Robert Gordon forwards one explanation behind the band name for Tav Falco and the Panther Burns: 

• “The band’s name reflected the lore surrounding Panther Burn, Mississippi. This town was menaced by an elusive wild beast that, when finally cornered, was set aflame. Its dying shrieks so horrified the citizens that they named the community for it. The moniker was appropriate for” Tav Falco’s assembly of musicians, The Panther Burns.

It's not clear at all where this supposed lore came from--perhaps the mind of Falco himself, or Gordon's own exaggeration--but the town of Panther Burn has plenty of actual historical information related to the naming of the town. Here is one news item from the Vickburg Herald in 1860 that explains how the town got its name.

Population in 1987: About 100 families

Industry: Panther Burn Co., a plantation with about 6,500 acres of farmland growing cotton, soybeans, rice and wheat. The plantation employs 60 to 150 people, depending on the season. 

Settled: 1832 Government: The area is not incorporated so there is no local governing board. The area is under the jurisdiction of the Sharkey County Board of Supervisors.

Of Note: The last reported panther sighting near here was about five years ago by farmers. 

(Jackson, MS) Clarion Ledger, Nov 1, 1987.

The Grave of Jack Gordon Owens

“Jack Gordon Owens was Widely Known as a Country Blues Pioneer”

By Billy Watkins, Clarion-Ledger Staff Writer 1997

BENTONIA — Clara Bell Griffith sat in a folding chair in the back of Old Liberty Missionary Baptist Church a few minutes before Jack Gordon Owens' funeral and recalled the day many years ago that he found religion. "Came up here to church on a mule," she said, laughing, "and left here on him just a runnin'. He said the mule was full of the Holy Ghost, too."

About 100 friends and admirers gathered here Thursday afternoon to remember Owens, a legendary blues pioneer who died Sunday following an illness at the age of 92. They braved the cold and dampness, and they talked more about Jack Owens, the man, than they did the musician.

Friends spoke of how he gave up many chances to play his music world-wide so that he could care for his bedridden wife, Mabel, who died in 1989. They noted that he couldn't read, yet he could find his way anywhere he wanted to go, without the help of road signs. And they talked proudly of his 1995 National Heritage Award and his opportunity to play for President Clinton in Washington.

David Evans, a professor of music at the University of Memphis, knew Owens for about 30 years. He drove down Thursday morning to attend the service.

"I came here in 1966 as a 22-year-old looking for music, and Jack Owens opened his doors to me," said Evans, 53. "He was a link to the heyday of the old country blues, when the music was pure and at its peak, back in the 1920s and '30s. For young people, there weren't many opportunities to hear someone who embodied that music. And with his passing, there's hardly any left. There are others who can recreate it, but Jack was there. He lived it."

Mary Cox, 48, knew Owens all her life.

"I'll never forget those summer days when I'd be on the outside and hear him, sittin' out there on his porch, singing and playing the guitar," Cox said. "And my house is where every-body used to stop to get directions to his. I've seen buses, cars, hundreds of people drive up to his house. He was a great artist."

In his tribute printed in the program, Eddie Nelson, Owens' nephew, wrote that Owens' was born L.F. Nelson. Owens' parents were Celica Owens and George Nelson, but he was raised by Sam Owens of Bentonia. Nelson also wrote: “you played your music in Europe, and then you came home and was plain old Jack Owens. You didn't change.  So God had a plan for L.F. Nelson that lasted 90-plus years. Now it's time to rest."

Another Account of the Funeral of Jack Owens
By Robert Hutton
http://hutten.org/rob/writing/

Nov. 17, 1904 - Feb. 9, 1997

On Thursday, February 13, 1997, a hundred or so people filed into the Old Liberty Missionary Baptist Church in Bentonia, Mississippi. They came for the funeral of Jack Owens who had passed away four days earlier in a Yazoo City hospital at the age of 92. Some came to mark the passing of "Mr. Jack", the farmer down the road who played old-time blues on his front porch for visitors from around the world. Others came to say farewell to a friend who had for the better part of a century provided an escape from life's hardships in the form of weekend front-room juke parties. Still others came to pay their respects to one of the last surviving links to the roots of Black American music.

Jack Owens farmed all his life in the small town of Bentonia, running a juke joint on weekends where he'd sell barbecue and his homemade white whiskey. "When I was real young, I used to hear the young guys talking about that they was goin' up to Jack Owens' place", recalls Bentonia native Dorothy Burrell.

"Jack Owens' place" was the front parlour of his small house, cleared of furniture and with a hole punched in the wall through which food and drink were served from the kitchen. The party would start Friday night and often run until Sunday evening, and would feature local blues players like Henry Stuckey, Skip James, and Adam Slater.[1] Sometimes Owens himself would play for the dancers, matching the driving rhythm of his thumb-picked bass lines with the heavy stomp of his foot.

Except for the occasional weekend fracas set straight by Owens and his pistol, he led a relatively quiet life. He never felt the need to leave his native Bentonia; he was well-liked in the community and had carved a comfortable niche for himself there. Unlike fellow Bentonian Skip James, who travelled and lived throughout the South, Owens never had the opportunity to be discovered by a talent scout like H. C. Spier, whose audition of James in Jackson led to a 1931 recording session for Paramount which saw 18 remarkable sides released.

Jack Owens's legal name was L. F. Nelson, although this was not widely known until his funeral. No one, not even Owens' three surviving sisters, recalls what the initials "L. F." stand for. "I knew that he was a Nelson," recalls Burrell, "but everybody knew him as Jack Owens because he was raised by the Owens family."

Owens was born to Celia [1] Owens on or about November 17, 1904. His father, who's last name was Nelson, ran off when he was five or six years of age. This left young Jack to be raised as an Owens in the household headed by his grandfather Samuel Owens. A 1910 census lists the children of the household as Savannah, Will, Lonnie, Jack (mistakenly listed as "Nelson Owens"), Leonard (listed as "Lennon"), Pearlee, Lucy and Willie. Leonard and Pearlee are listed as having the Nelson surname. At least two more children were born after 1910; not named in this census are Owens' sisters Lee Esther and Viola, who, along with Willie, are still living in 1997.

Owens learned to play the fife as a child, and early on picked up a few chords on the guitar from his father and uncle. He also learned a bit of piano and fiddle at some point, although the guitar was to become his main instrument.

In 1966, folk musicologist David Evans interviewed Bentonian blues singer Cornelius Bright, whom Evans had heard about from Skip James. Bright took Evans to meet Jack Owens one night, and Evans was hardly prepared for what he was about to hear. Owens' playing recalled that of Skip James, but with a rough edge not found in James' more delicate style. Owens was also a more forceful singer who didn't employ much of the falsetto that James favoured. Thrilled with his discovery, Evans began a series of recordings that night which would extensively document Owens' music for the next decade or more.

A handful of cuts from these recordings appeared on various compilation albums, but it wasn't until 1971 that a full album of Owens' music (with Bud Spires on harmonica) was released on the Testament label. These tracks, plus some unissued recordings, were reissued in 1995 on compact disc [see accompanying discography].

Thirty years later, Evans still holds a great deal of respect for Owens' playing, calling his style of blues "one of the most complex ever developed within a strong folk tradition." Owens used a number of alternate guitar tunings, including certain variations on standard tuning that seem to have originated with him. He used fingerpicks to achieve a brighter, louder tone and maintained a solid beat with his foot. Unlike Skip James, who considered his own playing to be art music intended for close listening, Owens created music that was well-suited for dancing and drinking. The two men shared a common repertory of lyrics, melodies and guitar figures, but the overall tonality of their music differed greatly. Many of the differences have been largely overlooked, with one writer even dismissing Owens entirely as a "derivative amateur"[2]. This curious conclusion could only have been reached without the benefit of hearing Owens's recordings; his singing and playing styles were as individualistic as they were complex.

Jack Owens was perhaps the strongest living embodiment of a musical tradition all but drowned out by the din of today's entertainment industry. With his passing we lose one of the last tangible connections to the time and place that brought forth the blues.

----------

Footnotes:

1. According to Evans, Owens called his mother "Celie", but she is listed as "Celia" on the 1910 census. Her name is spelled "Celica" on Jack's funeral program.

2. Calt, Stephen. I'd Rather be the Devil: Skip James and the Blues_, p. 20 New York: Da Capo Press, 1994.

Yazoo County Blues, a Well-Kept Secret (3 of 3)

Yazoo County Blues, a Well-Kept Secret (3 of 3)

Yazoo-styled blues spreads northward and around the world after World War II

By The Rev. Ken Cook Special to The Yazoo Herald 1999

Click HERE to read Part 2

Jimmy Holmes and Jack Owens (1982)

Like Mary Johnson, Tommy McClennan, and Robert Petway, Yazoo City's Arthur Spires (1912) became part of the massive migration of Southerners (mostly black) to the North in the 30s, 40s, and 50s.

Usually they left on the Illinois Central in search of opportunity. Mary got off in St. Louis. Tommy, Robert, and Arthur traveled on to Chicago.

By the late 1940s, Spires had been able to found his own band, The Rocket Four. Fortified by two or three electric guitars and a drumset--and sometimes including Little Willie Smith on harmonica--the blues had become urban. By 1952 Spires' producer, Leonard Chess, gave him the state name he would share with Elvis' inspiration, Arthur Crudup: "Big Boy." No full CD is devoted to his music at this time, but selections are avail-able on Morris Pejoe/Arthur "Big Boy" Spires and Chess' Chicago Blues Anthology. His "You Can't Tell" (from the first CD) is irresistibly funny.

Robert Covington (born Robert Lee Travis, December 13, 1941, in Yazoo City) would go north, too. A drummer in the band at Alcorn State, he would arrive in Chicago by 1962. After serving in the bands of Little Walter, Buddy Guy, and Sunnyland Slim, Covington struck out on his own as a vocalist with his own club band, recording two albums. His rich baritone earned him the title "Golden Voice of the Blues." Look for his Blues in the Night CD.

Because blues music was establishing broad national and international appeal by the early 60s, Jack Owens (born L. F. Nelson, November 17, 1904, in Bentonia) and James "Son" Thomas (October 14, 1926, in Eden) did not have to leave the Delta to be discovered.

Producers--from New York City, Memphis, and Germany--with their recording crews searched them out. Both are akin to the earlier "country bluesmen." Jack is often seen as the major student of Skip James. Both Owens and Thomas played amplified guitars and were often accompanied by other musicians (Owens by his partner, harpist Bud Spires of Bentonia, born 1931, the son of "Big Boy"). Son played in the Reagan White House in 1982, while Jack was featured in a Levi's television ad in 1995. Owens and Spires' work can be found on It Must Have Been the Devil; Thomas' recordings from Leland and, later from Germany, are to be found on his Beefsteak Blues (which includes an obscene version of "Catfish Blues").

The most recent Yazoo County native - but raised in Missouri - to sing and play the blues is Mike Henderson (Yazoo City, July 7, 1951). Something of a purist who works with a seasoned four-piece band, The Bluebloods, he offers powerful versions of country tunes like "Pony Blues," Chicago blues classics such as "How Many More Years" and originals including "All My Money's Gone." The listener might want to listen to First Blood (1996) or Thicker Than Water (1998).

The ten recording artists mentioned in this series have had, by means of the larger medium of blues music, a significant worldwide impact. Through their music they have exported Southern culture throughout the United States and wherever American troops from the South have been stationed since World War II. Since the blues tradition consistently embraces and reveres its past, the contributions of these local artists is not likely to diminish. 

One last note: with this constellation of musicians, Yazoo City was once thought to only be rivaled by Clarksdale, but the largest Delta city of Greenville has proven a major source of Delta blues music, namely Prince McCoy, Little Milton, Eugene Powell...among others...

The Yazoo County Blues —A Three-Part Series

This three-part series concludes with this issue tracing the spread of Yazoo-styled blues northward to Chicago and Detroit and from there around the world.