Blind Boy Paxton: A Culture Between Each Other

At first glance, everything about Jerron Paxton looks and feels like a journey back in time to the early days of roots music, blues, and American folk. His effortless juggling of instruments — from harmonica to fretless banjo, to guitar, to fiddle — his humorous banter, his rustic stage wear, even his on-stage moniker, “Blind Boy” Paxton, all conjure past musical eras. The songs and stories Paxton presents don’t come from dusty songbooks, obscure recordings, or forgotten archives, though. They were each a part of the soundtrack of his childhood growing up in South Central Los Angeles. In an area most famous for hip hop and R&B, a vibrant musical tradition flourished, starting from the deep southern U.S. and traveling along Interstate-10 all the way to L.A.

Paxton’s connection to these songs — to these nuggets of American, African-American, and working-class cultures — shines through his performances and recordings. He is not merely a preservationist mining bygone decades for esoteric material or works that fit a certain aesthetic or brand. He simply takes music that is significant to his identity, his culture, and his experience and showcases it for a broader audience. Its value does not reside solely in its history or in the authentic replication of that history, but also exists in its present, its relevance to modern times, and its future, as well.

The music you make and perform seems like such a time capsule — a distillate of past eras, past times, and past places. How did you come to appreciate, love, and make music like that, growing up in Los Angeles?

That, right there, sort of brings up my perspective, my reality in the sort of music I play. The reason I play that type of music is because I am from Los Angeles. South Los Angeles is home to the largest Creole and Cajun population outside of Louisiana. It also has around 20,000 Choctaw Indians. Most of the Black people from the areas I grew up in, around South Central, were all from the deep South — usually Louisiana, Mississippi, Arkansas, Texas, and Alabama. For us, that’s the music we listened to at the house. That’s just what we called “down home blues.” You couldn’t have a party without down home blues being played. That’s how I was raised.

Most of my friends that play music similar to mine got into it from Bob Dylan or the Anthology of American Folk Music and all that. I didn’t need those things. This music was culturally relevant to me back then, as it is now. I’m starting to realize, as I get older, that I spent most of my youth making friends with older people. Most of them were on their way out. Most of my friends were born between 1916 and 1945. There weren’t any kids on my block, so by the time the first little kid was around, I already had a personality when I was 7 or 8 years old and I already had a type of music I liked, which is what I present to people now. For me, it’s not some cachet in time; it’s the music of my youth, and the music of my present.

People don’t often think of Los Angeles as a place where blues would originate. Why do you think that is?

Well, Los Angeles is way out in the west, for one thing. Most of the nation’s culture is east of the Mississippi, a lot of the time. I think people expect Californians to be a bunch of surfers. We’re a diverse group of people out there. Where I was born, I was closer to Las Vegas and Arizona than San Francisco, so the culture up there was totally new to me. I had never seen such a thing as San Francisco. I grew up thinking there was not much above the 10 freeway. [Laughs]

That’s the road that brought the family from Louisiana to Los Angeles. It made Los Angeles the last stop on the Chitlin Circuit. The furthest west and south you can go on the Chitlin Circuit. There were great artists out there to support it. T-Bone Walker was out there. Lucille Bogan lived for a period out there and was buried out there, same for Johnny St. Cyr. Jelly Roll Morton spent a good deal of the ‘20s out there. We could keep going on and on about great musicians from Los Angeles. It’s a big, diverse place. South Central had some of the best blues and jazz bands in the world. Now we get known for nothing else but hip hop.

Where do you find these songs, besides having grown up with them? Do you ever struggle with finding the right way to care for and curate them in a modern context?

Whew. That’s a big question. [Laughs] I always try to play songs that fit with modern times. My grandmother grew up in the bad ol’ days and very much did not want me to play songs about the bad ol’ days. All of these songs about agriculture and cotton and shit like that, she wanted no part of. She liked all the good country songs. In her generation, songs like “She’ll Be Comin’ ‘Round the Mountain” were big hits.

Me, personally, I take her part in that, and I play the songs that are relevant nowadays — about love, about the world, about nature and the beautiful things. Sometimes music doesn’t always have to be so serious. A lot of music is tunes and ditties and things that just put you in a certain place. The blues is a bit serious, which is why sometimes I shy away from playing and singing them for an audience who have no idea what I’m singing about, usually from a cultural basis. I find myself, when I play for a different audience, having to explain things about older songs. Rather than do that, I’d just play some music that they can understand straight off the bat.

That makes a lot of sense. You are going to have those cultural barriers crop up, from time to time.

I don’t have my audience’s perspective. I can’t really imagine what it’s like growing up any other way than how I did. I can’t put myself, culturally, in their shoes. I’m used to the audiences from where I grew up that just dug straight-up music. That’s how I present it to people. I think that’s why I get a reasonable reaction from the crowd — because I treat them and the music as what it is. It’s good entertainment. They paid to see me do my thing. That’s what I’m gonna do. I’m not gonna change it up too much just because they ain’t part of my culture. If they start doing things, like clapping on the same beat that they stomp on, I tell ‘em, “That’s against the rules.” [Laughs] “You’re a stereotype, and you should stop that.”

You don’t feel that you get pigeonholed as a novelty?

The only pigeonhole I feel, sometimes, is when it comes to the subject of the blues. I love playing the blues. I grew up playing the blues, but I also play a lot of other kinds of music. Just like the people who get called “blues musicians.” They played every kind of music. I’m more modeled after some of them than some people would think.

People would come to see me sometimes and expect to hear a concert of nothing but down home, Muddy Waters, and this-that-and-the-other. They’d say, “Why do you have a banjo? Why do you have a fiddle and harmonica and things like that? Why do you play 18th- and 19th-century pop songs on those instruments?” And I say, “Cause that’s what everybody did!” They played every kind of music. Back then, in the community, they’d never allow themselves to be pigeonholed as “blues musicians.” They were musicians. They could play any type of dance, any type of function necessary. I try to be the same way. That’s what I’m after. I get invited to blues festivals, and I’ll put on a majority-blues show, but I’ll keep it diverse. I’ll play blues on all my instruments and play it in a way you don’t expect.

Where do you see a place for this kind of music, then? So many genres and formats, whether intentionally or unintentionally, tend to exclude more foundational, vernacular forms of music. It’s so primordial. It gave rise to so many other genres. People kind of gloss over it. And, also, through revisionism, so much of it gets left behind. Especially when it comes to Black identities. The music is appropriated and the history gets left behind. Where do you want to see this music go?

I want to see it get to everyone. And I want to see everybody enjoy it. It would be very nice if people from its culture, like myself, would take it up again. There are very few of us. The ones that do, I find, do well. I feel so happy that Kingfish is out there, and my buddy Jontavious Willis is out there. They destroy the blues. They kill those guitars, and they sing beautifully. I think most of that is from understanding. It comes from a certain place. I come from a maternal culture, and it comes from hearing your grandmother sing things, then your parents respond in certain ways, so you understand it on a very personal, very spiritual level. That’s most of the identity in Black culture, these little things. Most of our culture is between each other. A lot of the best parts of it won’t be televised. A lot of the worst parts of it tend to get exploited, because people want to make money off of it.

I’d love to see [the music] go back into the community and see people of the community value their own folk music. I’ve noticed Black culture is one of the few cultures that hasn’t had its folk music presented in a beautiful and proper way. Go to Ireland, Scotland, and even Appalachia, and watch how they treat their music. It’s everywhere. It’s on the radio. It’s in your face. And people are educated about the instruments — everyone has one — and they’re easy to get. But there were no music stores where I grew up where you could get guitars or harmonicas. There was just one or two, and they’ve since gone. A lot of those other places get government help for their arts, to push the arts forward. That’s why you can still have fiddle competitions all over those parts of the country. But there hasn’t been a fiddle contest in South Central for a hundred years. It’s a doozy. And I know the audience also won’t understand it from a cultural level because, to most in the audience, it’s considered throwback music. I think that’s one of the biggest barriers getting it to cross over — that the popular audience, the white Anglo-Saxon Protestants, consider it throwback music that doesn’t really exist as a living, breathing thing anymore.

One thing you touched upon earlier — how did you put it? It’s a funny thing. I hope I don’t upset people [saying this], but it’s a funny thing being one of the exploited peoples in American culture. It’s this crazy paradox in that the real Black music, the music of protest that’s yours and you think of as apart from American culture is so much a part of American Culture that when America uses its mighty power to reach the ends of the earth with its influence, you’re wrapped up in it! Your little folk pride and joy, one of the many cultural musics you’ve put into the world — blues — has gone global. That’s funny enough. It’s a paradox having music that is so foundational to all of American music, that influences people as far as the eye can see — made by a very small, oppressed group of people.

You’re based in New York City now. You’re playing the 10th Annual Brooklyn Folk Festival coming up. How does the New York scene connect with the community that you had in L.A.?

I didn’t have much of a career in Los Angeles. I left Los Angeles, when I finished high school. My career has been in New York City. I moved to New York to play stride piano. It was my favorite kind of music. I’d play stride piano and six-string banjo in a lot of orchestras around here. Hot jazz, ‘20s jazz, is a big thing in New York — still is — and I play it every chance I get. Then my solo career took off, and now I get to present to people the music from when I was a little kid — the down home music I learned at home, sitting on the back porch. I take it all over the place in New York.

I didn’t have a lot of faith that people wanted to hear the music like this. Some wonderful places have opened their doors to me saying, “Oh, no, we dig what you do.” I get a kick out of playing for New Yorkers — they’re very ethnic. They have an accent. They have a culture all their own. They’re their own sort of people. I get a good kick out of playing the blues for them. They have no damn idea what I’m doing, half the time, but they dig it, because they’re people. That’s the thing about what they call “ethnic people.” Ethnic people get to be real people — that’s why they’re ethnic. That’s why Cajuns and Creoles are like that, Appalachian people are like that. Down home Black people and Chicanos, they’re all like that. They can accept the music. That’s what I like best about all branches of folk music. They get it.


Photo credit: Bill Steber

Counsel of Elders: Bobby Rush on Staying Sexy

Bobby Rush is a character, the lines between his true self and his stage act blurring until it’s hard to tell which is which. And perhaps that’s the point. There really can’t be any sharp distinction, because Rush is a performer through and through, his time on stage merely a larger — and sparklier — version of the man he is day to day. Rush isn’t his real name, of course, but from the way he likes to refer to himself in the third person, you’d be hard-pressed to think there was anyone else beneath the folk-funk fiend who sings about being a “Night Gardener” (mowing a different type of lawn, if you catch my drift). Rush was born Emmet Ellis, Jr. in Homer, Louisiana, in 1935, before his parents moved the family to Arkansas when he was 11. As a young adult, Rush continued north, landing in Chicago until Jackson, Mississippi, called his name 48 years later and he resettled there, halfway between his first home and his most formational. “I been in the big city, out the big city, in the country, in the small town, what have you,” Rush says, his words coming in a — wait for it — rush, all peppered with a lilting Southern accent. The styles he picked up along the way all informed his music — a flashy, fun take on funk that’s as innuendo-laden as they come.

The number of songs Rush has recorded isn’t just impressive, it’s staggering. He likens the figure to well over 300 tracks, but add to that his latest effort, Porcupine Meat, and Rush doesn’t just show a proclivity for songwriting, but a fever for it. Porcupine Meat, the kind of strained relationship involving a woman one doesn’t really want but hesitates to set free, marks his debut with Rounder Records. Like the title suggests, it showcases all the sexy jocularity that makes Rush such a popular draw night after night, even as a touring octogenarian. Rush’s funk comes packed full of colorful lyricism and lots of wink-winks, but with new contributions from Dave Alvin, Keb’ Mo’, and Joe Bonamassa on the album, he’s once again made some seriously catchy music for the Saturday night crowds before they make it to church on Sunday morning.

You grew up a pastor’s son, but a lot of your songs don’t seem like they’d fit in church. How is it that you started exploring this funkier, sexier side to life?

Well, that’s what you think. The same people that come to see Bobby Rush on Saturday night are the same people that go to church on Sunday mornings. It’s like that now and it’s always been like that. Where I come from, there’s a praise dance when you leave this land; but when you’re born, there’s a sad time. Most people have a death, you cry; when you born, you smile. It’s kind of the reverse with people from Louisiana. You’re kind of sad when you come here, you're happy when you go away, especially if you go at peace.

You’ve cut so many songs. Where does that drive come from?

I think it comes from being desperate to be someone, to be a superstar. I’m blessed to have this work. I’m just a crazy guy who don’t mind working, who don’t mind putting my hand into the grits. It’s part of my personality. Somebody told me I could make some money doing what I’m doing after about 20 years in the business. It wasn’t about the money, at the beginning; it was about the love of the music. I still have the love of the music, although I still wanna get paid for things. But I love what I’m doing. I love the music. I love the people that I’m doing it for, and the reaction from them still gives me that drum to keep going. It’s like a shot in the arm.

I’ve seen your live shows, especially one viral video — “I Ain’t Studdin Ya” — from a show in Memphis about eight years ago, and you sure love bringing the ladies up on stage. As a man in his 80s, what does it take to stay sexy?

It don’t take much to stay sexy — just think sexy. When you see ladies up on stage with me, it’s not about playing sexy; it’s just playing life. My momma, my sister, my auntie … that’s my life. I just like showing the ladies off because I’m praising them. This what makes me go 'round. Whether you in church or whether you in the bandstand or whether you in an alley or a top of a hill, the love of a woman is what man lives for. And I use it that way, too, to have fun and to get people involved with me on a personal level. They look at the ladies, but then I let the ladies walk away, then I get to tell my story as an artist, and I play my music.

Your lyrics are incredibly playful. Where do you drawn inspiration?

That’s my personality. What I live for is taking care of my children, making love, taking care of the lady of the house, and doing for my kids, and doing for others what you wish to have done to you. And I do it for the ladies. It starts with my mom. I take care of my mom, take care of my sisters, take care of the ladies around me like they part of my sisters. If this is my lady, I’m gonna take care of her in a special way. I’m just showing what I do and what I care about in my life. Ain’t nothing in the world to me is more important than the ladies. Nothing. There’s so many times we, as men, put that on the backburners because we men won’t do — and can’t do — anything without the ladies in our life. What do you work for? You work to take care of the ladies, so you can be took care of sexually and, you know, just have fun.

I feel like your song “Porcupine Meat” could extend to more than just toxic relationships. There are so many times in life when we know better and yet still go after things that aren’t healthy.

I was trying to write a song that relates to me and many other men like myself. You get a relationship that’s not as good as it should be, or ought to be, but then you can’t leave because you’ll find somebody just as bad or worse. Then sometimes you got some things go on that’s real good, and you don’t want that to be shared with no other men. You lose something, if you lose a woman. You know she don’t mean you no good, but you just can’t leave. The best way I can sum that up is that’s porcupine meat: "Too fat to eat and too lean to throw away.”

How do you deal with “porcupine meat”?

All you have to do is face it. “Should I leave this lady or should I leave this man?” "But you know this old man I got, he make love decent, but then he don’t stay home, but he bring all his money, when he do come home. I got another man I could get, but he won’t stay home, but he ain’t got no job." That’s where you stand.

There’s always a tradeoff.

There’s always a tradeoff. That’s porcupine meat.

There’s a performative nature to your songwriting. I heard it come through especially on “I Don’t Want Nobody Hanging Around.”

I don’t want nobody hanging around my house when I’m gone! Not even the milkman. People don’t have milkmen today, but back in the day, the milkman brought the milk to your house. I don’t want the mailman bringing in the mail! [Laughs] Stop it at the post office. I don’t even want the preacher coming by, when you all alone. If he want some chicken, let him get it from somewhere else. I say that because, in the Black church, preachers — most of them — love chicken, and they want ladies to cook chicken, but I don’t want my lady cooking chicken for him so he got no excuse to come by the house. If the lights go off, sit in the dark. [Laughs]

That doesn’t seem like a very nice situation for a woman, though.

If you think of it, the dark can be a nice place. If you understand. When the lights off. [Laughs]

Do you think about how these songs will translate to the stage while you’re writing them? That line in “I Don’t Want Nobody” when you start shouting out “you, you, and especially you” seems like it gives you a great moment onstage to play with.

I will visualize. I know somebody in the audience really like the lady I’m with, someone that I’m close to. I’ll say "I don’t want you, you, you, and especially you."

Right, I can see you pointing to that person.

He knows who that is when I point. He knows he has eyes on this girl.

It all cycles back into your show, and that’s where you really get to shine.

I did it this weekend for the second time onstage. I had 200 records with me and I walked off the stage and, in five minutes, they was gone. People was really into that record. I think it’s going to be one of the biggest records I ever cut. Let me tell you what, God has really blessed me to live this long, cutting records. Here’s what happened: I’m from Louisiana, and it’s the first time I recorded in Louisiana. And every musician except one was native of Louisiana. When it was finished, I had tears in my eyes. God has blessed me to come back home and do this for the first time.

It’s reflected in the music; you can hear a different kind of energy. And then you’ve got a musician like Keb’ Mo’ on it. I mean …

Oh God, what a hoooo. [Laughs] He’s just a lovely guy. All my guests were so wonderful. And it wasn’t about no money with these guys. These guys were in love with me, in love with the music, and they just wanted to play with me. I could never never thank these guys or pay these guys for the attitude they put into this playing.

Lastly, from your vantage point, what kind of advice can you offer up-and-coming artists?

I can tell young people, when it’s an old guy like myself, have a talk and listen and watch. When I was a young man, I listened … but not well enough. I disrespected Muddy Waters and Howlin' Wolf when I was very young. I took it for granted. These guys loved Bobby Rush, they had their arms around me.

I’m the last of the kind to do what I’m doing. I surely want to pass the torch on to the young guys. You got some older guys still doing it. But mostly an older guy is doing it in an old-fashioned way. What I like, the young guys are doing … they try to do what I do: I’m an old guy, but I still create, and do new licks and new directions and take it to another level. That’s what guys have to do. The Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf, BB King … all great, but it’s been done. We got to take their foundation and create something from that and make a new thing.

You always have to be growing and stretching.

We have to modify. We don’t want to modify too much and lose what we have. We don’t want to cross over and cross out.

 

For more Counsel of Elders, read Amanda's interview with William Bell.


Photo credit: Rick Olivier

LIVE AT LUCKY BARN: Little Freddie King, ‘Tough Frog to Swallow’

We've teamed up with the good people at Pickathon to present a season's worth of archival — and incredible — videos from the Pacific Northwest festival's Lucky Barn Series. Tune in every fourth Tuesday of the month to catch a new clip.

The third episode from the Spring season of the Lucky Barn Series features blues man Little Freddie King rumbling and rocking through "Tough Frog to Swallow." After pulling off a leg split that would make Chuck Berry proud, King talks about the first records he ever bought: Lightnin' Hopkins, Muddy Waters, B.B. King, and Albert King. Of emulating Hopkins, King says, "I couldn't play just like him, but I loved his style … I got pretty close to him, but I couldn't reach him."

Pickathon comes back to the Pendarvis Farm in Happy Valley, Oregon, from August 5-7, 2016. Recent additions to the festival lineup include Mac DeMarco, King Sunny Ade, Thao & the Get Down Stay Down, Joseph, Ry X, Cory Henry, Promised Land Sound, Town Mountain, Myke Bogan, Blossom, Caleb Klauder & Reeb Willms, Open Mike Eagle, and Chanti Darling. Tickets and the full lineup are available now.

Click here for more, and stay tuned for another wonderful season of Lucky Barn videos. 


Photo credit: Todd Cooper