Jam Session —  History Rhymes:  Black Lives Lost, PT. 4

Jam Session — History Rhymes: Black Lives Lost, PT. 4

When we asked Cornelius Eady about Black History Month, he responded by sending us a cycle of songs / poems. Eight in all, Eady named the cycle “History Rhymes,” after the famous Mark Twain quote, “History never repeats itself, but it rhymes.”

Performed by the Cornelius Eady Trio, this cycle commemorates the injustices and wrongful deaths of many Black Americans. Riff has shared CE Trio’s songs dedicated to Emmett Till, Korynn Gaines, Trayvon Martin, Sandra Bland, many others unfairly incarcerated, and millions ignored and forgotten by America looking the other way. Today’s post, “Turpentine,” looks at the many folks killed during the Tulsa Massacre of 1921 along “Black Wall Street.” Learn more here.

“In addition to being a major poet, Eady is among the most prolific and important contemporary American songwriters. Whether he is working with his eponymous trio, featuring top-rate guitarists Charlie Rauh and Lisa Liu, or accompanying himself on guitar or dulcimer, Eady is incessantly writing memorable songs that are tailored to our troubling times.” —  John Freeman, The Museum of Americana.

Cornelius Eady TRIO

National Book Award-winner and Pulitzer Prize-nominated poet Cornelius Eady has set his poetry to song with the Cornelius Eady Trio. Eady’s songs tell the story of passing time, the Black-American experience and the Blues in the style of Folk & Americana music. Guitarists Charlie Rauh and Lisa Liu join Eady to create layered and graceful arrangements to bolster Eady’s adept craftsmanship as a songwriter, lyricist, and poet. Cornelius Eady Trio has performed at Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery, AWP Conference, Peabody Essex Museum, and Hill-Stead Museum and recorded at Sun Studio in Memphis, TN.

Cornelius Eady so well captures the spirit of RIFF–and especially the topic of “Jam Session”–taking us beyond poetry, beyond music, and into that hallowed place of meaning.

(Eady’s music is) in the vein of Taj Mahal when he’s at his metaphysical best, Keb’ Mo’ when he’s most squarely located at the crossroads of tradition and innovation, or Eric Bibb when he’s at his most soulfully transcendent.” — Joe Francis Doerr

Says Cornelius Eady:

“on old maps, all of the places left unexplored were often marked as ‘parts unknown’ (or ‘here be monsters’). A song for a year [2020] where the term ‘Never seen this before’ has been said far too often…”

Turpentine

Words and Music: Cornelius Eady

 

I could see planes
Circling in mid-air
They hummed, darted
And dipped low

I could hear something
Falling down like hail
Falling down on the roofs

The sidewalks were burning
With Turpentine balls
The sidewalks were burning
With Turpentine balls

Down East Archer St
The Old Mid-way Hotel
Was burning,
Burning from its top

I saw a dozen planes
Maybe more
Darting here and there
Like a crazy flock of birds

The sidewalks were burning
With Turpentine balls
The sidewalks were burning
With Turpentine balls

The flames rose and
Licked its lips
Black Tulsa
Burned down from the top

Greenwood folks was running
With a hell hound on its trail
Had a bark like a
Tommy gun

The sidewalks were burning
With Turpentine balls
The sidewalks were burning
With Turpentine balls

Here’s a postcard
Of a black corpse on fire
Of a black church
Charred to
Pennies.

Black folk shouldn’t get rich
Shouldn’t talk back
Shouldn’t brush
A white woman’s hand

The sidewalks were burning
With Turpentine balls
The sidewalks were burning
With Turpentine balls

I could see planes
Circling in mid air
I knew too well
Where they came from

I wondered, where is the fire dept ?
Why won’t they let the Red Cross in?
Why are the cops standing
With the mob?

The sidewalks were burning
With Turpentine balls
The sidewalks were burning
With Turpentine balls
I paused and waited
For a chance to run
As flames around me
Belched and roared

The planes kept raining
Greenwood straight to hell
And hell was icy cold.

The sidewalks were burning
With Turpentine balls
The sidewalks were burning
With Turpentine balls.

 

Listen to “turpentine” here.

Twilig(so

parts unknown

 Words and Music: Cornelius Eady

 

Parts Unknown, People
Parts Unknown
Parts Unknown, People
Parts Unknown.
Hey

Hide yourself
‘hind the Misery Tree.
Milishy man looking
For you and me.

Parts Unknown, People
Parts Unknown
Parts Unknown, People
Parts Unknown.
Hey

Like a poem
That can’t find a rhyme
Like a murder
That ain’t a crime

Parts Unknown, People
Parts Unknown
Parts Unknown, People
Parts Unknown.
Hey

President called up his Goons
Said their time
Is coming soon

Parts Unknown, People
Parts Unknown
Parts Unknown, People
Parts Unknown.
Hey

Up jumped Karen to
Call the Police
Shoot the protestors
Give ‘em peace

Parts Unknown, People
Parts Unknown
Parts Unknown, People
Parts Unknown.
Hey

Hush now, baby,
Hear that sound?
New Jim Crow flying
From Town to town

Parts Unknown, People
Parts Unknown
Parts Unknown, People
Parts Unknown.
Hey

Virus come
To sweep you away
Boss man says
That’s OK.

Parts Unknown, People
Parts Unknown
Parts Unknown, People
Parts Unknown.
Hey

Meet me by
The misery tree
Wave good bye
To what used to be

Parts Unknown, People
Parts Unknown
Parts Unknown, People
Parts Unknown.
Hey

 

Listen to “parts unknown” here.

 

Cornelius Eady Trio

Cornelius Eady: Vocal;

Charlie Rauh: Acoustic Guitar & Electric Bass;

Lisa Liu: Electric Piano & Guitar.

Arranged by Rauh & Liu.

“Turpentine” — Engineer & Mix: Tom Gardner.

“Parts Unknown” mixed by Charlie Rau.

 

Words and Music: Cornelius Eady 

Jam Session —  History Rhymes:  Black Lives Lost, PT. 3

Jam Session — History Rhymes: Black Lives Lost, PT. 3

When we asked Cornelius Eady about Black History Month, he responded by sending us a cycle of songs / poems. Eight in all, Eady named the cycle “History Rhymes,” after the famous Mark Twain quote, “History never repeats itself, but it rhymes.”

Performed by the Cornelius Eady Trio, this cycle commemorates the injustices and wrongful deaths of many Black Americans. We have been sharing two a week the entire month of February. This, our third installment, begins with a song dedicated to the memory of Sandra Bland; the second recalls the “scary,” but transformational year of 2020 in America.

“In addition to being a major poet, Eady is among the most prolific and important contemporary American songwriters. Whether he is working with his eponymous trio, featuring top-rate guitarists Charlie Rauh and Lisa Liu, or accompanying himself on guitar or dulcimer, Eady is incessantly writing memorable songs that are tailored to our troubling times.” —  John Freeman, The Museum of Americana.

Cornelius Eady TRIO

National Book Award-winner and Pulitzer Prize-nominated poet Cornelius Eady has set his poetry to song with the Cornelius Eady Trio. Eady’s songs tell the story of passing time, the Black-American experience and the Blues in the style of Folk & Americana music. Guitarists Charlie Rauh and Lisa Liu join Eady to create layered and graceful arrangements to bolster Eady’s adept craftsmanship as a songwriter, lyricist, and poet. Cornelius Eady Trio has performed at Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery, AWP Conference, Peabody Essex Museum, and Hill-Stead Museum and recorded at Sun Studio in Memphis, TN.

Cornelius Eady so well captures the spirit of RIFF–and especially the topic of “Jam Session”–taking us beyond poetry, beyond music, and into that hallowed place of meaning.

(Eady’s music is) in the vein of Taj Mahal when he’s at his metaphysical best, Keb’ Mo’ when he’s most squarely located at the crossroads of tradition and innovation, or Eric Bibb when he’s at his most soulfully transcendent.” — Joe Francis Doerr  

Says Cornelius Eady:

“[Haint is] A re-recording of a single first recorded with Rough Magic. Sandra Bland, a black woman, was stopped for a broken tail light in Texas. She died three days later, hanged in her cell. She was arrested for asking ‘Why should I?’ when the cop ordered her to put out her cigarette while still sitting in her car. Another cop, commenting on the story on a cable news show, said while the story was sad, her arrest was justified, since talking back to the cop proved she was arrogant.”

      Learn more about Sandra Bland here. 

“Walt Whitman was lying on his sick bed in Camden, NJ, and a biographer, about to leave, and noticing this hoped he’d be feeling better soon. Whitman replied, ‘It is clouded now, hopefully, it’ll pass by.’ A good way, I think, to wind up 2020, a very scary year.”

Haint  (TRIO VERSION)

Words and Music: Cornelius Eady

 

 

I got this ache in my heart

The state of Texas is my host

I got this hole in my soul

The State of Texas made me a ghost

 

And my ghost howls

Woe

 

Now I’m a wandering spirit

My body swings in my cell

When they cut this poor gal down

Who’ll know how I got here?

 

And my ghost howls

Woe

 

Maybe I died by my own hand

Maybe I died by hands unknown

Maybe I was dead

The moment I talked back

Maybe I was dead

‘fore I was born

 

And my ghost howls

Woe

 

Damn the cop

Who damned my black skin

Damn the judge

Who agreed with him

My name’s Sandra Bland

I should be alive

Sass back in Texas

You commit “suicide”

 

And my ghost howls

Woe.

  

Listen to “Haint” here.

Twilig(so

It’ll Pass By

 Words and Music: Cornelius Eady

 

 “It is clouded now, possibly, it’ll pass by”

                        -Walt Whitman’s last words

                         To biographer Sadakichi Hartmann

 

 

It’s clouded now, but it’ll pass by

All those years

All that blood and tears

It’s clouded now, but it’ll pass by

 

You think you’re down

You’re tougher than the dirt

You think you’re out

You’re stronger than the hurt.

 

You think you’re lost

But your feet’s on the ground

That fog they taught you

Won’t stick around

 

Tried to shoot you down

The buckshot missed your wing

They ain’t got nothing

Can stop the song you sing

 

Hey, America

We’re waiting on you

Say, America

What you gonna do?

 

All those years

All that blood and tears.

 

 

 

Listen to “It’ll Pass by” here.

 

Cornelius Eady Trio

Cornelius Eady: Vocal;

Charlie Rauh: Acoustic Guitar, Electric Bass, Drums, & Percussion;

Lisa Liu: Electric Piano, Electric Organ, Elect & Acoustic Guitar;

Concetta Abbate: Violin.

Arranged by Rauh & Liu.

“Haint” mixed by Charlie Rauh and Lisa Liu. 

Concetta Abbate, String Arrangement.

“It’ll Pass By” mixed by Lisa Liu.

Words and Music: Cornelius Eady 

Jam Session —  History Rhymes:  Black Lives Lost, PT. 2

Jam Session — History Rhymes: Black Lives Lost, PT. 2

When we asked Cornelius Eady about Black History Month, he responded by sending us a cycle of songs / poems. Eight in all, Eady named the cycle “History Rhymes,” after the famous Mark Twain quote, “History never repeats itself, but it rhymes.”

Performed by the Cornelius Eady Trio, this cycle commemorates the injustices and wrongful deaths of many Black Americans. We will share two a week over the month of February. This is our second installment.

“In addition to being a major poet, Eady is among the most prolific and important contemporary American songwriters. Whether he is working with his eponymous trio, featuring top-rate guitarists Charlie Rauh and Lisa Liu, or accompanying himself on guitar or dulcimer, Eady is incessantly writing memorable songs that are tailored to our troubling times.” —  John Freeman, The Museum of Americana.

Cornelius Eady TRIO

National Book Award-winner and Pulitzer Prize-nominated poet Cornelius Eady has set his poetry to song with the Cornelius Eady Trio. Eady’s songs tell the story of passing time, the Black-American experience and the Blues in the style of Folk & Americana music. Guitarists Charlie Rauh and Lisa Liu join Eady to create layered and graceful arrangements to bolster Eady’s adept craftsmanship as a songwriter, lyricist, and poet. Cornelius Eady Trio has performed at Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery, AWP Conference, Peabody Essex Museum, and Hill-Stead Museum and recorded at Sun Studio in Memphis, TN.

Cornelius Eady so well captures the spirit of RIFF–and especially the topic of “Jam Session”–taking us beyond poetry, beyond music, and into that hallowed place of meaning.

(Eady’s music is) in the vein of Taj Mahal when he’s at his metaphysical best, Keb’ Mo’ when he’s most squarely located at the crossroads of tradition and innovation, or Eric Bibb when he’s at his most soulfully transcendent.” — Joe Francis Doerr

Says Cornelius Eady:

“[‘TWILIGHT IS THE HOUR’ is] A re-recording of a song first recorded by my old band, Rough Magic. Soon after Trayvon’s murder I attended a poetry reading in Bryant Park; all the poets who read there had a poem about him, or the world that allowed this to happen. It was dusk, and the slow glow of the mercury lamps reminded me of fireflies . . . “

(Read the tragic story of Trayvon Martin’s shooting here.)

About ‘Razor Blade’: “A song that started out as my version of a prison work song, until we found out Lisa Liu once spent a summer playing keyboards in a funk band . . . “

Twilight Is The Hour

Words and Music: Cornelius Eady

 

The lamps in Bryant Park glow like fireflies

Duende floats under the trees.

A group of poets sing the blues

To fill in the space where you ought to be

 

Twilight is the hour of the Motherless Child

Another man gone, gone down that lonesome mile.

Twilight is the hour.

 

There’s a tongue we use to let things go

There’s a song that we shake at danger.

There’s a way to wash a body down,

Even if he’s a stranger.

 

Twilight is the hour of the Motherless Child

Another man gone, gone down that lonesome mile

Twilight is the hour.

 

There are words we use to follow a hearse,

A prayer to un-jumble the mad universe.

The poets breathe Trayvon into the wind.

It could happen to you like it happened to him.

 

 It could happen to you like it happened to him.

Listen to “Twilight is the hour” here.

Twilig(so

Razor Blade 

 Words and Music: Cornelius Eady

 

Capt. tossed me in a box car

Filled it with razor blades

Capt. locked me in a box car

Filled with razor blades

Walked out the next morning

 With a trim and a shave.

 

 Capt. took the fever blanket

 Laid out my dying bed

 Capt. took the fever blanket

 Laid out my dying bed

 Looked so disappointed

 When I raised my vaccinated head.

 

 Nothing ever seem to go

 The Capt.’s way

 Nothing ever seem to go

 The Capt.’s way

 Every time he close the book

 I write another page.

 

Please don’t tell the Capt.

He ain’t ever gonna win

Please don’t tell the Capt.

He ain’t ever gonna win

 

Gets tall as a wall

Look at him fall in the wind.

 

 

 

Listen to “Razor blade” here.

 

Cornelius Eady Trio

Cornelius Eady: Vocal;

Charlie Rauh: Acoustic Guitar & Electric Bass;

Lisa Liu: Electric Piano & Guitar.

Arranged by Rauh & Liu.

“Twilight is the Hour” mixed by Charlie Rauh.

“Razor Blade” mixed by Lisa Liu.

Words and Music: Cornelius Eady 

Jam Session —  History Rhymes:  Black Lives Lost, PT. 1

Jam Session — History Rhymes: Black Lives Lost, PT. 1

When we asked Cornelius Eady about Black History Month, he responded by sending us a cycle of songs / poems. Eight in all, Eady named the cycle “History Rhymes,” after the famous Mark Twain quote, “History never repeats itself, but it rhymes.”

Performed by the Cornelius Eady Trio, this cycle commemorates the injustices and wrongful deaths of many Black Americans. We will share two a week over the month of February.

Cornelius Eady TRIO

National Book Award-winner and Pulitzer Prize-nominated poet Cornelius Eady has set his poetry to song with the Cornelius Eady Trio. Eady’s songs tell the story of passing time, the Black-American experience and the Blues in the style of Folk & Americana music. Guitarists Charlie Rauh and Lisa Liu join Eady to create layered and graceful arrangements to bolster Eady’s adept craftsmanship as a songwriter, lyricist, and poet. Cornelius Eady Trio has performed at Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery, AWP Conference, Peabody Essex Museum, and Hill-Stead Museum and recorded at Sun Studio in Memphis, TN.

Cornelius Eady so well captures the spirit of RIFF–and especially the topic of “Jam Session”–taking us beyond poetry, beyond music, and into that hallowed place of meaning.

(Eady’s music is) in the vein of Taj Mahal when he’s at his metaphysical best, Keb’ Mo’ when he’s most squarely located at the crossroads of tradition and innovation, or Eric Bibb when he’s at his most soulfully transcendent.” — Joe Francis Doerr

As Cornelius says, the first song, “Mississippi Summer,” came into being as “An imagining of the last car ride of Emmett TilL.” 

(Read the tragic story of Emmett Till’s murder here.)

The next song, “The dead mother,” is dedicated to korryn gaines.

(Read about the shooting of korryn gaines and her son in her home here.)

MISSISSIPPI SUMMER

Words and Music: Cornelius Eady

 

You don’t think it’ll happen

til it happens to you.

You thought what you said meant nothin,

But those tires are comin’ for you.

Mississippi Summer

Chicago boy wakes up in surprise

Mississippi Summer

Now you’re the apple of these old boys eyes.

 

This is the way we make a point

This is how a point gets made

They pull you out a nice, warm bed

And toss you in a watery grave.

Mississippi Summer

They’ve been searching for you for days

Mississippi Summer

Cash you out as the debt gets paid.

 

Now they got you in

The back of the car

They’re laughing and you know you’re the joke

Won’t stop as you start to cry

Won’t stop as your bones get broke

Mississippi Summer

One-way trip under a murderous sky

Mississippi Summer

Rattler’s hunt and the hoot owls fly.

 

This is the way we make a point

When a White gal takes offense

Dirty Negro thinks he’s white

Dirty Negro ain’t got no sense

Mississippi Summer

Emmitt Till won’t see the sun

Mississippi Summer

On the bus to see the way things’ done.

 

Headlights spears on an empty road

Whiskey and hate on their breath

How many miles til the deal goes down?

How many minutes til a dead boy drowns?

Mississippi Summer

Off to meet

Who you’re ’posed to be

The last Mississippi Summer

In D-I-X-I-E.


Listen to “Mississippi Summer” here.

The Dead Mother

 Words and Music: Cornelius Eady

 

They shot me

For a question

While I held

My child

 

Like a dog

That you put down

When she barks

Too wild

 

My black skin

Was resisting

In a cop’s mad eye

 

They shot me

For impatience

While I held my kid

 

Like a monster

From a swamp

Rising from the Id

 

Surrounded

Defiant

Look at what they did

 

My soul and

Gunpowder

Rising in the air

 

My assumptions

And my boy

Lying wounded there

 

My black skin

Was poison

Was a losing hand

 

Oh people

Good people

See what they have done

 

Smashed my home

And took my breath

And stole me from my son

 

Took my name

And misspelled it

As the crazy one

 

Bring a sharp axe

To the mountain

Tear that mountain down

 

Scream my name out

Like a siren

Though every street in town

 

Don’t bury me

Plant my story

Like a seed in the ground. 

 

Listen to “The Dead Mother” here.

Cornelius Eady Trio

Cornelius Eady: Vocal;

Charlie Rauh: Acoustic Guitar & Electric Bass;

Lisa Liu: Electric Piano & Guitar.

Arranged by Rauh & Liu.

Mixed by Charlie Rauh.

Words and Music: Cornelius Eady 

AND STILL WE RISE

AND STILL WE RISE

Hearing stories recently from so many young black men and women picked at emotional scabs from invisible wounds accrued over the years. We — meaning black Americans — are remarkably adept at rising above slights and insults, deliberate and unintended. Over 400 years resilience has been built into our DNA.

We’ve become adept at seeing bigotry for what is, navigating it, and moving on.

Like the time my brother was taken to an expensive dinner by three New York Times hotshots who were interested in him as a staff photographer. Fred enjoyed the hospitality, ate with all the right utensils, said all the right things, and parted amicably from the power trio.

Fred, who was already a photo editor with Associated Press, had driven up to The Big Apple from D.C. for the interview. He was waiting for the valet to bring his car around when a smartly dressed male Caucasian pulled up to the valet station in a BMW, tossed Fred the keys and asked that his sassy car be parked carefully, noting the probability of a generous tip.

Fred assured the man that he would tend to it right away and put the keys — there were several — in his pocket. Fred’s car came around, and he and the keys were soon off on his return to the nation’s capital. We laughed bittersweet laughter. Fred too had been nattily attired, right down to Italian loafers with tassels.

Didn’t matter.

Among too many personal experiences in my time at the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, one incident stands out in particular.

As an accommodation to White Flight in the late 1950s, rapacious developers built houses 90 miles a minute in South St. Louis County where blacks were historically excluded.

What they didn’t tell all-too-willing buyers was the fact that the houses were built in a 100-year flood plain. Unfortunately no one checked to see where new residents were in that crucial century.

Turns out it was the bad part.

When the rains came they were merciless. Skinny rivulets became mighty streams; lazy streams roared to life; the Mississippi’s banks overflowed. Cars were swept away. People drowned.

One of them was the son and only child of a couple who had bought one of those houses. The boy had wandered down to the stream he knew so well to see what it was doing. What it did was snatch him up in an unanticipated torrent and deposit him in a treetop a half-mile down. When the flood subsided firefighters found his body tucked among the branches. I was dispatched to write the story.

“Cars were swept away.

People

drowned.”

Nothing like a double shot of vodka with orange juice, toast, and scrambled eggs to calm pre-interview jitters. The parents were understandably distraught. I sat in the kitchen with the mother as she peeled carrots, then potatoes. When the father came home he joined us.

He talked about how his son loved that spot by the stream. At last the father buried his face in his hands and sobbed. “If I’d known something like this would happen I’d have stayed with the niggers,” he said. His wife continued peeling potatoes. 

I closed my notebook, declined the invitation to stay for dinner, expressed condolences and thanked them for their time. Once in the car, I burst out laughing. I figured right about the time I got to the highway, the wife was turning to her husband and asking “What did you just say to that reporter?”

Chastising a father who is mourning the death of his only child, a son, would have been out of place; he’d already been through enough. My job was to get a story. I did. But when the laughter subsided, the wound remained.

So don’t ever, ever ask a black person whether he or she is angry, unless you really want the answer. The Ivy League, Seven Sisters; the PhD, the DDS, the MFA — none of it matters to still too many out in the real world.

I’ve heard passengers say that if they’d known the flight captain was black they’d have taken a different flight.

I once met a black female navigator on another flight who said she’s always the last off because some passengers assume she’s somehow less competent.

Unless we capture the moment now, the time for honest conversation about race might not come again peaceably. And it’s only meaningful if we’re honest with ourselves. No big convocations need be called. Make a lunch date with someone of color — not necessarily to talk race relations, but to have a conversation with another human being who is not like you.

 

Don’t tell me you were raised by a black housekeeper who was just like a member of the family unless you never called her by her first name; unless the kids played together; unless you shared Thanksgiving; went to Six Flags together. Unless you can have a conversation about race without apology, brace yourself. It’s a learning curve for all of us.

I share these tales not to guilt anyone, but to ask for awareness that our congeniality often masks a lifetime of sleights that are unique to us. The Irish and Africans are the only ones whose ancestors came to America involuntarily. Know American history. All of it. I often refer to White Trash: The 400-Year Untold History of Class in America by Nancy Isenberg. Learn about Irish slaves brought to America by Brits.

We grow up knowing about great white scientists, authors, statesmen and composers, but how many know of Grant Still, Crispus Attucks, Ethel Payne, Percy Julian, Mamie Phipps Clark, Samuel Coleridge-Taylor?

We’ve come a long way from being denied education to being, as some like to say, over-educated — whatever that’s supposed to mean. Meanwhile, we’re at a tipping point.

Jesse Jackson used to say that we might have come over on different ships, but that we’re in same boat now.

So do we sink or swim?