THE SIGNAL from David Katznelson

“Art always serves beauty, and beauty is the joy of possessing form, and form is the key to organic life since no living thing can exist without it.”― Boris Pasternak

Feb 11, 2021

Today would have been the 107th birthday of Josh White. White was a 20th century blues player, an outlier along with Sonny Terry & Brownie McGhee and Big Bill Broonzy—all blues artists who made the successful career transition from the 20s/30s through the mid-century, never falling out of the public eye, never needing to be rediscovered.

White’s is an interesting story. He recorded for Paramount Records, like so many blues players of the day, and continued to make a name for himself as he moved to New York playing at the city’s first integrated club, Café Society (where Billie Holiday also performed). Through his performances there, he was featured in the New York Times—and the President of the United States took notice. He played for FDR and Eleanor, playing some of his anti-segregationist songs that were always front and center of his music sets. The President and the first lady were so enthralled by what they heard that they asked him for a private meeting afterwords, asking him if White’s songs were directed at him:

"Yes, Mr. President, I wrote that song (Uncle Sam Says) to you after seeing how my brother was treated in the segregated section of Fort Dix army camp.... However that wasn't the first song I wrote to you.... In 1933, I wrote and recorded a song called 'Low Cotton,' about the plight of Negro cotton pickers down South, and in the lyrics I made an appeal directly to you to help their situation."

He became close to the President, using his connection to inform the Commander-in-Chief of the realities of how Jim Crowe was playing out in black American life.

White started going on the road with Eleanor as well, playing music before her speeches. And it was when they were in Europe together that he got a call from his manager telling him that there was a wave of feelings in the states that White was a communist sympathizer. White played at any rally that asked him to defend the rights of the oppressed, to preach his anti-segregationist ideas. The rallies featured other speakers as well: speakers “supposedly” with socialism on their minds…which led to White being targeted during the red scare. He testified in front of the House Un-American Activities Committee but was blacklisted regardless.

His career took a major hit until the great record man Jac Holtzman signed him to his fledgling label Electra Records and proceeded to help shed White of the blacklist reality, releasing record after record showcasing a folk-blues hybrid that allowed White to find a whole new audience.

To add to the complexity of Josh White’s life, many blues enthusiasts wrote him off as a sell out, siting his folky-commercial style—with his silky voice, striking looks and posh outfits—as a strike against his allowance into the beloved blues annals. I had not really listened to White myself until a fateful night in Oxford, Mississippi when mayor Jane-Rule Burdine pulled out her copy of a live performance of his, passed me a beverage underneath a starry Southern sky and proceeded to dance in a Cotton Field as White’s music echoed through the valley. I had never heard anything like Josh White’s sound and I have been hooked ever since.

When the kids were little…when they could not sleep in the late hours of the night, I would light and candle and throw on Josh White’s John Henry story. They would get lulled to sleep and I would close my eyes and let his sweet style flow through my tired being. We still listen to him around the house all the time. He is one of my favorites.

Neil Young :: A Few Honey Slides

This hour of Radio Free Aquarium Drunkard features a sampling of the good stuff from the Neil Young Archives: live cuts, b-sides, demos, outtakes, rarities and beyond, stretching from 1969 to 2020.