As an aorta is the primary channel for pumping blood.
So is the Mississippi River.
That Big Muddy was the primordial channel for pumping American music up from its muddy roots in Louisiana and Miss'ippi. . . to the heartland of America and beyond.
Although water flows downhill, American culture paddled upstream from New Orleans. It trubutaried outward, like the River at St. Louis, to enrich the deep dirt of American potential.
This is a saga of Deep South and Heartland America. The East Coast and West Coast have their sagas, but that’s another story.
As there had been a shot heard ‘round the world up in Concord in 1775. . . that ultimate battle call summoned forth a new nation of citizens to demand freedom, justice and the American way.
Just as that shot was heard, way up North, then 'round the world. . . there was another call that came later. . . this time, from down South. . . and prob'ly made Beethoven roll over and Tchaikovsky hear the news!
Unheralded at first, the deep heart-cry of enslaved Soul was crying out, all along! for freedom and justice . . . as black man who sho'nuff did matter stood in chains at a slave auction in New Orleans.
What’s fascinating about our history is that, while white folks certainly unleashed some impressive technical and cultural forces and institutions, it was those formerly enslaved black folk who set the course for the heart and soul of popular American music. With blood, sweat and tears, they launched a blues note heard ‘round the world. Not far from my Mississippi childhood home, a shakity white boy named Elvis heard the call and he couldn’t shake it off.
Out of enslavement and tribulation a new culture was being born.
“He not busy born is busy dyin” our Bard of the 1960's had declared.
As Moses had launched, unbeknownst to himself, a seminal vision of Western morality and culture, Louie Armstrong blew the trumpet call, many moons ago, that summoned a grieving heart of oppressed people to rise up from Mississippi mud and sing a song of hard-won, blood-bought jazz.
We shall overcome! Yeah, that’s right. That's alright, mama, any way you do.
Any way we can do, they did it!
Ultimately, that deep cry was heard throughout this continent and around the world. From Memphis, St. Louis and Chicago it resounded. . . the cry heard 'round the world.
That Soul cry is heard all around, north and south, east, west . . . ultimately all ‘round the world. It shakes out a rhythm that rattles any brain, and has a way of rolling into blue-hearted souls anywhere in the world that hearts cry out for freedom and for love.
Once upon a time, a ship docked in Liverpool, long about 1948 or so. Some music-toting mariner carried a black disk or two, with a hole in the middle, o’er the ganglplank. The vinyl platter found its way into the hands of a young John, a curious Paul, a sensitive George and a rockin’ Ringo.
The rest is history. That's Fats Domino in the pic, having a good time with the Beatles. They had a lot thank him for. But along with N'Awlins Fats on that hard-beaten path had come Little Richard, BB King, Chuck Berry. . . and before them Robert Johnson, Lightnin' Hopkins, Blind Willie, Muddy Waters, Mississippi John Hurt, Ma Rainey, Bessie Smith, Ella Fitzgerald, Louie Armstrong and many others. Together, they toted the bale of rhythm and a load of blues up onto a platform of American enterprise and somehow managed to get that barge toted all the way 'round the whole world!
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