At the River End

One hundred years ago, Robert Johnson poured out his blues into a microphone: " I went down to the crossroads... fell down on my knees. . . asked the Lord above, have mercy; save poor Bob if you please.' " Now I don't know, but I been told that Robert Johnson was the first blues musician to be recognized in history for being connected to the birth of "the blues." Maybe he was; maybe he wasn't, the first. There was a long history of good ole boy black folk pouring their hearts and souls out, down in the Mississippi delta, back in the terrible days of slavery, before Lincoln and the US Army crossed the mason-dixon line and whooped those rebel slave owners into justice and mercy. By 'n by, as American history unrolled like a flag while Taps is sounded out, the angst and the tragedy and the heavy burden of formerly enslaved folk got translated into a musical form that eventually, over a century of time, gave birth to rock 'n 'roll. When, in the 1950's, a Mississippi white boy named Elvis took American pop music by storm, he was singing . . . he was sweating out . . .those ole delta blues that he had been hearing from his soul brother kin down there in the delta, ever since he was born. Meanwhile, down the Big Muddy a ways, in Baton Rouge, I was born in 1951, about the time that Elvis was starting to launch bluesy rock into the mainstreamof American music history. But that's just a paddle wheel in the rush of Big Muddy as it flowed all the way from Minnesota, past St. Louis, Memphis, Baton Rouge, New Orleans and into the Gulf of Mexico.  Now then. . . this Revolution in American music wasn't just about blues; jazz was the twin brother of blues. Now I don't know but I been told that jazz started down in the New Orleans, and it was birthed by black folk, just like the blues, by the soul brothers down there at the bottom of the great river. Being a major port, and on the Gulf, there was a lot going on there; New Orleans is like New York; it's like the Big Apple of the South. . . or maybe the King Crawfish of the deep south. Down on that deep south end of Big Muddy, black musicians had more to work with, like brassy horns. A great trumpet player, Louis Armstrong came out of the New Orleans low end of Big Muddy, flowing fast and free, like jazz and blues.

Louie blew his horn all the way up Big Muddy, to Chicago, and New York and maybe all over the world, for all I know.  Recently, my friend Ben, my pastor, was taken up into heaven with our Lord Jesus. So I have been pondering our life after death, thanks to Jesus, because, even after death, as some ole song says. . . "there's a river of life flowing out of me. . . makes the lame to walk and the blind to see". . . a river that goes even further than the mighty Mississippi. When the Saints Go Marchin In