BIRTH OF THE BLUES-As Big Daddy told Brick while they were standing on the second floor balcony in Tennessee Williams," Cat on a Hot Tin Roof" "Boy, you are looking out on the richest farm land this side of the River Nile." The land Big Daddy was talking about was the Mississippi Delta, that "flat as a board" land that runs from Memphis to Vicksburg and, in the old days, flooded each spring leaving behind rich topsoil from northern farms. What Big Daddy didn't talk about and didn't realize was that the blacks who did the hard and boring job of picking cotton, were also, in their imaginations and in their songs, creating an uniquely American art form known as the blues. The Mississippi Delta was truly the "Birthplace of the Blues." B.B.King, Robert Johnson, Blind Lemon Jefferson, Memphis Minnie etc.. Every little town in the Delta produced its own blues singers who went to Memphis and Chicago and became stars. In segregated Memphis, Beale Street was the downtown shopping area for blacks in the daytime, and a world of music, drinking and fun in the nighttime. But back in those cotton fields, I remember hearing workers talking, in song. One would sing,"I'm so tired and my back is hurtin so bad," and someone 10 rows over would respond, in song,"Seein my baby tonight makes me feel so glad." Someone else would chime in "Tomorrow morning her back be hurting so bad.. These voices were living and singing the blues..
