Love In Vain by Damien Seaman
Every once in a while, when Willy Boy’s music comes popular again, that same old story does the rounds and they get to talkin’. About how he sold his soul to the devil to play like he did.
But Willy Boy weren’t the one sold his soul. I was.
The young folks talk a lot about their Jaggers and their Claptons, know-nothin’ white boys comin’ and stealin’ colored folks’ music without givin’ no credit. Which is a load a horse shit, you ask me, since if it weren’t for me and Lomax and those others there wouldn’t be no record of the music to steal from in the first place. Just a bunch of noise played by Negroes for Negroes comin’ out of nowhere and goin’ nowhere.
When we got to hearin’ this stuff we heard it for what it was, is all. The folk music – hell, the soul – of America. Damn right we recorded it. And where’s our credit? Without us there wouldn’t be no Skip James or Son House or Charlie Patten, you hear? None of it. And none of that shit they call rock and roll neither. Not without the likes a us.
Can’t a bin later than the summer of ‘37 when I first sat down to record young Willy Boy in that fly-specked dump down in Houston they called the Grand Hotel. And I’ll tell you, when he got to playin’ his guitar first off there weren’t nothin’ came off those strings but a lot of the same old shit we’d all heard a dozen times before, the same old one-four-five nothin’.
But I saw one fine lookin’ Negro boy, ‘s what I saw. The color of burnt caramel, and a whole lot more sugar in his beautiful browns. Ripplin’ muscles under that cheap gray suit jacket. I saw a legend in the making. He had a reputation with the ladies even then, a course. Weren’t no married juke joint owner nowhere in the south could count on his woman bein’ safe when he booked Willy Boy to play, no sir.
So I tole the boy to dig deeper. And he looks at me and says he’s diggin’ all he can. And I say however deep that is, it ain’t deep enough. He fixes me with the stare he musta used on all those Negro honeys as he says what would a white man like me from the big city know about diggin’ anyhow? And at this point we both know what we’re talkin’ about. So I tell him I’ll show him all I know about diggin’ deep, and Willy Boy says well all right, white man, you show me.
What can I say but that we got our money’s worth outta that hotel room, and not laid down a single track yet. Course, we had to be real quiet-like, since folks back in ‘37 weren’t so accommodatin’ about that kind of thing as they are these days. Specially not mixin’ things up race-wise like we were.
We was smokin’ our cigarettes and sippin’ a little whiskey after all that diggin’ when I asked Willy Boy to play some more. So he does, and it still ain’t nothin’ special. Well, I’d recorded a fair few a those Negroes by then and I’d picked up a little here and a little there about the craft, so I say to Willy Boy try a little of this and that. He tries a few a the tricks I described and he likes the sound he’s makin’ so he keeps on. And on. And by daybreak he’s matchin’ the lyrics of his old songs to some a the new tunes he’s dreamed up through the night. I set the tape rollin’ and off he goes, givin’ all that sweetness into the mike, more even than he’d given me the day before.
An hour or so later we’re done, and that’s Willy’s legacy right there. One hour of material which is gonna be covered and re-covered time and again down the years till it’s so well known people are gonna forget where it came from.
Course, we don’t know that yet. I go to give Will a smooch on the lips, only all of a sudden he’s not in the mood. He says he needs to practice some more for that night’s gig at the shack down the block. I figure he’s tired. Act like it’s no big deal. Hell, the man’s been diggin’ deep every which way there is, he’s gonna need his sleep, right?
My boy was on fine form that night. Showin’ off his new six string tricks to the fans, who lapped them up. And why wouldn’t they? The boy was a Goddamn greatest hits revue, the best licks a the southern bluesmen in one package. All thanks to me. And there’s such fire in his hands and his voice that I can almost ignore Willy blankin’ me the whole evenin’. Almost.
From Houston I had to move on, catalogue what was in the can and find some more colored folks to record. But wherever I went all through the south, Willy Boy’s legend was right there, nippin’ at ma heels. Weren’t too long ’fore I got to thinkin’ about followin’ up that first diggin’ session with some more.
After a little searchin’ I found the boy in a joint on the outskirts of Memphis. The place was hot and crowded, but I cooled down with a Jack on the rocks and waited for Willy to get on stage. When he did, the crowd greeted him like the prodigal son. And damn if he ain’t got better in the time since I left him. Slimmer too, and dressed in sharper duds. Boy’s doin’ well for himself. I go backstage after the first set to say hello.
Hello, Willy Boy says back, keepin’ his eyes to the floor. Is he interested in any more recordin’, I ask him. Damn if the boy don’t say nothin’ at this point, and damn if my blood ain’t up as a result. Why not, says I. And you know what he says? Dumb fuckin’ Negro’s got to believin’ his own press, that whole devil jive. Only he tells me I’m the devil. Not just tellin’ neither, but hollerin’ right up in my face. I’m the devil, he shouts, fit to bring on Judgement Day itself. You tempted me once mister, and I fell, he says, but you won’t get a second bite at my soul.
Well that stings plenty, even tho’ it ain’t his soul I’m after. Then he throws his haymaker: I been dead ever since that night, he says.
Shit, I know a fellow fruit once I dug one, and Willy was a Goddamned prize-winnin’ Watermelon. Ain’t never seen a fella so in the closet as this boy. I tell him not to be so stupid, but it ain’t no good. The boy’s got the green, I got the green-eyed monster. Hardly a fair trade. Then to make the point, boy goes out and plays a stormin’ second set and goes and hits on Anna Mae when he’s done.
Dead inside? That don’t look so dead to me. Least-ways, I’m sure Anna-Mae’s husband Joe ain’t gonna see it that way. Not after I tip him off, anyhow. Which I do once the guy comes out the john. Now, Anna Mae’s a whole lotta woman, and spicier’n a bowl full a hot sauce, but Joe ain’t the sorta guy you wanna go upsettin’. Not when you’re playin’ in his jook joint and he controls your whiskey supply.
Anna Mae’s up in Willy Boy’s lap by the time the next bottle of bourbon makes it to his table. Anna Mae notices the broken seal on the bottle but Willy Boy don’t care. Far as he can tell he’s top of the Goddamn world, king of the south, ain’t nobody gonna scare him over no broken seal. ’S just Joe knowin’ how thirsty Willy gets after playin’, is all. Leastways, that’s what I imagine going through my boy’s mind as he pours that poisoned bourbon down his throat.
Hey, don’t look at me like that. Without me the boy wouldn’t never a bin nothin’, and he repays me like that? Well, what goes around comes around. Weren’t me poisoned that bottle neither. I tole you Joe ain’t a guy to get riled. Willy Boy made his own bed. I just helped him to lie in it a little quicker, is all. I’m the one made him a legend in life. Stands to reason I should finish what I started, make him a legend in death also.
And don’t you go tellin’ me he’d be the most remembered a all the old bluesmen if he hadn’t died while still young and good-looking, neither. Shit, I did the boy a favor. And I’ll be sure to tell him so when I see him in hell.
