Ellsworth

As I contemplate Black History Month I reflect upon the lessons I learned from Furry Lewis.

I had to wrestle with the man.

From love at first sound, because his ocean of noise was so mesmerizing.
To revulsion and disgust, as I absorbed the lyrics of an old man loving a young girl.
And slowly with understanding, back to love for Furry's music as I forced myself to understand his moment in time.

He was a man with a foot in two eras.

One of his feet was in the era where African Americans were slaves.
Where forced coupling / breeding was a norm.
Where owners spoke of merits of matches and money as value judgment, and the offspring were doomed to be human chattel with no future choices of their own.

His other foot was in the newfound freedom of a traumatized class with virtually no resources.
No family ties.
No inter-generational experience to apply to their new experience.

Surely with the echos of slave owner's chatter in their head.
Of how such important coupling breeding decisions are made.
Conversations in front of those assumed to be too dumb to understand, or care.

I can imagine that the newly freed tried many different approaches on how to make good matches.
On what mighty lead to good breeding, and offspring of their own to nurture and guide rather than offspring purely commodified.

Age, income, teeth, bones, what factors were proposed and accepted or rejected.
I had to think like a sociologist, a psychologists, like people of a different race and different era, as well as both genders... to imagine the forces that formed and shaped Furry Lewis.
I had to listen to his entire catalog (at least, as much as I could find at the time).
To finally understand that old man who sung about loving a young girl was a product of damage so great the pain rings to this day.

I don't plan revisit / edit this post.
It shall not be honed.
It shall remain a rough draft, like every life.

On this Black History Month I raise a fist in remembrance and solidarity for Furry Lewis,
and wounds of the past that extend into the future.
May the healing continue.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L8MTXpaUJdk&t=248s

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The post above does not do the topic justice.

My father grew up with the blues.
My mother was a DJ at Classic King FM, Blues Nights (Sundays iirc) during the 1960s.
I was a blues stage manager at Bumper-shoot Festival during the 1980s.

Any one of us, or all of us together, could not do the topic justice.