Making It New: 1900–1945 497here, though, the reasons for the blues usually emerge as the familiar ones: loving
“someone, when that someone don’t love you” (“Down-Hearted Blues” by Albert
Hunter (1897–1984) and Louis Armstrong (1897–1972)), love and loss when, for
instance, “mah baby, he done lef ’ dis town” (“St. Louis Blues” by W. C. Handy), the
pain of having “to keep moving” – because, perhaps, as a song by Robert Johnson
(1912–1938) puts it, “there’s a hellhound on my trail.” The blues describes a world of
mean women and hard-hearted men. “My man don’t love me / Treats me oh so
mean, / ” declares one song, “Fine and Mellow” made famous by Billie Holiday
(1915–1959). “He’s the lowest man / That I’ve ever seen.” “Now she’s the meanest
woman that I’ve ever seen, / ” echoes a song credited to Ishmon Bracey (1901–1970).
“And when I asked for water give me gasoline.” Sometimes the songs refer to specific
historical events and places. “Backwater Blues” by Bessie Smith (1895–1937) deals
with a famous Mississippi flood of the 1920s. “Beale Street Blues” by W. C. Handy
celebrates the main black street in Memphis, Tennessee. There are many blues texts
about the great migration north. “I left my babe in Mississippi picking cotton down
on her knees /,” begins one associated with Tommy McLennan (1908?–1962?). “She
says, ‘If you get to Chicago, please write me a letter if you please.’ ” “Going to Chicago,
sorry that I can’t take you, / ” begins another. “There’s nothing in Chicago that a
monkey woman can do.” Other times, the songs celebrate the strength and sexual
needs of women (“I need plenty grease in my frying pan ‘cause I don’t want my meat
to burn”) or men (“Yeah, you know I’m a hoochie coochie man / Everybody knows
I’m here”). There are even some songs, such as “Prove It On Me Blues” by Ma Rainey
(1886–1939) that celebrate love or lust between women (“I went out last night with
a crowd of my friends, / They must’ve been women, ‘cause I don’t like no men”).
More often, though, the blues sadly, passionately recalls what one song calls “trouble
in mind” (“Trouble in Mind” by Richard M. Jones (1889–1945)), and another
“trouble in my mind” (“In the House Blues” by Bessie Smith). More often, too, that
trouble is historicized only in the sense that it springs from the history of a people:
experiences that are specifically racial in origin, even though the feelings they
engender can and do go on to touch many others of other races. “Don’t the moon
look lonesome shining through the trees?” asks one blues song, “Sent for You
Yesterday” by Jimmy Rushing (1903–1972). “How long, how long, has that evenin’
train been gone?” asks another, “How Long Blues” by Leroy Cass (1905–1935):
“Heard the whistle blowin’, couldn’t see no train, / Way down in my heart I had an
achin’ pain.” Questions, declarations like these commemorate experiences that are at
once deeply personal and communal. And they have offered a wealthy resource of
structure and rhythm, theme and tone to many writers – most of them African-
American, but by no means all.
Among those who were affected by the blues, and black cultural and musical
forms, were some other African-American writers of the transitional generation
writing mostly in prose: Dorothy West (1907–1998), Ann Petry (1911–1997),
Margaret Walker (1915–1998), and Richard Wright (1908–1960). West began her
career as a friend of the leading figures of the Harlem Renaissance. Then, in the years
of the Depression, she began the literary quarterly Challenge. The magazine failed inGGray_c04.indd 497ray_c 04 .indd 497 8 8/1/2011 7:54:05 AM/ 1 / 2011 7 : 54 : 05 AM