This is an old track from the Reverend Edward Clayborn recorded in the late 1920's, from a great compilation called Last Kind Words. The entire comp is high caliber creep out gospel blues, but this track really stands out for me. It is, admittedly, a digression from the music usually posted on this blog, but with the impending chill that October bringeth, I figure it fits with that Godless grey sky hanging over Minneapolis today (I cant imagine Milwaukee would be much different, and frankly, NYC is so far out of the realm of my bodily conscious that it doesnt count for me right now). I listened to this track one afternoon a couple months ago with my old man as we drove around looking at the aftermath of a tornado that hit Minneapolis in August. One particular area, Park and Portland Avenues south of 38th street, had a lot of roof damage and blown out window panes, and the pretty much all the canopy of elm trees that has towered over the neighborhood through the majority of the 20th Century was knocked down for good (after several decades of Dutch Elm disease diminishing the arboreal overhang, or as my pops calls it, the free airconditioning). A nice neighborhood full of old houses, after the storm, looked comparatively barren and desolate to what it had. I guess this track says that all earthly things are finite, be it a home, economic stability, families, cities, etc. The power and destruction of spontaneous natural events resonates, I think, with what Mr. Clayborn gets at in this track, as would the economic state of many American lives, cities, neighborhoods, counties, towns, homes, etc. 90 years later, this track may serve as a soundtrack to a morning hangover if not a collective existence within this American experiment. Next one I post will be a party jam.
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