Sam Myers, The Blues is my Story Read online

  SAM MYERS

  SAM MYERS

  T H E B L U E S I S M Y S T O RY

  S A M M Y E R S AND JEFF HORTON

  U N I V E R S I T Y P R E S S O F M I S S I S S I P P I / J A C K S O N

  AMERICAN MADE MUSIC SERIES

  A D V I S O RY B O A R D

  D AV I D E VA N S , G E N E R A L E D I T O R

  K I P L O R N E L L

  B A R RY J E A N A N C E L E T

  F R A N K M C A RT H U R

  E D WA R D A . B E R L I N

  B I L L M A L O N E

  J O Y C E J . B O L D E N

  E D D I E S . M E A D O W S

  R O B B O W M A N

  M A N U E L H . P E Ñ A

  S U S A N C . C O O K

  D AV I D S A N J E K

  C U RT I S E L L I S O N

  WAY N E D . S H I R L E Y

  W I L L I A M F E R R I S

  R O B E RT WA L S E R

  M I C H A E L H A R R I S

  C H A R L E S W O L F E

  J O H N E D WA R D H A S S E

  www.upress.state.ms.us

  The University Press of Mississippi is a member of the

  Association of American University Presses.

  Copyright © 2006 by University Press of Mississippi

  All rights reserved

  Manufactured in the United States of America

  First edition 2006

  ⬁

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Myers, Sam, 1936–

  Sam Myers : the blues is my story / Sam Myers and

  Jeff Horton.— 1st ed.

  p. cm. — (American made music series)

  Includes

  discography

  (p.

  145), song catalog (p. 155),

  bibliographical references (p. 163), and index.

  ISBN-13: 978-1-57806-895-1 (cloth : alk. paper)

  ISBN-10: 1-57806-895-9 (cloth : alk. paper)

  ISBN-13: 978-1-57806-896-8 (pbk. : alk. paper)

  ISBN-10: 1-57806-896-7 (pbk. : alk. paper) 1. Myers,

  Sam, 1936– —Biography. 2. African American musicians—

  Biography. I. Horton, Jeff. II. Title. III. Series.

  ML410.M986A3 2006

  781.643092—dc22

  2006002215

  British Library Cataloging-in-Publication Data available

  T O L I T T L E M I LT O N C A M P B E L L

  1 9 3 4 – 2 0 0 5

  A N D

  C E L E S T E M Y E R S

  1 9 1 2 – 2 0 0 5

  CONTENTS

  A C K N O W L E D G M E N T S [ ix ]

  I N T R O D U C T I O N [ xi ]

  C H A P T E R 1 . EARLY YEARS [ 3 ]

  C H A P T E R 2 . COTTON FIELDS, RAILROADS, AND SAWMILLS [ 14 ]

  C H A P T E R 3 . PINEY WOODS [ 23 ]

  C H A P T E R 4 . GOING TO CHICAGO [ 34 ]

  C H A P T E R 5 . CHICAGO AND JACKSON FAMILIES [ 41 ]

  C H A P T E R 6 . ELMORE JAMES [ 51 ]

  C H A P T E R 7 . JACKSON, MISSISSIPPI [ 65 ]

  C H A P T E R 8 . JACKSON RADIO AND RECORDING [ 74 ]

  C H A P T E R 9 . THE BLUES [ 83 ]

  C H A P T E R 1 0 . THE HARMONICA [ 101 ]

  C H A P T E R 1 1 . THE MUSICIANS’ UNION [ 108 ]

  C O N T E N T S

  C H A P T E R 1 2 . THE RECORD BUSINESS [ 112 ]

  C H A P T E R 1 3 . STORIES FROM THE ROAD [ 124 ]

  C H A P T E R 1 4 . SAM’S BEST FRIEND, ANSON FUNDERBURGH [ 137 ]

  D I S C O G R A P H Y [ 145 ]

  S O N G C ATA L O G [ 155 ]

  S A M M Y E R S , E L M O R E J A M E S , A N D B O B B Y R O B I N S O N S E S S I O N S [ 157 ]

  A P P E A R A N C E S , AWA R D S , A N D H O N O R S [ 161 ]

  B I B L I O G R A P H Y [ 163 ]

  I N D E X [ 165 ]

  [ v i i i ]

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  My fi rst thanks go to my wife, Robin, who pushed me to write Sam

  Myers’s life story. Her slashing red pen and brisk editorial comments went a long way towards turning a rambling manuscript into a real

  book. A number of friends provided signifi cant help, contacts, and

  moral support. Jay Brakefi eld, a distinguished blues author in his

  own right, did the fi rst edit of a very rough draft, gave me some valuable tips on writing and structure, and recommended that I send the

  manuscript to Craig Gill, editor in chief at the University Press of Mississippi. Craig thought well enough of it to pass it on to the distinguished Dr. David Evans, director of the ethnomusicology/regional studies doctoral program at the University of Memphis. Dr. Evans

  provided insightful advice in showing me how to tighten and rear-

  range what was still a rough manuscript. He was very encouraging

  and helpful to an amateur blues biographer, and for that I am deeply grateful.

  Several musicians were instrumental in the development of this

  story. Anson Funderburgh contributed a number of anecdotes and

  important historical background. Brian “Hash Brown” Calway

  detailed the intricacies of Sam’s harmonica technique. Craig Horton

  and Vasti Jackson contributed valuable insight into recording

  sessions they did with Sam back in the day. Blues legends B. B. King

  [ i x ]

  A C K N O W L E D G M E N T S

  and Robert Lockwood, Jr., both graciously provided material for the

  introduction. And I gratefully give special thanks to blues chanteuse Robin Banks, who fi rst introduced me to Sam Myers back in 2001.

  Dallas blues impresario Chuck Nevitt suggested the title for this

  book. As soon as I heard it, I knew it was the one. Don Ottensman,

  blues programming director of KNON radio in Dallas, generously

  provided me with vintage photos of Sam and many words of

  encouragement.

  Sam has a network of friends who have kept him going through

  good times and bad. Foremost is Joe Jonas, who has worn out a couple of cars taking Sam to doctors’ appointments, picking up his fi ne suits from the cleaners, and carrying him to gigs all over town. The inner circle also includes Patti Coghill, Brenda Greer, Ravis Guthrie, Joanna Iz, and Jeff “Harp Man” Reed.

  Last and most important, I thank Sam Myers for giving me, a mere

  fan who became a friend, the opportunity to learn about the blues in a direct and personal way that few have been privileged to experience.

  I am proud to tell his story, in his own words.

  [ x ]

  INTRODUCTION

  The idea of writing Sam Myers’s life story came to me because of

  bowling. People who know Sam are aware that he is legally blind and

  somewhat infi rm due to diabetes and gout. But as it turns out, Sam

  loves to go bowling with his friends. Somehow, he can see just enough, in the right kind of way, to be able to bowl a pretty fair game. I’ve seen him throw three strikes in a row.

  One night in early 2002 I drove Sam to the local bowling alley

  to meet up with our friends. On the way over, he told me a very

  detailed and hilarious story about the time when he and Elmore James ran a moonshine still on the banks of the Pearl River near Jackson,

  Mississippi. I wished that I had a tape recorder with me and thought that perhaps a retelling would make a good magazine article. My wife, Robin, said that I needed to write a book about Sam’s life instead.

  Sam is very well known in the Dallas blues community, where he

  turns up at regular jams whe
n he’s not on the road, and he has many

  fans around the country and the world. His peers regard him with

  affection and respect. They love to tell their favorite “Sam stories.”

  Among the artists he has known and worked with over the years

  are B. B. King and Robert Lockwood, Jr., both of whom were kind

  enough to share with me their thoughts on Sam.

  [ x i ]

  I N T R O D U C T I O N

  “Well, I don’t remember exactly when I met Sam Myers, it’s been

  such a long time,” King told me. “I think he’s a great man, a great

  musician, and a wonderful storyteller. He’s always been up-and-up

  with me and he’s a nice person to be around. I think there’s just one Sam Myers.”

  Lockwood said, “I’ve been knowing Sam for so long I can’t think

  of how we met. I’ve been knowing him almost all of his life. We

  worked together off and on for near twenty years. He’s a damn good

  musician, he’s a nice person, and he’s my friend, my best friend.”

  But even with friends like these and after fi fty years in the busi-

  ness, Sam Myers never became a household name. There are many

  fabulously talented and hard-working bluesmen and blueswomen just

  like Sam, who’ve poured their music from their hearts all their lives in obscurity and never got the chance to have their stories told. This is my effort to rectify that situation with Sam.

  —JEFF HORTON

  [ x i i ]

  SAM MYERS

  C H A P T E R 1

  EARLY YEARS

  Samuel Joseph Myers was born in Laurel, Mississippi, on February 19, 1936. He is the oldest child of Ollie and Celeste Myers. Until recently, both resided in Jackson, Mississippi; Celeste passed away during the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in September 2005. Sam was followed by Mary Nell and Wardell (both deceased) and Ollie, Jr., who now lives in Rose Hill, Mississippi.

  Located in Jones County in the southeast region of Mississippi known as the Piney Woods, the city of Laurel was founded in 1882. At the turn of the century, the railroads opened the region for large-scale timber production, and the Eastman-Gardiner Company built the nation’s first large-scale lumber mill near Laurel. More mill companies soon followed and made Laurel one of the largest mill towns in the South. Within a few years, Laurel milled and shipped more yellow pine than anyplace else in the world. In 1926, William Mason discovered a process for making durable, inexpensive hardboard from the massive amounts of wood waste produced by several mills owned by his wife’s family in Laurel. This material, dubbed Masonite, is still in use all over the world.

  Because of the sandy soil and heavily forested terrain, pre–Civil War Jones County (named for the Revolutionary War naval hero John Paul Jones) depended far less on slave labor than the richer cotton country of

  [ 3 ]

  E A R LY Y E A R S

  the Mississippi Delta a hundred miles to the northwest. A county census at the time tallied fewer than five hundred slaves and “free men of color.”

  Partly as a result of less farming and sharecropping in that part of the state and the many relatively well-paying jobs in the railroads and lumber mills, Jones County escaped much of the misery brought about by the Civil War and Reconstruction. While life was still filled with hard work for most of the rural population, 1940s Laurel, Mississippi, was a good place for a visually impaired black child to grow up.

  Sam contracted juvenile cataracts when he was seven years old.

  Two surgeries to restore his vision proved unsuccessful. Sam is not totally blind; he can make out shapes and shadows, and he can recognize

  familiar faces if they are close enough. He wears black-framed glasses with thick lenses and walks slowly and carefully to avoid obstacles.

  Possibly as a result of losing any workable sight at such a young age, Sam’s memory and other senses are particularly acute. He was taught to read Braille, and for a while he used a Braille typewriter to write down lyrics to songs he composed. Now he mostly relies on a prodigious memory and a faithful stenographer, Joanna Iz, who publishes Southwest Blues magazine in Dallas, Texas. While Sam can read using Braille, he has never been able to write even his own name by hand, and he cannot read regular print. Sam uses a stamp to sign documents and autographs.

  The stamp’s imprint was written in script by his close friend Joe Jonas.

  Sam will sign autographs by hand if coaxed, but the result is an illegible scrawl.

  This chapter covers Sam’s early life at home. Part of the narrative includes statements gathered from Sam’s father, Ollie, his son Willie Earl, and his boyhood friend Eddie Booth during a 2002 visit by the author to Ollie’s home, which was then in Mobile, Alabama. Sam’s mother, Celeste, was living at the time in a nearby nursing home, the victim of a severe stroke some ten years before. Bedridden and unable to speak, she recognized Sam instantly when he came to see her, grasping for his hand as only

  [ 4 ]

  E A R LY Y E A R S

  a mother will do. Sam’s father visited her every day, but sadly, he also suffered a stroke in early 2004. He lived in the same nursing home in Jackson, Mississippi, as his wife until her recent passing.

  I’m the oldest of four kids. I grew up in Laurel, Mississippi, with two brothers and a sister. As a child I lived a very country life, and went off to a separate school from my brothers and sister when I was about ten years old. They attended public school, but I went away to school at Piney Woods, south of Jackson on Highway 49. After school was out, I would spend just a little time at home, like a week or two at the most.

  Then I would go up to Chicago to visit family.

  Back home my father was a sharecropper. He also worked road con-

  struction and in the timber industry with logs, pulpwood, and Mason-

  ite, that sort of stuff. Then he worked on the railroads. When I was at home during the summer, my brothers and sister and I just played with the kids in the neighborhood.

  O l l i e M y e r s ( S a m ’s F a t h e r ) :

  Sam’s daddy and uncle were in the woods working one day. It was in July, hot weather. Sam was about twelve years old. He was bringing them their lunch when he got into a mess of yellow jackets. His uncle heard the dishes falling and Sam hollering. His uncle said, “Oh, that boy done got in that yellow jacket nest!” Sam was bringing a big lunch: sweet potatoes, peas, greens, and tea in a jug to drink. He had a whole dishpan of food.

  You could hear him singing as he was coming along, whistling and singing. We went up there and those sweet potatoes, peas, the jug of tea, it was all over and full of yellow jackets. We had a time getting those yellow jackets off of him!

  At that time they would broadcast The Game of the Day every day of the week on the Mutual Radio Network. I wanted to hurry back to the

  [ 5 ]

  E A R LY Y E A R S

  house because the game would come on at one o’clock. It was about

  quarter to twelve when I left, and when I got to where they was working it was exactly twelve o’clock. They had told me about these yellow jackets. Their nest was in an old stump. I just didn’t remember to go around it. I walked right up to it, and my foot bumped that son of a gun and all them yellow jackets come out of that durn thing and got

  on me and started crawling. When I went to take my hand to fight ’em off, about three of them bit me at once and then that food went everywhere, all over the woods.

  O l l i e :

  Yes, sir, I can’t remember the song he was singing, but he was whistling and singing as he was coming out of the woods, but it cut out when those yellow jackets got him!

  My childhood was a unique thing; I used to be into a whole lot of

  stuff. We’d get a bunch of kids together, and we’d steal watermelons.

  Wherever we’d see a watermelon patch, we’d bust the watermelons

  open and get the
heart out, if they were ripe, just nothing but the

  heart, and we’d eat it right there. There was a guy who had some great big ones in his field. There was a neighbor girl who nearly went blind behind that. This guy was sitting on his porch, he had just got through cleaning his rifle, and he had gone to sleep. There was a big wasps’ nest on a fence pole at the corner of his house. Great big wasps’ nest, those red ones, we called them “guinea wasps.” Everybody made it through

  his fence except for this one girl. Some fool, I don’t know who it was, shook the fence and knocked the nest off, and every one of those

  wasps got on that girl. She hollered, and we pulled her on through.

  That man jumped up to see what the noise was. He was nice about it.

  He said, “All y’all had to do was ask me and I would have given you all the watermelons you wanted.” But see, back then, wasn’t nothing good

  [ 6 ]

  E A R LY Y E A R S

  unless you were stealing it. Since it had happened on his property, he put the girl in the hospital, and he made sure she got whatever she

  needed. Her parents didn’t press charges or nothing.

  The wasps had stung her, and by that being done in summer, it

  was hot weather, she blanked out and lost consciousness. She was

  blind for a long time. That man thought that he was responsible for

  that happening. And he took care of her, all the medical stuff that she needed. Later on, her folks moved up into Laurel, Mississippi. When

  she was about eighteen or so they moved her upstairs in their house, and somehow she fell coming down the stairs, hit her head, and her

  sight came back. She was still a young woman, and she got back to

  where she could see again.

  E d d i e B o o t h ( S a m ’s C h i l d h o o d F r i e n d ) : Me and Sam used to walk down Highway 15, going to the dance. He

  would be walking along in front, and I’d be walking along behind him, and he’d be telling all those good jokes. And I’d be back there behind him laughing. He’d say, “Hey, Bubba, come on, we got to get on down there.

  Tighten it up.” And I’d say, “You tighten up!” We’d get there and he’d say,

  “What you gonna do, Sonny?” I’d say, “I’m not gonna do nothing, I’m fixin’ to dance!” Sam sure could dance too, yes, sir. Me and him had some times!

  Me and Sam and Ollie Junior used to play baseball with a can. We’d go home in the evening time, our hands all cut up. So we finally got us a real ball, and we’d stay out there and play. Man, we was bad then, when we got that ball. We’d be throwing that ball around, playing like the pros.