“I’m just gonna plan on livin’—dyin’ will take care of itself.” —CeDell Davis
Being a musician for most of my life has given me the opportunity to visit some extraordinary places and work with some equally extraordinary people. This next story is certainly about music, but it’s also about a particular man’s character, and the deep qualities of commitment, perseverance, and true grit that he passed on to everyone he worked with.
This story happened in another special landscape that has held my heart in a close embrace ever since I first set foot on its earthy soil— the magical Mississippi Delta. I’ve always felt a strong connection there, largely because of its rich musical history, but also because my father’s side of the family was from Arkansas, the “other side” of the Mississippi River, as Arkansans are fond of saying. That family were working-class folks, loggers to be exact, and they labored in the great forests of the Ozark Mountains. My grandmother was born in a logging camp hospital there, and my great-grandma Howell used to joke that she didn’t even wear shoes until her wedding day. Wild folks they were, indeed. My father was born in Washington State when the clan moved north to work in the equally huge forests of the Olympic Peninsula, and that’s where I was born. But I’ve always felt a genetic pull to the South, and as a result, I’ve spent a lot of time down there learning about their music, their ways, and listening to some rather incredible stories.
This one is about CeDell Davis, the legendary delta bluesman and the toughest man I ever knew. Lots of people talk about being tough when they play music, but CeDell Davis literally lived and played the hardest blues imaginable. He was a fighter who would not quit, a man who never surrendered, and he touched every soul he ever played for.
I met CeDell in about 2001, when he was already 60 years into his long music career. He must have been about 76 at the time, and I was a young 34. I had been asked to put a band together to back up CeDell on his next record, which I also saw as an opportunity to show respect for the blues tradition that had laid the foundation for all of us who had benefitted from rock & roll. In this backing band, I played drums, Peter Buck of REM played bass, REM sideman Scott McCaughey played guitar, and local Arkansan Joe Cripps played percussion and produced the sessions. We recorded the album live over the course of 3 days and nights in a vacant bar in Denton, Texas, and I subsequently released the album on my newly launched label in the summer of 2002.
The result was the critically acclaimed album, “When Lightnin’ Struck the Pine,” which was a great title because it evoked the excitement of delta music when it hits you right in your soul. Lightning was also a metaphor for the day polio struck CeDell as a boy, a young pine that had just started growing into his youth. The polio stunted him with a physical handicap that would dog him like a hellhound for the rest of his life, but it also molded him into the great spirit he came to be.
We followed up the album with an extensive tour of the United States using the same backing band for the tour. CeDell would be parked in his wheelchair at center stage every night, as he clawed his slide guitar and howled the earthiest blues you ever heard. The audiences absolutely loved it.
On that North American tour we would play for almost 4 hours a night, playing music that drew from all our various bands, as well as CeDell’s deep catalogue. At the end of every night, and after CeDell had signed numerous CDs (and slugged back numerous shots of whiskey), we would all get back on the bus, which was specifically designed to accommodate his wheelchair. We’d ride through the night across America, and on those all-night runs CeDell would sip his beer (and more whiskey) and tell us stories of the Deep South back in the 1930s, ‘40s, ‘50s, ‘60s, ‘70s, ‘80s, ‘90s. Well, you can imagine the tales. As I said in the introduction of this book, the best stories are never written down. On one of those all-night runs, CeDell told us the story of when he was a young boy and he saw the legendary bluesman Robert Johnson play at a house party in Helena, Arkansas. CeDell’s father owned a grocery store/juke joint in Helena, and Robert Johnson had played there many times during that era, so perhaps the story is true. Regardless, that’s about the same time CeDell decided to play guitar and sing the blues, and that’s where the real tale begins.
Born June 9th, 1926 in Helena, Arkansas, CeDell was raised by a family of sharecroppers who worked on a local plantation. Sharecropping seemed to be the default occupation for many of the legendary bluesmen from that mythical part of the South, including Muddy Waters and John Lee Hooker who both claimed the title of “Sharecropper-Bluesman.” CeDell’s mother had been a traditional healer, a woman of the Faith, but she wasn’t able to save young CeDell from the back-to-back ravages of yellow fever when he was nine years old, and the crippling effects of polio the following year. The polio would hamper his ability to walk without the aid of crutches, and it destroyed much of the flexibility in his hands, but because he had just started playing guitar when the polio struck, he learned, through his own ingenuity, how to use a butter knife as a slide in place of his gnarled hands. In doing so, CeDell pioneered the butter knife slide technique that many players still imitate today.
By the age of 26, CeDell was apprenticing with the great Robert Nighthawk, playing slide guitar beside him for a decade between 1953 and 1963. They played all over the South, following a circuit that included juke joints, speakeasies, house parties, and pretty much any place that would have them. CeDell described these gigs, where they’d be paid “some whiskey, a couple of steaks, and five dollars,” all for a long night of playing the blues.
Then tragedy struck again, this time in 1957, when CeDell was playing a gig in East St. Louis. A gunshot in the club resulted in a stampede and CeDell, already slow on his crutches, fell under the panicked crowd and was trampled underfoot, breaking both of his legs with multiple fractures. After several months in hospital traction, and several more convalescing at home, CeDell was now bound to a wheelchair, a throne he would command until his death in 2017. The most important thing, however, with all of CeDell’s illnesses and injuries is that, although many musicians committed slow suicide with excessive alcohol and drug abuse, CeDell never fell victim to any of these vices. Instead, he accepted the challenge of forces beyond his control, he refused to concede defeat, and he focused on his guitar playing and increasingly powerful voice. That’s where he would make his mark in this world.
For many years, throughout the 1960s, ‘70s, and ‘80s, CeDell lived in obscurity, until the early 1990s when the famed New York Times music critic, Robert Palmer, discovered CeDell and his unique interpretation of the blues. Palmer set out to produce some songs for CeDell, which became the fantastic album “Feel Like Doing Something Wrong,” released by the blues label Fat Possum Records. Under Palmer’s production and Fat Possum’s promotion, CeDell began to experience a second act in his storied career. Mick Jagger and Yoko Ono attended his shows in New York City and suddenly CeDell Davis was hip again. But as any veteran musician will tell you, hipness is a fickle thing, and anyone who goes the distance in music is going to be both hip and uncool many times over the course of their career. The only thing that really matters is quality and commitment to the craft itself, or as CeDell once said: “My mother told me not to play the guitar and the devil’s music or I would surely be going to hell. I told her I’d surely be going to hell if I didn’t!”
That’s the mark of the authentic man right there—the one who plays because he is driven to play and for no other reason. The same is true for any man or woman who absolutely loves their work or their art— they’re going to do it no matter what life throws at them. Fortunately for us, CeDell kept on playing, giving us the great albums, “Feel Like Doing Something Wrong,” “The Horror of It All,” “The Best of CeDell Davis,” “When Lightnin’ Struck The Pine,” “Last Man Standing,” and “Even The Devil Gets The Blues.” These records are the real thing, it’s American history, and they’ll change how you think about music.
In the years after we released “When Lightnin’ Struck The Pine,” CeDell was befriended by Greg “Big Papa” Binns and his son Zakk, both Arkansans like CeDell, and both pursuing the same love of the delta blues. They revitalized CeDell’s career, formed a band together, and performed at blues festivals all over the South, even touring Europe twice to sold-out crowds of ecstatic fans.
I was lucky enough to find myself recording with CeDell two more times during his long life, and the second time was when he was 88 years old, 12 years after our first session. This time we recorded in Water Valley, Mississippi (pop. 3,392), deep in the delta, and in fact, very near to the legendary place where the blues first emerged in the early 1900s, at the Dockery Plantation near the town of Clarksdale. This is where, legend has it, the same Robert Johnson that CeDell saw as a boy, sold his soul to the devil at the crossroads of Highways 49 and 61.
It’s been 12 years and I begin to notice some changes in CeDell since we last worked together. It’s not just his age, but he has suffered a mild stroke as well. Although he has mostly recovered, his guitar playing has been severely impaired, to the degree that he cannot play anymore. Instead, he now focuses on his dusty and ancient voice, a voice that is as rich and fertile as the delta soil he grew up on.
The studio where we are about to record is called Dial Back Sound, and it was designed and built by the same Bruce Watson of Fat Possum Records who previously reinvigorated CeDell’s career back in the 1990s. Bruce is helping us do that once again and the atmosphere is wonderful—the walls are hung with old guitars, and the rooms are lined with vintage amps that recall the golden age of recording. The studio is built inside the parsonage of an old Methodist church that stands next door, listing slightly to its side, its whitewashed walls showing a century of age. But the church has its own haunting story that must be told, because we are in Mississippi, and as beautiful as it is, Mississippi has its own horror stories.
Back at the turn of the century, when the reverberations of Reconstruction were still echoing through the post-Civil War South, the workers at the local steel mill in Water Valley began organizing to form a union. The preacher at the Methodist church had an enlightened vision of humanity, so he allowed the workers to use the church for their meetings. That is, until the day a strikebreaker thug from the steel mill walked into the church mid-sermon and bludgeoned the preacher with a piece of lumber, killing him where he stood in his pulpit. Like so many other murders in Mississippi, this one went unpunished and the killer walked away free, probably to kill again as his kind are likely to do. But the spirit of the good preacher is still with us, he guides us in these sessions, and we know he is pleased when we hear his knocks and claps emanating from the empty rooms below, sending us good vibes from the Beyond.
So here we are, about to play the music that CeDell’s mother condemned, right next to a church where she would have worshipped. The sacred and the profane exist side by side here in the delta, as they always have, and as they always will. And that’s because Mississippi is one of the most beautiful and otherworldly places you will ever see, but it is also a place of unsolved murders, bodies never found, and dark tales told in hushed whispers. Anyone who has ever visited here will attest to the haunting beauty of the landscape, and the magical spell it casts over you as soon as you cross the state line.
At night, I sleep on the floor of the studio’s modest accommodations, and I dream that I am hearing music coming from the trees, beautiful music that seems very old and in a strange tongue. I ponder this dream the next morning as I sip coffee on the front porch in the warm, rising sun. Indeed, the bones of my ancestors are in this land, they’re tangled in the roots of the trees, and their DNA rises up through the branches. The branches sing a haunting melody that is only audible in the liminal hours between dusk and dawn, when the fireflies dance and the cicadas sing in harmony. Sometimes, when the light is just right and your spirit is in tune with that great winding river, you can hear the music dancing on the waves as they rhythmically lap along the muddy banks.
As we wait for CeDell to arrive at the studio for our first day of recording, an absolutely torrential rain falls down upon us, making the metal roof of the studio groan under its weight. Lightning and a huge thunderclap follow, louder than any I’ve ever heard in my life, and it rattles my very bones. Two minutes later CeDell arrives and rolls down the driveway in his wheelchair like a majestic black Buddha, uttering the sacred mantra of all serious musicians—“Let’s make a record,” and thus we begin.
The producer of the album is Jimbo Mathus, a born-and-raised Mississippian who declined an acceptance at the US Naval Academy to pursue a career in music. I reckon he chose the harder path, and I think Robert Frost would have been proud of his road less traveled. Jimbo has a solid reputation as a knowledgeable bluesman and scholar of the form. He is also the founder of the Squirrel Nut Zippers, made numerous solo albums, and was the musical director for one of the greatest blues bands ever assembled for Buddy Guy and his “Sweet Tea” album. Jimbo has played with CeDell on and off over the years, so he knows his repertoire well. He’s playing lead guitar on these sessions, and he laughs and jokes as he coaxes us through a series of blues classics. The rest of us—myself on drums, Stu Cole on bass, and Greg and Zakk Binns on guitar, follow along dutifully as we develop our musical chemistry. We are intuitive and spacious, leaving plenty of room for CeDell’s words and Jimbo’s guitar flourishes. I play simple, hypnotic grooves that compliment Stu Cole’s foundational bass lines and we all laugh easily and frequently— we’re having a great time together. Jimbo’s statement at the outset of the session proves to be exactly right, “You’ve gotta have humor in your blues,” and on these sessions, it is in abundance.
Everything is in perfect balance, and it’s all being marvelously recorded by engineer Bronson Tew. He uses vintage mics and compressors, many of which were shiny and new when the blues was America’s first popular music. Now the equipment is showing its age, but inside the tubes and wires there is a humming, analogue electricity that is warm and embracing and crackling with life. Again, the sacred and the profane, the ancient and the modern, all of it exists side by side here in the delta.
CeDell’s new album is titled, “Last Man Standing” for reasons that will become apparent at the end of this story. It was recorded with everyone playing together live, with CeDell singing along in real time. We worked like the steel workers who tried to unionize here a century earlier, playing for hours at a time, eating cheap bologna sandwiches and salt peanuts from the local country store, washed back with iced Coke or beer, depending on your preference. But on Sunday the beer runs out and we’re in Yalobusha County, a dry county, and there are no alcohol sales on Sunday. For the first time in my life, I have to make a run across the county line to buy beer on a Sunday afternoon. It’s a mission, indeed, a holy mission, because CeDell can only sing with an ice-cold beer in his weathered hand. I’m excited to break this religious law, because some laws are just made to be broken, and this is certainly one of them.
Because these are live recordings, the songs do not always start cleanly like a sterilized pop song. Indeed, they stutter and stumble, sometimes quite sloppily in places. Eventually they kick in with that distinct delta swing and the music, like a familiar smell, ignites a feeling in CeDell. Perhaps it is a long-forgotten memory about a girl he once loved, a man who crossed a line, or a funny anecdote that time has almost forgotten. CeDell starts singing when he is sufficiently inspired, and that’s because the song is like life itself—it’s messy and it does not start cleanly, nor does it end politely. A great song, like a great life, happens in spontaneous moments of silence and volume, vulnerability and strength, coolness and fiery passion. These songs are about CeDell’s life, with all the beauty, grace, and tragedy of it all.
The standard 12-bar blues that we’ve all come to recognize is really just a codified version of the Chicago blues, but we’re not in Chicago, and we are not following any rules, that’s for damn sure. Down here in the delta there is only intuition and magic, so we jump bars and skip forward to new sections when CeDell feels the impulse. That’s because 12 rigid bars does not allow for the emotions to hold sway, so we follow him, intuitively like a snake, and we change quickly, like a boxer dancing in the ring. The delta blues is a tough musical form, as tough as the men and women who invented it, who lived it, who were baptized in it. It’s a hard-swinging form, like a scythe that cuts through the tall grass, or a chain gang breaking stones in rhythmic precision. You can feel it in this place; it’s in the air, it’s in the soil, and it’s in CeDell’s entire body.
In between takes, CeDell waxes about his life and we play quietly in the background as he tells stories, and some of these stories end up on the album. He talks about his days living in the haunted Aristocrat Hotel in Hot Springs, Arkansas where Al Capone used to vacation: “If you don’t believe in ghosts, stay at the Aristocrat—you’ll see ‘em!” Or when he moved to Mississippi as a boy and became friends with Washboard Pete and Doctor Ross “The Harmonic Boss.” He listened to Charlie Patton records on a wind-up gramophone, and he settles an old score with Sonny Boy Williamson: “He paid $500 for that name but he was a thief, a natural born thief!” At one point CeDell talks about being a young boy in Helena and hearing songs sung by former slaves, who were very old but still alive in the 1930s. The room is very quiet as we listen, and we don’t play music for a while. The moment eventually passes, CeDell cracks a joke, we all laugh, and we’re swinging again into the next tune.
We record for three days and nights, and as the last day concludes, Bruce Watson comes to visit CeDell once more. They haven’t seen each other in over a decade and they both know these conversations are becoming increasingly rare. They talk openly for about an hour in the main room, drinking beer and joking easily with each other. All the other bluesmen Bruce has worked with have passed on: Junior Kimbrough, T-Model Ford, R.L. Burnside, Pinetop Perkins—all of them gone from this Earth. CeDell is the last one still alive from that original generation of Blues Masters, this despite the physical hardships he has endured. Bruce jokes earnestly, “You’re the last man standing, CeDell,” and we all laugh. “Yeah,” CeDell replies with a chuckle, “I guess I am.”
All of us are born into this world, and all of us will eventually pass from it. That is the price of being given life. Most of us are born with youth and vigor, some are even born with beauty and talent. Other blessed souls are born with physical or mental challenges, or they are afflicted in their prime, as CeDell was. These holy souls must adapt to a new way of life in a very harsh world that usually shuns them. These are the children of god, the holy children of Obatala, the special ones who teach us things that cannot be learned by any other means. CeDell was one of those special beings, gifted with talent, wit, an earthy humor, and a toughness I have never seen in any other man. He and the other bluesmen and women of that era gave us a massive body of work that teach us great truths about America, through musical narratives and often, withering pain. It is very much the music of the American soul, our first original music, and it was invented by former slaves and working class folks.
Let us never forget that very important fact.