Bill Abel perched on the edge of a tall chair, an acoustic guitar slung casually across his lap, his worn canvas shoe tapping out the rhythm of the words he had not yet spoken. He leaned forward with earnest sincerity and gazed at the small crowd, making eye contact with each listener.
No one was quite sure what to expect of the fairly innocuous-sounding “Delta Blues Today” seminar, part of the Smithsonian Institution’s “New Harmonies: Celebrating America’s Roots Music” traveling exhibit, Saturday afternoon at Rosenzweig Arts Center.
And yet, this — this raw, unbridled synergy between artist and art, between beauty and truth — was more than anyone had dared hope.
Subconsciously, each person leaned forward in the air-conditioned silence, waiting, waiting. Abel’s fingertips caressed his guitar lightly, squeaking across the strings from time to time with almost painful beauty, a lifetime of emotion encapsulated in each wavering note.
Beauty is truth, truth beauty
The blues — the real blues — is about truth, he said. Truth as deep as the Mississippi and as stark as a cypress forest on a moonlit night. Truth as open as the Delta flatlands and as lonesome as the state of Texas from the window of a Greyhound bus. Truth as varied as the people who lived it, as married to emotion as emotion is married to music.
In a soft, Southern drawl, Abel spoke of Mississippi blues legends like Son House, Honeyboy Edwards and Charlie Patton. When many blacks migrated to Chicago, they took the blues with them, and Chicago changed it, polished it up, put a suit on it and turned it into something still wonderful, but altogether different, he said.
As a result, the world discovered Muddy Waters and Robert Johnson, but the true treasures of the Delta — people like House and Patton — never became household names.
As the years pass and the aging masters fade into history, few newcomers seem interested in picking up the heritage they left behind, Abel said. He does what he can to make sure their artistry and their style is not forgotten.
At first glance, the Mississippi native doesn’t fit the image of a typical Delta bluesman. For one thing, he’s only 46, sporting long hair, a scruffy beard and a wedding ring. But as a youth growing up in Belzoni, he was marked by the same fire that burned within the greats that populated the Delta region.
It pushed him to stand on porches and knock on the doors of legends, asking the same audacious question: “Will you teach me?”
When he was taken in by the likes of the late Paul “Wine” Jones, who became his mentor, and “Cadillac” John Nolden, who has filled the gap left by Jones’ death in 2005, he couldn’t believe his good fortune. He expected to have to wait in line to even speak to these men he admired. But few young people were interested in playing the blues anymore — they had moved on to rock and rap.
‘Blown away’
Saturday morning, Abel taught curious onlookers at Rosenzweig how to build their own diddley bow, a one-stringed musical instrument made from a cigar box, a broom handle and a piece of wire. That afternoon, he showed onlookers just how much sound one man can extract from an ordinary, homemade toy.
The blues is like that. Simple, yet astonishingly complex. Ordinary, yet beyond explanation. It’s hard for people to understand or appreciate, he said.
That’s part of the reason programs like the “New Harmonies” exhibit, a collaboration between the Smithsonian Institution and the Mississippi Humanities Council, are so important.
“The music’s still going on, there’s just not many people doing it anymore,” Abel said, gesturing toward Nolden, who performed with him Friday night at Rosenzweig and sat quietly in the crowd Saturday. “It’s still going, but it’s just kind of barely hanging on.”
There are new artists who are influenced by the blues, but though they can play the notes, some can’t make the music speak, and it is this depth of emotion that Abel tries to convey when he talks about the people who turned music into art.
“You play with your emotions and your truth,” Abel said. “People respond and feel it when you put yourself into the music.”
One of the people who responded to Abel’s message Saturday was Columbus resident Emilie White, who admitted she had no particular interest in the blues prior to the seminar, she just wanted to learn something new.
As she waited to meet Abel after the program, she said she was captivated by his “excellent, low-key presentation.”
“I have lived all my life in the midst of this, and I took it for granted,” White said. “What an impact. One is never too old to learn, but this has been a ‘blown away’ experience.”
“Big Joe” Shelton, a Lowndes County musician, was equally effusive, an affable smile spreading across his face as he recounted his own raucous journey into the heart of the blues.
“It doesn’t get its due,” Shelton said. “Most people are looking for the ‘next best thing,’ failing to recognize the roots of ‘the next best thing.'”
Behind him, White pulled out her wallet and clutched close to her chest her own version of “the next best thing” — Abel’s latest CD. Across town, a child sat on a porch and quietly strummed an old-new toy — the diddley bow.
And the beat goes on.
Carmen K. Sisson is the former news editor at The Dispatch.
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