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(return
to part 2)
NEW SHOES
I never drank my whole life. I was walkin'
home once, passed by a fillin' station country store. Six or
seven white fellas drinkin'. One of 'em looked up, says, "Here
come a nigger." Other one says, "He's a white neeger."
First one says, "Yep, that's what he is, but he can dance
like the rest of 'em. We gonna have some fun offa him."
I said, "I can't dance. I'm goin' home."
I went to walk on. The man snatched a pistol
out, a .38, and shot right down to the ground by my feet. He
say, "Dance." I really didn't know I had that much
dancin' in me. You talk about dancin' - I done some dancin'.
I don't know if it was dancin' or junkin', but I had $2.11 when
I left there.
The shoes I had on, I kept 'em shined so people
wouldn't look at 'em so hard. But I didn't have no bottoms in
them shoes. I could get a pair at the second-hand store for a
dollar. Them people gimme about $2 an' some change. So I turn
around back toward the second-hand store an' they call after
me, "Hey, ain't you goin' this-a way?"
I say, "Not now. I'm goin' back up here
an' get me a pair o' shoes."
They say, "It didn't sound like you needed
shoes."
I say, "It might'na sound like it, but
that was my feet hittin' the pavement." My foots sounded
like taps.
So I bought them shoes, a $50 pair from the
pawnshop. And I walked home along the railroad. I danced more
that day than I ever had in my life.
JAZZ HOUNDS
In 1931, I played three nights a week at this
country-music club, Danceland, and at the White Café on
Howell Mill Road in Atlanta. Clyde Ramey was lookin' for somebody
to play his rest camp in Tulula Falls in the north Georgia mountains
during summer.
In 1933, Blind Willie McTell and I recorded
together in Augusta, Ga., for a man named Calloway. He was with
Bocallion Records or Cotillion or somethin' like that. Vocalion.
We laid down some tracks but they were never released. Taped
it on wax disc direct. Warped. We were paid $10 per song, and
we recorded 10 songs.
We called our band the Dixie Jazz Hounds.
We went to Brevard, N.C., and played Greasy Corner every Friday
night. Hawkinsville, Thomasville, Griffin, Macon, Eastman - all
small Georgia towns. We ran into a fella with a car who carried
us around. He liked music so much he didn't care if he only had
gas money, and that hit our pocketbooks exactly right. People
came from miles around to hear Red's unusual sound.
DR. FEELGOOD
This is my story, and I ain't gonna hand it to ya except exactly
the way it was.
I was playin' at the Hole in the Wall Club
in Atlanta. Mr. Young at Central Record Shop heard me playin'
at the Hole. He said, "I b'lieve you sound better than most
of the records what I'm sellin'. I'm gonna get in touch with
Sam Wallace, RCA's distributor here, and see if he'll contact
New York about you."
Sam Wallace came to hear me. "I don't
know much about your music, but I like what I hear." New
York sent Steve Sholes to Atlanta to see me two weeks later.
I had an audition at WGST. I did "Rockin' With Red"
and "Red's Boogie." Steve Sholes said, "I'm a
country man. I don't know nothin' about this type of music, either.
But when it sounds clear to you and it don't sound extorted when
we play it back and you say take this tape, that's what we'll
do."
(continue
to part 4)
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