“No, I do not weep at the world — I am too
busy sharpening my oyster knife.”
— Zora Neale Hurston
At the turn of the century with America’s population nearing 100 million, around fifty African-American towns were established due to changing laws and social mores. The first of its kind was Eatonville, FL. Six miles north of Orlando, Eatonville was founded as a colony for African Americans who worked in the nearby orange groves. With the help of Lewis Lawrence of New York, 22 acres of land were purchased from the town’s true namesake Captain Josiah Eaton. A lot that was 50’ x 50’ with a small house could be purchased for 30 dollars. Families moved to Eatonville for its opportunity and ability to offer a life anchored by African-American culture.
One such family was Lucy Ann and John. Lucy Ann was a schoolteacher drawn by the promise of teaching at the newly established Hungerford School. John was a sharecropper and a Baptist minister. Along with their five children, they arrived in Eatonville in 1894. Just three years later, John would be elected mayor. Their six-year-old daughter was quite taken with the “porch” culture of all her neighbors. It was a place of business, where news was exchanged and deals were made. It was also a place of entertainment. Down at the General Store, she discovered even more drama. Eavesdropping on these settings, her young mind processed love, hate, empathy, and kindness. This was a community that had very little to hide from each other.
Of course, with news comes gossip. With gossip a sense of “reportage” where the one talking has to do all they can to hold the attention of their listeners. Just the right blend of fact and fiction could take hold. She saw this and knew that the story was most important.
In 1901, Eatonville was visited by teachers from the North. While The Hungerford School was renowned for its quality education, these out-of-towners brought their first taste of literature. Just when she was awakened to the craft of the written word, Lucy Ann died in 1904. She would have to suffer through her painful adolescence in a boarding school further north in Jacksonville.
As a child in Eatonville, she would dance and sing for the white folks. It brought her joy and even a little bit of money. At the boarding school, she was the only person of color. She was lonely and made to feel separate from everyone. Years later, in the 1928 essay where our quote originates, she forcefully states that she does not “hold that nature has given us a lowdown dirty deal and whose feelings are hurt about it.” Immediately she counters with “I have seen that the world is strong regardless of a little pigmentation or less.” This was her grand lesson. The storytelling aspects of porches and general stores created a foundation that was “strong” (to borrow,) her education informed her sense of history.
That interest in history, namely culture, would have to wait. In 1916, she took a job as a maid with a traveling theatre troupe. While it was not the best job, she was able to travel and learn about theatre. After finishing high school in Baltimore, she was accepted by Howard University, established in Washington DC in 1867. Working her way through school as a manicurist, she helped establish the first newspaper and was twice published in a prestigious literary journal. One of her short stories (“Spunk”) was selected by the Harlem-based magazine, “The Opportunity.” This placement opened a door for her, so she moved to the borough right in the middle of its Renaissance. Her time there was incredibly important as she had a hand in establishing the “FIRE!” publication. However, there was still a burning desire for more education. The real opportunity was studying with famous anthropologist Franz Boas at Barnard. He encouraged her to collect the music and cultural aspects of her culture.
So in 1927, after traveling the nascent United States and building a name for herself as a writer, it was time to return to Eatonville. While finishing her degree in English and Anthropology from Barnard, she spent a few months back in Eatonville (among other Southern destinations) amassing a collection of songs, stories, and interviews. It is fitting that her most famous work, 1937’s “Their Eyes Were Watching God” begins and ends on a porch. That fruitful seat of culture gave her all the inspiration she needed to write fiction during the lean times of the Great Depression.
Upon release, “Their Eyes Were Watching God” was met with derision by the most influential names in the post-Harlem Renaissance/pre-Civil Rights Movement interregnum. Natchez’s Richard Wright was particularly savage. In “The New Masses,” Wright wrote, “The sensory sweep of her novel carries no theme, no message, no thought.” While he does praise the purity of her dialogue, like many others, her choice of using the vernacular would - in his harsh words - “evoke a piteous smile on the lips of the “superior race.”
Perhaps as an explanation of her point of view, she next wrote her autobiography, 1942’s “Dust Tracks on A Road.” While more popular than “Eyes,” critics continued their hateful barrage. Once a professor in Florida’s HBCU colleges, she had to return to common tasks to make ends meet. Further keeping her out of the eye of the literary cognoscenti, the rapidly growing Civil Rights Movement did not accept her work and criticized its “gradualism” and her conservatism. In 1959, she suffered a debilitating stroke. On January 28, 1960, she passed away.
Born in Eatonton, GA in 1944, Alice Walker would rise from the segregated rural farming town to become a widely published poet, as well as writer-in-residence at both Jackson State University (1968-1969) and Tougaloo College (1970-1971.) Teaching at the University of Massachusetts, Walker assembled one of the first courses on Black Women Writers where she could finally teach about the complicated history and output of Zora Neale Hurston. In 1973, Walker became the editor of Ms. magazine and began to research Hurston whose work - mainly “Their Eyes Were Watching God” fascinated her. Her 1975 essay, “In Search of Zora Neale Hurston” not only rekindled interest in the work but granted Walker the opportunity to correct history. Through research, Walker found Hurston’s unmarked grave in Fort Pierce, FL. Walker bestowed it with a commissioned marker proclaiming Hurston as “The Genius of The South.”
As a result of this new spark of interest, audiences began reading “Eyes” which had been out of publication for nearly 40 years. A new generation of readers saw the work as one of empowerment where the female protagonist gets her voice. Its commentary about race and gender corresponded perfectly with female culture in the Seventies. What was once rediscovered for its preservation of African-American culture and music, it is first public republication in 1977 by The University of Illinois Press sold 75,000 copies in its first month.
It has never stopped selling since.
—
“There are years that ask questions
and years that answer.”
— Zora Neale Hurston
Mik Davis is the record store manager at T-Bones Records & Cafe in Hattiesburg.
NEW MUSIC This Week
ALLIE X - Girl With No Face [CRIMSON LP/CD/CS](Twin Music Inc.) • Canadian Pop artist Allie X shows a lot of improvement on her third album the dark gem "Girl With No Face." With fans (and early collaborators) like Troye Sivan and Mitski, Allie X dives headfirst into a dense, danceable almost Gothic Pop. The title track is orchestrated like a James Bond theme with punky Peter Hook-style bass pulls. The mix puts Allie X a little further back than you would expect. At first, this is disconcerting until she hits her Kate Bush-ian high wail - then it possesses you. Co=produced with Beck bassist Justin Meldal-Johnsen, "Girl With No Face" even turns the current fascination with glossy Eighties production on its ear giving its choicest cuts a sleek European sound.
HURRAY FOR THE RIFF RAFF - The Past Is Still Alive [LP/CD](Nonesuch) • Now that New Orleans-based singer/ songwriter Alynda Segarra has found her production "voice" with Brad Cook (Waxahatchee,) "The Past Is Still Alive" shows more depth in her writing. "Snakeplant (The Past Is Still Alive)" is the album's centerpiece. With Cook's buzzy bass inserts and the hint of backward guitar creating weird rhythms, Segarra dominates the pulse with her jump-rope style repetition and strategic pauses to tell a twisted slice of autobiography. Like the album, this one does not merit a single evaluation. Segarra is throwing out a lot of details, but stitching them together in beautiful unique couplets that spin cliches in new directions ("Time flies when you're getting old/I was born with a baby boy soul/Maybe someday I'll see you again/In a field, a war, a kingdom of sand.")
MGMT - Loss of Life [BLUE LP/CD] (Mom + Pop/Redeye) • REAL ESTATE - Daniel [SILVER LP/CD](Domino/Redeye) • While Andrew WynGarden and Ben Goldwasser continue to chase the fame and allure that found them on 2007's "Oracular Spectacular," "Loss of Life" feels like the first time in years they have really used the studio (and a battery of ace producers including Danger Mouse, Daniel Lopatin, and longtime wizard Dave Fridmann) to their advantage. If you could smooth out the edges of the earlier crushers like "Weekend Warriors" and refine their psychedelic glow into a beam of radiant light - you would get the brilliant Psych Folk of "Mother Nature," their best single in years.
Another late-career single highlight is the swirling jangle of "Water Underground" from Martin Courtney and Real Estate. After a couple of albums that were stretches away from their bucolic, whispery guitar-based indie rock, producer Daniel Tashian led them back to the sound of their pinnacle, the autumnal bliss of 2011's "Days." With Tashian at the helm, the sweetness of Courtney's voice is a perfect match for slowly building Laurel Canyon-style production.
CORB LUND - El Viejo [BLK/WHITE CLR LP/AUTO CD](New West) • For nearly thirty years, Alberta's plucky Country singer/songwriter Corb Lund has been ushering Canada's more swing-based Country into the new world of Americana. For "El Viejo," Lund gets bluesy (the Dwight Yoakam-esque "I Had It All") and even wields a banjo-based stomper "Redneck Rehab." Lund does not hiccup through his songs, lending a little more rawness than most new Canadian Country contains. While dedicated to his Canadian "compadre" Ian Tyson (also covered by Colter Wall,) "El Viejo" soaks up his attitude and modernity, while still managing to fit right into the slot of Classic-ish Country.
Reissues this week
THE WATERBOYS - This Is The Sea [CLEAR LP](Chrysalis/AMPED) • A formative record (for your humble scribe,) like so many Mike Scott was brandished with the moniker "the next Dylan" in those wild Eighties. Given their Celtic Soul leaning, Scott was possibly closer to the next Van Morrison. After a stellar pair of debut albums (1983's hastily made "The Waterboys" and 1984's more U2-ish "A Pagan Place,") "This Is The Sea" got everything Scott was after. The spirituality is here (the poetic "Spirit," and the epic sweep of the closing title cut.) The drive of "Pagan" cuts like "Church Not Made With Hands" was refocused into the punchy opener ("Dont Bang The Drum.") Scott even manages to channel the angry Punk grit of The Clash into the Dylanesque critique "Old England." However, "Sea" will always be cherished for its sparkling hit single, "The Whole of the Moon" which despite low chart placement everywhere earned its first MTV hit and a Silver album in the UK. Unfortunately, "Whole" represented too strong of a peak for Scott who would quietly reconfigure the entire band to a more sweet, folk-based Rock for its follow-up 1988's "Fisherman's Blues."
PROCOL HARUM - Shine On Brightly [LP/CD](Esoteric/Cherry Red) • Lost somewhere in the annals of Rock History, British first-wave Prog Rockers (some say creators) Procol Harum are too often remembered for the majesty of their 1967 worldwide #1 "A Whiter Shade of Pale." If you study the track, it's the Bach-ian cadence that signals Procol is willing to incorporate Classical elements into their music. While their debut showcases their Pop elements, 1968's "Shine on Brightly" is the first truly bold statement from the band. "Quite Rightly So" and the soaring title cut delivered the singles that a Rock band needed in 1968. However, it is the seventeen-minute suite "In Held 'Twas in I" that united the worlds of Psychedelia and Classical composition into a moving piece. The Nice (with Keith Emerson's brutal but virtuosic organ) and The Moody Blues (with overdubbed strings lighting up "Nights in White Satin") took the first steps, but it was brave Procol Harum who set aside their Pop songs who made room for Prog Rockers everywhere to truly stretch out.
THE CULT - Dreamtime [RED LP](Beggars Banquet/Redeye) • In the middle of their identity crisis (Death Cult -> Southern Death Cult -> The Cult,) Ian Astbury and Billy Duffy finally hit on an atmospheric but brooding Rock sound. Given the huge interest in Gothic swoops and dives in the early Eighties, The Cult managed to land two singles ("Spiritwalker" and "Resurrection Joe") in the lower numbers on the charts. The Jim Morrison-esque shamanistic delivery of Astbury and the mountains of effects, "Dreamtime" quickly established The Cult as another U2-like band who might be darker and more psychedelic - but were stadium ready.
KAREN DALTON - It's So Hard To Tell Who's Going To Love You The Best [LP/CD](Light In The Attic) • The story of Folk singer Karen Dalton is enormously sad (2020's documentary "Karen Dalton: In Her Own Time" gives you everything and much more.) When you listen to her first album from 1969, it is even harder to comprehend how Dalton playing with this awesome band (assembled by Harvey Brooks) could not have been a hit. Even though Dalton was fighting them every step of the way in this elegantly selected set of Folk and Blues songs, "It's So Hard" sounds warm and lived in today. In hindsight, her edgy Billie Holiday voice was not ready for major audiences and Folk records were sadly out of fashion.
BILL FAY GROUP - Tomorrow, Tomorrow, and Tomorrow [LP/CD](Dead Oceans/Secretly/AMPED) • Recorded between 1978 and 1981, this lost album from the esoteric, confessional singer/ songwriter Bill Fay finally sees the official light of day. Unlike his lost 1971 classic "Time of the Last Persecution," Fay sounds warm with a full band including synths and subtle electric guitar. While he has been covered by Jeff Tweedy, War on Drugs, and signed out of obscurity by Bon Iver, "Tomorrow, Tomorrow, and Tomorrow" sounds the least like his early Seventies output - yet carries itself with a haunting Robert Wyatt-esque disjointedness that leaves you transfixed.
