Whose Blues? by Adam Gussow

Author:Adam Gussow
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: The University of North Carolina Press
Published: 2020-10-15T00:00:00+00:00

This passage offers us a vivid illustration not just of the way Hurston leverages her own modest musical talents—she was an enthusiastic but mediocre singer—to connect with a folk community and enable her folklore-collection mission, but also of the blithe cluelessness with which she cozies up to the local men, never thinking about how this might make other women in the camp feel. To say that her car became everybody’s car is to say that she had suddenly become Queen Bee, a focus of masculine attentions. The women, it turns out, are furious at the interloper who is making music with, traveling with, and presumably sleeping with, their boyfriends. They have knives in hand that they are itching to use on Hurston—a powerful way of making their feelings known to her and the community.

What a bluesy situation! And what an extraordinary opportunity for a cultural investigator, to be drawn this deeply into the seething passions of the people you’re trying to understand. Hurston’s guide in all this, her native informant par excellence, is Big Sweet: a big, strong, fierce, trash-talking mama bear who vividly clarifies the dangers that await her naive guardian as the two women play cards in the Pine Mill jook, the rollicking, blues-music-filled social center of the logging camp. The most pressing problem is a rival of Big Sweet’s named Lucy and her side-girl, Ella Wall:

“Dat li’l narrer contracted piece uh meatskin gointer make me stomp her right now!” Big Sweet exploded. “De two-face heifer! Been hanging’ ’round me so she kin tote news to Ella. If she don’t look out she’ll have on her last clean dress befo’ de crack of day.”

“Ah’m surprised at Lucy,” I agreed. “Ah thought you all were de best of friends.”

“She mad ’cause Ah dared her to jump you. She don’t lak Slim always playing JOHN HENRY for you. She would have done cut you to death if Ah hadn’t of took and told her.”

“Ah can see she doesn’t like it, but—”

“Neb’ mind ’bout ole Lucy. She know Ah backs yo’ fallin’. She know if she scratch yo’ skin Ah’ll kill her so dead till she can’t fall. They’ll have to push her over.” (MAM, 149)

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