Liner Notes UJW
There has never been any shortage of people who would define the Blues. Some find it in complicated musical theories that talk about flatted fifths and pentonic scales. Others think of the Blues only in terms of the recordings of long-dead masters like Robert Johnson and Blind Lemon Jefferson. Still others prefer to think of the studio enhanced, amplifier driven music of today. However, the essence of the Blues remains something that rides beneath and between easy definitions. As the great Willie Dixon says in this book,I Am The Blues."The whole of life itself expresses the Blues. That's why I always say the blues are the true facts of life expressed in words and song, inspiration, feeling and understanding."
Indeed, the Blues that a man or woman chooses to perform should be a reflection of that which they have seen and felt. That doesn't mean, of course, that everyone who sings about cheating and killing is a cheater or a killer. It merely means that the Bluesman chooses his songs as carefully as an archer chooses his arrows or as a carpenter chooses his tools, to tell the stories that he alone can tell.
Jessie White chooses his Blues that way. He makes his money as a junk-man, and like a junk-man he rambles through the work of others. He carefully looks at the discarded works of men like Sonny Boy Williamson (I and II), Brownie McGhee, and Cow Cow Davenport. He takes what he needs, modifies it to his liking and makes it his own. When he needs a piece that he can't find, he just makes it himself out of his own feelings and experience.
Jessie White's story is written, simultaneously, in his body and in his Blues. When you see him put on his "rig" (a God-awful, homemade combination mike-holder/harmonica rack made from old refrigerator parts, a lawn-mower handle, a grocery cart and who knows what else) you get the image of a draft horse being harnessed for a hard day's work. As his calloused fingers go over the keyboard, you know that this is a gentle man. As you shake his hand, you get the image of a pillow wrapped in leather. He tells you that he took care of his dying wife personally because, "..couldn't nobody care for her as good as I could." As you see him gently guiding younger musicians, trying to follow his playing by the bobbing of his head, you realize why his house on 29th Street was a Mecca for Blues musicians in the City of Detroit. Mr. Jessie (as I call him) helped to keep the Blues alive in a time when they were largely ignored. Finally, every now and then, you can catch a little wry smile and wink that tells you that this old man is still vital. Listen to his "lemon squeezin blues." Like Moses, his natural force has not been abated. Of course, if you listen to his music you'll find this out and much, much more.
Jessie White is committed to, not just involved with, his Blues. To paraphrase the writer, Robert W. Smith, "In a ham and egg breakfast the chicken is involved, but the hog is committed." This, his first album, will introduce him to many. This will be new to him. He has worked hard his entire life in order to pay the bills and to raise his family. The Blues never paid well enough to do that. So if you were to ask Mr. Jessie what he does, he might tell you that he's a junk man. But if you ask me what he is, I'll tell you. He is a Bluesman. In fact, like Willie Dixon, he is the Blues! Robert B. Jones, 1991 past-Producer/Host WDET's "Blues From The Lowlands" Detroit, Michigan