The story W. C. Handy told was that he first
heard the blues late one night, probably in 1903, after his band had
performed and was waiting at the Tutwiler depot for a train back to
Clarksdale. The train was late and everyone was asleep. Handy was
awakened by “...the weirdest music I had ever heard.”
A little ragged man was sliding the back of a pocket knife along
the strings of his guitar and singing “Goin’ where the
Southern cross’ the Dog.” He repeated the line over
three times.
Gus Cannon grew up in Coahoma County in and
around Clarksdale at that time. He said one of the only people
doing anything like the blues then was a man named Alex Lee. The
two tunes he recalled Lee playing were John
Henry and Poor
Boy, Long Ways from Home. In 1927,
Gus recorded his version of Poor Boy. He played it on a slide banjo, accompanied by
Blind Blake on the guitar. Poor Boy has a lyric format similar to what Mr. Handy recalled
hearing in Tutwiler. Could the little ragged man have been
Ol’ Alex Lee playing a version of Poor
Boy with new words?
A windy fall morning in Tutwiler, on the
remaining foundation of the old depot, we erect our portable studio and
record this old blues classic. Eddie performs it on his slide
guitar tuned to open G, just the way Gus recalled it. Sparrows
chirp in and out of downtown's abandoned second floor, a crop duster
flies overhead, and the sheriff stops by for a listen. He
especially likes the verse that says, "I got arrested, no money to
buy my fine."
