The Alabama Experience; Jerry McCain's True Blues

This program has been made possible by a grant from the Alabama State Council on the Arts. This program has been made possible by a grant from the Alabama State Council on the Arts. This program has been made possible by a grant from the Alabama State Council on the Arts. This program has been made possible by a grant from the Alabama State Council on the Arts.

You have reached the residence of Jerry Boogie McKay. So leave your name, your number, and a time you call, show nothing I'll call you bad. Thank you. The blues is taboo, devil. That's devil music. People have been saying that for years, that the blues is the devil music. But you know who gave me the talent, the play, for I choose God gave me the talent, because I never had a lesson in my life.

You know the blues is everywhere, everywhere I go. The blues is just like the law. Nobody is above the law. Nobody is above the blues, because sooner or later, you will have the blues. You know the blues robbed me of my happiness. Now I'm afraid to go to my dope. The blues come from wanting, pressure, poverty. The blues come from a lot of sources. You think about what you should have or could have, but you don't have.

You know I put it into song. It started years ago. Now you just stand out on the corner and pray this Boogie Boogie thing. That's right, the Boogie come from Jerry Boogie McKayne. My mother would send me to the store, and I would go down there and get on the corner and go to play in harmonica. And if people clapping and going on, then I forget. My purpose was being down there at all. And when I get back home, my mother would say, Boy, what is you being? I kept that harmonica in my pocket. Everywhere I went. And my harmonica is back then, where we live, poor people. Not only black people did this white people did it, so they have a fireplace or they have a heater. And some people go out and get a lumbar, whether it's torn down or something, boxes.

But when they get through burning the wood, they take the ashes out and throw them outside the street. And I would go around and get all the nails that come out of the boxes, anything that was metal, and I would sell it and buy my harmonica. And during that time, harmonica didn't cost a lot of money. You could get a harmonica for $50 a quarter, you know. Now, I just made up that for them how to put it down here. Tell me about it. I thought I'd get around 15 or 20, you know. Write my own songs. So, I'm a born rhyman. See, when I'm rhyming, I'm having a lot of fun. And if I can't rhyme, it can't be done. I rhyme all the time. Everyone knows she's tough. There's not a blues band in the world worth her salt that hasn't cut their teeth playing that song. It's a classic.

She's tough. She's rough and tough. You know what? I ain't cold cold. I'm Jeremy Kane, but I'm the real damper. My baby's tough. She's rough and tough. And that's tough and tough. The best harmonica player today will tell you that he's an incredibly influential figure. He is able to just say so much more with so few notes and the choice of notes that he does. It's just amazing. He's one of the best.

I had been wanting to make records for years. I would go on shoot with Avenue. They had this little music store there and this guy had this machine where he can make a disc. And I would go there with nothing but a watchboat. We call it a robot. I would go there with nothing but a robot and a joke and a harmonica. And I would pay my money to make one of these and I would send it to the record company. I'd get an address off of a record or something like that and I would write them, you know, and send it to them. I didn't make no connection like that because I was knowing anything, you know, with a robot and a harmonica.

I mean, what is it going to sound like? So finally, I got a guitar. But I got my own band. That's how I got with my first recording company. Diamond Recording company on trumpet label. The trumpet record label was a very seminal music label in the Deep South out of Jackson, Mississippi. And Lillian McMurray, who was the proprietor of the label, saw it as necessary and important to record the Southern Indigenous music that was happening back in the early 50s. So these are very historical documents, these recordings of Jerry during that period of time. I think this was another time for a close friend, that Emmett Till had gotten killed, you know, for whistling at a white lady, you know. And we go down the record. This is a big fun just over the big columns in the building, you know.

And I had to prop up against one of these columns to keep them shaking because I said, all this going through my mind, but they're hanging black people. I wanted to make me a record. Let me just round the mate one. Now how I make quite a few. How many? I've been to so many studios. I lost count. And I had this big idea that I was going to make a lot of money, which hadn't happened yet, you know. If I go fishing, sit here for so long. If I don't get nobody, so I've got to go somewhere else. That's the same way it was about recording. You know you ain't treating me that. One more time. Now I'm going to change. You know you ain't treating me right.

I never made any money with any record company I've been with, and I've been recording photos of you. I hadn't made any money left before. I make my little coins going out on the road plan. And every penny you make out on the road, you're going to have to put it to good use. Sort of have to be in the know to check Jerry out and certainly think that that shouldn't be the case. I think he should be a household name and blues. Now when he does go to Europe, he's very well appreciated there. He has worked so hard at it and is such a wonderful musician. It's just that the money isn't out there. And there are opportunities for Jerry to play more than what he does. However, he declines to do so because the gigs don't pay well enough to make it worth his while to leave his home, leave his family, which is of the utmost importance to him.

And 64-year-old I've been married three times. Been shot one time. My wife, my first wife shot me. It was on the bar frame. But I'm 64 years ago. Old man is kicking back the cheek. I've had three wives in my lifetime. The sweetest one was Iris Jean. And just like that, that's all. Darsha, the sweetest thing I ever seen. I made a record about that. We had our ups and downs. We've been separated too. We straighten it out. And she loved my parents like that boy. And she loved him just like I do. I got two daughters and I wouldn't give you a quarter of both of them. So just let me say, I don't have no kids at all.

And then the people said, well, how you got grandkids? I bought them. They've been around us all the life. The boys, you'll be the start soon after I went to Paris. Now he refused to go back. He's gained 19 pounds since he'd been here. He stopped saying, my mom and he said, her. She was taking up money to buy and crack. We don't burn the crack house down. Burn the crack house down. Burn the crack house down. We go burning down. Show, go, show, go, show, go. Clean up, clean up this town. The most of all the songs I write is going to have some kind of meaning, tell some kind of story. I just don't write songs just to be writing the song. You know, I watch a lot of TV. I mean, late at night, here's this commercial. Come on.

Did she stand in there with this little sharp thing? I'll tell my, come in sometime. And I just get sick of that time. So I wrote this song. I ain't got no one I'm a number. But the little girls call me all the time. My song might be suggested, but not, not vulgar, you know. That's really not, I didn't like rap, because they do all this vulgar stuff on there. It ain't saying that to me, you know, seemed like saying things over and over. I don't listen to rap, period.

One thing I didn't like years ago, when they come out with the album, all this stuff, people went crazy, though, called Jesus Christ Superstar. I didn't like that because you miss me, God's name, but I don't want people to put me in the same category. But when I was upset, ladies and gentlemen, I want to understand. I'm not God. I'm not Jesus. But when it comes to this, you know who I am, your master. I am the master. I make you do what I want. So sometimes, I believe I can play it fast enough and put it down. I believe it is to go born a bit by itself.

I have to have the feeling. I have to look out there and see all the people that I've been and look like they enjoy themselves. And then I go into my act. Years ago, I would play when I see one of my pretty girls come in. See, but I can't do that no more, see. I've been married three times. I've been shot once by my first wife, so I don't want to get shot again, you know. So I don't look at that enough for no pretty girl. I look at that for a crowd. When I see a big crowd, it just goes all over me. It's my wife and Whitman, my grandson that I stay by myself. You'll never see me with a crowd of people.

I don't have no visitors every now and then. Don't need no visitors. See, the less people in this town know about you, the better off you are. Because they'll gather all kinds of information that they can. And then it's all over town. See, I don't have a trouble out of white people. It's all black people. They get jealous of everything that you do. If you look like you are better than yourself, you're conditioned. And then they get jealous. They'll get mad at me because I said that. Now look at me. I'm black. I'm Negro. It says, you don't say Negro, I'm old, you say you're black, after all, I'm Drew McCain. You know, it looks just like I'm going to have to put something in somebody's mouth just starting from talking so much. Now somebody that I told my lady that she needed to get rid of me because I didn't have nothing when trying to get nothing and didn't need nothing.

But she sure made me feel good when she told me what she told me. It's been about 27 years. Fine, all the time. Yeah, I always got something planned to say. Every time you're back, it was my copy. We have so much fun. She work at Tyson. She's what you call a saw hand. She used that black and decker saw the cut chickens. She leaves her 530 and she stands up all day except on breaks. Mostly all the cooking and cleaning when I leave Tyson just out of it.

My wife go out to the Tyson, stand up all day and I ain't doing them a ride and run in the car, go home, write songs, stuff like that. And I can't watch dishes, I can't cook. Then I ain't no man. I'm for the man that's supposed to be. I haven't read it. I haven't got me a song. Got me a song. I ain't no man. I'm just what a man is supposed to be. I don't think I'm going to lay right here and sit on my butt and let a good one month take care of me. I don't want nobody to hurt my mama's baby. That's where I carry this. This is my mama. And she's made a fine. I take it everywhere I go. Everywhere I go. Any time you see me in the street, in the church, if I got my pants on, my mama is with.

Now I'm licensed to carry on. I used to be a bounty hunter. I don't get out in the street and start nothing about the same token. I don't want nobody out in the street to start nothing with me. I don't know when it was, but he was going to recording session. I think he said in Nashville, which would place it in maybe late 50s, early 60s, if he's going up to record for Excel. That he was pulled off the road and beaten up badly by a white cop. And I think an experience like that, especially at that time in the south. That's going to stick with you. I was bounty hunter for a while. And we goes up to Toledo, pick up a guy that jumped bail, and snow on the ground, everything like that. And some come to me and say, well, I said to myself, what the hell I'm doing out here? I'm a hot monitor, I'm a musician. I can play with the best of them.

I ain't got no business out here. And so I quit doing that. And that's, that's your root. This is the stem. Okay. Tell you what I want you to do. Now you find me a piece over there. You find me, get you, get you. And you find me a piece over there and you dig it. Before Dr. John Assault developed penicillin, my mother and sister, they knew what medicine, you come get medicine, urge for different ailments. I don't like Laura's citizen here. The hustle and bustle and the larger the city, the more people and the more problems. I lived in gas and all my life. There's nothing here. But this is where I was born. So I just stayed here.

But like I said, if I had to move to a larger city, the larger city and more people, I might have come in contact with somebody that could have helped me. But I didn't. I stayed married to the manager too long. And it just screwed me up. And I would quit him off and on. And he would come back with a sweet idea. Bam, show me right where we're going to make some money. And you know how you showed on women's on television about spouse abuse. And they called the police out there and be all kind of confusing. And if you wind up right back at home, he'd make us all like ice cream and cake, pie and cream. And I just stand up there and just sign another contract and even have contract problems. And then I don't have to lay out four years, let the contract run out. I've seen it in magazines several times. They said, well, why do we come out with these good things? And then he just disappeared. Nobody never heard from me. They don't know that I've been laying out a contract, starving to death.

Come away, Gypsy. I want to be your Santa Claus. I want to be your Santa Claus. I want to be your Santa Claus. And I don't get how much it costs. I'm sure glad Chris doesn't come up once in a while. Give me a little hug. Give me a little kiss. I'll get the rest baby. Sit down and make your list because I want to be. I want to be your Santa Claus. Chris, my wife, she said, and my grandson, and then I'm said, well, I got one penny, a $1 million. If I ain't got nothing, if I be walking and talking, Christmas is going to be magnifying me. I just make songs of all the time. If I can be able to walk and talk, Christmas is going to be fine.

I ain't trying to put no scale. I ain't trying to put no tree. And you can call me Santa Claus. And you can call me Santa. Just let me be. Let me be your Santa Claus. I try to be honest and I try to be fair. I've been making record for the whole year. I look like I ain't getting nowhere. I ain't gonna give up. Do you hear what I say? I like to say that you can't mute until I die. I'm going to be playing music after I die.

A lot of people don't see how I'm going to do that, but I'm going to be playing music after I die. Because after I die and then putting in a casket, I'm going to be in my own casket. I'm going to have a case in it from my homeowner. And see, every Saturday, I'm going to have a graveyard party. I'm going to have a graveyard party. I'm going to wake everybody up. Don't forget about him. This program has been made possible by a grant from the Alabama State Council on the Arts. For a videotape of this program, send a check or money order for $25 to the University of Alabama Center for Public Television, P.O. Box 87,000, Tuscaloosa, Alabama 35487, or User Visa Discover or Mastercard by calling 1-800-463-8825.