Traditions: Ohio Heritage Fellows; 201; Wallace Coleman interview, part 3 of 3

Q:

WALLACE: (playing and singing) So, I—the verse I heard from John Hurt, I eased it in the very last part of the song. They wasn’t ready for it. I say... (playing and singing). When I said that verse really cracked up because (inaudible) the guy said, oh man, they... they really thought that was something, you know, because they had never heard that before. And that’s... that’s the way the... the blues is... the—that’s what I like about the...the Piedmont style, because a lot of... a lot of funny versus that they put in there, you know, uh...like a um, what is the other one where he says that he uh, uh, it’s—it’s-and sometimes you have to be careful who you sing this song to, see uh... I heard some—I thought I heard somebody say (play), funky butts, funky butts, stinking, just take it away. You see that girl with the red dress on. You got the funky butts, stinking, just as sure as you’re born and I don’t like it know how. (LAUGHING) I love that... I love some of that uh, Mississippi John Hurt, Josh White, Charlie Parker, even some of the (inaudible) stuff. They sing it—they sing a lot... you don’t hear that too much, but it’s coming back stronger with the uh... at these... at these uh, different places around like uh, coffee shops and uh, libraries and stuff. You see more of that... that uh, Piedmont style, folk music come in then you... then you do the other stuff, you know. The electric blues is uh, I don’t know anybody’s got... maybe they got burnt out on it, I don’t know, but I... I love it, though. I can... you... do you like Piedmont? I do too. I really like it. And there are some women out there that are singing it too. They can... they get down but it uh, um... it’s not too many... not too many the older guys like it, though, there... I got... eh, my friend, Billy Boy Arnold, she got—he—he likes uh... I—‘cause I like Big Bill Broomsy and I try to bring some of his music back. That’s what I put in my last my latest album. I did—I did some songs by him, because Mr. Lockwood used to talk about Mr. Broomsy and he uh, Southbound Train, and uh... uh... Black, brown, and white. He did some protest songs and stuff like that. And you don’t hear that. You don’t hear people doing that anymore, yea. So, that’s what I like to do, put out another real good acoustic album with some, mostly new stuff on there, so, I’m trying to write some stuff to go on there. I like to write about what happens today. I’ll probably have to write something about Baltimore, you know, something like that... stuff like that. But I’ll... I’ll make it where it won’t be uh... uh, where people be—you know, they have—you know, listen at the words and everything to it. And my wife, like I said, she’s a better songwriter than I’ll ever be, so she’ll help me out. So, say a prayer for me that I can keep it going as long as I can.

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