October 8, 2009

BY TERRI FERGUSON SMITH

DELTA DEMOCRAT TIMES

HOLLANDALE, Miss. (AP) — It doesn’t seem to matter that bluesman Sam Chatmon was born in Bolton; he spent most of his life in Hollandale, which claims him as its own.

Most people attending the dedication last week of a Mississippi Blues Trail marker for Chatmon weren’t born yet when he moved to Hollandale in 1928, and though he died in 1983, there was the feeling that he was there and being lifted upon the shoulders of his people and carried through the town.

Blues fans, friends and family of Chatmon gathered to honor and remember the guitar-playing son of a former slave who made most of his living working on plantations but also earned money — and a measure of fame — playing the blues.

Notable songs by Chatmon include, “Sittin’ on Top of the World,” “God Don’t Like Ugly,” “Hollandale Blues,” “You Shall Be Free,” and “Sam’s Rag Cross Cut Saw Blues.”

Edgar Smith, a member of the Mississippi Blues Commission who was born in Hollandale, explained the purpose of the trail markers, which is to promote authentic Mississippi blues music and blues culture for purposes of economic development.

“The blues trail will be composed of over 100 markers and interpretive sites located throughout the state,” Smith said.

Chatmon’s marker is the 86th dedicated to date and its flip side tells the history of “Blue Front,” a row of blues clubs on Simmons Street in Hollandale where Chatmon and many other bluesmen performed.

The strip included, according to Smith, a house of ill repute and a gambling hall. In the segregated South, Blue Front was also home to the Day and Night Cafe, known as the finest nightclub for blacks around, Smith said.

Libby Ray Watson was a music student of Chatmon’s and a friend.

“He was generous, he liked to tease people, play games,” Watson said. “He had a way of making you feel like you were the important one. I’m proud to be here for him.”

Growing up in the 1960s and ’70s, Roy Schilling would often see Chatmon at his father’s grocery store. At that time the aging musician had a long white beard and always wore a cap.

“I just remember Sam coming in and every now and then, when he would come in, he would have a bunch of kids with him and he would buy a paper sack full of candy for those kids, and one day I said, Sam, why are you buying all this candy? He said, ‘Man, I’ve been to San Diego. I got money. I’m buying these kids some candy.’”

It was only later, Schilling said, that he learned of Chatmon’s contributions to blues.

“I didn’t know of the significance of Sam Chatmon until I got older and I listened to rock music,” Schilling said. “I heard these rock bands playing all of these tunes, and I started checking out where they came from and I’ll be damned if they didn’t come from Hollandale, some of them.”

Hank Burdine, a longtime friend of Chatmon’s, said the musician was a gentleman — and a gentle man.

“It has been written and it has been said that he gave dignity to the blues,” Burdine said. “There were many times we would gather around his feet, like little kids, and listen to him sit with his guitar in his lap and philosophize.

“I never heard a harsh word come out of his mouth.

“He was a very old man at that time, and he had lived through some times in our history that were very harsh, but he never talked about them as harsh times,” he said. “He always found something nice to say about them.”

Luther Brown, a member of the Mississippi Blues Commission, who is with the Delta Center for Culture and Learning at Delta State University, said he has been with the Blues Commission since the beginning, and because people who knew and cared about Chatmon were willing to tell their stories, the Oct. 2 event was one of the best marker unveilings he has attended.

State Sen. Buck Clarke, a Hollandale native, said the last time he saw Chatmon was in the Western Auto store one afternoon.

“He was in there playing his guitar and I stayed there probably two or three hours, just listening to him play,” Clarke said. “He was just an incredible talent.”

On the Web: www.msbluestrail. org.