Southern Blues

Thank goodness my husband has enough time on his hands to notice that The New York Times ran another piece in their fantabulous Race Remixed series last Sunday. That's right, I'm just getting to it. Well, I officially launched this here blog this week, and have been overwhelmed in every way by the experience of going public. It's like running naked through a family reunion. My people thought they knew me!!

Anyway, this time the Times chose to focus on the South. Very brave. The big point of the article is that race mixing is going on more than ever down in Dixie, and that across America, the rates of multicultural marriage and birth are growing. States with historically high rates are keeping on, while there seems to be a marked boom in places you might least expect. Seems we're everywhere.



Here's a little story about my experiences traveling around this massive American country I call home. In a past life (ie before motherhood) I worked as a tour manager for various musicians - mostly rock bands - on the road. I figure I have circled around the entire country eleven times. Yes Alaska, no Hawaii. Sound strange? It's true, there are very few women tour managers, very few black tour managers (even in hip-hop, y'all), and well, in my ten years out there, I never came across a non-caucasian female tour manager. It was a strange career choice, and I really loved it for the most part. I worked with a lot of interesting and talented people. NONE of these artists played music that would be classified as Black. With very few (ok, 2) exceptions, I was traveling around the US or Europe via van, bus or airplane, the only brown person in a motley entourage of 5-15 musicians and crew. And I was the one in charge. I handled the money, I negotiated travel crises, I managed guest lists, and made sure everyone was fed their requisite favorite foods, to the best of my ability. The gigs were of every shape and size: bars, mid-sized rock clubs, grand theaters, outdoor music festivals, and sports arenas. And because this blog is not about my life in the music business, I'm going to resist listing the names of the artists I worked with. I will say this: The audiences were not black. The promoters were not  black. I have driven through places, and worked in spaces where I was the only representative of brown. In retrospect, it's possible I went undetected.

Augusta, Georgia was the only place the road took me where I felt unmistakable racism.
I was with a very fine rock trio, living in a van, chasing their CD sales on a two-month national tour. We were a troop of five, including our soundman, Jacques, a bald-headed, tattooed German national who topped off at six-foot-six. He was smart, funny, kind, and quite capable. But if you were casting the role of a Nazi Skinhead, he'd be your man. We pulled into what was probably the big rock bar in Augusta, and got to work unloading gear and sound checking. Early on, I got the feeling the place was a popular watering hole, regardless of who was playing. There was a scene of regulars, and a lot of friendly banter lubed by free-flowing cheap beer.

I was sitting in a booth with one of the band members off to the side, when a tall guy in a swastika-emblazoned "SS" t-shirt walked by. He was tall. His shirt was long and tight-fitting, and the swastika across his back was probably fourteen inches across, red ink on a white background. The "SS" was in the jagged style made popular by Hitler, as you might have guessed. I was floored. My companion noticed, and said something like. "Ew. Yuck." I said, "I gotta get outta here." And I walked quickly past the dude in the shirt, straight outside to the van, which I quickly opened and shut behind me.

No one came out to check on me. Then Jacques came out to get something out of the van, surprised to find me there. "Why aren't you inside?" he asked, in his casual Schwarzenegger monotone. "Did you see that guy with the swastika shirt?" I asked. "What guy?" "The one with the fucking SS t-shirt." "Oh. Yeah. Well." he said.  "Well?! I'm not going in there. I am not spending the night in there." I was uncharacteristically hysterical.  "He's just one guy," says giant German Jacques. I explain, "I have never been in a place where that kind of bullshit would be tolerated. It makes me sick." "You have to get past it. Don't make such a big deal," my friend said, turning his back and going back into the bar. My heart hurt. My ears burned. And I wanted to get away from that shitty bar more than anything. But I had to stay. So I lurked by the front entrance, then hid backstage during the show.

Later,  on route to the hotel, we all talked about the shirt, the guy in the shirt, and the crowd, who really enjoyed the music that night. I was still upset. The others thought I should stop worrying about it. We were leaving Augusta behind, headed for Atlanta in the morning.

That was seventeen years ago.
I hadn't thought much about Augusta, Georgia since I stopped working on the road. Until I heard a woman sing, a woman named Sharon Jones. She's a black woman, not much older than me, from Augusta. I hope you've heard her. If you haven't, you must. She sings with a Brooklyn-based act called Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings, and they are American soul music, like Etta James and the Stax Records catalogue. Her voice is so real it just might make you cry.

So I guess Augusta's not all bad.