Union Man

Well, Labor Day, or as Barrett calls it, "fake May Day" is almost over, but I still want to say something about a certain song.  "Union Man" by the Cate Brothers, from their 1975 album, Cate Bros. (pronounced "Cate Brothers"), produced by Steve Cropper, who also plays guitar on several tracks, including this one.  Here's the the songs, before we get much farther in:

 Its easy, in the first couple of verse, to hear just the narrator's skepticism about what the Union Man has to offer, his doubts about paying dues and going on strike. Since at least the 1980s that's the kind of sentiment that we expect from a narrator who declares "It's six A. M. and I'm out on the job/working like a fool for my pay" when he introduces himself.  Certainly that's all that blogger/DJ JB hears, as he encounters the song on an archaeological dig through the May 22, 1976 broadcast of Casey Kasem's American Top 40. But there's more to it than that, and the third verse and chorus are critical to what I'm convinced is a conversion narrative. first, lets pick up the last verse before the break, where, at the end, Ernie declares: "All the money, that I'm getting paid/Looks like I'm bound to lose!" which is as concise a summary of the the wage worker's place in capitalism as you'll find on record.  That's followed by a middle section that's all about point and counterpoint, including a guitar duel between Earl and Steve Cropper.  Then, his doubts resolved, at least temporarily, the narrator declares "hey hey Mr. union man, thank you for the helping hand/hey hey Mr. union man, so glad you understand."

The doubts in those first two verses always made me hear that last line as sarcasm, but I'm sure that's not the case now.  There's very little sarcasm or cynicism in any of the songs that make up the 4 Cate Brothers albums from 1975-1979.  In fact, until 1979's Tom Dowd produced Fire on the Tracks, every song is sung as a first person, narrative, and usually a heartfelt one.  That doesn't mean that that the narrator of every song is Ernie or Earl, but it makes it easier to get to know the narrators they speak through. And the narrator of this song is, by the end of the song, sincerely happy to take a "helping hand" from someone who "understands" even if getting to that point is a challenge to what he believes he's supposed to be doing to feed his "hungry family."  Not simply a pro-union song, its a dramatization of the conflict between unionism and the ideological disposition of much the southern working class.  Its instructive.

In many ways, "Union Man" much less ambivalent about the unionism than the song "King Harvest" by the Cates' friends, The Band.  If you're not familiar with the relationship between these two groups, here's some background.  Interestingly, Robbie Robertson, a voracious reader, has said that he wrote "King Harvest" after hearing about and reading about The Southern Tenant Farmer's Union.  In an interview last year, Earl said that they wrote the song after reading a book about the STFU, and I've been wondering since if it was, this one?  Earl and Ernie both also said that the song was originally slower, that Cropper wrote the opening like and sped it up, which explains his co-writing credit on the tune.

Since I've started this, its past labor day, but hardly time to put aside the value of work.  The Cates kept working long after those 4 albums, and even after "retiring" in 2006, they still work a lot.  Here's a more recent performance of "Union Man" from the slightly surreal locale of the Cherokee Casino in Siloam Springs.  Thanks for listening.

The Band is...

Discuss.

Buddy Hayes park

The Fayetteville Flyer reports on a meeting of the Fayetteville Forward Historic and Heritage Resources Group, led by local preservationist and past pro-sound ordinance/anti local music crusader Paula Marinoni, and asks "What are some of the historic places in Fayetteville that need to be preserved? What are our traditions? What are some of the things that you’d consider Fayetteville heritage?"

Because I'm out here in the diaspora, I can't go to the meetings, but here's my recommendation:

Fayetteville has a rich and active musical tradition, and for many years the town's flagship band was the (now mostly retired) Cate Brothers, whose career included 4 major label albums, (1975-1979) 2 smaller label albums, (1970-1972) 5 independently released CDs, (1996-2007) tours of Europe and Japan and performances with (not just opening for but playing music on stage with) the Band, Bob Dylan, Van Morrison, and the Grateful Dead. They deserve some commemoration, but that's not who I'm thinking of here. The Cates grew up in all-white (then) Springdale, but got turned onto the style of music they play by (black) artists like Ray Charles and Bobby 'Blue' Bland by the Jukebox at the Rockwood Club, co-owned by Ronnie Hawkins, whose band, the Hawks, played an aggressive and distinctly southern form of rock and roll and R& B and who included future members of The Band and also some blues and country luminaries.

Hawkins was born around Huntsville but grew up in Fayetteville, was part of the first generation of white rock and rollers in the South. Besides the success of his band, a virtual minor league training center for important figures in roots rock, he's been internationally known since the 60s, he hosted John Lennon and Yoko, played for presidents and kings, and is still rocking. He's always kept his Fayetteville roots close to his heart, returning regularly, and even helping out Fayetteville musicians like the great Jojo Thompson when he needed a helping hand. We could show our appreciation of Ronnie a little, but he's not who I'm talking about. Jojo Thompson was a unique and powerful musical voice who, with a little more respect from club owners and better luck, might have been known as our contribution to the 80s and 90s blues revival, but he's not who I'm thinking of either.

Ronnie Hawkins learned about, and then learned to play and sing what he called "black music" --blues and R&*B--from the guy who shined shoes at the UA style shop where Hawkins dad cut hair. That guy, Ralph "Buddy" Hayes was a trumpet player and band leader whose group, I'm told, had a sound and a songbook similar to that of Louis Jordan or Louis Armstrong. They played in Fayetteville, Fort Smith, Eureka Springs and were remarkably successful, especially for a black band working in the Ozarks in the 40s. More than the success they achieved at the time, Buddy and his band represent an unbroken musical chain, our own example of a process of transculturation and sharing that cut across racially unjust legal and social barriers, and helped create a definitive local sound that's also part of an important historical and cultural process.

Now, there is a memorial to Buddy Hayes in Fayetteville, it's a little park on the southside, in the neighborhood that's called either "spout Spring" or "The Holler" or "Tincup" depending on what generation of Fayettevillian you are. the park itself is just about big enough to park a car on, and there's a small stone marker with a dedication and Buddy's name on it, and nothing else. it sits in the shadow of the Confederate Cemetery, founded by the Southern Memorial Association in 1872 and maintianed by them til this day. If you want information about that Cemetery, the people in it, the cause they fought for, it's founding, and more you can look on the internet, you can go to the public library, the Washington county Historical society, and more. If you want information on Buddy Hayes you have to talk to people, or read Ronnie Hawkins autobiography.

History is made up of memory, of what is told and remembered and preserved. for almost 140 years citizens of Fayetteville have proudly maintained a monument to misguided loyalty and racial tyranny. Now I understand that the civil war was about more than slavery, but it was also, very much, about slavery. I know that wasn't why everyone who fought for the south fought, hell, most of the people in Washington County wealthy enough to own slaves fled to Texas and sat out the war there, but you can't take slavery out of the equation and have it still make sense, no matter how much better we feel if we do. Anyway, I do love that cemetery aesthetically, no matter how perverse it's location above the town's only historically African American neighborhood has been. I'm not protesting it's existence or preservation, I'm just asking for a little equal time for community, music,and love across racial lines, and for the people who's stories have been left out of local history and heritage.

Fayetteville was the only city in the Arkansas Ozarks whose black population increased in the years after the civil war, as the black population of the Ozarks moved into or through the city. Most moved down from the hills seeking a better economic life, though black folks in Harrison and Eureka Springs were driven out in violent purges. African American American labor contributed greatly to the rebuilding of the town, which was, by the way, mostly destroyed by Confederate, not Union forces. Between roughly 1900 and the early 1970s, the Spout Spring neighborhood was a community within a community, where people lived and raised families and went to school and contributed to the economic and cultural life of the town. Fayetteville is justly proud to be the second school board in the nation to vote to comply with Brown V. Board in 1954 and integrate it's secondary schools. We know, as a matter of public record, much about the white administrators who, courageously and honorably took on their own establishment to press for and support these changes, but we know little about the people who walked down the trails that they opened up, or why it took the city until 1965 to integrate the elementary schools, why the Lincoln School building was torn down after neighborhood residents refurbished the building to use as a community center, and why in general, the history of black fayettevillians has never been much of a part of the larger history of the city.

Understanding the music and career of Buddy Hayes, the cultural environment he operated in, his influence on Fayetteville musicians and on the growth of a music scene in Fayetteville that combined traditions maintained by both black and white southerners would help us to understand our history and heritage in a more complex and experiential way. Bringing the history of the part of town where he came from out into the light would give us a fuller and more three-dimensional understanding of the transformations of our region, and help to complicate the media driven image of the Ozarks as a strictly white enclave. It also might expand our definiton of a "historic neigborhood' so that doesn't just mean "where rich people had nice houses." Given all of this (and sorry it took so long!) I'd like to see an expansion of Buddy Hayes park and the establishment of a publicly accessible archive based on material that could be gathered by the fine folks at the Center for Arkansas and Regional Studies and the David Pryor Oral History Project at the U of A. Spout Spring has been a (secret) important part of what made Fayetteville culturally different from the rest of the Ozarks for most of the 20th century. let's remember it.

Cates on video

Ok, so since i've brought the Cate Brothers up a few times here, I thought I'd post these videos that I found on Youtube. The first one is from an AETN performance. it's the newest lineup of the band, but the song,"Start All Over Again" is an oldie. There's a version on one of the two Cates Gang albums, from 1970, and another one on the second Asylum album, In One Eye and Out The Other in 1976.


and here is a video montage that some dude ("Music Mike" put to Union Man, from the 1975 self-titled LP. I psted some thoughts awhile back regarding this song, whether it;s anti-or pro union. I hold by my revised take: that it's about a southern working man putting aside years of previously held predjudices and facing the fact that he can't face down the bosses by himself.

Notes on the Cate Brothers

Much to my wife's chagrin, I've been listening to the Cate Brothers almost nonstop for the past two weeks. Actually, both she and the daughter let me play a greatest hits compilation that I made from the 70s major label albums almost all the way through dinner the other day. The daughter finally called for "Grover music" just as the record approached 1979's uneven Fire On the Tracks, but until then they both seemed to be enjoying it. The material on these records is a little funkier than the 90s and oughties Cate Brothers Band & that seemed to make a difference.

I do this kind of immersion when I'm writing about something, as it helps stuff float up to the surface that I might otherwise not think of or not remember. In this case it's helped me to find the center or at least an anchor for this dissertation. Earl and Ernie Cate are primary examples of white southern musicians playing a kind of music that came across the southern color line in the 60s, music that, when played by white musicians, generally escapes the notice of both journalistic and academic historiographers. They used this music to build a lingua franca with their audience and established a songbook and a set of performance memories that's lasted for over 40 years. While they are small (but not insiginificant and not unconnected) players on the national stage their music is deeply imbricated in the lived experience of many Ozarks inhabitants, meaning that they function actively on a vernacular, regional level while still articulating to the national popular in many important aspects.

I think that if we want to study how popular music works in people's lives, especially with an eye towards how it balances identities (regional and national, group and individual) then we have to look at everyday musical practice, musicking and audiencing on a day to day participatory level, and the Cates provide an example of this par excellence. Their longstanding relationship to their local audience can be, I think, an ethnographic doorway into that group's experience and construction of historical memory and political and social change in a region where the landscape itself seems to have swallowed up the past. I'm especially interested in: the unwritten hsitory of African American music in Northwest Arkansas; the establishment and dismantling of an Ozark counterculture in the late 60s and early 70s,;and of the role of the blues as a mnemonic leusure genre in the 90s, two topics which the Cates career intersects nicely. I'm less sure of what to do about the 80s, the formative decade of my own musical experience.

So that's the operative anchor. Here's some random notes on the music:

1. I'm alot less sure of the politics expressed in "Union Man" than I was a few weeks ago. Listening to the lyrics more closely, and the way Ernie sings them, it sounds like the narrator is skeptical at first but is convinced by the song's end of the necessity of the strike. Here I'm following the reluctant admisison in the penultimate verse that "I know I need your help to win that raise" and the addition in the last chorus of the apparantly sincere "thank you for the helping hand." The guitar solo in the middle does a nice job of working out the narrators conflict, which is both strategic (he needs the raise, but how's he going to feed his family during the strike?) and moral (how does striking fit into an ethical code that valorizes the act of work itself?) in nature. If this is true (and I can't seem to hear it any differently now) then the closing guitar solo is an expression of unity and resistance, a realignment. anyone out there who knows the song (that's you Jzip!) I'd be glad to hear your thoughts in comments or via email.

2. I hadn't realized that the first two albums (1975 & 1976) were released under the name "the Cate Brothers" and that the last two were "the Cate Brothers Band." It makes a difference. In the first two, produced by Steve Cropper, the uptempo numbers are all very funky, but almost everything that isn't uptempo funky is a ballad. Ron Eoff doesn't play on either of them, and Terry Cagle only adds vocal harmony. Klaus Voorman (!) does play on one song tho. These are good records, but I think that I like the third one, with the full band better. As i've worked through this I've made several greatest hits collections & I keep adding more songs from this record. Fire on the Tracks is a b and record too, but it's also pretty discofied and to my ears they don't sound too comfortable with the arrangements on all of the songs.

3. I'll have more to say about this later, but I'm more impressed with Ernie and Earl's songwriting than ever. there's a coherent set of values, responses, and ways of constructing the world that emerges form these songs. It's not an unproblematic worldview, and one of its primary concerns seems to be a paradoxical insistence on having the freedom to follow impulses that can't be resisted, but it's more mature and nuanced than I've previously thought. It's very much an adaptation of 60s soul music concerns (passion, sincerity, community, freedom) into an updated milieu. Just as one example, the women in these songs are surprisingly three D, especially given the sometimes harsh treatment women received in both male soul music and pop singer-songwriter music during this period, and the very harsh anti-feminist posturing delivered by scene mates (and notoriously unreliable narrators) Zorro and the Blue Footballs. More on this later too.

That's it for now. I'll try to figure out if I can post some audio from these records tonight or tomorrow.

I Hear a New World

is a great blog that i found just this morning thanks to the serendipity of the internets. Googling "Cate Brothers + Lane Lindsey" in order to try to find anything on an old friend who road managed the Cates during their major label days, I found a nice short take on the musical pleasures and lyrical problematics of the song "Union Man." Now think that the lyrics to "Union Man" are a little more ambiguous than the way The Sad Billionaire reads them, but I also know that i'm fundamentally disposed to hear all things Cate Brothers in a positive light, and that it' s likely true that , as John A. Arkensawyer once said, "Union Man is a great song with lousy politics."

So on the blog I Hear a new World (http://ihearanewworld.blogspot.com/) The Sad Billionaire ponders, very briefly the connection between the Cates' apparent populist anti-unionism and their proximity to Bentonville, the home of Wal-Mart, a link that I've been thinking about for awhile now. Scrolling up from this post which was put up on Feb. 7th 2008, I found a thoughtful entry that drew on Nina Simone's "Mississippi Goddamn" to contextualize those over-exploited youtube remarks by Jeremiah Wright, and a critical disquisition about the birth of the neoliberal grotesque, among other gems. This has all helped to unloose some thoughts about the neoliberal landscapes of the post-civil rights south (and Northwest Arkansas in particular) that I'll try to put together in a future post.

Just glancing through, I can tell that this is great, smart stuff. A music blog with academic smarts, a critical-left political engagement, and a sense of humor. I'm adding it to the sidebar forthwith. I can't find an easy way to link directly to the "Union Man" entry, but it's at the very bottom of the current page and it's called (quotes and all) "I've had a rough night and i hate the fucking Eagles, man." go read it and everything else written by the mysterious Sad Billionaire.

*this post brought to you by Sesame Street, and by littles, who is sitting on my lap as I type.