On Forrest City Joe's version...
The link doesn't work for my computer. As it happens, I have two issued tracks on LP and CD. More to the point, I've found how to access the original unedited recording, about a minute longer than the commercial issues. The trick is to visit the
Association for Cultural Equity http://research.culturalequity.orgThen browse by:
Collection/Session then
Southern US 1959 and 1960 then on page 2
Hughes 10/59Once you get used to the navigation, you can listen to and/or download recordings ? and likewise view and/or download photos which Alan took at the sessions.
So here's the
Red Cross Store recording
http://research.culturalequity.org/rc-b2/get-audio-detailed-recording.do?recordingId=6117(The link takes you to a page with a file-player.)
And here's Forrest City Joe at the piano with his harmonic rack around his neck.
There's another photo in Shirley Collins'
America Over the WaterIn this book Shirley tells the story of the recording, as does Alan in
The Land where the Blues BeganIt started with the recording which became
Blues in the Mississippi Night, in which Big Bill and Memphis Slim celebrated
"Naw, man, that's Mister Charley Houlin, the best friend we ever had in this part of the country, really a friend to our people. He was the man we all run to when somebody mistreated us," Big Bill told me.
"Otherwise known as the Mercy Man." Memphis added.
He then told a tale of Charlie Houlin taking up the complaint of a Black man under his protection. The local sheriff was living in one of his houses but refusing to pay the rent. Houlin confronted the sheriff and actually shot him. Alan was so taken with the story that he went to Hughes specifically to meet this hero. Houlin sent him to Forest City Joe, and told him of the Blues scene in West Memphis ? warning Alan to check in with the police before looking for music. This was fortunate advice, as Alan was indeed stopped and held by the West Memphis police, who grudgingly released him when it was confirmed that he had announced himself.
When Forrest City Joe described the joint where he would be playing, Alan decided that it was no place for a woman, so found a motel where he
stashed Shirley for safety's stake.
Two worried nights later he collected her and
we did burn rubber and got out of West Memphis, Arkansas