Mississippi Sheiks: Rural Abandon

SheikJust recording 70 sides over a career won’t necessarily guarantee a performer the ability to be recalled a few decades on. If one of those tracks, though, is “Sittin’ on Top of the World,” you’d get your deference. The Mississippi Sheiks, who penned and recorded that track in the ‘30s, were one of the early familial dynasties in recorded music. Using the moniker Carter, but actually being named Chatmon, the family’s figurehead, Ezell, was the uncle of Charlie Patton and was a popular performer during the waning days of slavery. His sons, any combination of Lonnie, Bo and Sam along with Walter Vinson, comprised the shifting line up of the Mississippi Sheiks.

The group, named after the Rudolph Valentino flick, worked the same circuit as other pre-war blues acts - they just infused some fiddle in there as well. During the time that the band was active it served to invigorate the following generation of blues players including Barbecue Bob amongst others. The tunes that they traversed were good for dancing as well as reminiscing, but only performing for a short time didn’t allow for the music to develop too much, although everyone involved was amply gifted.

The Sheiks’ signature tune, which has been rehashed by everyone from Howlin’ Wolf to Jack White, attempts to turn a bad situation to a good one. After being left by a woman, the Sheiks, collectively, figure that freedom trumps being tied down during the summer. One shouldn’t worry, she’s just gone.

In all of this, though, can be figured one of the tributaries that worked to dampen the shores of pop music. Each one of the songs collected for the Mississippi Sheiks’ retrospective, Honey Babe, Let the Deal Go Down, clocks in at around three minutes. Apart from the fact that this might dispel the idea that folks now have shortened attention spans, it shows that the song writing style of the past is actually the song writing style of the present. There aren’t any stylistic surprises or variations on the form to be found. But amongst these 20 offerings can be found pretty much every topic that rock, soul, blues and whatever else touches upon now. A few tracks even show up mentioning stuff like the “Bed Spring Poker,” which somehow didn’t cause an uproar at the time.

Of course, the Mississippi Sheiks weren’t the first folks to write this way – they’re an extension of music from the church as much as field shouters were. But there’s no denying that everything here is catchy. “The Jazz Fiddler” with its familiar melody and bouncy rhythm could sate hillbillies the same way it could work for field hands or share croppers. This universality allowed for the Sheiks to do a modicum of touring and even play with Louis Armstrong in some northern cities.

That one jovial song doesn’t amply distill the band’s sound though – and it could be said that “Sittin’ on Top of the World” doesn’t either. But in the end, it’s just a good time music for what ails folks, ‘cause everyone’s got blues.