Black Artist Series
Coal has been known as West Virginia’s “black gold,” but some of the fi nest, largely undiscovered gold still lies in these hills, in the voices and drums, guitars and horns of African-American musicians. The Metro Valley has the largest African-American population in the state, which leads to more black musicians per square mile than any other region. The Web site of the Charleston Convention & Visitors Bureau, www.charlestonwv. com, pays tribute to this talent with its home page photograph of a sax player in dreadlocks playing on Capitol Street. Does anyone know where he is? Maybe he’d come back for FestivALL!
African-Americans were among the many ethnic groups recruited to work in West Virginia’s railroads and coal mines. Who can forget the coal camp scene from the movie “Matewan,” where hillbilly fi ddles blend with African-American banjos and songs sung in Italian and Polish? Like other Mountaineers, early rural black musicians played on front porches and at parties. Nat Reese of Princeton, the senior master of this art now in his 80s, is an esteemed guest at the Vandalia Gathering of old-time musicians each May at the Capitol Cultural Center. His singing and guitar refl ect infl uences of jazz, jug bands, southern blues, comedy ditties and the pop songs of Tin Pan Alley.
According to research by WVU jazz professor Dr. Christopher Wilkinson, West Virginia was also a gold mine for more citifi ed music: big bands of the 1930s. In some ways, the Mountain State offered blue collar workers the best of both worlds, North and South: jobs and gardens. Miners could work near home, families could raise a garden and the coal camps were close-knit communities.
Urban jazz, blues and R&B were sustained by valley entrepreneurs and musicians—a legacy which continues to this day. Saxophone player Dugan Carter, Jr., who leads today’s Charleston jazz band “Full Flavor,” is the son of a traveling sax player and local singer India White. Hubert “Rabbit” Jones, one of the oldest members of Charleston Musicians AFM Union Local #136, remembers many black music clubs downtown and in the Triangle district through the 1940s, 50s, 60s and 70s—long since closed down, but remaining forever in the minds of both black and white fans. In the 1980s, Mountain Stage piano player and recording artist Bob Thompson brought his New York credentials to Charleston and has led a jazz revival here. B-3 organ giant Winston Walls is reportedly too ill to perform, but his legacy lives on in McDonald Cary, who plays with the Blue Notes in a variety of downtown clubs today. Over the Internet at 304live.com, a younger generation conducts a thriving West Virginia rap network.
In black churches, here as elsewhere, music is used to uplift people who might be facing poverty, illness and family problems. Many of today’s musicians, including pianist and singer Dr. Ethel Caffi e Austin of Dunbar, world-known First Lady of West Virginia Gospel, got their start in church and still play there. Whole new generations are adding inspirational forms of jazz, praise dancing and rap to the church music scene. Jonathan Wesley, drummer and keyboard player and aspiring minister featured here, is only the tip of a huge iceberg of inspirational talent, which has begun to melt and spread and warm hearts in and outside of churches around the Valley.
NAME & HOMEPLACE
Marshall Petty, Charleston
INSTRUMENT Saxophone
GENRE soul, blues, rock’n’roll, R&B, pop, jazz
WHERE TO FIND ME with Marshall Petty’s Groove
Band, sometimes at Café de Paris
He might be blowing a peppy saxophone lick from a Jr. Walker and the All Stars song, then turn around and croon the schmaltzy Lou Rawls line, “You’re gonna miss my lovin’.” If the mood is right, and you close your eyes, you might think Louis Armstrong has returned to sing “It’s a Wonderful World.” Marshall Petty is the consummate downtown Charleston musician and entertainer.
Marshall grew up in a happy home listening to music by jazz composer and band leader Duke Ellington, jump bluesman Louis Jordan, gospel singer Mahalia Jackson, and organist Jimmy Smith. Sax infl uences included Stanley Turrentine, Cannonball Adderly, Charlie Parker, Gene Ammons, Sonny Stitt, Syl Austin and Columbus, Ohio’s Rusty Bryant.
He got his fi rst taste of performing in junior high in Gallipolis, Ohio, when he and a friend sang the Coasters’ hit “Charlie Brown.” At Cedar Grove High through the 1960s Marshall played with the local band “Hart Tones” in the same circles as the “Parliaments” in Huntington, “Satellites” in Charleston and the “Cool Cats” of Montgomery. After serving two years in the U.S. Army, ending in 1969, he had a chance to play in Minnesota with Martha and the Vandellas, James Brown, Rufus Thomas and Solomon Burke.
Graduating from West Virginia State in 1972, Marshall worked for Ford Motor Co., Charleston Housing Authority and Patchwork, and owned and operated Country Roads Distributing Co. from 1986-91.
In 1991, he went on the road with Charleston’s noted organist Winston Walls, meeting other musicians in Indiana, Pennsylvania, Chicago, Florida, Arkansas and California, and, he says, “Nothing’s been the same. I learned the whole craft of music and playing with people, music theory, blues changes and turnarounds.”
Over the years he’s played with other local music heavyweights such as Mac Cary, Rabbit Jones, Warren Pope, Fred Chiles, Jim Anderson, Mike Lewis and singer (and Dunbar school principal) Cheryl Plear. His latest “Dynamic Trio” includes Dave Brown on drums and John Goodman operating the keyboards. Sometimes he teams up for festival shows with Dugan Carter, Charleston’s experienced sax improviser, fl ugelhorn and trumpet player Mike “Stony” Burke and Bob Redd, a Beckley trumpeter.
“The audience expects to be entertained. I want them to feel like I’m one of them,” says Marshall, a longtime member of AFM Local #136. “I take the music as serious as they like it to be.”
NAME & HOMEPLACE
Doris Fields “Lady D”, Charleston
INSTRUMENT Voice
GENRE R&B, soul, blues, songwriting
WHERE TO FIND ME www.ladyd.org; Blues BBQ,
Foster’s in Beckley
“Dance, baby!” said the grandmother, holding up the arms of two year old Doris Fields.
There was nobody musical in their Cabin Creek family in the 1960s, but the little coal miner’s daughter had become fascinated by American Bandstand on TV. When old programs came on, she watched singers Ella Fitzgerald, Lena Horne and Judy Garland.
“I can do this,” said little Doris to herself. Growing up, she kept an eye on the TV, added Natalie Cole and Shaka Khan to her list of heroines, and grooved to R&B bands in downtown Charleston places like Spyro’s and Charlie O’s. In 1991 she acted on stage in Kanawha City in “Blues in the Night Revue,” and went on to take a feature role in 1997-2002 in Theater West Virginia’s musical “Honey in the Rock.”
She noted the success of historical character monologists like Joe Bundy (portraying black lawyer JR Clifford) and Ilene Evans (Harriet Tubman). But who would she be? As she paged through history books, one encyclopedia fell open to 1920-30s blues singer Bessie Smith. Doris felt awed by the “Empress of the Blues” and wondered if she could really act and sing like the high-dollar, harddrinking, scrappy Bessie. She only found one short movie snippet of Bessie live, but after listening to recordings, Doris felt Bessie saying to her: “Sing like you wanna’ sing. I’ll be there.” Now Doris fi nds it fun to transform herself into Bessie, changing her polished voice into a loud, rough, slangy but sincere tone. She does a “Lady and the Empress” show for the big stage, and a shorter version for youth called “Bessie’s Blues.”
Lady D can also pull off a Staples Singers “I’ll Take You There,” jazz ballads like “My Funny Valentine” and modern R&B hits like “Call Tyrone.” Her own R&B ballad, “Cabin Creek”, highlights her most recent CD, “My Turn.” She won a local songwriting contest in 2005 with a catchy pop tune, “It’s a Charleston Thing.” Doris is committed to bringing other West Virginia singers of all genres to the forefront.
In the early 1990s she and her exhusband went into housing projects to unearth talented hip hoppers for a traveling “Rap Jam” show. Last year she hosted a statewide singing contest, “West Virginia’s Finest,” and plans another round next year.
“You’ve got three interstates and the trains and planes coming here. People are staying for the night. Where do they fi nd their favorite music—country, R&B, blues, classical, jazz, hip-hop, folk and rock? If the state is open for business, then music needs to be part of that business.”
NAME & HOMEPLACE
Jonathan Wesley, W. Side of Charleston
INSTRUMENT Drums, keyboard
GENRE: inspirational; gospel, contemporary
Christian, positive rap
WHERE TO FIND ME TRI (The Real Inspiration)
Café, First Fridays downtown Charleston, Central
Community Tabernacle in the East End
Twenty-something Jonathan Wesley is a little awed about directing his fi rst band. The 12-piece Inspirations include experienced musicians and newcomers from at least eight different churches in Charleston.
“At fi rst the music was scratchy, but people put in the effort. It’s amazing how God has put this band together. The band is like a baby and I feel like God chose me to lead and take care of it,” he says. “We have a committee to help make decisions. There’s no fi nancial gain, but I’d like to see the band prosper into a full-time ministry.” People are now asking them to play at weddings and family gatherings.
An Americorps VISTA teacher of reading and literacy at Roosevelt Community Center and a steel drum teacher at the Second Avenue community center near his West Side home, Jon can see the need to help others on many levels. On his own time he’s pursuing a broad music ministry. One big goal is a “Spreading the Gospel” conference, but his most visible effort is T.R.I, “The Real Inspiration” café, which has packed Capitol Roasters in downtown Charleston on First Fridays. The Inspirations play and various singers, poets and rappers sit in. Songs don’t even have to mention God and Jesus, but cussing, putdowns and disrespect are out. There’s only one rule: be positive. The reason: African-Americans, and to some extent Appalachians, sometimes act like crabs stuck in a barrel. If one crab tries to climb out in search of a better life, the others criticize and pull him or her back down. “We get stuck in a valley mentality. Let’s look upward and see overtop of where we are, to where we need to go,” he says. “Why is everybody going to Dayton, OH, or Lexington, KY, to see gospel artists? They should be coming here.”
Jon came from a musical family, at fi rst sneaking a whack at his older brother’s drums. He went on to play sax and percussion at Stonewall and Capitol High and played in the all-county jazz band. His local music heroes are gospel players Dr. Ethel Caffi e Austin and Mark Holmes; jazzmen Derek Kirk, Bob Thompson and Ryan Kennedy; blues and jazz sax players Dugan Carter and Marshall Petty; and the Latin band Comparsa. He’s a fan of national gospel acts Tonex, Israel Haughten, Kirk Franklin, Tye Trivetta and Kim Burrell. He also listens to country and heavy metal “just to get music ideas.” “We need to break down denominational barriers and help people get along,” says Jon. “There’s only one God over all of us. It‘s going to take more than just a few pastors or committees meeting. It will take music to bring everyone together, because music is a universal language.”
NAME & HOMEPLACE
Michael “Nemo” Pleasant, Teays Valley
INSTRUMENT Bass guitar
GENRE funky fusion, R&B, smooth jazz
WHERE TO FIND ME With dance band Windjammer
at Atlantis, Kanawha City; teaching and coaching in
South Point, Ohio at the middle school
A natural musician who plays bass guitar totally by ear, Mike “Nemo” Pleasant’s talents are in great demand by local bands. In African-American music, the bass sets the pace, and his leadership stands out on Lady D’s “My Turn” CD. Now, after 30 years as a public school teacher, he wants to go back to being a student.
“Life begins at 50,” he says. “I want to be an accomplished musician, like Bob Thompson and Tim Courts, know all the chords and when to start the solos.”
Music was in the air as Mike Pleasant grew up. His grandmother played in church and, in fact, left this world suddenly while playing one Easter Sunday. As a pre-teen he played drums, and then tinkered with an electric guitar that his father was not using. He broke two strings, leaving the four bass strings— perfect for picking up popular songs from radio and TV such as the Surfari’s “Wipe Out.” At West Virginia State on a football scholarship, he ended up quitting the team and joining the college band. He also recorded with Buddy Davis and the Sensational Showman and played in a band called the Volcanic Eruptions along with Dave Brown on the harmonica.
“I always had a feel for dance music, but my real love is smooth jazz,” says Nemo. Among his influences, he counts James Brown, Sly Stone and his slap bass player Larry Graham, jazz fusion player Stanley Clark, Marcus Miller who played at age 17 with Miles Davis and James Jamerson of Motown’s Funk Brothers.
A Teays Valley resident, Nemo’s currently teaching physical education and coaching middle school football in his hometown, South Point, Ohio, across the Ohio River from Huntington, WV. Like many teachers, he’s concerned about today’s youth. “We had our time, which was Jimi Hendrix, fl owers and grass and stuff, but I knew my limitations,” he says. “Some of hip-hop scares me, when it’s all this gangster image, and words that are degrading to the ladies. The kids are good at making up lyrics, but I would like to see more young kids pick up instruments and apply themselves musically. All elementary schools need to offer music—it will close the social gaps, both between ethnic groups and generations.” For adults, Nemo hopes for the revival of music spots like the former Kumba club, “a nice black downtown establishment” in Charleston, where he met Francine, his wife of 30 years.
What do audiences expect from him? Nemo answers, “Energy. If they’re not pattin’ their feet, you ain’t doin’ nothing.”
NAME & HOMEPLACE
Eddie “Blue” Dawson, Huntington
INSTRUMENT Harmonica, percussion,
electronic mixers
GENRE funk, latin, blues, country, electronic, rap
WHERE TO FIND ME Working on my inventions and creations with Young
Black Entrepreneurs at Unlimited Future Inc. business training center, 1650 8th
Ave. Huntington. Also at 8 p.m. on Tuesday nights at the Harmonica Club at Java
Joint, and the open mic at the V Club with his buddy Mark “the Harp” Cabell.
Tall, reedy Eddie Dawson got his nickname “Blue” not from his music but from a look-alike basketball opponent named Blue. He is an enthusiastic alumnus of the Huntington High football, basketball and track teams. Growing up in the late 1960s following fi ve sisters who took piano lessons, young Eddie found he and his buddies could thrill girls by singing like James Brown, complete with dances and splits. Attending West Virginia State, he played percussion in a band with Curtis Price, guitar, and Mike “Nemo” Pleasant, bass. He sat in with musicians in New Jersey and Indianapolis, recorded regionally with Buddy Davis’ Sensational Showmen and wrote songs with Steve Johnson of the band Santa Cruz. The multiinstrumental Stevie Wonder is his hero.
Eddie took up the harmonica when his friend Michael Spotts brought a harp to junior high school. “It was just like cell phones are today, put it in your pocket and play it anywhere you go,” he says. “You started noticing all these TV shows had harmonica soundtracks, like Andy Griffi th and the Rockford Files.” Some people spurn harmonicas, he concedes, because they aren’t always played properly. To coach new harpers on notes and blowing techniques he started the Huntington Harmonica Club, now led by Jim Rumbaugh.
Eddie also spearheaded a local Red Cross benefi t after Hurricane Katrina. Eddie’s mind is a constant stream of creativity that he struggles to harness. “I see designs and logos and inventions. I hear words and music in my head; sometimes even see colors that go with different notes. I have nothing to do with this, it just comes to me. I’m a conduit. That’s what I try to do with people too, get like-minded folks together. One thing I’ve learned—no one can do music, or anything, by themselves.”
NAME & HOMEPLACE
Hugh Canada “H-Boogi”, Charleston
INSTRUMENT Voice
GENRE: rap
WHERE TO FIND ME hboogz28@yahoo.com or on
West Virginia’s hip-hop Web site www.304live.com
and sometimes at Club Hypnotic in North Charleston.
Hugh Canada calls himself “H-Boogi” and his production company “Haterproof.” At 29, he’s now one of the senior rappers in West Virginia, and he made a two-hour documentary of the state’s growing rap scene called “Local Legends.” He got some recording experience from recording guru Bob Webb, and accompanied fi lmmaker Danny Boyd to Africa to help shoot a documentary on AIDS.
“I’ve been messing with music since I played drums in church at age 5 and started writing poetry at age 7,” says Hugh, who made his fi rst CD in 1998. “Growing up, I watched MTV rappers and music videos. Rap is two basic things—the voice and the beat. Then people started using turntables to make sounds, mixers came in and now it’s all done by computers. I haven’t made any money at this, but I’ve made a name. It’s hard in West Virginia when you only have a 3 percent black population, though there are many white rap fans here too.”
“Rap started as a way to relieve our feelings and tell our story,” he explains. “Rappers are telling about the street, their personal story about what they did. If someone questions your credibility—in other words, if you brag about something you didn’t really do, that’s when the fi ghts can start. Sometimes vulgarity and dirt is what people like—just like sex, guns and cussing in movies. Even country music talks about being stressed out, cheating on your wife and going to the bar and having a beer. Sometimes I give the audience what they want, but a lot of times I can get my point across without a lot of that. We call our company Haterproof Entertainment. Like we’ve got a bullet-proof vest; we’re Haterproof. We’re not out to hate the next man and we don’t want anyone to hate us. I don’t think rap arguments should get violent.”
By day Hugh works at Ticketmaster, and he’s training to sell Nationwide Insurance. Musically, his goal is to learn to use the computer to produce records for younger rappers coming up. “There’s a lot of talent here, we just need the exposure,” he says
