Song of the Father
The death of Max D. Barnes (previous entry) and the opening of the first Tennessee lottery suggested the following meditations.
Wikipedia on Jimmie Rodgers, known as the father of country music:
“Fundamentally, Rodgers was a white blues singer….”
A song by the father of country music:
T for Texas, T for Tennessee,
T for Texas, T for Tennessee,
T for Thelma, that gal
made a wreck out of me.
Gonna buy me a shotgun,
long as I am tall,
Buy me a shotgun,
long as I am tall,
Gonna shoot po’ Thelma,
just to see her jump and fall.
From Wikipedia:
“In modern Western popular music, call and response is most commonly found in the blues and in blues-derived music like jazz and rock’n’roll.”
If Rodgers’s song is the call, what, one wonders, would be the appropriate response?