Josh White

Template:Infobox Guitarist Joshua Daniel White (February 11 1914 – September 5 1969), most popularly known as Josh White, was a legendary American singer, guitarist, actor, and civil rights activist. He is best remembered for his powerful stage presence and for introducing folk, blues, and gospel music to a world audience. In the 1920s and 1930s he was a prolific star of the "race records" era who specialized in Piedmont blues, country blues, gospel, and social protest recordings. In the 1940s, as his fame spread, his repertoire expanded to include jazz, international folk song, Tin Pan Alley, and cabaret songs. White inspired several generations of guitarists with new and unique stylings and techniques, and is cited as a major musical influence by Pete Seeger, Ray Charles, Elvis Presley, Lonnie Donegan, Harry Belafonte, Peter, Paul and Mary, Roger McGuinn, Richie Havens, and John Fogerty.

Career

Early years

Born in Greenville, South Carolina, White witnessed the killing of his preacher father by white police deputies in 1921 at the tender age of seven. Two months later, he left home with an old blind, black street singer named Blind Man Arnold, with the understanding that he would lead him across the South and collect the coins for him if Arnold would send White's mother and four younger siblings two dollars a week. Over the next nine years, Arnold rented young White's services out to 66 different blind street singers, including Blind Lemon Jefferson, Blind Blake, and Blind Joe Taggart. White soon mastered the tambourine, dancing, singing, and the various styles of all the guitarists he worked with until he not only knew all the street singers' repertoires but he also became the pioneer blues guitarist of the late 1920s, backing up many artists for recordings before finally scoring his first hit single "Scandalous and a Shame" for Paramount Records in Chicago in 1928 -- as he became the youngest blues star of the era. Yet he still was under the servitude of Arnold, while sleeping in the cotton fields of the South or the horse stables of Chicago and not allowed to wear shoes or long pants until he was sixteen years old (as the street singers wanted their street audiences to feel sympathy for the boy and give more coins).

File:Josh1935.jpg

Josh White with acoustic guitar, 1935

1930s and 1940s

White finally broke his yoke of servitude in 1931, moved to New York City, and began his solo recording career. From 1928 to 1936, he not only was the youngest "race records" star in America, but he was the only one successfully writing and recording blues, gospel, and social protest songs, and the only one with hit records under three names: The Singing Christian (gospel records), Pinewood Tom (blues recordings), and Joshua White (social protest songs). As a session guitarist, he recorded with Bessie Smith, Leroy Carr and Scrapper Blackwell, Buddy Moss, Charlie Spand, the Carver Boys, Walter Roland, Clarence Williams, Lucille Bogan, and Roosevelt Sykes, to name a few. As a radio performer, he would soon star in the 1933 national radio show Harlem Fantasy with Ethel Walters and Clarence Williams. White's best known recordings of the era were "Jesus Gonna Make Up My Dying Bed" (covered by Led Zeppelin in 1975 as "In My Time of Dying"), "Blood Red River," "Ball & Chain Blues" (covered in 1968 by Janis Joplin) "Low Cotton," and "Silicosis is Killing Me."^lyrics

By January 1940, Joshua White, now known as Josh White and co-starring with Paul Robeson on Broadway in the musical John Henry, became the first blues performer to attract a large white and middle-class African American following. He was the first African American artist to perform in previously segregated venues in America, as he transcended the typical racial and social barriers at the time who associated blues with a rural and working-class African American audience, while performing in prestigious nightclubs and theaters during the 1930s and 1940s. Throughout the 1940s, as a major matineee idol with striking sexual charisma and a commanding stage presence, Josh not only was an international star of recordings, concerts, nightclubs, radio, film and Broadway, he also achieved a unique position for an African-American of the segregated era by becoming accepted and befriended by white society, aristocracy, European royalty and America's ruling family, The Roosevelts. His most popular recordings were "One Meatball"^lyrics (the first million-selling record by an African American; a cover version was recorded by Shinehead for the 1990 compilation album Rubáiyát), "Jelly, Jelly", "Strange Fruit," "The House I Live In," "Waltzing Matilda," "Careless Love," "St. James Infirmary," "I Gave My Love a Cherry," "Miss Otis Regrets," and "The House of the Rising Sun" (covered years later in a rock beat by The Animals). He recorded in a wide variety of contexts, from recordings in which he was accompanied only by his own guitar playing to others in which he was backed by jazz groups and gospel vocal groups. As an actor between the years of 1939 and 1950, he would star or co-star on the New York stage in three musicals and three dramatic plays, in addition to appearing in several films, including The Crimson Canary (1945), in which he portayed himself; Dreams That Money Can Buy (1947); and the John Sturges film The Walking Hills (1949), in which he co-starred with Randolph Scott, John Ireland, and Arthur Kennedy, in one of Hollywood's first films where an African American was portrayed as a racially equal character in the story. He was prominently associated with the U.S. civil rights movement in the 1940s.

Josh White and The Roosevelts

Beginning in 1940, White established a long and close relationship with the family of Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt, and would become the closest African American confidant to the President of the United States; and the Roosevelts were the godparents of Josh White, Jr. (born November 30, 1940). In 1940 and 1941, Josh had released two highly controversial record albums with eight anti-segregationist songs in each album, Chain Gang and Southern Exposure, which were the first race records ever forced upon white radio stations and record stores in America's South. The furor over these albums reached the desk of the President and resulted in White becoming the first African American artist to give a White House Command Performance, in 1941. Upon completing that first White House Command Performance, the Roosevelts invited White up to their private chambers, where they spent more than three hours listening to Josh's stories about the Jim Crow South and his songs written about those experiences. Their friendship cemented, five more Command performances followed, in addition to two appearances at the Inaugurations of 1941 and 1945. The Josh White family would spend many Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays with the Roosevelts at their Hyde Park, New York mansion (now the Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum). The President sent White to give concerts overseas as a "Goodwill Ambassador" and he was often referred to in the press as the "Presidential Minstrel." More importanly, it was White's songs of social protest, such as "Uncle Sam Says"^listen and "Defense Factory Blues,"^listen which caused the President to begin exploring how to desegregate the U.S. Armed Forces. Meanwhile, White's recordings of "Beloved Comrade" (the President's favorite song), "Freedom Road," and "House I Live In (What is America to Me)," were great songs of inspiration to the Roosevelts and the country during World War II. After the President's death, White's younger brother William White became Eleanor Roosevelt's personal assistant, house manager and chauffeur for the remainder on her life.

In 1949, Fisk University would honor White with an honorary doctorate; and the NBC National Radio series "Destination Freedom," produced and aired a one-hour dramatized biography on White's life titled "Help The Blind." In 1950, Eleanor Roosevelt (then the United Nations Ambassador in charge of War Relief) and White made an historical speaking and concert tour of the capitals of Europe to lift the spirits of those war-torn countries. The tour built to such proportions that when they arrived in Stockholm, the presentation had to be moved from the Opera House to the city's soccer stadium where 50,000 came out in the pouring rain to hear Mrs. Roosevelt speak and White perform. All during this tour, audiences across Europe enthusiastically requested White to sing his famed anti-lynching recording of "Strange Fruit", but on each occasion he would respond, "My mother always told me that when you have problems in your background you don't give those problems to your neighbor.....So, that's a song I will sing back home until I never have to sing it again, but for you, I would now like to sing its sister song, written by the same man ('The House I Live In')."^lyrics

The blacklist and the 1950s

However, his songs of social protest and his involvement in political causes in the 1940s resulted in him being blacklisted. Controversially, to escape the blacklist, he testified to the House Un-American Activities Committee regarding Communist influence in the entertainment industry and African American community (HUAC Committee appearance in Washington, D.C. September 1, 1950). He defended his testimony as a friendly witness to HUAC by claiming that the scope of his testimony was limited, that he did not state anything that was not already known, and that he was sincerely opposed to Communism. He did not give them names of Communist Party members, and he read them the lyrics of one of his most famous recordings, the anti-lynching song "Strange Fruit," stating that it was his responsibility as a folksinger to bring injustices to the public's attention through his songs. Eleanor Roosevelt cautioned him that the HUAC Committee would turn his testimony against him if he spoke, and indeed his blacklisting would not be lifted for years. Meanwhile, the fact that he testified before the committee angered his large socially progressive fan base and it greatly affected his posthumous reputation in America. He was the only artist of the era to be blacklisted by the Right and Left. Accordingly, from 1950 to 1955, he was based in London, where he hosted his own BBC radio show, My Guitar Was Old As Father Time, continued to record and give concert tours thoughout Europe. However, back in the United States--the country of his birth--he would lose his record contract in 1947 and not be allowed to record there for another eight years; his national radio show was also canceled and he could not appear on other radio shows; his last and final film appearance in Hollywood would be in 1949 (The Walking Hills); and he would not be allowed to appear on U.S. televsion until 1963. Accordingly, his name and reputation in America has only begun to recover in recent years.

Later life

From the mid-1950s until his death in Manhasset, New York in 1969 of heart disease, White primarily performed in concert halls, nightclubs, and folk music venues and festivals around the world. His blacklisting on television was finally broken in 1963, when President John F. Kennedy invited him to appear on the national CBS Television's civil rights special "Dinner with the President." Later that year he was seen again performing for the masses on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial at the historical March on Washington. In January 1965 he was invited to perform at the Presidential Inauguration of Lyndon Baines Johnson. He was seen as an influence by Pete Seeger, Elvis Presley, Lonnie Donegan, Peter, Paul & Mary, Roger McGuinn, Richie Havens, John Fogerty, Josh White, Jr., Ray Charles, and Harry Belafonte, who in the footsteps of White similarly broke considerable barriers that had hampered blues musicians in the past.

Filmography

• 1945 - The Crimson Canary. Directed by John Hoffman.
• 1947 - Dreams That Money Can Buy. Directed by Hans Richter.
• 1949 - The Walking Hills. Directed by John Sturges.
• 1998 - The Guitar of Josh White. Homespun Videos. (An instructional video featuring Josh White, Jr. showing his father's pioneering guitar techniques.)
• 2000 - Josh White: Free and Equal Blues / Rare Performances. DVD. Vestapol.

Films containing recordings by Josh White

• 1994 - Earl Robinson: Ballad of an American. Directed by Bette Jean Bullett
• 2001 - JAZZ, Episode Seven: "Dedicated to Chaos". Directed by Ken Burns.
• 2003 - Strange Fruit. Directed by Joel Katz.
• 2006 - Red Tailed Angels: The Story of the Tuskegee Airmen. Directed by Pare Lorentz.
• 2006 - Negroes with Guns: Rob Williams and Black Power. Directed by Sandra Dickson and Churchill Roberts.

Personal life

In 1933, White married a New York gospel singer, Carol Carr. Together, they would raise Blondell (Bunny), Beverly, Josh Jr., Carolyn (Fern), Judy, and a foster daughter, Delores, in their home in the Sugar Hill section of Harlem, New York. White's mother (who he moved up from Greenville with his younger brother Billy) and Carol's mother all lived with them in the Josh White household. Brother Billy, along with (future civil rights leader) Bayard Rustin, Sam Gary and Carrington Lewis, would perform and record with Josh in "Josh White & His Carolinians" (from 1939 to 1940) and appear with him in the Broadway musical John Henry. Josh White's son, Josh White, Jr., a successful singer-songwriter, guitarist, actor, educator, and social activist for the past 60 years, performed and recorded with his father as a duet from 1944 to 1961, in addition to performing together with him in two Broadway plays (Josh White, Jr. won a 1949 Tony Award for the play How Long Till Summer). At various times in the 1950s and 1960s, daughters Beverly, Fern, and Judy also performed and recorded with White.

What artists have said about Josh White

• Elvis Presley, in a 1956 Jet Magazine article, listed Josh White as a major influence to his music.

• Elvis Presley: While relating a story about Elvis and a Josh White recording, West Side Story film star/dancer, Russ Tamblyn, told the following to Elvis biographer Peter Guralnick in the book Last Train to Memphis: The Rise of Elvis Presley, ". . . I thought Nick (Adams) was just going to bring Elvis over, and it ended up like twenty people came pouring into the room….I had a record on, it was a Josh White record, that Elvis just flipped over! I can’t remember the title, but it was a weird song, it was a good one with a real low, gutty guitar sound – I could never quite figure out what it was about – and we played it about ten times in a row until Elvis finally asked if he could borrow it. As he listened to the music, he started doing his dance with his knees like he does, and I said, `Great, Throw those knees…..Throw those knees out more. So I showed him, and he said, 'What did you do? Show me again.' I could see right away with little exaggerated movements it would look better – it would just take it on another level and make it a little stronger, and he got some of that in (the film) 'Jailhouse Rock'."

• Lonnie Donegan (who launched the British skiffle craze in the 1950s—-which was the sound of the early Beatles), said in a 1999 interview with Jennifer Rodger of The Independent, "Josh White's 'House of the Rising Sun,' inspired me to go into music. This was the first American folk song I heard and the experience kicked off my career, started me singing American blues and folk. I believe Josh started the British rock scene."

• John Fogerty, in an interview with Jim Steinblatt for ASCAP's PLAYBACK magazine, said, "I saw a movie late one night on TV and it was this black guy singing and playing the guitar, and I must’ve been eight years old as I asked my mom, 'Who’s that?' and she said, 'That's Josh White.' And it just went into my memory banks and stayed. It was one of the most chilling things I had ever seen."

• Bill Wyman (of the Rolling Stones) wrote in his book Bill Wyman's Blues Odyssey: A Journey to Music's Heart: “Josh White was an excellent player in the piedmont tradition with a melodious voice. On Friday evenings (in Britain) a program called Harry Parry’s Radio Rhythm Club sometimes played blues records, such as Josh White's "House of The Rising Sun." Slowly the blues began to capture the imagination of a small minority of British youth. A factor in the unexpected rebirth of country blues (in America) was provided by Josh White, whose Elektra recordings sparked interest from younger people who were eager to know where some of this music came from. The man who gave many young white liberal Americans their first taste of the blues died in New York in 1969."

• Jimmy Page, reported in a British press interview that he heard Josh White's 1933 recording of "Jesus Gonna Make Up My Dying Bed," and altered the lyrics and tempo for Led Zepplin’s recording of "In My Time Of Dying." (Bob Dylan earlier recorded a similar adaption).

• George Harrison, said in The Beatles Anthology, "As I said in my own book, I Me Mine, my earliest (musical) memories are of things like 'One Meatball' by Josh White."

• Micky Most, producer of The Animals, heard Josh White's "House of the Rising Sun," bought the record, suggested to the band that they re-do it with a rock beat, and it became a million-selling record and a major spearhead for the British blues rock revolution.

• Janis Joplin, learned "No More Ball and Chain" from Josh White’s 1936 recording, and then recorded it on her 1968 album.

• Ry Cooder. Cooder's bio begins, "Largely self-taught, Ryland Peter Cooder began playing guitar at the age of 3, influenced by recordings of blues legend Josh White."

• John Renbourn (dean of British acoustic blues guitarists), in a British press interview: "I was first caught up by the blues after my mother took me to a Josh White concert. Josh's guitar instruction book was the only good one available, and provided the basis for most of the players of my generation."

• John Fahey (legendary country-blues guitarist)in an interview with Josh White's Archival biographer Douglas Yeager: "I still can’t figure out where Josh learned his stylings and techniques? His style was totally different, and so much more diverse than his southern contemporaries. A mixture of country blues, Chicago blues, New Orleans jazz and New York's sophisticated jazz. Totally unique for that time! Josh White's recording of his song 'Jim Crow Train', with its powerful lyrical message, haunting melody, biting vocals and his guitar work--where he actually had his acoustic guitar make the sounds of a train engine and train whistles, was the greatest folk/blues record ever recorded!"

• Robert Hunter (of “Grateful Dead”). In the book, In A Long Strange Trip: The Inside History of Grateful Dead. "I Adapted Josh White's “Betty & Dupree."

• Oscar Brand (curator of The Songwriters Hall of Fame, legendary folk singer, folk historian, writer, radio and TV personality), in an interview with Josh White Archival biographer, Douglas Yeager: "Josh White was the first black man to have a million seller ('One Meatball'), and he was the first black man to be accepted into white 'society' in America. Whereas Paul Robeson lectured his white audience on civil rights from the stage—which made them feel uncomfortable, Josh gave them the same message and expression of racial anger in his songs, and then would charm the pants off them when he got off the stage. The white men were fascinated by his unique mixture of southern charm, machismo, and smoldering racial anger….and the women—well, they were just blown over by his raw sexuality and wanted to taste the forbidden fruit."

• Richard Wright (revered, controversial and exiled African-American novelist of the 1930s - 1950s), wrote in the liner notes of the 1941 Josh White album Southern Exposure: "Josh White’s Southern Exposure album is a landmark in blues recordings. White’s vocals and stinging guitar lines rank with his finest work. However it is his material which sets it apart from other blues recordings as we know them….for they depict the `other side’ of the blues, the side that criticizes the environment, the side that has been long considered 'non-commercial' because of its social militancy….Where the Negro cannot go, his blues have always gone, affirming kinship in a nation teeming with indifferences, creating unity and solidarity where distance once reigned."

• Langston Hughes (revered African American novelist, poet, and songwriter of the 1930s – 1950s), wrote in the liner notes of the 1944 Josh White album Songs by Josh White: "You could call Josh White 'The Minstrel of the Blues'… except that he is more than just 'The Minstrel of the Blues.' The Blues are Negro music, but although he is a Negro, Josh is a fine folk singer of anybody’s songs—southern Negro or southern white, plantation work songs or modern union songs, English or Irish ballads…Songs that come from the heart of the people."

• Jac Holzman (founder of Elektra Records/producer of Josh White), wrote in the liner notes of the 1970 Memorial album The Best of Josh White: "Josh was an acrobat with the guitar before the world knew of Jimi Hendrix. He could play with his teeth, with a guitar wrapped behind his back, and probably even while making love!” [NOTE: Josh White’s 25th Anniversary album for Elektra in 1955 (his first in America in eight years—after the blacklisting) put Elektra Records on the map].

• Lawrence Cohn (archivist/writer/producer for Columbia Records), wrote in the liner notes of the 1999 SONY CD Josh White Blues Singer 1932 - 1936: "Seeing White for the first time in person, I was struck not only by his professional expertise, but also by his overwhelming magnetism and projected sexuality. Tom Jones on his very best day couldn't come close."

• Alan Lomax (legendary folklorist, song writer and song collector, manager of Leadbelly, record producer, radio and TV show writer, producer and documentarian, writer of books, and former curator at the Library of Congress’s Department of Folk Music division) in GLORY ROAD The Story of Josh White: "Josh could tune a guitar faster than anybody else…..he'd tune it and get the pitch in a matter of seconds, just like somebody wiping his hand across a table—he had absolutely perfect pitch. When somebody was playing off (flat) he would just reach over and tune their instrument….and he could accompany anything, picking up new melodies within moments….I saw him accompany whole concerts of international music, Chinese, Spanish, whatever!"

• Barney Josephson (legendary owner/show producer at New York’s hottest nightclub -- and America’s first integrated nightclub, from 1939 to 1947, Café Society, in an interview with Josh White Archival biographer, Douglas Yeager): "Josh played sex to the hilt! He was bigger at this than anybody else I ever saw in show business. He knew exactly what he was doing….so that when he stroked his guitar, women in his audiences felt as though he was stroking their vaginas! There was nobody like him."

• Elijah Wald (music critic, journalist, and biographer of JOSH WHITE – Society Blues): "Josh White took the blues around the world, introduced it to Broadway, Hollywood and hundreds of concert and nightclub stages, and made it the voice of the Civil Rights movement that often rejected his contemporaries’ work as `backward’ and demeaning. He did more than any artist until B. B. King to make the blues singer a recognized cultural icon, and his rediscovery as a seminal musical giant and a unique American voice is long overdue."

Posthumous honors

File:Josh White Stamp.jpg

• In 1983, Josh White, Jr. starred in the long-running and rave reviewed biographical dramatic musical stage play on his father's life JOSH: The Man & His Music, which premiered at the Michigan Public Theatre in Lansing, Michigan. Subsequently, the State of Michigan formally proclaimed April 20, 1983, as "JOSH WHITE & JOSH WHITE, JR. DAY" in the State of Michigan.
• In 1987, the Josh White, Jr. tribute album to his father's music, Jazz, Ballads and Blues (RYKODISC) received a GRAMMY nomination.
• In 1996, Josh White, Jr. released a second tribute album to his father's music, entitled House of the Rising Son (Silverwolf), to rave reviews.
• On June 26 1998, the United States Postal Service issued a 32-cent postage stamp honoring Josh White, unveiling it on Washington, D.C.'s National Mall, followed by a concert tribute of his songs by Josh White, Jr.

References

• Wald, Elijah (2000). Josh White: Society Blues. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press.
• Josh White from the Website of Josh White Jr. retrieved on May 17 2007
• Siegel, Dorothy Schainman (1982). The Glory Road: The Story of Josh White. San Diego, California: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich.
• Shelton, Robert (1963). The Josh White Songbook (with Biography). Quadrangle Books, Inc.
• Yeager, Douglas. Since 1976, Yeager is the Archival Biographer and Estate Manager of the Estate of Josh White (Sr.)

External links

• Josh White at IMDb
• "Josh White: Society Blues" (Webpage about White's biography, including a gallery of photos and information about several of his currently available recordings)
• "Josh White" by Amanda Guyer
• Illustrated Josh White discography
• Biography of Josh White from Josh White, Jr. site

Video

• White singing "John Henry" Short from 1941. White backed up by Burl Ives, Will Geer and Winston O'Keefe. YouTube.
• White, portraying himself, performing "One Meatball" from the 1945 film The Crimson Canary. YouTube.
• White singing "Baby, Baby" The Walking Hills (1949), John Sturges film co-starring Randolph Scott, John Ireland, Arthur Kennedy, Ella Raines and Josh White. YouTube.
• White performing "Joshua Fit the Battle of Jericho" 1967 BBC-TV.