New York, NY (Top40 Charts) Robert "Mack" McCormick's legend among music writers and fanatics comprised two main eras: The first was a manically prolific stretch from the late 1950s through the 1960s that saw him embark on intensive fieldwork, knocking on countless doors throughout a region he dubbed "Greater Texas" - which included his home city of Houston, East Texas, Western Louisiana, Alabama, Mississippi, and sections of Oklahoma and Arkansas - in order to record predominantly African American musicians performing the blues and other examples of Southern vernacular music. Then came a longer period that lasted until his death in 2015 where his largely-unreleased archive of hundreds of recordings amassed a fabled reputation. "Like John Lomax and his son Alan Lomax," explains scholar Mark Puryear, "McCormick viewed the collection and preservation of African American and other ethnic groups' folk traditions as central to understanding this country's cultural and social values." However, McCormick did little in the way of disseminating the invaluable musical histories he had documented, and because his archive of hundreds of recordings remained largely unreleased during his lifetime, it amassed an even more fabled reputation.
This year, the Smithsonian - as part of a yearlong slate of programming including the April 4 publication of McCormick's unfinished Robert Johnson history, Biography of a Phantom, and a new exhibition of items from McCormick's archive opening June 23 at the Smithsonian's
National Museum of American History - finally opens the vault.
On August 4, Smithsonian Folkways Recordings will release Playing for the Man at the Door: Field Recordings from the Collection of Mack McCormick, 1958 - 1971, a three-CD / six-LP box set of previously unheard field recordings from McCormick's archive that includes a 128-page book of photographs from the collection and essays by leading blues scholars from the Smithsonian and beyond. Playing for the Man at the Door, produced and curated by Jeff Place of Smithsonian Folkways and John Troutman of the
National Museum of American History, not only illuminates the music of an underexplored time and place in African American history, but prompts questions about the problematic racial dynamics and notions of ownership that fueled this white collector's documentation of
Black artists. "As McCormick sought to find the next commercially viable Huddie 'Lead Belly' Ledbetter or Mississippi John Hurt," says John Troutman, curator of music at the
National Museum of American History and co-producer of Playing for the Man at the Door, "what he found was far more sublime — a rich tapestry of voices by people who had entertained their families, neighbors and communities long before and long after folks like McCormick came knocking. Although many of the people featured in McCormick's collection were little known beyond their intimate circles of family, friends, co-workers, fellow buskers, nightclub patrons, and church congregants, the musical traditions they nurtured and sustained, cultivated and innovated, will continue to nourish and prompt contemplation for all who hear their voices."
For a first-listen, check out the official sampler, out today, which showcases the breadth and depth of the box set and the McCormick archive at large.
Featuring Mance Lipscomb,
James Tisdom, Dudley
Alexander and Washboard Band, The Spiritual Light Gospel Group, and
George Coleman, get a sense for the diverse sounds (blues, gospel, everything in between) of the collection.
While the collection does feature recordings of relatively well-known musicians like Lightnin' Hopkins and Mance Lipscomb, many of the musicians cataloged by McCormick were not professionals in the modern music industry sense, but rather community musicians who provided entertainment in locales where their vernacular music, secular or religious, served as a welcome soundtrack. Playing for the Man at the Door includes recordings captured everywhere from hootenannies at
Houston nightclubs to living rooms, and each performance features all the contours and textural detail of a great short story.
George "Bongo Joe" Coleman gives his revolutionary campaign pitch to passing tourists in Galveston on "George Coleman for President, Nobody for Vice President," while Billy Bizor expertly pitch-bends his harmonica during a performance of "Fox Chase" at his cousin Lightnin' Hopkins' 50th birthday show at Houston's Alley Theater. There are spirituals (Hardy Gray's unhurried but hopeful take on "Come and Go with Me to That Land"), country tunes (James Tisdom's swinging, ad-lib-heavy "Salty Dog Rag"), zydeco bands (pioneers Dudley
Alexander and Washboard Band's swaggering "St.
James Infirmary"), and rambling auctioneer calls, including a "Medicine Show Pitch" from bluesman Murl "Doc" Webster. There's even the last-ever recording of a musician named Joe Patterson performing on the quills — an older African American music tradition centered on a wind instrument similar to panpipes that was constructed by bound reeds — captured from a hospital bed in a still-segregated psychiatric institution in Alabama.
With music fans of all stripes becoming more aware and wary of the underlying power dynamics and issues of authorship that plague the history of
Black musicians in the United States, championing the individual efforts of a white folklorist or ethnographer like Mack McCormick becomes something of a loaded subject. As McCormick's daughter Susannah Nix — who grew up surrounded by both the ephemera and compulsions that fueled her father's obsession — puts it in an essay accompanying Playing for the Man at the Door, "The legend that grew up around my father in music circles was only one small shard of the whole, not the complete picture. He was a complicated, troubled, often difficult man who liked his secrets and enjoyed stoking his own myth with red herrings, both for his own protection and because it made for a better story."
As producer Jeff Place writes, "Mack McCormick was one of the number of people in the ʼ50s and ʼ60s whose lives revolved around listening to American roots music and documenting, collecting, and promoting the musicians who made it. For McCormick, it was the hunt and the stories he got so that he could produce articles and his book. Unlike others, he was not scouting for folks to make records. During the prime part of his research career he assembled a massive archive of materials no one else got because of his unbounded energy."
The complex motives, methods, and personal life of Mack McCormick suggest that there's no such thing as a perfect folklorist. But Playing for the Man at the Door serves as evidence that McCormick's willingness to cross the imposed racial boundaries of a divided Jim Crow-era
America and seriously consider the
Black artists of Greater
Texas has proven fruitful. These brief post-WWII audio portraits provide a glimpse into the evolution of strains of African American vernacular music that are integral to the legacy and development of countless modern musical forms. However, it's an incomplete portrait; it's tantalizing to imagine the richness of these disparate musical communities, as well as the talented voices lost to the sands of time and the circumstances of racial inequity. As musician Dom Flemons posits in the collection's liner notes: "Playing for the Man at the Door is a reminder that we still have a lot to learn about the blues."
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