Tag: Folk Music

Author: John Westmoreland

Aunt Molly Jackson & T-Bone Slim:
At the Crossroads of Art & Research

Part 3: Recording “Crossbones Scully” Then & Now

Featuring a new in studio video release!

My role as a musician, independent researcher, and relative of T-Bone Slim places me at a unique crossroads of art, research, and family history. With that perspective in mind, in this three part blog series, “Aunt Molly Jackson & T-Bone Slim, at the Crossroads of Art & Research,” I share my thoughts on the origins of a mysterious folk song, the fascinating woman who wrote it, the relationship between folklorist and informant, and how this research relates to T-Bone Slim.

In Part 1, I introduced the song and its composer, Aunt Molly Jackson. In Part 2, I discussed Aunt Molly’s biographical history, her connection to the Communist Party USA, and tensions between the IWW and Communists. This final part of the blog series will be an examination of the historical recordings of “Crossbones Scully,” release of my new in-studio recording/video of the song, and a discussion of the relationship between the Kentucky folk singer and the folklorists who studied her.

1939 Recordings    

While the precise date of composition is unknown, famed folklorist and song collector, Alan Lomax, recorded two renditions of Aunt Molly singing “Crossbones Scully” in New York City during the spring of 1939. These a capella recordings are available online through the American Folklife Center (AFC) at the Library of Congress, catalogued as AFS 2539B and AFS 2556A respectively. The acetate disc jacket sleeve notes for AFS 2556A state that Molly’s half brother, Jim Garland, suggested the name and that “Molly says it was inspired by T-Bone Slim’s stories.” From this documentary evidence we know that Aunt Molly was claiming the song was about T-Bone Slim as early as 1939, and apparently her brother chose the title. Two other versions of the song were recorded by Mary Elizabeth Barnicle in the fall of 1939, her recordings are catalogued as Disc 155, side B, and Disc 157, Side A at the Archives of Appalachia. Notably, Barnicle’s jacket sleeve documents the song’s title as “T-Bone Scully.”

If as Archie Green theorized, that Aunt Molly may have co-opted the identity of an IWW hero, why did she let her brother title the song “Crossbones Scully?” Or “T-Bone Scully?” Wouldn’t it have been more clear and effective to simply call it “T-Bone Slim” if the goal was to “misappropriate” the identity of the Wobbly poet laureate? And by that same token, if the song is indeed about T-Bone Slim, why choose a name that creates confusion and vagueness as to the identity of the song’s protagonist? In either of these cases, the choice of song title seems mysterious, perhaps even deliberately so.

Pseudonyms & Monikers

During his lifetime, Matti V. Huhta made use of a number of pseudonyms in addition to the moniker T-Bone Slim, but no evidence has surfaced that “Crossbones Scully” was ever one of them, and my own efforts thus far have not discovered a single reference to anyone using the appellations “Crossbones Scully,” or “T-Bone Scully.” Furthermore, T-Bone Slim research to date has not uncovered any court records or stories—other than Aunt Molly’s own account—of Matti V. Huhta serving a jail sentence for beating up and robbing a “rich old geezer.” The gaps in the current biographical narrative of T-Bone Slim’s life are substantial though, so it’s likely there are significant events which remain unknown. New findings indicate that he did spend time behind bars on at least two occasions, and an undated letter written to his sister Sofie—my great grandmother—sometime during the last decade of his life states, “My case is coming up next Friday; so pull for me hard. Of course I win—now or later.” The letter indicates a great deal of concern and a sense of injustice that will be made right in the future if not in the present. He signs the letter, “Joe Hilger,” a pseudonym which invokes the memory of Joe Hill, the most legendary IWW martyr who was killed by firing squad on November 19th, 1915 in Utah.

The Folklorists & The Folk Singer

“Aunt Molly’s Truth was often greater than the facts.”—John Greenway (Wilgus 1967)

During her lifetime, Aunt Molly Jackson was interviewed and studied by many folklorists including Alan Lomax, Archie Green, Mary Elizabeth Barnicle Cadle, and John Greenway. Many if not all of these scholars and song collectors came to view her as an “unreliable informant,” who at times fabricated events and claimed authorship of songs composed by others. Still, their respect for her as a genuine representative of folk tradition and as a tireless fighter for the working class and poor was not diminished.

“She was folklore itself, at its best, and its best is that it won’t stop growing, and it can’t be beaten. We won’t see her like again ever, now….”—Alan Lomax (Wilgus 1967).

According to Aunt Molly Jackson biographer, Shelly Romalis, the folk singer also distrusted and resented many of these same folklorists, accusing them of “momicking” her songs and writing “nothing but lies.” Both Molly and her half-sister, Sarah Ogan Gunning, claimed Alan Lomax never had permission to put the recordings he made of their songs into the archives at the Library of Congress, and that not a penny was paid to them (Romalis 1999, 165). Only one commercial recording of Aunt Molly’s music was produced and released during her lifetime. Kentucky Miners Wife (Columbia 15731) was recorded on December 10th, 1931, days after Aunt Molly first arrived in New York City. She maintained that she never received any payment or royalties for that recording either. (Romalis 1999, 114)

“Molly’s truths fell by collectors’ and folklorists’ waysides, unvalidated, discredited. How do I, as a writer of their stories, know who to believe? Does the truth of one mean the lies of another? We know that everyone remembers selectively, fictionalizes, informants, and writers alike; as scholarly gatekeepers, we and our editors (not our informants) have the final say in published words.” (Romalis 1999, 197)

The song “Crossbones Scully” was documented by at least four of the folklorists who collected Aunt Molly’s songs—Alan Lomax, Mary Elizabeth Barnicle, John Greenway, and Archie Green. Unfortunately, none of them took enough of an interest in the ballad to question her about its subject matter and origins in any detail.

“To put it bluntly, the ballad may not have appealed to any listeners… Molly’s account troubled me in 1957, but did not lead me to undertake a detailed case study. Her ballads, awkward lines, weak plot, and dated posture blocked the opening that might have spurred my study… ‘Crossbones Scully’ does not rank with aunt Molly‘s best ballads. We find no evidence that it entered tradition, or that she prized it after leaving New York.”—Archie Green (Archie Green Collection, SFC)

So why did Aunt Molly perform “Crossbones Scully” for both John Greenway in 1951, and Archie Green in 1957 if she didn’t value the song, almost two decades after recording it twice for Alan Lomax and twice for Mary Elizabeth Barnicle in 1939? Green speculated that Greenway likely heard the Lomax recordings thus peaking his interest in the song and leading him to ask Aunt Molly about it. However, the transcript of Archie Green’s own interview with the Kentucky folk singer perhaps indicates another possibility—that Aunt Molly may have brought up “Crossbones Scully” of her own accord simply because she felt it was an important song.

“Archie Green: Aunt Molly, of all the songs that you wrote, which song became best known to other people. People outside of Kentucky. Other students and singers. Which is your most popular song Aunt Molly?

Molly: You mean that I wrote myself? Well, always what I’d go to these musical divisions of the colleges to entertain. After they found out that I had wrote that song its in the book maybe Jim named it T Bone Skully that song. That’s a day we’d had a big seaman strike in New York and we had a big party to collecting funds for the seamen and I met this here T Bone Slim. I composed a song from that and he told me he said I laughed so about that he said aunt Molly, he says. I’m ___ that big top silk hat on my head and that suit and he says my old ragged shoes. And dog gone me he says I’m taking the old geezer’s shoes off, and I aim to throw my old ragged shoes down here come a dog gone police man he says. And they give him a year and one day for that.”—Archie Green & Aunt Molly Jackson interview (Archie Green Collection, SFC)

I find it fascinating that in the transcript, Archie Green straightforwardly asks Aunt Molly what is her most popular song, and rather than mentioning “Hungry Ragged Blues,” “I Am a Union Woman,” or “The Death of Harry Simms,”—which are arguably some of her more well-known compositions—she brings up “Crossbones Scully,” a song which Green described as unappealing and dated. To me this could be an indication that “Crossbones Scully,” while perhaps not her most popular song, was still valued by Aunt Molly, a song she wanted to have documented and heard. Could that explain why she recorded it a total of four times, instead of once or twice as is the case with the vast majority of her hundred’s of archived audio recordings? It could be possible that Aunt Molly, rather than answering Archie Green’s question about her most popular song, instead chose to speak about a lesser-known song, but one that was perhaps more important to her.

Aunt Molly Jackson died in 1960. Many years have passed and all of the folklorists who knew her and documented her life and music are also deceased. No scholars ever made a study of “Crossbones Scully” or took much interest in the song during the lifetime of its author, and it may be unlikely that any new evidence of its origins will come to light. Therefore, we are left mostly with speculation. Do we take Aunt Molly’s word that she met T-Bone Slim and wrote a song based on factual or at least partially factual events? Did she make up the narrative out of whole cloth but choose T-Bone Slim’s identity to be the fictional protagonist—before or after she composed the song? Is there a hidden story behind “Crossbones Scully” as Archie Green believed?

I’ve spent many hours going down the “Crossbones Scully” rabbit hole, and researching Aunt Molly Jackson. Ultimately, I don’t know if she ever met my great granduncle, but I found the mystery surrounding her song to be intriguing and compelling enough of a reason to make a new recording of “Crossbones Scully” for my upcoming T-Bone Slim album, Resurrection. You can check out a live in studio video of the song at the YouTube link below. It was a unique recording experience for myself and the other musicians because we actually played along to Aunt Molly Jackson’s AFS 2539B recording from 1939, accompanying her voice with our instruments. I hope Aunt Molly would approve of this posthumous collaboration, it’s meant to pay homage to her music and legacy. I’m keeping my fingers crossed that we didn’t “mommick” it up…

Video: John Westmoreland’s recording of “Crossbones Scully” with violinist Jennifer Curtis, and bassist Ron Brendle. Recorded Live at Overdub Lane Studio in Durham North Carolina.

 

Archival References:

Archie Green Collection at UNC Chapel Hill’s Southern Folklife Collection (SFC)

American Folklife Center Archives (AFC)

Aunt Molly Jackson Kentucky Lomax Recordings Collection

Mary Elizabeth Barnicle & Tillman Cadle Recordings Collection at East Tennessee State University’s Archives of Appalachia

Book References:

Greenway, John. (1953). American Folk Songs of Protest. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: University of Pennsylvania Press.

Romalis, Shelly. (1999). Pistol Packin’ Mama. Champaign, Illinois: University of Illinois Press.

Journal References:

Wilgus, D. K. (1961). “Aunt Molly Jackson Memorial Issue.” Kentucky Folklore Record 7 (4): 129–176. https://doi.org/10.2307/836303.

Author: John Westmoreland

Aunt Molly Jackson & T-Bone Slim:
At the Crossroads of Art & Research

Part 2: Who Is Aunt Molly Jackson?

My role as a musician, independent researcher, and relative of T-Bone Slim places me at a unique crossroads of art, research, and family history. With that perspective in mind, in this three-part blog series, “Aunt Molly Jackson & T-Bone Slim, at the Crossroads of Art & Research,” I share my thoughts on the origins of a mysterious folk song, the fascinating woman who wrote it, the relationship between folklorist and informant, and how this research relates to T-Bone Slim. Stay tuned for a new recording and video release at the end of Part 3.

In Part 1 of the series, I discussed a fascinating song, “Crossbones Scully,” written by Kentucky folk singer, Aunt Molly Jackson—allegedly about T-Bone Slim. In this second part I take a wider view of Aunt Molly’s life history and try to contextualize her artistry and activism in relationship to political ideology.

Born Mary Magdalene Garland—but using “Molly” as a first name—Aunt Molly Jackson grew up amid the cultural and socioeconomic environment of rural southern Appalachia at a time when grave exploitation of workers was institutionalized by the mining industry. Low wages paid in “scrip”—which could only be used to purchase inflated goods at the company store—as well as the practice of deducting extraneous expenses directly form a miners paycheck left many workers and their families in dire circumstances. Hunger, disease, and egregious safety standards in the mines contributed to high mortality rates amongst the population.

At the age of twelve, Molly began serving her community as a nurse and midwife which earned her the affectionate title “Aunt Molly”. Customarily midwives were referred to as “Granny” but being so young “Aunt” was thought to be a better fit in her case. Claims have been made by Aunt Molly and others that she delivered hundreds or even thousands of infants during her years as a midwife. She herself married twice before the age of twenty, and is believed to have had two biological children both of which died in infancy. Her second husband, Jim Stuart, was killed in a mining accident circa 1917 and soon after she married another coal miner, Bill Jackson, whose last name became part of her official identity as a folk singer for the remainder of her life.

“People just opened their mouths like the birds in the trees, and whatever melody come to them and whatever was on their minds, they just sang it out and that’s a folksong.”—Aunt Molly Jackson (Romalis 1999, 159)

Steeped in the traditions and lore of the Kentucky mountains, learning songs and stories passed down from older relatives—“knee to knee” as it’s been called in Appalachia—Aunt Molly Jackson began composing her own songs at the age of four. However, she would have likely remained an obscure figure were it not for the activism of the Dreiser Committee (also known as the NDPP) during the early days of the Harlan County War (see also the Raye 2020). Authors Theodore Dreiser, John Dos Passos and other prominent communist intellectual figures from New York City traveled to Harlan County in the fall of 1931 to document and raise national awareness about the conditions of exploitation and oppression unfolding in Kentucky. On November 7th, 1931 Aunt Molly attended a gathering at Glendon Baptist Church in Bell County and gave her own testimony to the committee, after which she proceeded to burst into song, belting out a version of her “Hungry Ragged Blues.” The performance left such an impression on Dreiser that he felt she would make an ideal symbolic representative for the miners’ cause. Aunt Molly through her appearance, manner, and actions projected a rural Appalachian cultural authenticity that was lacking in a movement comprised of urban intellectuals from the north.

“These women grabbed the gun thugs and stripped them naked while some of the local men took off through a cornfield after the strikebreakers. After four women had managed to hold down one of the gun thugs, my sister Molly took his pistol and shoved the barrel right up his rectum. Never did this particular gun thug show his face there again.”—Jim Garland (Romalis 1999, 86–87; about gun thugs see Raye 2020)

Aunt Molly, for her part, seemed happy to go along with Dreiser’s vision. She accepted an invitation from members of the Dreiser Committee to travel to New York City in an effort to help raise funds and publicity for the cause. It’s also been alleged that after Aunt Molly’s performance of “Hungry Ragged Blues,” she was arrested and only released by Judge David Crockett Jones on the condition that she leave Kentucky, so perhaps there were compounding factors which led to her exodus from the Appalachian coal country. (Collett 2006)

Communism & the IWW

In late November of 1931, Aunt Molly Jackson boarded a northbound bus headed for New York. Upon her arrival on December 1st, she was thrust into the public eye. Many newspaper articles were published about her, and on a couple of occasions she performed for crowds of workers numbering in the thousands. She also went on a performance and speaking tour, collecting money to send back home to the striking miners in Harlan and Bell Counties. Many of these public events were organized as communist gatherings, and as such Aunt Molly was on the fringes of mainstream society despite receiving publicity in major press outlets such as the New York Times. Her own relationship to the communist party however appears to be opaque.

 “The only ism we knew in Kentucky was rheumatism; I never heard tell of such thing as a communist or a radical until I was 50 years old when I come to New York. I got all of my progressive ideas from my hard, tough struggles and nowhere else.”—Aunt Molly Jackson (Wilgus 1961)

Whether or not her assertion about learning of communists and radicals only after leaving Kentucky is literally true, Aunt Molly’s point that her ideas and values come from her own life experience and not any ideology is certainly believable. By late 1931 however, she did have connections to communist circles, and some of her songs carry overt references to Communist organizations such as, “I am a Union Woman,” with a refrain that states “Join the NMU, come join the NMU.” The NMU (National Miners Union) was a Communist union which attempted from 1931–1932 to organize rural miners in Kentucky—an effort which met with limited success (on NMU see Soodalter 2016).

Interestingly, a December, 1931 issue of the Communist newspaper, the Daily Worker, features an interview with Aunt Molly as well as a separate article disparaging the IWW’s and UMWA’s (United Mine Workers of America) organizing efforts in Kentucky.

“The UMWA and the IWW are betraying us (– –) Now, when we are once more organizing, under the National Miners Union leadership, to strike against starvation, the UMWA and the IWW are again trying to step in in order to betray us. We must be on guard against these agents of the coal operators.”—Unknown author (Daily Worker, 2 December 1931)

T-Bone Slim, in his writings for the IWW in late 1931 also commented on the events in Kentucky, such as the following statement from the IWW’s Industrial Worker, published the very same day that Aunt Molly Jackson made her pivotal performance for the Dreiser Committee.

“There is no such thing as freedom of silence. No man has the right to contain in himself the thought, the knowledge, the experience, the eloquence, the prestige that might remove injustice from our fair land ( that might arrest the so called legal murders now in the making in the state of Kentucky…”—T-Bone Slim (Industrial Worker, 7 November 1931)

Days later in an article for another IWW periodical, Industrial Solidarity, we find T-Bone Slim weighing in on the subject of aid for the striking workers in Kentucky in relationship to the activities of Socialists and Communists.

“The socialist party has aided the Kentucky miners in their hour of gloom—not blindly as some people do but with their eyes open. Not only did they give but they took the trouble to trace their gift and found it in a communist office—heluva place for a needy miner to be? The presence of the gift in possession of ‘comrades’… indicates extensive lack of consideration, if not complete contempt for the suffering miners.” T-Bone Slim (Industrial Solidarity, 17 November 1931)

The above excerpts quoted from the Daily Worker and T-Bone Slim’s Industrial Solidarity column exemplify the distrust, and animosity which sometimes characterized the dynamic between the Communist Party and the IWW. Folklorist Archie Green’s skepticism that Aunt Molly ever truly met T-Bone Slim derives largely from his awareness of that tenuous historical relationship.

“Plainly put, IWW’s and communists during sectarian years, worked together on various jobs, but did not fraternize in meetings or social events. At times, the ideological differences between them led to bloodshed. Many Wobblies were among the earliest critics of Stalinism on the American left. Communists responded both by denigrating, anarchist values and appropriating Wobbly lore.”—Archie Green (Archie Green Collection, SFC)

Putting aside Archie Green’s skepticism for the moment, it’s important to mention that both T-Bone Slim and Aunt Molly Jackson lived in New York City during the 1930’s and early 1940’s. In a geographic sense it’s certainly not out of the question that they could have crossed paths, and Green himself acknowledges that regardless of ideological tensions between the IWW and the Communist Party, it’s not impossible the two songwriters met.

Further evidence that perhaps T-Bone Slim did have some connection to communist MWIU members can be found in an anecdote from Communist MWIU organizer,  Al Lannon, who claimed that T-Bone Slim was invited to perform at a 1933 Communist event in New York City.

“Hoping to capitalize on lingering IWW sentiment among seamen, Lannon set up an open-air meeting at Thames and Broadway featuring T-Bone Slim. Lannon gave the singer a big introduction, expecting the singer to open with his well-known ‘Popular Wobbly.’ T-Bone Slim began yelling at the crowd about ‘those fuckin’ bastards down in Alabama’ who had framed the Scottsboro Boys. An embarrassed Lannon hustled the living legend, away from the microphone. They later made T-Bone Slim, an honorary member of the Port Organizing Committee, allowing him to sell The Marine Workers Voice along the waterfront.” (Lannon 1999, 45–46; about the Port Organizing Committee see Bailey 1993)

Al Lannon’s assertion is quite interesting—especially the bit about T-Bone being pulled off stage—if true it certainly lends credibility to Aunt Molly Jackson’s claim that she met T-Bone Slim in person. I’m somewhat skeptical that T-Bone Slim ever became a member of the Port Organizing Committee and sold Communist newspapers on the New York waterfront, but if further supporting evidence comes to light my opinion is of course subject to change. Archie Green speculated in some of his writings on the topic of “Crossbones Scully,” that Aunt Molly Jackson may have been attempting to “misappropriate” the identity of an IWW hero (Archie Green Collection, SFC), the same question could be asked of Al Lannon’s claim. Ultimately, the veracity of either or both Aunt Molly’s and Al Lannon’s T-Bone Slim encounters may never be known, it could be impossible to prove whether these stories are completely true, completely fabricated, or partially true and partially fabricated.

In part 3 of the series I will discuss archival recordings of “Crossbones Scully,” the relationship between Aunt Molly Jackson and the folklorists who studied her, and release a new video of the song filmed in studio during production of my forthcoming T-Bone Slim album, Resurrection.

Archival References:

Archie Green Collection at UNC Chapel Hill’s Southern Folklife Collection (SFC)

Book References:

Author Unknown. (1942). The Kentucky Miners Struggle. New York City, New York: American Civil Liberties Union.

Bailey, Bill. (1993). The Kid from Hoboken: An Autobiography. San Francisco, California: Circus Lithographic Press.

Lannon, Albert. (1999). Second String Red. Blue Ridge Summit, Pennsylvania: Lexington Books.

Romalis, Shelly. (1999). Pistol Packin’ Mama. Champaign, Illinois: Univeristy of Illinois Press.

Journal References:

Collett, Dexter. (2006). “The Musicians of the Mine Wars.” Appalachian Heritage 34 (2): 72–81. https://doi.org/10.1353/aph.2006.0019.

Wilgus, D. K. (1961). “Aunt Molly Jackson Memorial Issue.” Kentucky Folklore Record 7 (4): 129–176. https://doi.org/10.2307/836303.

Website References:

Raye, Janet. (2020). “Hellraisers Journal: Company Gunthugs Beat Up and Shoot Down Union Coal Miners in Harlan County, Kentucky”. Hellraisers Journal. May 14, 2020. https://weneverforget.org/hellraisers-journal-company-gunthugs-beat-up-and-shoot-down-union-coal-miners-in-harlan-county-kentucky/

Soodalter, Ron. (2016). “The Price of Coal Part II”. Kentucky Monthly. October 31, 2016. https://www.kentuckymonthly.com/culture/history/the-price-of-coal_1/