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- Worked on a farm all of my life

until I finished the eighth grade in school.

Knocking down beds and rows for to plant cotton.

I tell everybody I was growed up in the Blues.

There's a whole lifetime story I could tell you,

but I guess I better break it off like that.

One time, I tried to get an audition with B.B. King,

but he couldn't put up no room for me to stay nowhere.

So I just went back home and went to work.

Rattlin' round in the fields and

started working in the woods.

Out in the woods, I cut timber off of the Mississippi River.

And that was some hard work.

$5 a day.

If I worked five days, I had $30 that week.

Sometimes we had it hard, and sometimes we had it good.

All the good days wasn't but bad days.

All the bad days wasn't but good days, but anyways...

I'm still here a-pluckin'.

Pluckin', pluckin'.

Anything can give you the blues.

I heard a preacher say that, and I believe it too.

You maybe go to work on Monday.

"Ooh, it's a blue Monday, I feel so bad."

That's the blues.

Don't you think so?

Tre, don't you be like that.

My birth name was Jimmy Charles Holmes.

Or Jimmy C. Holmes.

And it sound a lot better blues-wise

to call me Jimmy "Duck" Holmes,

the Bentonia blues musician.

I've been running the Blue Front myself for 43 year.

This was the place in my younger days.

This time of year, this time of day on Saturdays,

the black guys or the ladies,

they got through with the field work this time of week,

they would come to the juke-joint,

likes to drink, dance, have fun.

And they called it juke.

At one time, the place was full of musicians.

And you didn't have to schedule nothing.

They'd be standing sometime in line

with a guitar on their back

or a harmonica in their pocket.

And they play it well.

Sometimes they made a little tip money,

and sometimes they play for a drink of liquor.

Just depend.

And then Muddy had stolen one of

Howlin' Wolf's guitar players.

I know about it.

And Howlin' Wolf told him,

"You ever steal anything else from me again, I'll kill you.

"That day, you dead!

I say, "What? "

Let me tell you something about Howlin' Wolf.

I played with him.

Howlin' Wolf was a mean man.

You know who was meaner?

Howlin' Wolf was scared of Jimmy Reed.

Oh, he was?

They got into it all the time.

- Oh, okay.

I'm glad I wasn't in all that--

I been through some stuff.

I could sit down and tell it.

- I hear you.

You see that truck sitting yonder?

That truck ain't gonna run unless it's in time.

That's right.

That's right.

You the truck driver.

It get out of time, what's it gonna do?

It's gonna miss and jerk.

Come on and talk to me.

If it get too bad it ain't gonna run.

Every piece of music that you got got to be in time,

and I kept my music in time for 40 year.

First song I learnt, you know what it was?

Y'all feel like playing a little bit?

What?

Man, are you, I ain't never...

Let's go hit a chord, if you want to hit a chord.

I wanna hear you play.

No, I wanna hear you play.

Come on, step into the thing, man.

But this have always been a juke-joint.

- It ain't been nothin' else.

Nothin' else but that.

There wasn't nothin' before that.

It was a juke-joint.

We talkin' about the Chitlin' Circuit.

This was the Chitlin' Circuit.

I'm gonna tell y'all something.

If you come to hear anything but the blues,

you got time to leave.

That's all I'm gonna play.

It's the last of a kind.

When I say last of a kind, I do mean last of a kind.

Because the young people got the same thing we have now.

They have the blues.

They got police brutality and all the gangs and what.

They're still havin' the blues.

But it's another form or fashion they're havin' it.

They still have some hard times, but in their way.

- I can learn from you.

My name is Emmett Ellis.

I changed my name to Bobby Rush.

I said, "That sounds good because

"it sound like one syllable."

Nobody call me Bobby.

Nobody call me Rush.

Everybody call me Bobby Rush.

Let me tell you something.

The road is my company.

The road is the best thing that ever happened to me.

Because I create 90% of my writing alone,

on the road, when I'm driving.

Especially when I don't have no pen or paper.

Everythings come.

But this is where I write at, this where I create.

When I'm alone, I'm driving.

I listen to some records.

Very seldom I listen to radio.

But I listen to records.

Some old records, some new records.

You know, everything I wanna listen to,

everything I think I wanna hear.

I find it in records,

and I play it and I reminisce and wish and hope.

And this where I get my ideas from, you know.

This one, the best thing could happen to me is the road.

The road is my thing.

I'm doing some taping.

I can't talk now.

I'll call you back when I get through.

Grandchildren, grandchildren.

When I first started to play in Chicago in the early '50s,

I had a job at the Squeeze Inn,

what paid me three dollars a night.

And at the Cotton Club in Argo, Illinois,

I would get six dollars a weekend.

Six dollars for Friday, Saturday, Sunday.

Six dollars.

That's two dollars a night.

And I was paying the band about eight dollars.

I'm talking about the whole band.

I was paying Freddie King a dollar 50 cent a night.

- He was your guitar player back in the day?

Oh, yeah.

First night, how we got the gig, we did an audition.

We played for the sandwiches.

The man would fix us four sandwiches.

And that's a hamburger.

We played for a hamburger.

And I would give the guys 50 cent apiece.

Then we got so good, the guy would give us eight hamburgers.

I would sell three of them and eat the others.

And I got so good, he would give 12 hamburgers a night.

We would eat four and sell the others, for 20 cent.

That's our money.

So we were workin' for, The Chitlin' Circuit wasn't no joke!

That was the Chitlin' Circuit.

Now we had moved up from chitlin' to hamburgers.

I ain't gonna pay for that.

- Yeah!

Yeah.

I was born in a little place

called Homer, Louisiana, Haynesville, Louisiana.

But my people's from Mississippi.

I left my hometown in 1947.

Went to Pine Bluff, Arkansas,

with my father who was a preacher,

pastor of a church.

1951, I moved to Chicago and I stayed there

for 47 and a half years.

I've been recording this year for 60 years.

I have 326 records.

This coming November 10, I'm 81 years old.

- From Alligator, Mississippi,

recently back from Mexico,

here is Robert "Bilbo" Walker.

We're goin' way back.

Something I recorded years ago.

We're goin' way back to it tonight.

Since I'm a one-man band,

I gotta go back to the one-man stuff.

I wouldn't mind having that thing.

I used to play right up the street there years ago.

Right around that corner there.

Tutwiler, Mississippi.

Hey, buddy.

What's goin' on, everything good?

Holla before you leave, now.

I'm-a holla before you leave.

Sweet!

- Tutwiler just a few miles

from Mound Bayou, Mississippi.

Tutwiler and Mound Bayou is a combination of two town

that were dominated and controlled

and run by black peoples...

and blues peoples.

It's got a great history

especially for the blues

and the black people who played the blues in this area.

You migrated all across,

because you come here to be free and play the blues.

Because when you played the blues for the club,

it was black people playing the blues

and black people owned the clubs.

And the black people were the mayor

of the town who run the town.

Including the gambling games and the whole bag.

You come here to, to be free!

Just like escape from something that you was tied up in

and come here to be free.

Free at last!

I'm across the border line.

I can do what I want to do.

But tomorrow, you go back across that line

and you go back to the cotton fields

where the white people own them.

You got to work and slave for them.

But Mound Bayou was a place,

Tutwiler was a place that was pretty much owned

and operated by black people,

with their own land.

Is it all right?

See, that's my band.

When it hit me, it hit me.

I don't hold mine.

See what I mean?

Come on.

I get movin', man.

I can't hold it.

I get movin', man.

I been here

all of my life.

What I got, nobody give me.

I mean nobody.

You know what I'm saying?

Here we come.

I played with Bobby Bland,

Albert King, Little Milton.

I was overseas when Little Milton passed.

I was way away from here.

I played with Jessie Mae Hemphill a lot.

I was Jessie Mae's drummer back then.

I try to do what I can.

You know what I'm saying?

Anytime y'all come down through here,

this is where we party.

Right down through the trailer park.

Everybody around through here, we know each other.

You know, all of us get along.

How about it, buddy?

What you doin', Buddy Brown?

Break it down, brother. Okay!

The dog is out!

Let me tell y'all something.

When I do my blues,

it come from my heart.

I go home every night of my life--

I don't want nobody, I mean nobody, to bother me.

When I go home and get into my bed, I drink my whiskey.

I sit down, I say, "Lord,

"will you give me one more chance

"to get up in the morning?"

- All right.

You know, that's what they want now.

They want you to go to,

bring back the sounds of way yesteryear.

Right.

When you was in the cotton field,

with one britches leg rolled up when you come out

and one britches leg down.

And I'll come to your house

and sit on your porch till 11 o'clock at night singing--

Right.

With my own guitar.

And you get yours. That's right.

Then maybe another fellow will come up from over the hill.

That's the way it went.

That's right.

And the next morning, they'd be in the field early

and they didn't think about no sleep much.

But they were singing them songs about--

That's right.

That's right.

That's right.

They would always go in the evening time

to one another's house and meet up.

That's right.

People loved one another then.

That's the truth.

You get on the porch and you may sing a church song.

Exactly.

That's right.

Boy, them women like that!

They be cooking all-night long!

That's the truth. Most of 'em.

- Amen.

Okay, there it is.

A lot of people say I had my own style, too,

'cause I created...

See, I let my thumb do my bass.

Years ago, that's how I was born to...

Not to say born, but that's how I ended up doing it.

A lot of guitarists, a player would ask me,

"How do you do that?"

When I first started out, I had a right-hand guitar,

and I had to strung it up backwards.

In fact, male musicians would help me

and show me how to string up my guitar.

So I was playing upside down for a long time.

Yeah, I was a young girl.

I guess I was about, I think about 20.

My dad said, "I don't think Barbara is ready.

"She's still green behind the ears.

"Even though she's got this hit record going. "

He said, "I think you should travel with her.d"

So my mother quit her job.

She quit her box factory job to travel with me.

That's right.

I'll never forget.

She came and met me at the Apollo in New York.

And she took the Greyhound bus there.

She finally got there on the Greyhound bus.

Ever since then, she started traveling with me.

And she went everywhere.

People like B.B., and all of them,

was calling her "Mother dear"

'cause they'd hear me call her "Mother dear. "

Yes, indeed.

Oh, that song took me everywhere.

My mom sent me to the store.

She said, "Sonny, go to the store for me."

She called me Sonny for short.

"Go to the store for Mama."

I said, "Okay."

So I go to the store and get

butter or sugar, whatever she sent me for.

After I went to the store and I was on my way back...

There was two big shots had passed

by in a great big Fleetwood Cadillac,

and they throwed something out the window into the ditch.

I said, "I wonder what that was."

I see them throw something out.

So when I walked on and got near where

at the spot where they throwed it out,

I looked down in the ditch.

It was a cigar box.

I said, "Wow, that might be just what I need.

"Maybe I can make me a guitar out of it."

So I brought the box on home.

Cut me a hole in it and glued it up.

Took me some rosin and melt it and

got some soot out the chimney

and stirred it up, and that made it black.

So I painted my little cigar box black.

I said,

"Now I done made that part, what I'm-a do for a keyboard?"

So I go out there to the picket fence

and snatch one of the pickets off

the fence and makes me a keyboard.

And after I made the keyboard,

I said, "I don't have any tuners on that."

So I went and got me some small pieces of hickory wood.

And I hewed it down with glass.

I didn't have tools to work with,

so I used broken glass to hew it down.

So around 12:00, there come my daddy.

He always come home at 12:00 to eat his lunch.

So he tied the horse to the gatepost.

I hear the sound that his tail made

going through the air when he's swishing it.

So I said, "Well, maybe,

"it made a sound like that,

"maybe it'll make a sound on my guitar."

I goes out there and pull out one strand.

The horse looked around at me.

I said, "I ain't gonna bother you.

"I just want one strand of your hair

"out your tail, Mr. Horse."

I put it on there and played a little.

Well, it popped.

It gone.

So I go back and I pull another.

And I pull another and I pull another.

I wind up pull a great big bald spot in that horse's tail.

I said, "Well, now I know I gonna get

"another whuppin' about that."

But my dad had got a couple shots of that old corn liquor.

It went straight to his head, and he went out there

and jumped up on its back like Roy Rogers

and went out through the woods wide open.

He didn't pay no attention to him,

so that's the only reason why

I didn't get no whuppin' that day.

I dreamed about this.

I used to pick cotton, plow the mules.

I would be doing what I'm doing in the fields,

and I would be looking up in the sky,

dreamin' about me being on the stage

when I was seven, eight years old.

I could see myself on the stage with Chuck Berry,

on the stage with Cab Calloway,

whoever it was I was thinking about at that moment.

I could see myself with them.

And my mother would come up, say, "Boy!"

Hit me front of the head, say,

"Pick that cotton!

"What you lookin' up in the sky for?"

But she didn't know I was looking up,

dreaming about what I wanted to be

when I got of age.

I could just see myself on the stage with Muddy Waters.

It's a little big.

You have to cut him in half.

You want to?

Yeah, I'll just grab that, you know.

Break it in half.

I got it.

Thanks for the worm. No problem.

I do a lot of writing right here.

There is always something to write about.

The alligators, the birds.

Big old turtles usually come out too.

I just sit down and...

let it roll.

Solo on the guitar?

If I had to teach you, I can't teach you that.

You gotta hear that.

Like you know.

You see what I played?

I can't play it again.

I don't feel it no more.

I'm feeling something else, you see.

You say, "Do that same thing again."

I never do it.

You can give me all the money, I can't do it no more.

Once I played it, that's it.

Something else will come up.

That's it.

- So there's love involved?

Yeah, yeah.

You gotta feel it in the heart.

You gotta feel it.

If you got a bass line goin'...

That's the stomping ground of America, man.

The blues.

That's where it's all at, brah.

You got all kinds of music, you know.

But the blues touches people's heart

because there's always a story behind the song.

Like that guy singing, he lost his family.

Walkin' around, ain't got nothing to eat.

On the earth and under the earth.

Got the blues.

That's where they at.

Some blues singers be under the earth.

They got the blues there.

They got the blues up here too.

And I'm part of the blues.

The blues made me,

and I'm making blues now.

I love it.

I gotta feel it.

I just pick it up and just,

I just pick up the guitar and I might start

with this first, my foot,

with the rhythm.

Y'all just do that with y'all foot.

Keep it like.

A little faster there.

Come on.

I feel real good, cause I'm back on my home ground now,

the state that I was born in.

Looking forward to being with my friends.

So, Lil' Buck, we're on our way.

We gonna have some fun.

Crawfish boil, here we come!

We're in Louisiana now.

All these musicians, all of my friends,

they be coming by to celebrate with us.

We're gonna boil crawfish, play music

and talk some junk.

Because with Lazy Lester around,

there gonna be a lot of junk-talkin'.

Hey, buddy, hey Henry.

Hey, what you doin'?

Hey, buddy.

How you doing, baby?

Man, it make me feel good to see you.

I feels pretty good, too, so far.

You know, B.B.

I talked to B.B. day before yesterday.

His right-hand man died yesterday.

You know that, don't you?

No, I didn't.

He'd been with him all his life.

He was from Mobile.

But he passed yesterday afternoon at 3:00.

I didn't hear nothin'. Yeah.

He'd been with him, and he was 86.

Yeah, I'm 89.

You're older than B.B., aren't you?

Yeah, three years. Three years.

Yeah.

All of them gone now and left me.

Well, I'm here.

And still buying pussy.

Boy, oh, boy.

- We got a crawfish boil going on out here!

This is what we call Louisiana crawfish.

Lazy Lester!

What's up, boy!

I'm traveling by instinct, my eyes are so bad.

Don't get any better than this.

Yeah, you right.

Dead right.

- You need a harmonica, boy?

You saw Barbara Lynn, didn't you?

Oh, yeah.

Okay, it's so good to be here,

to get together with a lot of old friends.

People I have not seen in years.

I'm gonna do this song for all the ladies.

'Cause them ladies know what I'm talking about, honey!

Oh, yeah.

- You still got it.

You still got it.

Yeah, you still got it. I'm 72!

But you sure don't look it.

I just love the way you sing and can play the guitar.

All right, Let's thank once again Lil' Buck

for all his help putting this together.

Lazy Lester, where are you?

Lester.

What?

Hello?

Yes?

Ain't nobody makin' no noise back here.

We quiet as church mouses.

If you hear any noise, I'll kiss you, okay?

Okay.

Merci.

You know what,

that's a powerful voice I have,

you could hear that fucker through this bullshit roof.

Right now, .

This morning, we'd like to share

just a few of these stories the museum tells.

Ladies and gentlemen, it is my honor

to introduce the president

of the United States of America, Barack Obama.

What is it that you got there, man?

That's what you do when you're doing your acoustic stuff?

I'm talking about that board.

That's your drums?

That's his drum.

That let me know my feet is still there.

You got good rhythm, man.

I got that from my mother, man.

Got good rhythm.

My mother had that and she gave it to me,

and I kept it.

Bad drums you got there.

I heard them drums.

You know something, besides the country,

you a bluesman.

That's the blues there, man.

All of that is blues.

You got the BBB and the WBB.

You know the difference?

I don't know what the W.

I know what the BB is but not the W.

BBB is the Black Boy Blues,

and WBB is the White Boy Blues.

It's the same old same old.

Just a little twist to it.

A little twist to it.

Yes, like...

Now look at this one.

This is a real blues.

- Now that's the blues.

Oh, you gonna open my door for me?

'Cause I have my hands full.

- It feel good in here.

You think so? What you doin' here?

Long way from third grade.

I tell you.

Come on, have a seat.

I have to watch where I sit.

Because if I sit too low, I can't get up.

I'll get you a chair. I'll sit right here.

- There's one for you right here.

I'm following you.

Sit here, pretty baby.

I'm gonna sit down.

Mama gonna sit in your lap.

Yeah.

Play it, man.

Rock me now!

My man, my man.

I was born in Kenner, Louisiana.

1925.

- And you played with Wolf for 14 years.

What was Howlin' Wolf like?

He was all right with me.

Everybody said he was mean, but he wasn't.

Howlin' Wolf was the type of person,

when you go on the bandstand,

no cigarettes, number one.

No drinking, number two.

And you're gonna be dressed alike.

Before you get on that bandstand,

he would drink with you, he'd shoot marbles with you,

he'd gamble with you, he'd do anything.

Before you get on that bandstand.

But when you get on that bandstand, it's different.

He was just strict.

We all of an age now. Oh, yeah.

But you is the daddy of all of us now.

I believe, if not the one,

you're the only man of your age that come from my area,

and all of us areas, that's living today.

If you don't wanna,

if you don't wanna die young, you're gonna be old like us.

I had one somewhere.

Do it again.

Sunshine Sonny Payne broadcasting live.

Program number 16,782 of the original

King Biscuit Time program.

Sponsored by the Shack Up Inn over in Clarksdale.

Hey, here's one we can't leave out.

Miss Carol Fran.

Carol, how about it?

Guitar Slim.

He was famous for not showing up on his gigs.

They were playing here.

We had a place called

the Immaculate Heart of Mary gym at the Catholic school.

They were gonna play that Sunday night, and...

he didn't ever show up.

There was a couple of guys that knew me.

One of the guys was Miller Sam.

He said, "She can sing."

But I wasn't sure I could make it.

He said, "Oh, yeah, you can sing."

He bought be a Coca-Cola.

I drank my Coke and sang my heart out.

We had a new club here called the Birdcage.

It was just a little lounge.

I didn't want to go home 'cause it's early at night,

so I go to the lounge and I met this guy named Emmitt Lee.

He was from New Orleans,

working for McGregor men's fashion.

He was selling clothes.

In fact, he was working with a salesman.

I met him in the club that night.

Oh, man, we had such a good time.

I never forgot it.

I got drunk.

I went home.

3:00 in the morning, I made up Emmitt Lee.

He said, "I got to go."

He said, "When you wake up tomorrow, I'll be gone."

I said, "Oh, my goodness."

I had had so much fun.

I didn't want him to go.

- Did you ever see Emmitt Lee again?

Yes.

I was working with Joe Tex.

And we played the 20 Grand in Detroit.

A lady came to me

and said, "Ma'am, your husband is out there. "

One of the girls that worked there said,

"Your husband is out there."

Husband?

I don't have a husband.

I'm not married.

He opened the door and said, "Yeah, you do.

"Carol Lee, come on here to Emmitt Lee."

I saw him then, and I never saw him again.

He died two weeks later.

Keep on singin', boy.

Oh, that's that old-timey beat.

I studied that.

I'm a teacher, I teach music.

I got to stay up on it.

I know so many chords on this thing,

it's just a pity and a shame.

I can tell you how many notes on a guitar.

I can tell you what every one of them mean.

This guitar's a Bible.

From Genesis to Revelation.

That's tellin'!

I ain't never been a fan of a gun.

I say give me that guitar string.

I'm gonna kill him with that.

- I don't know if he can do all that.

They pretty hard.

The bullets pretty hard.

I got shot five times.

- You must have been in the army.

I'm lucky to be alive. Were you in the army?

No, no.

This happened at my house with my own gun.

My own wife shot me.

Boy, I would have been gone away from there.

Never would have come back no more.

- Man, I hear you.

- Mean!

Mean as a black snake.

Junkyard dog. That's right.

You sure got that right.

Man, oh, boy.

Back in those days,

when you and your old lady was havin' problems,

they had to fault somebody.

They gonna fault the devil.

The devil got blamed for a lot of stuff

he didn't have nothin' to do with.

The way it's tuned, they call it cross note.

Every little string is tuned the same.

The music professional said to get that

particular tuning, you'd have to chord it.

But them guys didn't.

They say what makes the Bentonia style so unique

is what those guys did with the G string.

They didn't bend it.

They slid.

Muddy Waters and they bent it.

Hear the difference in it?

But that slide, it takes time to learn that technique.

- So what's gonna happen when you,

when you eventually pass on,

is this style of music gonna die?

As far as I know.

There's nobody sitting around here that seem

interested in doing it.

As far as somebody sitting here watching me play it

or telling me to show 'em how to play it--

They say it's too complicated.

I don't know.

That harp right there, a good harp.

Yeah.

My name is Bud Spires.

My right name Benjamin Spires.

All over the world right now,

you ask some of these blues guys that over there,

ask do they know Benjamin Spires, they'll say no.

Why?

'Cause when I started out, I put my name out as Bud Spires.

My daddy was a harmonica blower.

He brought me a harmonica when I was five years old.

He made Santa Claus bring it to me.

A harp wouldn't cost you over a quarter.

Oh, boy.

You buy one now like I got,

you'll see how many quarters you got to pay, brah.

A harp like I got, best in the West.

Mercy!

That's the poison.

Blues is my, it's a friend to me.

When I get lonesome, I stay in and sing the blues and...

have me a drink.

You know.

I get lonesome.

I be here by myself.

I go and grab me some raggly harp and blow it.

By myself, you know.

Yeah.

A lot of the older blues guys is slowly passing away, boy.

Sure is.

All these older blues guys die out

and you can forget the blues, brah.

Sure can.

Oh, here it is.

That mean the blues .

It'll be here till the last old man sing the blues,

shut his eyes.

- Provide them a witness.

Got Jesus

People, Christian peoples don't

accept the blues in the church

because a lot of peoples feel like that,

when you're singing the blues, you're lying.

In different areas of the song, you might be lying.

That's when they call it the devil music.

You know, because the devil is the father of lying,

and they don't accept that in music.

But this morning,

we had some of this same kind of stuff going on.

It depends on what you're doing with it

and how you're doing it.

Well, it's the same music.

It's very the same music.

Yeah.

You know.

Okay, the gospel side.

That's a snapping turtle.

He's a pet, he won't bite your fingers.

Stick it in there and see.

All right, you're saved, buddy.

You're safe.

My daddy was a deacon of a church.

Upright man even before he were a preacher.

My daddy was a straight-up, straight-up, upright man.

My mother, blue-eyed, blonde hair.

You couldn't tell was she white or black.

Kind woman.

My daddy was a kindhearted man, real gentle.

But his sister and brothers, rough and tough.

Cut you, fight you, bite you, kick you.

Whatever they had to do to get you to back off of them.

Rough, rough.

Rough.

I guess maybe that's why I don't drink or smoke, because

my peoples drunk enough for me.

They fought enough for me, cussed enough for me.

Yeah.

I got some aunties that'll cuss you, make you ashamed.

They call you everything but a child of God.

I knowed this was gonna, I'm gonna play it without it.

- Oh, Lord, here's Big Nancy.

Hello, R.L.

How y'all?

Ooh-whee!

- Hey, Travis!

You got the stuff? I got mine.

Well, come on.

Let's hear something.

Come on, Travis.

Oh!

Oh!

Where at?

Hit 'em up, more, more, more!

Watch what happens! Never!

- The goddamn door!

- I'm gonna get that bitch!

Y'all all right?

Sometimes it's water.

You ain't get in no trouble.

Let me tell you something.

Let me put it to you hard.

A lot of the time

it ain't good,

it ain't bad.

It's what you got.

The train was a separation.

It was like the Dixie line.

North and south.

The train track was a separation.

Community. Community was the black side

or the white side.

Exactly.

At one time, you couldn't be caught on the north

side of the tracks.

North side of the track was considered

where white people lived.

They had that all over.

It wasn't just here. It wasn't just here.

But the bottom line was...

That was the way of life.

You was conditioned to it.

That's what you had to expect.

W- hen I went to Chicago,

I was gonna leave the South and go to Chicago

'cause I wanted to have my freedom.

And I run into a brick wall.

The second club I went to, I went to Argo, Illinois.

Next club I went to was a suburb of Chicago.

Harvey, Illinois.

Or Robbins, Illinois. I know where that is.

We worked on a stage.

And when we start to playin', they closed the curtain.

We played all night long.

They listened to our music,

but they didn't want to see our face.

I believe that. Yeah.

I believe that.

Day in and day out.

Night in and night out.

So finally, I got so good the guy said,

"We're gonna introduce the band tonight."

They introduced the band.

I took a bow.

They opened the curtain up, I took a bow.

Closed the curtain right back up.

But the band was behind me.

The guy said, "We're gonna do this again,

"but we got to put another curtain."

They put the band behind another curtain.

So I'm standing in front of the band, can't see the band.

When they open it up,

I take a bow so they wouldn't see the band.

I take a bow.

Close it back up.

All night long we played, 'cause it was a white audience.

They want to hear our music,

but they didn't want to see our face.

Day in and day out.

Myself, Muddy Waters and all the guys.

- But they didn't know any better.

We played, .

It was a way of life.

We expected that.

We have come a long ways.

I always was a musician.

From 13, 14 years old.

I don't believe I worked under 200 dates

for 58 years.

This all right to you, baby?

Hey, Bobby.

Not bad, get it on, Bobby.

Not bad, Bobby.

You clean up well.

Bobby, turn around.

I gotta see.

I like that. I like that.

Now that's class.

You rockin' it, Bobby.

- You can come back here, Bobby.

What day they say that?

I don't feel any different now

than I felt when I was 20, really.

But I think a little bit different.

But I think a little bit different.

But you have to realize and be fair with yourself.

What you did when you were 20, you can't do when you're 80.

And I know when I was younger,

I had some bad-feeling days because I was so tired

trying to make a living,

trying to make a hustle,

trying to go from town to town

and trying to bust my brains to figure out what I should do

when I didn't know there wasn't nothin' to figure out.

'Cause what you can do is what you can do.

Ain't nothing to figure out.

'Cause all you can do is all you can do.

So as you get older, you find out that...

You find out what it's not, not what it is.

And most of the time, what it's not overrides what it is.

That's probably a little fuzzy to you,

to understand that one, but

what it is is what it is.

Seven, eight...

- Hey, Bobby, .

- 10.

That's a thousand.

That's a thousand.

Thought it was short.

- How short are we?

- About $2,000.

You don't want to take partial payment?

No, I need 2,800 to pay the band off.

- What are we gonna do?

I don't know how much I can get out of an ATM.

I don't know what kind of limits they've got,

but we can go try.

I'd like to ask the question this morning, who are we?

- Amen!

Who are we?

As a people, we should always know the answer to that.

- Amen!

We are Americans of African descent.

We are the black hands that carved stones.

We are a nation of slaves who survived two centuries.

Are y'all praying with me?

We are the people that have been called niggers,

coon, jigaboo.

We all have called ourselves colored.

Y'all ain't praying with me.

Negroes!

Afro-Americans.

And black.

We are offsprings of proud people

that have withstood the stings and the whips

and the spits that this world has given us.

We are still producing great music.

However, we are in danger of losing our capacity

to build upon the greatness of the past.

I remember well

when I was seven years old

my daddy taking me out of school

out of all of my sisters and brothers

so I could go into a gin

and get information about what they were gonna sell

and what they were gonna take from black peoples.

As I walked in the gin,

there was these white guys sitting around.

They were saying what the cotton was gonna sell for,

what they were gonna sell the peanuts for,

what they were gonna sell the potatoes for,

how much they were gonna sell them for.

And I was a little boy.

They didn't pay me any attention.

But I could listen.

And when I couldn't hear as well

I had sand in one pocket and a rag in another pocket.

I would throw a little sand on the table,

and sometimes on their shoes.

So I could wipe the men's shoes off

and listen to the conversation.

And I would hear what they were saying.

I would hear what they were saying

and bring it back to my daddy.

Bring it to my daddy

and tell him what they said and what they were gonna sell.

I was sitting yesterday, and I understood how he felt.

I'm a blessed man.

Not that he wasn't blessed.

But I'm blessed to be in the position I can make a living

without being obligated to a manager or a record company.

Don't nobody own me.

I'm in jail, but I'm free.

I'm a free man.

I'm free.

- Y'all don't go anywhere.

Bobby Rush is coming up.

- They said get ready.

I'm ready, tell them straight up.

Tell them hey, tell the guy

PA ain't shit.

You gotta keep it down to the ground.

Ready to roll.

Ready to roll.

- Must say.

Ladies and gentlemen, once again,

the 2015 inductee of the Rhythm and Blues Hall of Fame

my friend, Mr. Bobby Rush!

What's going on, baby?

Y'all working pretty good, baby?

- Oh, yeah.

We all gettin' old, honey.

I'm 72 now.

I'm 80.

I'm hurtin' with my back.

Thank you.

I'm gonna play a number here for

"Mean" Carol Fran's my niece over there.

She always...

We used to work together, but something happened.

But I always would play a number for Carol.

Let's hear it, Henry.

My Uncle Henry.

This is a family affair.

Ooh, lordy, and say when I'm all done.

Rock me, yeah.

I wanna thank the fellas who helped me get there.

Lil' Buck.

And, Lord have mercy, Lazy Lester.

Would you believe we worked together as a duo at one time?

I know.

Damn you, sit down.

You jive turkey.

I might harm you.

Come over here.

Did not think I would be around long enough to do this.

- How are you feeling these days?

I'm 76 years old.

I'm 81.

Oh, shit.

You look good for your age, man.

Take care, man, and I'll see ya.

But you ain't gonna get it.

You'll get over it.

I ain't gonna get over that until I get you.

Crazy fool.

I ain't gonna get over till I get you.

You done got too old to get me now.

She say I got too old.

Don't nothin' get old but clothes.

You're just an old bag of laundry.

She say I'm an old bag of laundry.

Well, I can be washed out.

That's what you are.

You're washed out. I'm not washed out.

I'm starched,

Viagra'd up and ready!

Girl, I love you.

You're nothing but some poison.

- Smell of the rose!

Yeah, all right!

Yeah.

Yeah.

All right.

- I guess musicians

don't really retire, right?

- No, they never stop, man.

'Till you're dead, that's when you retire.

When you close your eyes, it's over with.

Other than that?

If they gotta go with one leg, no legs,

they're gonna jam, they're gonna play.

You wake up with that on your mind,

you go to sleep with that on your mind.

Music.

- What's it mean to you?

It mean my life to me.

It means everything to me.

That's right, I can't do without it.

Blues.

At one time, in the black community,

it was like a plum tree on the side of the road.

Everywhere you went, you heard blues music.

Now my thing is,

I think where we're missing the bucket on it.

Somebody need to learn it enough

so like you say, it won't get lost in the shuffle.

Know how to play it and know what it means.

Not just here in the black community.

What it means to America, period.

The blues.

That's you right there.

Which one you wanna find?

C., .

C.

What you doin'?

Yeah.

Why was that? Let me change them up.

- Come on, talk to me about it.

- Come on, Bobby.

Ah, Jimmy.

Oh, man.

That's the blues.