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Coda – Musicians, Myths, and Legends

“Once a great blues singer”

In the movie running through my head when I first started singing “Blue Wing,” I had always imagined that Willie as an old-timer. I imagined a contemporary of Lead Belly or Mississippi John Hurt, and old when Blue Wing meets him. The movie changed when I ready Little Willie John’s story.

I bought the book Fever: Little Willie John’s Fast Life, Mysterious Death and the Birth of Soul by Susan Whitall with Kevin John. That Little Willie John’s career had eluded me felt like an embarrassing gap. In reading the book and through other sources, I began to understand why it had. John’s influence outstrips his prominence. He helped create soul music, influencing Sam Cooke, James Brown, Al Green, Stevie Wonder, and many others.

John recorded the first and definitive version of “Fever,” which was primarily written by songwriting legend Otis Blackwell under the pseudonym of John Davenport. I was familiar with Peggy Lee’s version and other covers, but John’s original was a revelation. It knocked me out.

John died young and in prison, and his record label went out of business. No label had a financial stake in his legacy. Although he entered the Rock ‘n Roll Hall of Fame in 1996, he remains less famous than many of his peers.

The interplay between the real story, the fiction of “Blue Wing,” and Russell’s and Blackwell’s stories gets complicated. While Blackwell told one story of co-writing “Fever” to Russell, he provided different accounts to others. Whitall says that Blackwell told some people that Eddie Cooley “brought him the rough basis of the song,” and that he finished it. Other people also claim to have written it. Whitall notes that John didn’t like it at first, and whatever songwriting credit he may deserve would be attributable to the work he did to get inside the song and make it his own. Wild success on that score.

“Willie, he was once a great blues singer” is an economical description. It’s not untrue, and it works well for the song. It misleads the listener, though, about the John’s age, era, and full artistic range. Fair enough; you’ve got to do a lot in a few short words. Russell also takes poetic license with the timing. If he knew it in the first place, he either sacrifices it for the sake of the rhyme or gives us an unreliable narrator. Little Willie John didn’t enter prison until three years after Blue Wing’s parole. Again, fair enough, if it’s poetic license. “’63” works a lot better than “’73” or “’83.” (I’ve thus far found only one cover, by Mike McCullough, that changes the year.)

The short life and sad death of Little Willie John

Little Willie John’s career began in Detroit in the 1950s, when he was in his mid-teens. He recorded “Fever” when he was just 18. While recording for Cincinnati’s King Records, he was a headliner on the Chitlin’ Circuit. He was convicted of manslaughter in 1965 for the killing of a man at a party in Seattle in autumn 1964. After unsuccessful appeals, he entered custody in 1965, and went to Walla Walla in 1966. He died there at age 30 in 1968. The official report listed heart attack as the cause of death. Some accounts say that pneumonia was a factor.

Whitall’s account of John’s trial argues that he had inadequate legal defense, and that he faced a biased, all-white jury. The prosecuting attorney conceded that John should not have been convicted, and would not have been if he had competent representation. None of the seven witnesses interviewed saw John stab the man who died. If he did stab him, John also had a plausible case for self-defense. Whitall adds that the ambitious, hyper-competitive, and diminutive soul singer came across as alien and unsympathetic to the judge and jury.

Whitall writes that conspiracy theories about John’s death appeared soon after it. Many people, including the same prosecuting attorney, believed that he died from a prison assault, either by a guard or a fellow prisoner.

Russell’s account doesn’t clarify whether he or Blackwell thought John was justly convicted. It also doesn’t suggest they thought John had himself been murdered. Russell’s portrayal of John as an iconic figure, or at least a usefully talented fictional cell mate, gets “Blue Wing” off the ground.

“Poor boys and pilgrims with families”

Before I started this post, I took the City of New Orleans on a musical pilgrimage to Memphis. The trip included stops at Graceland, Stax Records, and Sun Studios. While I was there, I was also reading Garnet Rogers’s memoir Night Drive: Travels with My Brother, about touring life with the late folk singer Stan Rogers. The Stax Museum makes scant mention of Little Willie John, doing so mostly in relation to his sister. Mable John recorded with Stax, and went on to become a Raelette, singing back-up for Ray Charles. Stax puts much more focus on the career of Otis Redding, who died in a plane crash in Lake Monona at the age of 26.

As you can see, my journey provoked several reasons to think about the unpredictable, mysterious, or seemingly unfair relationships between talent, success, fame, wealth, happiness, legend, and legacy—especially among artists who died tragically too young. The power of their music and the emotional resonance of their loss are two different things, but can inflect on one another. Ultimately, you come to wonder, perhaps irrationally, how much our love for the music plays a role in luring them to immortality.

Little Willie John’s recording of the country classic “She Thinks I Still Care,” not George Jones’s, inspired Elvis Presley to record the song. Presley also recorded “Fever.” (Presley owed a great deal to Otis Blackwell’s talents.) Both John and Presley had amazing vocal gifts. Both were influential, but it was John that influenced Presley’s career as an artist making “race music” “safe” for white audiences. The gap between their levels of fame and material success is obvious. It’s also obvious that Presley died in his own kind of cell.

Tributes

Russell’s “Blue Wing” stewards a small portion of John’s legacy, if you know the reference. The most prominent tribute to John came from one of his friends and chief rivals, James Brown. Brown’s Thinking About Little Willie John and a Few Nice Things appeared shortly after John’s death. Whitall argues that Brown pursued a more percussive style because he needed to set himself apart from John’s highly expressive singing. Despite their competition, Brown and John were friends. Brown visited John in prison. The album pays fitting tribute, with covers of some of John’s signature hits, and a far smoother style from Brown than usual.

A few other songwriters have mentioned John in their songs, alluding more to the power of his music than his life story. Robbie Robertson mentions John’s music in his 80s, noir-ish “Somewhere Down the Crazy River.” It’s more a name-drop than a tribute.

More surprisingly, perhaps, Little Willie John’s music serves as the focal point of romantic nostalgia in Peter LeMarc’s 1991 song, “Little Willie John.” It’s not surprising because of the title, obviously, but because the song is almost entirely in Swedish. It’s a lost-love ballad, for which Google Translate provides a reasonably helpful translation (a friend of mine who knows Swedish tidied it up for me). Again, this song is more about the music than the man, but is a compelling tribute to the power vocalists such as Little Willie John have to catalyze our memories. It is hands-down my favorite song in Swedish.

Thanks for reading, and thanks to Pat Blackman, and to Tom and Nadine Russell for their assistance with the art. Visit this site for more of Tom Russell’s paintings.