Barry Lee Pearson’s interview with Sam Carr
By Dr. Barry Lee Pearson
Samuel Lee McCollum (1926-2009) was born in Marvell, Arkansas, the son of legendary blues artist Robert Nighthawk. At one years old he was adopted by the Carr family and grew up on a farm near Dundee, Mississippi. He left home about age 16, moving in with relatives in Memphis before reuniting with his father in Helena, Arkansas, around 1944.
Carr’s story spans the geography of the Delta blues tradition from Delta cotton fields to Memphis and Helena, then on to Chicago and Saint Louis, then back to the Delta. A guitar player and drummer, he has worked with countless blues artists including Frank Frost, Jack Johnson, and Lonnie Shields. A great storyteller, he spoke of his life and times describing the violence of Delta culture. This article comes from two interviews in Clarksdale, Mississippi, August 5, 1995, and August 2, 1997.
“I come up on the farm, grew up, raised up on the farm right there in Dundee, Mississippi, between Dundee and a place called Jasper. They had mules – well, you might see a tractor. Really, that was in 1932. I was small, but I can remember they had an old tractor, nine wheels all the way around. Then they made a lot of iron wheel tractors. In 1934, 1935, they made John Deere iron wheels. My first driving tractor was in 1936, but before that I plowed mule. You could plow a mule and you wouldn’t even have to use the line. He’d mind you just that good. But you had to, you know, you had to get your fear in and then you talk gentle to him. Well, it’s just like a kid. He has to know when you had to have a tone in your voice, when you meant it, and when you had a gentle tone. Like I have some puppies they know when I mean business and when I don’t.
“Come on little old fellow”
“Come on” (Louder)
“Come on to me!” (Louder command)
See, he starts coming.
“You better go back”
He’ll turn around and go back, but you got to train him. That’s what it is with a mule.
I first heard blues as a child, that was way back around 1933 or 1934. I seen an old guy walking the streets, walking the fields, playing the guitar. I can’t think of his name, but he used to play the guitar on the street and I thought it was the greatest thing I ever heard. He played an old acoustic guitar.
Well, next I ran into my daddy Robert Nighthawk. I ran into him playing music in Helena, Arkansas, and I thought that was the best music in the world. I still think he was the best. Up from that I started following him around. Oh, I don’t know, I think I was around 16 years old and I worked for him a couple of years. I was working the door.
He played and I started teaching myself to play drums. But he said I’d never learn. So that’s why I was determined to learn because he said I’d never learn to play nothing.
I said, “What about singing?” He said, “You won’t never, you can’t even cool soup, let alone sing.” So that’s the way I got started.
So, they had another guy playing an upright bass, so I started to learn that at the house. And they had another there – well, we named ourselves Ike and Mike, and we whitened our lips and whitened our eyes and we put on a show. We played them big old country places. We’d have a cap pistol on me, dare me to pick up the money, and we’d just have a time.
So we practiced that stuff and got it down, you know. And the folks, some of the people thought we was really serious. And they’d look at them pistols real good to see what it was. And me and him would get to arguing. We’d shoot the dice and get to arguing about that money and man it was something.
But anyway, it went from that to this upright bass. I started calling myself playing the upright bass. I’d spin that thing around in the air, man, spin it around, tip it until it was on the floor, spin it around, and I put on a show with it. I wasn’t playing, I didn’t know how to play, but everybody thought I was the great bass player in the world. But I really couldn’t play it, but everybody thought I could. I really didn’t start playing an instrument until I started my own band, because Daddy – he wouldn’t let me fool with his instrument. He thought I’d never learn to play nothing, and I don’t know if I ever did learn. I’m just doing what I think is right. I wish I could play like somebody else, but I can’t. So I play my own style. Everybody say stick to your own style and if that don’t get you there, you ain’t gonna get there no way.
I got married to my wife Doris and me and her left and went to Chicago, then came back to Saint Louis. I stayed there as I worked around. And in 1954 I started my own band. Me and a boy named Treetop Slim, we were around there either 1956 or 1957. I started to run around with him in Saint Louis, and I started drinking wine until I got to be the same winehead he was. But he was a good harp blower. So we’d blow harp and buy wine. It wasn’t but thirty-give cents no how.
And so my daddy, Robert Nighthawk, came through Saint Louis, going to Chicago with my uncle, his brother. So my father gave me an old piece of guitar, a Gibson hollow body. I could play a little Jimmy Reed and Muddy Waters just basic bass lines. That’s all I needed. But this old boy Treetop Slim, he was a great harp player. His name was Willis Ealy but we called him Treetop Slim. So I was playing. Jimmy Reed bass. That’s all I could play. Aw, man. I couldn’t play no lead. But he’d say “Don’t worry about it. Come on and play with me. You can play with me.” I didn’t want to go out there amongst all them folks, but he kept asking me. So we played and it sounded pretty good, you know, to me, so we went on and, man, we would make some money. He was older than I was. I was in my twenties; he was about thirty-five at the time. So he had been around in music and so forth. He knew more about it than I did. We went on down on Biddle Street and down on Market Street, and a man gave us two dollars apiece to play at a marketplace where they sell everything. So when we got through playing there a man wanted us to come the next day at 12 o’clock to play at his store. So we went over to the store and we had a packed house. And another man had a place over on Delmar, a little club. He gave us $25 to play at his club. Well, that was pretty good money there. That’s just about a day’s pay for each. I think like they making like five – some people wasn’t making but four dollars a day. But most people making five or six dollars a day. So we went on and played for him.
So an old boy say – say, “I know a guy got homemade drums and he can play them.” We went down there and we talked to him.
“Yeah, I play.” So we went on and played that gig. While we’re playing, a lady in Robertsville, Missouri, which is about 50 miles out of Saint Louis, a guy calls me to the phone say: “A lady wants you to play for her, man come on and talk to her.” She wanted us to play at her club. I say: “No, lady. I’m the only guitar player and I can’t play. I play nothing but bass.” She say, “What you playing that I hear over the phone?” I said, “Lady, I can’t play nothing” – but she say, “I hear you. I stood right here and listened at you whilst you was playing that last song. I like what I hear. How much you charge to play the next half hour?” I say, “Lady, I don’t know nothing about charging.” She say, “ How about $50?” I said, “Where you at, and how do I get there?”
So when I went out there, me and Treetop Slim and the drummer, we played and all the people just fell out over us. You know how people do. I liked that. I was somebody.
So another boy, he’s standing there looking at us with his hands on his hips, a young fellow. He says, “Hey, man, you care if I play a number or two?”
“Yeah, man, but don’t you break a string.”
He got on that guitar and played lead and bass and everything. That’s what we needed. I said, “We need him, you all.” Guy playing drums say, “No, man, we don’t need him. We doing all right with you.”
So when we got back drummer said: “You gonna hire him? I ain’t gonna play no more.”
I said,” It don’t make a difference.”
So that kind of set us back a little bit because I had to buy some drums.
I say, “I’ll learn to play the drums.”
And the other boy, guitar player, he already told me he would play and he would come to my place up in town to practice. Well, he had a good job. He was driving a brand new (International Tandem ?) when they first came out with the V8 motor. He was making good money. So he came out and rehearsed.
Then later Treetop Slim left. Well, another old boy come down here named Amos Hill (?). I let him stay with me a while. He was a BB King player. That’s all he studied. Well, my band shot on up. But Treetop went away somewhere. I heard that man’s still living, but when I was twenty-something he was thirty-five. He had a wife and a bunch of children that quit him. He has to be close to ninety.
Anyway, I actually made a move, had a girl playing drums. I hired Frank Frost to play, to sing mostly. I was just carrying them. I used to call myself the manager. So it rocked on and rocked on. I hired one person or another.
I left Saint Louis and came to Mississippi in 1960. When I left Saint Louis, I had a five-piece band. When I hired Frank I had a five-piece band. But when I hired Big Jack, I had a two-piece band, which was me and Frank. They kept wanting a big band, but I thought with just the three of us we don’t need nobody else. Frank was a harp blower and a guitar picker from way back yonder and I was the drummer. Frank was playing lead and bass at the same time but I said, Frank, this is too hard on you. See, I don’t sing, so I said let’s go find us a good bass player. Well, I never wanted a bass guitar player; I wanted a man that could play bass on a regular six-string guitar. That’s where the blues is. But most people have gone to the bass, but you can’t get out of that bass guitar what you can get out of the six-string because he can play a second in there with the lead man and run the bass too. I’m still working on that now. I’m gonna have two electric guitars. One man gonna play bass on a guitar. See, I learned to play bass on a six-string guitar. They are bringing the old music back, but they’re bringing it back different. They’re not playing the same instruments. They don’t get the old sound.
So when we hired Jack, the three of us, we don’t need nobody else because they’re not gonna play the blues like we decide to play it. They going to play it in a different way than we want. The more people you get in the band the more different ideas is in the band. This guy got an idea. I get an idea and somebody gonna have a sore eye about it and then the band splits up. That’s the way it is. It’s hard to keep a band together, especially when it comes to money. Everybody thinks they are the star of the show.
We used to drive around and we had all kinds of problems on the road. We used to drive an old 1954 Buick. Me and Frank and Jack we laugh about it all the time. We were out and another youngster he come by in a 1957 Ford. And they going about their business at around about a hundred. I say, “Who do they think they is?” They can’t outrun me.” I’m in a Buick. I run that old Buick up there. The last thing I remember I said: “Frank, what am I doing now?” He said: “You’re doing a hundred and sixteen.” Then that old Buick flew apart. (Laughs) I used to do the driving. But you know they never wanted me to take out gas money and all that. I said I want one for you Jack, one for you Frank, one for me, and one for the car and equipment, because I had to buy it all. And that was long before we got a big name. So I had to buy it all, everything: harmonicas, the instruments, strings, put them on, set it up, take it down, furnish the old station wagon we get around in, which you couldn’t see for the smoke.
We went to Nashville to record, me and Frank and Jack. So the man put a contract on Frank and Jack but not for me, and I wanted a contract. But no contract for me and I thought I ought to have something to show.
Man said, “I don’t need no contract on you. I can get anybody to play drums behind Frank and Jack.”
And I felt pretty downhearted about it, I done drove my old 1959 Mercury station wagon over there and furnished all the instruments and got them up there. And I felt like if that’s the way he felt about me, well, so I waited on him and about four months later he wrote me a letter said get Jack and Frank ready, I got them on a tour.
I wrote him a letter back, said that I didn’t have no car. If you want Big Jack and Frank, you better come down here and just get them yourself and get them ready yourself. I ain’t doin’ nothing for you. That’s the way it was. I knew they was gonna finally come back. They always do because that’s the way it winds up. I’d be the one that keeps the band straight, keep everybody going on the tours.
A whole lot of music I played I should have got paid for, but I didn’t. And if there was money in it probably I didn’t get it because of lack of education and lack of understanding, and knowing how it’s all about. And that’s how the next person with a head on him, the smart ones, like the big fish and the little fish. For years I did video things for free. That still happens. They say it’s just for themselves, but once they get it home they can do what they want with it. You don’t know the difference. The trick is with the instruments they got now, I can play drums all I want. And they can put somebody else in front on my drumming and I can’t do anything about it. Because on two of the last sessions I played I know I was playing drums, me and Frank. And the man put another man’s name on there. He didn’t mention my name at all. I know next time to look at that contract.
I never did like to see people training horses and things to get them to do different things. It’s so brutal on them, you know what I mean – get all down on their knees and they grab them and stuff. I just thought that was really, really bad. I used to know a white man that did that. And I hated him for that. I know I hated him for that, because he made that horse get down and that horse was almost talking to him. Now he’s training him, but he was a mess, man. Look like he was doing it because he have the power over it.
To tell the truth, he was a car salesman and I bought a car from him. He told me what he wanted for the car, so much. So much I wanted the car, “Yes, sir. Yes, sir. Yes, sir.” Anything he said: “Yes, sir.”
The car was $300 so I hustled around the clubs and paid the car off in about six months, and I went to him, said, “Mr. Holum, I’ve come here to pay my car off.” I was about 40 – I didn’t bother nobody and didn’t allow nobody to bother me, and if you bothered me you would know it.
He said: “Naw, you still owe me $150.”
“You did say you wanted $300 for it?”
“Yeah, I told you the interest and all and you said, ‘Yes, sir. Yes, sir.’”
I told him: “Well, what interest?” I didn’t know nothing about it.
He told me. I say: “No, man. You told me $300. That’s what I’m gonna pay you. You must have made a mistake and thought I was that horse. So we arguing back and forth.
“You. I’m gonna . . .”
“Gimee the car.”
“Shut up.”
So there was this old colored fellow with him. That old man almost had a heart attack. Back in them days I carried a long knife for my protection. So as I’m already mad with him about that horse, never did forgive him for that. I say, “I’ll tell you what. If you put your hands on that car, you’ll never whip a horse again.”
Oh, man, he was hot.
He told the other white man: “Go in and bring me my pistol, I’m gonna blow this black son of a bitch’s head off his body.”
So when he said that, before I seen him looking at – he’s a big, big guy. When he said that and when he looked over at him, told him to go in the office. I had him.
I said,” Now, you can go get that pistol if you want to. I’m gonna cut his damn head off. Low down so and so.” See, he wasn’t beating them horses. I say, “What you do with them damn horses.”
And that old man, that other old man, he’s about fifty years, that poor man, man he got limber trying to get to that car – he’s scared to death. And I’m gonna tell you where it was. It was a bad place: Crenshaw, Mississippi. I said, “You all may kill me, but I tell you what I’m gonna do. I’m gonna cut your head off. He’s gonna have to kill me through you. You still want him to go in there?”
So this other white man say, “Oh, hell no. Hell, you gonna get yourself killed over a dammed old car?”
I said, “I don’t want to kill anybody, but I will. And I come out there peacefully and I’m going back peacefully.” This old guy say, “You a Goddamned fool. You won’t get out of this town.”
And I turned him loose. I turned him loose because I was a young man and, hey, ain’t no way he could outrun me and I wasn’t scared of nobody. I was a fool I wasn’t scared. But I outgrowed all of that. I don’t bother nobody. I should have just talked to the man and gone back home because I could have got killed. I could have got shot to pieces. But I didn’t believe that. I got in that old piece of car and jumped the railroad tracks near the river, and came on back to town. But those people got cars that could run over that thing I was driving.
See, in my younger days didn’t nobody like me. Colored or white, they didn’t like me. I just wouldn’t let nobody mess with me either Frank and Jack too. A lot of people don’t believe I’m the same Sam Carr I was in them days, because I was sure enough stupid. I wouldn’t care if he was big as that door. I’d tell him I’d let the air out of his belly and that’s what I would do.
There was this guy down here in Duncan, Mississippi. He was a great big old guy. I was drinking. When I discovered they had bad dice on me was when I lost my last money. Well, then I wasn’t paying attention and they’d been taking it so long until they just figured they’d take it just any kind of way. Anything I throwed was craps or they let me. Say I caught a point and missed it. I opened my eyes. I throwed seven and he called “craps.”
I said, “Hey, man, put my money down.” See, I knew I’d throwed seven then. “Oh, man, I thought you just throwed craps.”
He went around there, pulled his little old pistol out. “I’ll blow you so and so to hell.” Okay, he let me get around there, ease around there, and got my knife open and put it back in my pocket. He went out of the crap room into a hall. And I got sure enough mad with him about my money. It was only $20, but now he think because he’s big he can run over me.
So another big heavy set bright guy, he liked me and Jack and Frank and he say he was talking to him. I said something to him and he come out with his pistol.
I said, “I’ll tell you what, so and so. I’ll cut your arm, cut your hand off your wrist before you pull the trigger.”
I said: “You don’t believe it. Try me. I’ll cut it plumb off the wrist.” The other guy was saying, “Don’t – man you a fool.”
Well, I wasn’t standing too far from him. And that man was so scared. I ain’t never -that to happen, it never would happen no more. He was so scared he was standing there trembling. And I heard people talking about people would draw but wouldn’t shoot nobody. And I figured right then he must be one of those fellows that didn’t have nerve enough to shoot nobody. Because he could have killed me. Or he could have shot me, I know. But I had nerve man. I had nerves. And this guy there real – he said: “You a damn fool. The damnedest fool I ever seen in my life. You gonna put a knife against a gun? Man.”
You know how they say that somebody’s crazy – he just went on so and so and so. “You’re crazy. You’re too good a musician to go out there and clown like this.”
And he was right – I could have got killed, but as the years went by I outgrew all of that. And I’m so glad the Lord had his hand over me to get me out of that.
Oh, I had some close calls with airplanes. We was leaving Memphis one morning and had to turn around and come back – had caught some kind of tailwind and the only thing that I knew they was on the same pattern going up and coming in. Just like an automobile he put on the brakes. He just set it down and went down. That airplane went on top of us and shook that airplane like shaking a tree. That was close. We like to left there then. I got to say I really don’t care if I don’t go overseas no more. That’s a long ride to be in there. We rode 19 hours one time. I don’t want that ride no more. I’m eating pretty good down here on the ground. I intend to stay here, but I will go there if they really call me.
Back years ago all they had was an upright four-string bass. Before that it was a jug and a string, wash tub, one string, all that stuff – a broom handle for bass and a lot of them they just don’t really know about music. You ain’t got to be the best musician in the world to play. All you need to do is play some. Not just hit the guitar. Stay in tune. Keep a pattern straight. That’s all you got to do. And that’s what I do.
A lot of drummers come up, it looks like to me all them beat me playing but everybody say you’re doing pretty good on drums and I like that. Here I am still trying to play. You a good blues drummer, yeah, that’s what I like, all I really like.”
Dr. Barry Lee Pearson, Professor in the English Department at the University of Maryland stands as the most steadfast supporter of the local acoustic blues scene in the greater Washington, D.C., area and beyond. As a musician, author, college lecturer, folklorist, and personal friend to the musicians, he has been the voice of this regional blues scene.