“Me and the Harmonica Raised Ourselves,” Little Sammy Davis’s Story
By Dr. Barry Lee Pearson
September 7, 1996, Washington, D.C.
I’m from Mississippi. I left there when I was 14 years old and I ain’t been back. And I’m 67 now. (Laughs.) I never been back, not even to play a gig. I quit playing 25 years. My wife died, and I got a government job, cement block, learned how to do patios, and I laid bricks and all that kind of stuff . You know I raised myself. I raised myself. Me and the harmonica raised ourselves. I left Mississippi and went to Florida. I never did hang around the younger, younger age of boys you know. I’d always be around where there was somebody playing checkers or some of whatever it was. I’d go over to where they were playing checkers. They’d get that checkerboard and I’d get to where they could hear that harp. I wouldn’t get up on them, but I’d get just where they could hear that harp and play the hell out of that thing. Say, “Hey boy. Come here.” “Come here boy. Now you’re not gonna stay under that tree because I know you’re a runaway from home.” Say, “Where’s your dad and momma at?” I said, “I ain’t harming no one. I’m out here to play and sing. I’m visiting people out here.”
“Who are your people?”
I don’t know, sometimes I’d be looking at him telling them who they is.
“I’m going to ask them too is they any relation to you.”
And some of them you know what, “Go on, boy, I’m gonna take you home with me.” But you know I always kept me a place to stay. I’d stay far enough away from them. . . “Hey, you know what I want you to do? I want you to play this song written about Sonny Boy Williamson, and I don’t want you to miss nary a key neither.” And they give me a dollar, two or three dollars. Back then money was something then. You could take a nickel and buy you enough meat to last a week, five cents. And he – they’d treat you a dollar: “Here, you take these two or three dollars. Now if you don’t play it like I want you to play, I’m gonna take my money back. I’d play it right. I wouldn’t miss a note. “You know, boy, you blew the hell out of that thing.”
That’s the way. That’s what I’d like to be doing. But I would work too you know. In the yard or something like that. But my mother and them went to Detroit and I wouldn’t go to Detroit. My brother, I ain’t got but one brother. I ain’t got no sisters at all. But my brother was in Memphis. He lived in Memphis. I didn’t tell nobody I was gonna leave. Because what was there in Mississippi? It was nothing left, man. You know you’re gonna work yourself to death. I’m going to tell you the truth, man, if you want to know something. I’m gonna tell you something about Mississippi. My aunt was cooking for some people. My aunt was cooking for the people And when she got ready to eat her dinner she had to go in the fucking outside and eat it. She couldn’t eat in the house. She could cook in there but she couldn’t eat. And that’s how it was. I said “Shit,” I ain’t got no business in a place like this. So I went different places, and so, I mean I never had no trouble out of nobody. I never wanted it. I left there and I went to Vicksburg, Mississippi. I left there and I went to Florida and messed around there. I kept me on some money. I kept me – give me something to make me some money out of. I didn’t steal nothing. (Laughs) And I don’t understand some people that steal and take something that doesn’t belong to them. I don’t believe in that. I believe in playing my harp, singing my tunes and praying every night and morning. I do that. I talk to the good Lord. You will have good luck if you do that too. Take me: I always hit the numbers. I hit one for two hundred and twenty dollars, three hundred and some other hundred and ninety, forty dollars. But you talk to the good Lord and he will help you. But if you don’t believe in God, I don’t want you around me. (Laughs) I’ll tell you the truth because something might happen to you.
And so you treat everybody right if they got any sense, they gonna treat you right. But like this guy, I went up to play some numbers in a little place (store), and like this guy he went and walked around all the rest of them people and coms up to me said: “Hey, did you see a piece of paper over there where I was faxing something over there and I can’t find it.” I said, “What you say?”
He said, “Nothing.”
I said, “No, what did you say?”
And so he repeated himself.
So I said, Look, you walked by all them people n there to come and ask me this shit?” (Laughs) You know what I mean. “Something wrong with you or something?” I asked him.
He said: “No.” But the paper was laying over there.”
I said, “I ain’t even been over there. Why you come straight to me and ask me about it. I don’t want none of your junk. I got enough of my own.”
I don’t want none of your troubles or what the message is I got enough of my own. If I take care of what I got, I’ll be behind time. (Laughs) If I take care of everything I got to do, I’ll be behind!
He ain’t got some sense to me he walked out of the place. So he made me mad, see. He goes by everybody else walk and all the people in the store and he’s gonna ask me about that shit about a piece of paper he was faxing, did I see it. I started to say: “Yeah, I tore it up.”
Somebody like that, how can somebody be that crazy.
I was about 7 years old. My daddy bought a couple of harps. About every Christmas he’d buy me a harp. And I’d either mash them or some of the kids, bigger kids, would snatch it and run. I couldn’t catch them. (Laughs) And then I learned how to use a doubler (?) – I’d go out there and pick me some cotton and buy my own. When I first started to playing I started behind Sonny Boy Williamson. As far as I got I could that’s as far as I could go. That wounded good and I was back out there and I’ll never will forget, nothing my daddy learned me was not being able to see too many notes. My daddy stand up – would see me standing up behind and I was just wailing away. “Now, boy, you can blow the hell out of that thing.” (Laughs)
And he bought me two that time. My brother used to play harp, but he quit. He joined the righteousness and joined the church. He’s a deacon. Yeah.
But I play church songs. I play country. I play a little bit of it all. Like I tell the guys, people ask me can you play songs like the Harmonicats play, “Peg o my heart.”
I listened to Sonny Boy Williamson and all that. Blind Boy Fuller, Peetie Wheatstraw, Tommy McClennan. Sonny Boy Williamson was – uh John Lee. He was the biggest thing going on the harp at that time, you know. And Sonny Terry. Muddy Waters and them came later. When I first started out the first Muddy Waters. Then Little Walter come out with Juke and the other side was “Crazy About you Baby.”
I listened to Walter Horton some, but not too much .I seen him twice. But you know what, he had a mean wife. His wife came at him with a knife. And he caught the knife and she cut him across his hand, slashing out at his hand. He clasped the knife and she sliced right through his hand. We had to put a suture on it. Yeah, her and her boys from what they tell me was the ones that killed him. Killed him ‘cause they beat him to death. I’m gonna tell you that I ain’t letting nobody beat me to death. If I can get my and on something, your ass is going down.
Earl Hooker, he was nice, you know. He had his ways but he, me and him got along good. Now him and Albert King didn’t get along.
Him and Albert King could fight. Now, I ain’t talking about with their mouths, they’d fight with sticks and everything they could get their hands on. You know what I mean. Well, you know Albert could play but Albert would never be a guitar player like Earl Hooker was. And it’s mighty few people that would be. So Albert would get mad. Earl would want to play something else. So we broke up again and went to Florida and then on back to Chicago. You ever heard of Kansas City Redd, he’s a drummer. We was all playing together. So me and Red was invited to play in Florida. Then we messed around with Trix Records and cut that song. I never got nothing out of that. I lost the contract too. So I’m now with Delmark.
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.