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Show November 17, 1972 PACE 3 THE MOUNTAIN FLOWER Msbcm Lipscsiib:' Hinas .fflastarpioeD By HAL CANNON I looked down the The smoked overflow crowd and the spotlight adjusting itself both focused on a very black man with a bright pink tongue, a brighter highway crew-orang- e vest, a guitar and the old open road hat. Mance Lipscomb is on the road fourteen days out, five more to go, then back home to Navasota,. Texas. Since the early sixties, Mance Lipscomb has been one of the to scores of original blues-guru- s young city people who have bought any of his seven records, paid to see him at numerous folk concerts and plainly have enabled him, at age 77, to be a laden owner instead of a share cropper. Mance has been playing the guitar ever since he was ten, backing up his fiddling father at Saturday night dances. Now he claims to have a treasure house of over 200 songs. road as far as I could see Thought I could see my good old used to be. Mance brings 1915 back to mind as if it were yesterday.' Working in the fields picking cotton, we didnt have music. We had our voices and we could make music. That music over the years and the changed country blues men who were called to popularity in the twenties to sing race music for the new record market were put back on the commercial shelf until the folk boom when some young musicians caught hold of the old transcripts and decided that this old race music was the good stuff. At that, point, young tape musicians, record promotors and festival organizers went down the dirt roads of the South trying to find some of the new old musicians who still played the blues. Lead- - recorder-wieldin- g Miss Teenage America ? Try Middle America Middle America is full of teen-agewho take baton and respect lessons twirling their parents and read the Bible because they want to. That came as a shock to New Englander Joyce Maynard, 19, who served as ajudge at the 1972 Miss Teenage America Pageant at Fort Worth, Texas, and recalls her impressions in the rs November Seventeen. The young silent majority, she concludes, emerged almost untouched from a decade of assassinations, escalating war and political disenchantments. Some are naive, overly optimistic; some seem uncommitted, insulate perhaps dangerously so. Nearly all the girls handed out the line about how the media distort our generation: The few bad eggs get all the publicity while the silent majority dis- -' tribute flowers at old folks homes (I love old people; theyre so cute) and twirl baContetons, Joyce writes. stants must know something about world affairs to have' made it this far (they have to pass a tough Meanwhile , Back At The Pipeline lawsuit was filed Tuesday in Summit County Court, by the Citizens for a Clean Summit County. The action asks for an injunction against the Chevron Pipeline Companys building a furnace by Kimball Junction to heat crude oil passing through the pipeline there. The Utah Air Conservation Committee has not yet ruled on Chevrons application, according to Curtis Oberhansly, lawyer for the CCSC. By the time this reaches print, well be in the arena, however, he told The A . Mountain Flower. current-event- s and test to qualify), but culture for many, that knowledge is purely academic. They love babies, lots and lots of them. One girl refuses to or worry about family planning because, after all, people are dying all the time. They defend the Vietnam war though they hate killing and love Love with the simple we 'If dont stop the theory: Communists now, theyll be in America next. over-populati- One on belly was dead; Blind Lemon Jefferson was pretty old; but a few singers like Reverend Gary Davis and Mance Lipscomb were still playing music and they just couldnt turn down the offer to record and perform for their new audience. I've done quite a bit of field recording in the South and I know what a strange feeling it is to go up in the hills where there is such uncommon isolation, knock on some old fiddlers door and ask if you can play with and learn from him. Usually, unless the old fellow has had visits like this before, he is at such a loss as to what to do that there are some very uncomfortable moments before he reverts to good old Christian hospitality and invites you in. Once the music begins, everything changes. He sees that you truly are interested in his music and a common bond is set. Still, you are foreign to this man and the roles which seem to work are those of teacher and student. Mance Lipscomb is no exception. Someone actually believes he discovered Mance Lipscomb, I would wager. But for Mance, the pay he gets on the road is for teaching white upper class kids the life and music which he is. While he was in Salt Lake City, I was able to spend an evening playing music with him. When I. first arrived at the home of Jot Allman, a long time friend c .c admirer, I saw that the r uad a had already begun. Mance him and sitting opposite guitar was a young hip guitar player who played a modern Elvin blues proficiently. quite He played a couple of very songs and after complex looked up at Mance finishing who was slowly shaking his head, You just got to get more The rhythm in that, boy. cocky young guitarist got up and one night and he blues are all based on this kind music. You can be sure that the Rolling Stones have listened havent." that todays rock, rhythm and of pretty carefully. He plays Keep On Truckin, You can realize he has been playing it for years and that its the same truckin you thought was first verbalized by Robert Crumb and his pals. Momma. Under the surface, Mance sings a phrase like some people say the worried blues aint bad; must be some other worried blues they had. He stops the song and says those words over again to sink in, then you wont have the blues, they will have you. . . the blues are just a feeling that you have to Last year, not too long give. before Reverend Gary Davis death, he said almost the same words to me. I get the feeling that these men want to teach us to have more respect for the blues. Mance isnt asking for reverence but he is asking for respect, a respect for the old times. People listen to Mance too because he not only radiates the hard life of a black share cropper but a full and happy life. He talks with honesty about his love for Jesus and his love for his wife. In A Life Well Spent, a film made about him on his farm, it shows his .wife cooking up some chicken, setting out one 3-a- plate and seving dinner to her husband. She then gets a plate of food and sits down on the couch. The filmmaker asks her, Why dont you eat at the table with The large black woman moves slightly from her food, looks into the camera and says, Mance? There is a slight pause. Then the filmmaker asks, How long ago was that? Oh, about fifty years. I guess its just become a habit. Immediately the camera cuts to Mance out in the fields at sunset as he says, Thats the biggest problem, thats number one. Things just move too fast nowadays. . . Ive been in love with my woman for a long time. The kind of love that Mance feels isnt sterile by any means. The driving bass of his guitar and high lonesome voice like a Texas prairie wind sings, Rock me baby, rock me all night long." Then he throws his head back and laughs out, Two boys in town. One says, Its late; we gotta get home. The other says, I aint goin nowhere. I still got boogie in my bones and its gotta come out. At 77, Mance Lipscomb is a masterpiece. Three oclock in found the morning most everyone gone after a night of music around the house.There are a few people left but they are mostly asleep around the living room. There was one young guitar player still devoutly listening to Mance tell stories and sing songs. Finally the guitar player asked, Hey Mance, do you play any of those old fiddle songs that your father played? Mance looked over, his eyes starkly white; He licked his lips and said, This is a guitar, not a fiddle. Anyway, you gotta learn that everybody plays different. Nobody in the world can play like me, and thats good. . left dejectedly. Mance Lipscomb is full of sons les- he thinks his young audiences need. Im sure he has learned a lot in these last ten years playing in almost ever state in the union. He plays the JAZZ, BLUES alleged ecology enthusiast, who frequently spoke of waste and the need to recycle, forgot herself and lapsed into a proud description of her hometown fad: looping toilet-pape- r over all the tree branches, till it looks like Christmas. Bloomfield-typ- e Bishop-Mik- e Mance said he would be home didnt get back for dinner till real late. I told him then that I wouldnt ever sit at the table with him again and I music he has played all his life and when someone hears him for the first time, it is too apparent , FOLK, ROCK id bit of avonte gardo MY god! tsTHIS 50rtgoNE!s OFA I DDK PRACTICAL Open Nightly at 6 Minors wekome SOLID SALOON FEATURING Live Entertainment Old Ti me & Ski Movies Char-Broile- d Sandwiches German Bratwurst Popcorn & Peanuts Imported Beers Coors On Tap Friday and Saturday Nitea Appearing NIGHTLY Obediahs Organic TOM DRURY Bluegrass Band AND HIS Irotlier DAN ROUND RECORDS 322 Main Street Parle City Coming Soon: Home Defiveiy 873 Eotf 9lh South SaltLiAoGty Main Street Park City |