Henry Rollins: The Column! The Mississippi Blues
[Look for your weekly fix of the one and only Henry Rollins right here on West Coast Sound every Thursday, and come back tomorrow for the awesomely annotated playlist for his Saturday KCRW broadcast.] 
After more than three decades of touring America, this was only the third time I have been to Mississippi. The first was in 1987. We played in Jackson in front of about 30 people who stood in the back and watched us from the darkness. The next night we did a show in Hattiesburg, in the southwest corner of the state. From the journal:
06-09-87 Hattiesburg MS: 0200 hrs. Show done. No monitors. Bad PA. Whining promoter boy always on the verge of tears. Ripping his guts out, telling me how hard he worked and how he lost $40 on the show and he knows that's nothing to me but he's doing the best he can and why am I laying all these guilt trips on him by telling him the PA sucks? He's talking a mile a minute and I'm staring at his Minor Threat shirt and stifling the urge to take him over my knee and spank him. He finally throws the money down on the stage and stomps out in a teary rage. We're all looking at each other trying to figure out what this boy's problem is. Anyway, he gave us $131, much less than promised, so I don't know which one of us should be crying.
We played in Mississippi again in 2000. It was one of those large radio station-sponsored shows. I remember the heat and humidity were incredible. We played early in the day.
The band Live were playing later and at one point the singer told the audience that his father had worked in a factory and, that being the case, he deserved to be onstage. It was a strange thing to say. I have never felt the need to justify my existence onstage. My father worked hard to be an extraordinary racist, homophobe and misogynist. I am not sure what that makes me deserving of. Anyway, the audience collectively took it in and then sent a memo back to Live's lead singer in the form of a perfectly thrown, fairly full can of beer that caught the singer square in the head. I can't remember the brand.
Mississippi is the state with the highest percentage of "technically obese" adults. That makes me think of the FLOTUS and how she once brought up the topic of child obesity to the American people and the temporary governor of Alaska, Sarah Palin, then accused Ms. Obama of trying to outlaw dessert.
In 1861, Mississippi was the second state to secede; it was restored as a state in 1870, five years after the Civil War came to an end.
In the days of slavery, more than half of the state's population was of African origin. It is said that Mississippi is the birthplace of the blues. Stripped of their freedom, homeland, native language and customs, its people gave birth to a beautiful and often starkly painful music. From field hollers to gospel to the origins of jazz, this mostly awful chapter of America's history resulted in music that is America's greatest gift to the world.
Email to Friend
Write to Editor
Print Article
