Willie Eason Interviews
As a teenager, Willie Eason learned to play the steel guitar by watching his older brother, Troman, who took lessons in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania from a Hawaiian musician he heard on a radio broadcast circa 1937. In 1939, Willie’s mother withdrew him from high school to join Bishop Lockley’s “Gospel Feast Party,” a group of preachers and musicians that toured the Eastern Seaboard from New York to Miami to perform for revivals, worship services and street corner music ministries. A skilled musician and a powerful singer with an engaging personality, young Willie Eason soon struck out on his own to busk for tips on street corners throughout the East and in Chicago.
A deejay in Macon, Georgia dubbed him “Little Willie and His Talking Guitar,” and the moniker stuck. Recordings for gospel record labels increased his popularity on the national level. His second wife, Jeannette, whom he met in Ocala, Florida, worked with him tirelessly as he plied his trade from south Florida farm labor camps to the bustling streets of Chicago. Together, they raised more than thirty-two children, most of whom they informally adopted to assist family members. Willie and Jeannette Eason also produced concerts featuring top gospel groups of the day in venues that included the Metropolitan Opera House in Philadelphia. Willie Eason’s engaging personality and animated manner of speaking give us priceless stories of his colorful life.
– Robert L. Stone
- RS 001-003 Willie and Jeannette Eason, 8/30/01 00:00
- RS 004-006 Willie and Jeannette Eason, 8/30/01 00:00
Interviewees: Willie and Jeannette Eason
Interviewer: Robert Stone
Date: 8/30/01
Location:
Language: English
- RS 094-099 Willie Eason pt 1, 1/16/94 00:00
- RS 094-099 Willie Eason pt 2, 1/16/94 00:00
Interviewee: Willie Eason
Interviewers: Robert Stone and Mike Stapleton
Date: 1/16/1994
Location: St. Petersburg, FL
Language: English
- RS 106-107 Willie Eason, 1/23/96 00:00
- RS 108 Willie Eason, 4/18/96 00:00
- RS 110-112 Willie Eason, 4/19/96 00:00
- RS 113-114 Willie Eason, 4/21/96 00:00
Interviewee: Willie Eason
Interviewer: Robert Stone
Date: 1/23/96, 4/18/96, 4/19/96, 4/21/96
Location:
Language: English
For the archive overview:
The Robert Stone Sacred Steel Archive
To learn more about Willie and Jeannette Eason, visit the Jeannette Eason interview page
These interviews were originally recorded for research purposes. They are presented here in their raw state, unedited except to remove some irrelevant sections and blank spaces. All rights to the interviews are reserved by the Arhoolie Foundation. Please do not use anything from this website without permission. info@arhoolie.org
Willie and Jeannette Eason Interview Transcripts:
4/18/96
Robert Stone:
… With Willie and Jeannette Eason, we’re going to be talking about the history of Sacred Steel. Willie, I got a hold of Charlie Storey, and he remembers you. First of all, he couldn’t hear too well. I talked to him on the phone. He couldn’t hear too well. And he hardly remembered Troman. He didn’t remember going to his anniversaries or anything, because he’s 75 now.
Willie Eason:
They called him. They nicknamed him the Mayor of Brooklyn.
Robert Stone:
The Mayor of Brooklyn.
Willie Eason:
In fact, if you go and talk to somebody about religious or gospel singing or any group, especially in New York, because most all of them was working to try to get, to go to New York. New York had a big name. And it had a lot of churches, and they had a lot of ministry, ministry singing and all. And Charlie Storey was well known. You ask any minister there, a gospel minister, or holiness minister, or Baptist minister, if you said, “Charlie Storey,” they’d knew him.
Robert Stone:
Was Storey affiliated with any particular church?
Willie Eason:
Yeah, but I can’t-
Jeannette Eason:
He was in the church, but I can’t remember which one he was in, but what he was, he was a promoter.
Willie Eason:
… Yeah, he was a great promoter.
Jeannette Eason:
Every year, he would have the Charlie Storey day.
Willie Eason:
Right.
Jeannette Eason:
The Mayor’s day.
Robert Stone:
He still has that.
Jeannette Eason:
Yeah. And he’d bring in all the groups like that.
Robert Stone:
He still does that.
Willie Eason:
And everybody would recognize him.
Jeannette Eason:
Ada was telling me he still have his business open too.
Robert Stone:
His furniture store?
Jeannette Eason:
Uh-huh (affirmative)
Willie Eason:
Yeah, yeah.
Robert Stone:
His furniture store.
Willie Eason:
At one time, he had about three of them, and he’d just go from one to the other.
Robert Stone:
Right. Well, now let me ask you, Willie, about Troman and his group. Now, I’m getting some of the dates straight, because Ella Mae can remember when the kids were born, Troman’s kids. And so, she said that Vivian, the youngest, who’s deceased, she was born in ’39. And that Troman left shortly after that and went to Brooklyn. And we know he died in ’49.
Jeannette Eason:
Had to be.
Robert Stone:
We haven’t determined his, she’s working on getting his date of birth. She thinks she can get that. So, that would be from ’39 to ’49, did you get over there to Brooklyn where he was staying? Did you see the group? Is that where you saw the group? Or did they come to Philly? Troman’s group?
Willie Eason:
Well, they played, especially in that area, New York and Philadelphia. From there, back into Washington, but New York, when you said, “Charlie Storey,” well, that’s the crowd right there, because they know what kind of groups he’d bring, or get. So-
Robert Stone:
So, did Troman’s group play for Charlie? Did he promote them? It sounds like?
Willie Eason:
… Well, he was going to do it. They would be on the program. They would be on the program.
Robert Stone:
The Mayor’s, for his Charlie Storey day? Is that what you’re talking about?
Willie Eason:
No, not just Charlie Storey day. In other words, Charlie Storey would help, like you’ve got your group. She’s got her group. I’ve got my group, but all of them is always calling Storey to find out where’s the program, because they know every Sunday there’s two or three programs, what not, and people pick out which one they’re going to, because it’d be on the radio, what not, lot of publicity.
Robert Stone:
Do you remember what stations?
Willie Eason:
Not off hand. Not off hand. See, one thing, if I was there, because I got to be known pretty well myself on account of the guitar. I got pretty well known. And not only that, get out, played on street corners and everywhere. So, this is how I got so much publicity, but the groups, that’s why they called him the Mayor of Brooklyn. That’s what they named him.
Jeannette Eason:
Excuse me. When you went there to play the first time in the church, and Troman heard you play, where was that at?
Willie Eason:
This was at a big Baptist church, but I can’t recall the name of it. That’s when I got next to Plummer and all of them because-
Jeannette Eason:
In Brooklyn?
Willie Eason:
… It was in Brooklyn, because-
Robert Stone:
At his anniversary.
Willie Eason:
…. Yeah, evidently. Evidently. And so, they discounted me, but when they really paid attention, Plummer got carried away with the blues, “I don’t believe this.” And because the people gave me such a rile. They stood and what not. I played. I’ll never forget the song, Just a Closer Walk with Thee. And a lot of times, well, you’ve seen me do it a couple of times. I would say, “What did you say?” And I talked to the guitar. And then I make like the guitar is answering me back. You see? And so, Plummer got carried away too, after he’s seen the audience got carried away. I remember, it was an enthusement to me. I was enthused myself, the way that people just got carried away.
Willie Eason:
And Jesus Remembers When Others Forget. I remember that was one of the songs that we sang, Jesus Remembers When Others Forget. He’s my captain, and I trust Him, yeah. Okay, that was Jesus Remembers – I don’t know why, I sung these songs so long-
Robert Stone:
When you played at that anniversary for the first time…
Willie Eason:
… At this particular anniversary?
Robert Stone:
Yeah. That was your first real public appearance?
Willie Eason:
That was the biggest one.
Robert Stone:
Right, okay.
Willie Eason:
Because that place was packed. Even all in the back out, out in the back, in the back of the church and what not, people were standing. They couldn’t get no seats. Back, I can remember that.
Robert Stone:
Now, and this was before you went with Lockley.
Willie Eason:
Oh, yeah.
Robert Stone:
Okay. But this, I’m just trying to establish, he moved there in ’39. So, he was living in Brooklyn by then, right?
Willie Eason:
Yeah.
Robert Stone:
So, it couldn’t have been no sooner than ’39.
Willie Eason:
Right, right.
Robert Stone:
So, you were 18?
Willie Eason:
Right.
Robert Stone:
See, before we were thinking you were about 16, but we’re getting these dates-
Willie Eason:
Right, right.
Robert Stone:
… A little more accurate now. That’s fine.
Jeannette Eason:
Well, now if you go back to correct yourself to get back to the date, your first tour with Bishop Lockley, you were 16. So, it couldn’t have been ’39 when he went to New York. What I’m saying is, it was ’33 when the music came into existence, and he went there for lessons, you understand? And the group formed, so…
Robert Stone:
No, we don’t know that. And matter of fact, I’m sure it’s later that ’33.
Willie Eason:
Yeah, right, right.
Robert Stone:
Barbara, or Ella Mae, remembers that Troman was taking and giving lessons. Of course, she was a little girl at the time.
Willie Eason:
Right, right.
Jeannette Eason:
Right.
Robert Stone:
When Barbara was born, which was 1938, one thing she remembers is that they had a city nurse from the health department to help her mother, a young white girl. And she started taking lessons from Troman. So, he was already teaching then, in ’38. So, that means he probably started taking lessons some time earlier. But I wouldn’t imagine-
Jeannette Eason:
And even at that, his age had to be older than… Because he’s older than Willie.
Robert Stone:
… We’re trying to nail it down, but he was born in about 1900, so he was 38 years old or something like that at that time.
Jeannette Eason:
Because he was [crosstalk 00:08:48]
Robert Stone:
How do you know you were 16 when you went with Bishop Lockley?
Willie Eason:
Well, don’t forget in Philadelphia, to finish school, which I finished at the 12th grade.
Robert Stone:
You did finish?
Willie Eason:
Yeah. Went over the deadline, where they give you a diploma, that was, I was in the 12th grade.
Jeannette Eason:
You were in the 12th grade.
Willie Eason:
Yeah. I did all of that when I start to hitting, you know how we say it, with the holiness people. And I start to playing. Most of mine was like 75%, 65% or 75% of mine, I just pick it up. Because you haven’t been in the service, so they start to singing, you listen to them. I’m listening. I played by ear. And I just have that where I can pick it out and look like I know where that string is, and I’ll pick out the words that you just said.
Robert Stone:
Let’s get back to school, though.
Willie Eason:
Okay.
Robert Stone:
You graduated from high school?
Willie Eason:
Yes, I did.
Robert Stone:
You did?
Willie Eason:
Yes, I-
Robert Stone:
You finished the 12th grade?
Willie Eason:
… Yes, I did.
Robert Stone:
So, you had to be 17 or 18, right?
Willie Eason:
Right, right.
Robert Stone:
You start in the first grade when you’re six.
Willie Eason:
Right, right.
Robert Stone:
You finished now. You had told me something before about that you weren’t interested in school once you started getting around Bishop Lockley and all that.
Willie Eason:
Well, I tell you-
Robert Stone:
So, you didn’t drop out of school. You finished.
Willie Eason:
… No, I didn’t. My mind was focused, because I could remind myself that… It was like, just like they call it, God gifted. They use these words, because Plummer got, I remember I told you. Well, you remember this. When I went to that big program they had in Brooklyn, I’ll forget that. And Troman, people were starting to pushing me, because they heard me play A Closer Walk With Thee, and the way I played it and what not. And I talked to the guitar. And to them, it sounded like the guitar was saying what I was saying. And that’s when Plummer noticed it. And the people went up, so until Troman, because they were always kidding each other. I remember that. They liked to tease and kid each other a lot. And he said, “I can’t believe this. You did this here, Eason. I can’t believe this. Listen to him.” And the people just went up. The guitar was saying what I was saying.
Robert Stone:
But you were out of high school by then.
Willie Eason:
Oh, yes.
Robert Stone:
And you didn’t go with Lockley until you were done with high school?
Willie Eason:
Yeah. I was out of school then.
Robert Stone:
Okay. We’re getting closer on these dates now. Now, you made this big splash at Troman’s anniversary.
Willie Eason:
Right, that’s where I made the biggest splash of my life.
Robert Stone:
You told me that you still had to overcome shyness. What I’d like to do is make this transition from where you play at Troman’s anniversary, that was your big, people really started to notice you?
Willie Eason:
Right, right.
Robert Stone:
And then, how did you get from there to go on with Bishop Lockley, and going on the road with him?
Willie Eason:
In the Church of the Living God.
Robert Stone:
Was Lockley at that anniversary?
Willie Eason:
No, no, no. Uh-uh (negative) In other words, they was like a different denomination. Don’t forget. They’re more than one of five groups called the House of God. The one I believe was the House of God, Church of the Living God. See? And the full name, the House of God, which is the Church of the Living God. Pillar and Ground of the Truth. That was the name. That’s what it was registered as.
Robert Stone:
Right. I understand, yeah.
Jeannette Eason:
But it was Lockley church that his parents were going to.
Robert Stone:
Okay. Your parents-
Jeannette Eason:
His family.
Willie Eason:
Yeah, yeah, my family.
Robert Stone:
… Now, Lockley was in Philly. Then he moved to New York. Is that right?
Willie Eason:
That’s right. That’s right.
Robert Stone:
In other words, your parents belonged to Lockley’s church in Philly?
Jeannette Eason:
Right, yeah.
Willie Eason:
To that organization. Yeah, to that organization. The House of God.
Jeannette Eason:
But Lockley, he didn’t move to New York. He had churches in New York.
Robert Stone:
Yeah, that’s right.
Willie Eason:
Yeah, churches.
Robert Stone:
He was the bishop.
Jeannette Eason:
He lived in Philly.
Robert Stone:
Okay. He always lived in Philly?
Jeannette Eason:
Right.
Willie Eason:
No, he didn’t always. He lived partially at the time in Brooklyn. He originated from Brooklyn and then immigrated. You know what I mean? What I hear about him, he had churches in Philly. He had churches in Wilmington, Delaware.
Jeannette Eason:
Jersey.
Willie Eason:
Jersey, yeah. Washington, you know what I mean?
Jeannette Eason:
[crosstalk 00:13:59].
Willie Eason:
Yeah, and each bishop, there’s about 10 to 12 bishops, and each one had…
Robert Stone:
Right.
Willie Eason:
What’s it called?
Robert Stone:
[crosstalk 00:14:09] So, how did he get notice of you? How did Lockley come to notice you and want to hire you or craft you?
Willie Eason:
The thing is after listening and going to Troman’s program and what not, it was like the spirit just delivered into me. In other words, I’m listening to you talking now, but I had a good remembrance, and I get a pencil and paper. Some of the words and some of the sentences, I would fill in myself to make it rhyme. You follow me now?
Willie Eason:
See, in other words, I’m trying to think of a couple of lines of just something.
Robert Stone:
That’s okay. But how about Lockley? When did he start becoming… He was your bishop at the House of God?
Willie Eason:
Well, most of my kindred, half of my kindred, like sisters and brothers. Don’t forget I had a sister that died in Philadelphia, Rev. Earline Jackson. In other words, she was in Bishop Lockley’s-
Robert Stone:
She was under Lockley.
Willie Eason:
… Yeah, under Lockley. Several different people and ministers and what not, they was under Bishop Lockley. He was the senior bishop.
Jeannette Eason:
I’m sure Bob remembered how you say, Lockley came to your mother and asked permission from her to get your [crosstalk 00:15:42].
Willie Eason:
Yeah, because I was still under my parents, too.
Robert Stone:
Okay, so by that time you were playing in your own church quite a bit?
Willie Eason:
Well, now, don’t forget. I wasn’t no bishop or no elder.
Jeannette Eason:
No, no, no, no.
Robert Stone:
You were just a kid.
Jeannette Eason:
No, he’s just talking about playing in the services.
Willie Eason:
Oh.
Jeannette Eason:
Because then J.R. came along, bishop’s son. Roosevelt was in there.
Robert Stone:
Right.
Jeannette Eason:
So, this is how. He want to know how you got started on the road, traveling, all down through Florida, South Carolina with Bishop Lockley.
Willie Eason:
One time, we went up. We was at a program. This was at a big church, had to be a Methodist, because most of them, the Methodists and the Baptists, they had more churches than the normal. You may go to Presbyterian and what not, but some of them, those organizations, had much more members than this one. And more than this one. But I got to be known in the House of God, Church of the Living God, Pillar and Ground of the Truth. Got known in a lot of Baptist, because there were plenty of Baptist churches. Plenty of Methodist churches.
Robert Stone:
And this is before you went with Lockley?
Willie Eason:
Yes.
Robert Stone:
Okay.
Willie Eason:
Yes, yes. Yeah, so in other words, back when they had a program, and when you hear Charlie Storey, but because Charlie Storey, they called him the Mayor. I know if you go in Brooklyn now, they’ll say, “He’s the Mayor.” Put him as the Mayor. He’s the big head. In other words, if you want to have a good program, and you want some, don’t forget these groups, if Charlie Storey tell them to go there, give them a couple of quartets. Don’t forget, he was the head over.
Jeannette Eason:
All right. Now let’s get back to Bishop Lockley. You’re still thinking about Charlie Storey.
Willie Eason:
I’ve got to bring him in once in a while-
Jeannette Eason:
No. You affiliated with Bishop Lockley for so many years.
Willie Eason:
Oh, yeah. Well-
Jeannette Eason:
Can you go back and… You bought your house when you was, what? 22 years old? When you got married? Or 23?
Willie Eason:
… No. Most of it around between 20 and 22.
Jeannette Eason:
Okay.
Robert Stone:
Yeah, this told me 22.
Jeannette Eason:
This is when you married Alyce.
Willie Eason:
Alyce, right.
Jeannette Eason:
Okay. You know of Bishop Nelson, right? You knew of Bishop Jewell? I’m trying to help you think. Right? So, when did you start on the road with Bishop Lockley? Going from state to state. Remember you come down here, and you’ve seen the black and white faucets, and you wanted to drink from the white faucet. You couldn’t do it.
Willie Eason:
Bishop Lockley heard me playing and singing on the corners. Somebody brought him to the corners. One of the first ones, it was up at 19th and Columbia Avenue, where I’m looking at it right now.
Jeannette Eason:
Philadelphia.
Willie Eason:
Philadelphia. That’s right. And I would play right down from Ida’s Restaurant. That was my sister’s restaurant. I forget the name of that street there right next to 19th Street. And I used to go around that corner practically every Saturday.
Jeannette Eason:
Yeah, you’re talking about Ridge Avenue.
Willie Eason:
It was Columbia Avenue.
Jeannette Eason:
Yeah, but Columbia Avenue and 19th-
Willie Eason:
Right, 19th, yeah.
Jeannette Eason:
You used to go on the corner of Ridge.
Willie Eason:
Ridge Avenue. Yeah, I played there.
Jeannette Eason:
And sing there.
Willie Eason:
Yeah.
Jeannette Eason:
But what-
Robert Stone:
He saw you on the streets?
Willie Eason:
Yeah. Right.
Robert Stone:
Okay. Now, was this after Troman had left Philadelphia?
Willie Eason:
No, Troman was still-
Robert Stone:
Still in town?
Willie Eason:
… Still in town. That’s right. But I wasn’t in that category.
Robert Stone:
No, no, no. But Troman was still in town.
Willie Eason:
Yes.
Robert Stone:
Okay.
Jeannette Eason:
But this is where after he’s seen you play on the street. Then he asked your mother, who was in church under him, your family and your sisters and all, could you get on the road and start with the group? What they call it? The Prayer Band or something?
Willie Eason:
Well, somebody-
Robert Stone:
The Gospel Feast Party.
Jeannette Eason:
Huh?
Willie Eason:
… Yeah.
Jeannette Eason:
The Gospel Feast Party.
Willie Eason:
Yeah, that’s it.
Jeannette Eason:
Oh, yeah. All right.
Willie Eason:
That was the name. That was the name. That’s what- Bishop Lockley’s Gospel Feast Party.
Jeannette Eason:
Yeah. So, he got permission. He got permission for you to go with them.
Willie Eason:
Yeah, that’s right. That’s right.
Jeannette Eason:
I’m trying to think. How long were you with them? Because you was still with them when you got married to Alyce and bought your first home.
Willie Eason:
First home, that’s right.
Robert Stone:
Well, see, it’s all starting to add up better, because he’s told me a couple years or so. And if he was maybe 19 when he went with them, he was out of high school, so he was probably 18. You were born in June, right?
Jeannette Eason:
Mm-hmm (affirmative)
Willie Eason:
That’s right.
Robert Stone:
So, you would have been 18 when you got out of high school.
Willie Eason:
Pardon me, July. July.
Jeannette Eason:
No. June is your birthday. You know. You know your birthday.
Willie Eason:
Well, look-
Jeannette Eason:
They told you it was July, because it wasn’t on the…
Willie Eason:
… Well, yeah, but see-
Robert Stone:
His point is when he was going to school, they thought it was July. It don’t matter.
Jeannette Eason:
It doesn’t matter.
Robert Stone:
It means you would have been, June or July, you would have been 18 when you graduated. You didn’t fail any grades, did you?
Jeannette Eason:
No.
Willie Eason:
No, no, no.
Robert Stone:
I didn’t think so.
Willie Eason:
I think I skipped one grade. I don’t know what grade it was, but they skipped me.
Robert Stone:
Well, see, you skipped a grade.
Jeannette Eason:
That’s going back to 17.
Willie Eason:
17.
Robert Stone:
So, now you’re 17.
Jeannette Eason:
Yeah.
Robert Stone:
Okay.
Jeannette Eason:
Because I know around 16 or 17 was when they made the first trip to Florida, and he was so shocked about the segregation. And he went to drink from a fountain, and the bishop told him, “No, you can’t drink from that fountain. You’ve got to go to that one that say colored.”
Willie Eason:
But don’t forget that, what’d you call that? What’d they call that when the different nationalities, what you call it?
Jeannette Eason:
Segregation.
Willie Eason:
Well, the segregation, so much of the segregation was going on at that time.
Jeannette Eason:
Because he had never seen nothing like that. He was raised up in Philadelphia.
Willie Eason:
When Bishop Lockley, see, I was playing on the corners, but the programs thing came about first, “You ever played so and so, and so and so?” Like that, “This one getting it.” And so, I played. They took me to a couple of churches, and I played, and then I was introduced to Charlie Storey at a program, one of my brother’s program, Troman.
Robert Stone:
Right.
Willie Eason:
That’s right. And this is when I was in Brooklyn. Had to be in Brooklyn, but that’s what Charlie Storey heard. And that’s where Charlie Storey lived.
Robert Stone:
Right.
Willie Eason:
And all that. That’s where they call it… That’s what, what did they call him there? They called him. He’s the President of Brooklyn.
Robert Stone:
Mayor.
Jeannette Eason:
Mayor.
Willie Eason:
Mayor. That’s right. You got it.
Robert Stone:
We got it. We all got that one.
Jeannette Eason:
Now-
Robert Stone:
Okay, we’re getting somewhere.
Jeannette Eason:
… So, how are you going now?
Robert Stone:
One thing, I’ll ask this. I’ve already asked it, but do you remember? Did Troman’s group have a name? Did they call them something?
Willie Eason:
I tell you who could have gave you that better than me.
Robert Stone:
Tell me.
Willie Eason:
Ella Mae’d know.
Robert Stone:
She doesn’t remember.
Jeannette Eason:
She doesn’t remember. See, I think that Ella Mae was, she had to be about 16, 15?
Robert Stone:
She’s only 75 now.
Jeannette Eason:
Yeah.
Willie Eason:
Troman in Brooklyn.
Robert Stone:
So, she’s…
Jeannette Eason:
She’s five years younger than Willie.
Robert Stone:
Yeah, so she was like 12 years old?
Jeannette Eason:
Yeah.
Robert Stone:
When he left?
Jeannette Eason:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Robert Stone:
1939.
Jeannette Eason:
Yeah.
PART 1 OF 4 ENDS [00:24:04]
Robert Stone:
He was old…
Jeannette Eason:
Yeah.
Robert Stone:
When he left. 1939.
Jeannette Eason:
Yeah.
Robert Stone:
When Troman started taking the lessons, she was only 10 years old.
Willie Eason:
The accordion guy was-
Robert Stone:
Loveland.
Willie Eason:
Yeah, he was the guy, you must have put [laughing]. Yeah, Loveland, right. And the one to play the Spanish guitar was Henry.
Robert Stone:
Now, Ella Mae remembers all the last names, because she was even littler than you.
Willie Eason:
Well Mae is close to me.
Robert Stone:
And she remembers his name as Mr. Smith. So it must’ve been Henry Smith. That’s what she remembers him as Mr. Smith and Mr. Loveland.
Willie Eason:
One of them was Smith.
Jeannette Eason:
So it could have been Henry.
Willie Eason:
The accordion guy, he was hump back, he had a thing growing back. And…
Robert Stone:
That was Loveland.
Willie Eason:
Loveland, that’s right.
Robert Stone:
Yeah. You don’t remember the name of the group, did they have any flyers or posters or placards and stuff like that?
Willie Eason:
If anybody would have something like that, you would get it from Ella Mae.
Jeannette Eason:
Ella Mae don’t have anything.
Robert Stone:
She thinks, she didn’t mention who it was, I couldn’t ask her that. She said, the widow of one of her brothers, might have a picture. She said she had a picture of Troman’s group. But she said she couldn’t find it after-
Jeannette Eason:
After you was talking about it. Ada, she just moved over to Philadelphia, but she still worked in Manhattan.
Willie Eason:
She just started.
Jeannette Eason:
She would go to Brooklyn often. And I’m wondering, would it be in a library. Just concerning the Hawaiian use?
Robert Stone:
I’d say it’s a long shot. Normally only if somebody collected it and submitted it, as far as I know…
Willie Eason:
Just a minute. You remember when I came? He wasn’t married, he was in the process. I came there, and didn’t I bring a lady over with me once?
Jeannette Eason:
You talking about her name was Jones or something.
Willie Eason:
Jones. Yeah.
Robert Stone:
That’s the woman that Troman stayed with, the wealthy woman?
Jeannette Eason:
Yeah.
Willie Eason:
Kind of wealthy a little bit.
Robert Stone:
Older than him?
Willie Eason:
Yes.
Jeannette Eason:
Yes.
Robert Stone:
She played the bass.
Willie Eason:
She what now?
Robert Stone:
She played the upright bass?
Willie Eason:
No, she didn’t play them. She was a minister herself, like a bishop like. She was over different ministers in churches.
Robert Stone:
Okay.
Jeannette Eason:
She was more of a spiritualist.
Willie Eason:
Yeah. More of a spiritualist.
Robert Stone:
Okay. So she wasn’t a musician?
Willie Eason:
No, she wasn’t a musician.
Robert Stone:
Ella Mae thought she remembered her playing the standup bass.
Willie Eason:
No, she didn’t play no music.
Robert Stone:
Yeah. And she said she lived in a big house.
Willie Eason:
She owned property and whatnot.
Robert Stone:
Did you ever go over there?
Willie Eason:
It’s like, well these women, they’d be writing notes, big program, big audience and whatnot. And you know how they be sitting out taking names, I want to get to know that guy and all that kind of stuff.
Jeannette Eason:
Well tell me this Bill, I don’t know if they told Bob about this or not. The way he died, and all. But then you did meet the mother of they half sisters and brothers, Juanita, she had just got lost from her kids, she didn’t want nothing to do with these kids.
Robert Stone:
This is a woman that Troman was with, after he left his wife.
Jeannette Eason:
After he left Agnes.
Robert Stone:
Agnes.
Jeannette Eason:
And her name was Juanita, I know she had, I think it was two boys and a girl. And the girl wound up in Philadelphia, but they don’t know how she got killed or what. And they call us in Jersey, first they call Earline, about it being a Eason. Earline was well known in Philadelphia. [crosstalk 00:28:42] Wait a minute. When they call Earline, Earline in turn called Willie, and Willie hadn’t seen this woman in some years. So he went to Deacon Bass Knight. Am I right?
Willie Eason:
Are you talking about Gladys?
Jeannette Eason:
Gladys. I got the name Juanita in there some kind of way.
Robert Stone:
Gladys.
Jeannette Eason:
Gladys was the woman that had the three kids for Troman.
Willie Eason:
For Troman in Brooklyn.
Jeannette Eason:
Deacon…
Willie Eason:
Bass Knight.
Jeannette Eason:
Bass Knight told him that exact address.
Willie Eason:
Yeah. In fact, I don’t know, he came there but he told me, gave me the address whatnot.
Jeannette Eason:
Bergen street.
Willie Eason:
Bergen Street.
Jeannette Eason:
Yeah.
Willie Eason:
Yeah.
Robert Stone:
That’s where Troman had been living? Now was he still with Gladys when he died?
Jeannette Eason:
We don’t know, that part I don’t know.
Willie Eason:
She kept tamping after him.
Jeannette Eason:
Yeah.
Willie Eason:
Jones.
Jeannette Eason:
Well, you know what it is Bob, why you can’t just say really put your finger on it, because of the groupies. When it come to men, and with the guys, don’t let Ella Mae know I told you this. Because when they found Troman’s body, he was completely naked. No clothes, no music, nothing could be found in his house.
Robert Stone:
She says, she remembers family, some of them went over there to where he was living. And she said, they asked the lady, I assume the landlord or whatever, about his instruments. And she said that he had pawned them, and she said no way would he ever pawn his instruments.
Jeannette Eason:
No.
Robert Stone:
She said he wasn’t that poor.
Jeannette Eason:
No, they couldn’t find anything of his in the house.
Willie Eason:
Couldn’t find his instruments. And me, I was able to find more than any of the rest of them, all of his children, trying to find out… But Gladys is the…
Jeannette Eason:
I don’t know if she’s still living or not. I don’t even know if this deacon, we were talking about it other day riding along, if he’s still living.
Robert Stone:
Let me stop. [Tape stops]. … Gladys is deceased.
Jeannette Eason:
No.
Robert Stone:
For sure, we don’t know, she could be alive.
Willie Eason:
Well, I thought she was… I thought similar to the same thing. But the thing with Bass Knight, but I went to thinking of who was the head members in the church before that, because that church did wind up splitting. When the church split, some of them go to that pastor, some go to that pastor.
Robert Stone:
Right.
Willie Eason:
To different… Like you got a church, they may go out of my church and they may go to your service, they like your service and they’ll join. That’s the way they had a way of joining.
Jeannette Eason:
You couldn’t remember what church he was in. Was he under Bishop Lockley or who?
Willie Eason:
No, he wasn’t under Bishop Lockley at the time. In fact, he was just mostly a musician.
Jeannette Eason:
Bass Knight?
Willie Eason:
No Bass Knight was a deacon, he was a head deacon.
Jeannette Eason:
But can you recall what church we was in?
Robert Stone:
Was Bass Knight his-
Willie Eason:
House of God.
Jeannette Eason:
Pillar and Ground of Truth?
Willie Eason:
Pillar and Ground of the Truth, that’s right.
Robert Stone:
That was his first name, was Bass?
Jeannette Eason:
Uh-huh (affirmative)
Robert Stone:
Last name Knight, he was a deacon in the House of God.
Willie Eason:
Bass Knight.
Robert Stone:
Right.
Willie Eason:
Bass Knight.
Robert Stone:
And he was, he was in Brooklyn?
Jeannette Eason:
Uh-huh (affirmative)
Robert Stone:
He lived on Bergen street?
Willie Eason:
Bergen.
Jeannette Eason:
No she was living on Bergen…
Willie Eason:
She was living on Bergen street.
Robert Stone:
Gladys.
Willie Eason:
Gladys.
Jeannette Eason:
Uh-huh (affirmative)
Robert Stone:
Okay.
Willie Eason:
It’s a shame but if I was around in that area, because… I found Gladys, everybody looking and-
Jeannette Eason:
She didn’t let her kids, and nobody know where she were.
Robert Stone:
I mean.
Jeannette Eason:
And the kids, they met up with Barbara and Ella Mae and him, a couple of times. But then Barbara says she hasn’t seen them in years.
Robert Stone:
My only… I don’t need to get into all the goings on, what I’m interested in for the book, is to establish a timeline. And also, I would love, love to talk to somebody who remembers seeing that group, who might remember the name of the group, more about where they played. Because see, you were in Philly, or on the road.
Jeannette Eason:
Right.
Robert Stone:
He was in New York. I mean Ella Mae, once he left Philly, she doesn’t know much about him.
Willie Eason:
You just told me something.
Robert Stone:
But did they come back to Philly? His group came back to play?
Willie Eason:
So you need somebody out of Brooklyn, like Charlie Storey.
Robert Stone:
Right. But he didn’t know nothing. He’s-
Willie Eason:
Oh, you saw him.
Robert Stone:
I talked to him.
Jeannette Eason:
He talked to him.
Robert Stone:
His mind isn’t good. I don’t know if he even remembered Troman, he remembered you. I said Troman played at your anniversaries and your programs. He said, nah, I don’t…
Willie Eason:
But the thing Charlie Storey used me a lot. So he used me to different programs.
Robert Stone:
I’m trying to get him to remember Troman, see. And he couldn’t remember Troman. Well, he wasn’t in real good shape, he talked real slow, couldn’t hear good, he sounded really tired.
Jeannette Eason:
Ada said last time she’d seen him, she had like get right to his ear or something.
Robert Stone:
Yeah. I mean, I was- He had- repeating stuff-
Jeannette Eason:
…talk to him.
Willie Eason:
Well, I was surprised when she had talked to my daughter later either. Well, I know he knew all my children.
Robert Stone:
Right.
Willie Eason:
He knows my children, especially my children by my first wife.
Jeannette Eason:
I don’t know, I know-
Robert Stone:
Well Chuck says, I think I might have told you about this, they’re having the New York State Assembly this weekend.
Jeannette Eason:
Uh-huh (affirmative).
Robert Stone:
Bishop Campbell’s big assembly. So I talked to Chuck and Phil and see, so all the people from all over, some of them who used to live in Philly, some of them in New York, they’re going to see who they can find, who might know something about Troman’s group.
Jeannette Eason:
Well don’t forget about to mention this man Bass Knight. Because if he was going to the same church, if he’s still living…
Robert Stone:
He might be there. Well, let’s call him right now. We’ll call Chuck right now. But I actually what you’re saying is that that Barbara and Ella Mae might lead us to somebody, who might lead us to Gladys. If she’s still alive.
Willie Eason:
No-
Jeannette Eason:
No, the only way you could get through to her, would be if you mention Leroy.
Robert Stone:
To Gladys.
Jeannette Eason:
Yeah. She’s dead set, she want nothing to do with the rest of the family. Willie made a visit there-
Robert Stone:
Now, do you think it’s likely that she is alive? Because I mean, Troman would be 100 now. I mean, was she younger?
Willie Eason:
Oh yes.
Robert Stone:
She was younger.
Willie Eason:
Yes.
Robert Stone:
I figured, you usually don’t leave your wife for an older woman.
Willie Eason:
No, no. You brought my mind back to how I found… I was looking for Gladys.
Jeannette Eason:
I told you it was due to the fact, her daughter, they found her dead in Philadelphia, and this was after Gladys just turned all of them loose. Because it must’ve been a lot of control to see, and all… And she, as a mother, she’s working night and day, to raise the kids, and they must’ve done her awful bad because when a mother turn her back on kids, something has got to be bad there. And she told him, when he went to them, deacon Knight… And gosh this had to be like the late ’70s. Yeah.
Willie Eason:
Can you remember-
Jeannette Eason:
Wait, let my clock tick right now. It was the late ’70s because it was at 28 Church Street. We didn’t move out of there until ’82 when we got burned out. So this had to be in the ’70s, anywhere from…
Willie Eason:
You remember me finding Gladys.
Jeannette Eason:
Yeah, from ’75.
Willie Eason:
Through Bass Knight.
Jeannette Eason:
Yeah. And Earline, they contact Earline in Philly, because Earline was well-known, she was a Eason,
Willie Eason:
Remember my sister, the minister, she was a minister.
Jeannette Eason:
…from the people in the city to pick up the bodies, the morgue, and they contact Earline. And Earline at the time she was sickly, she had no money or nothing like that, to come down and claim the body. That’s why they was trying to find the closest of kin, to come and claim this girl’s body. And that’s when Earline called him, and he found Gladys. And Gladys told him, said, I’m sorry, but not my daughter.
Willie Eason:
Well, you remember I found a boy and a girl, this was on Bergen street, Gladys living on the third floor, I remember that. That’s come to me. Because of Bass Knight, how I found Gladys.
Jeannette Eason:
None of her kids at home at that particular time.
Willie Eason:
That’s right.
Jeannette Eason:
All of them was out. And from what I understand, they were much younger, they was almost right long, right under Vivian. These kids was like, 20, 21. I think the girl that died was like 26. And this was in the ’70s.
Robert Stone:
They were probably younger than Vivian even.
Jeannette Eason:
Oh, yeah. [crosstalk 00:39:26] Vivian was then 39. So it had to be on in to the ’40s like that. Yeah.
Willie Eason:
Just like I love them, they love me, when they see me they all come and hug me.
Robert Stone:
Now let’s go back to Philly. Troman, when you got interested in Hawaiian guitar, Troman had his own house, and his family there. And I know where he was living, Ella Mae told me. He was at 1528 North 11th street. Where were you living at that time? Where was your family? Do you remember?
Willie Eason:
Do you have any kind of month?
Robert Stone:
When Troman was in Philadelphia.
Willie Eason:
Right, when he was in okay.
Robert Stone:
When he was in Philly, and then you would go over there, and sneak on his guitar and stuff.
Willie Eason:
Well, what I’ll be doing, I’ll be sitting if I’m… Just like we sitting here now, you go for lunch or something, whatnot, and I’d be teasing around him and Plummer… And so the thing is when they do, I go and sit down and be messing around the guitar. But don’t forget everybody can’t do it, but if you get a sound like that, if you get a certain sound like that, you wind up trying to put it all together.
Robert Stone:
Okay. But how close did you live to Troman? Did you live… Do you remember your house street?
Jeannette Eason:
Was Troman near your mother’s house?
Willie Eason:
No. The last place he lived was in Philadelphia. He was in West Philadelphia. I lived in North Philadelphia.
Robert Stone:
Okay. So it was quite a way?
Jeannette Eason:
11th street would be in Philadelphia?
Willie Eason:
Yeah.
Jeannette Eason:
I’m sorry, West Philly?
Willie Eason:
No, not in West Philly.
Jeannette Eason:
11th street would be more closer to where-
Willie Eason:
North Philly.
Jeannette Eason:
North Philly is where your parents lived there. Where did your parents live then?
Willie Eason:
North Philly.
Jeannette Eason:
What’s the street? Can you remember?
Willie Eason:
The Thompson street one, 1215 Cabot, C-A-B-O-T, Cabot Street.
Robert Stone:
Do you have a street?
Willie Eason:
You know, if I had-
Robert Stone:
What was that address you just gave me. What was the house number?
Jeannette Eason:
1503.
Robert Stone:
1503.
Willie Eason:
Cabot Street.
Robert Stone:
Right. I got a Philadelphia map-
Jeannette Eason:
What was the house where the ghost ran you down the steps? Was shaking Earline, in the ghost house. Ghost come over, Earline was shaking and all, you all ran downstairs. 1103 was who address?
Willie Eason:
Can you remember the street?
Jeannette Eason:
Flora Street.
Willie Eason:
Flora.
Robert Stone:
1203.
Willie Eason:
F-L-O-R-A, 1203 Flora.
Jeannette Eason:
If you hadn’t got that, I said 11 to make him say the 12.
Robert Stone:
That was the house you bought?
Willie Eason:
Yeah.
Jeannette Eason:
That was the house you bought.
Willie Eason:
Yeah. One of the first ones, I eventually went into real estate.
Jeannette Eason:
But you weren’t too far from your parents house then.
Willie Eason:
No, because they lived on Thompson Street.
Jeannette Eason:
Okay.
Willie Eason:
Yeah. That’s where…
Robert Stone:
The house on Cabot street.
Jeannette Eason:
Cabot must’ve been, when they moved out of Cabot on Thompson.
Robert Stone:
What was it Thompson Street.
Willie Eason:
Thompson. T-H-O-M-P-S-O-N.
Jeannette Eason:
Yeah. Because we was just up to Thompson and something. This last funeral, who was that… For Charles, your brother.
Willie Eason:
Charlie.
Jeannette Eason:
Yeah. Thompson and, can’t work it out, Thompson and something.
Willie Eason:
But…
Robert Stone:
Okay. So Cabot Street was before that?
Jeannette Eason:
Uh-huh (affirmative).
Willie Eason:
We just come from there, we have a funeral not long ago, I guess you-
Jeannette Eason:
Yeah, he know, you told him about it.
Robert Stone:
Okay.
Jeannette Eason:
But now Troman lived, Ella Mae gave a address, 11th street. What was it 11?
Willie Eason:
Yeah, like a split house, let’s see was like a split up. You know like, [inaudible 00:44:13] was part of the house.
Robert Stone:
Yeah, 1528 North 11th Street. Well, all I’m trying to get to… At the time you were in your early teens, you didn’t have a car or nothing, did you walk over to Troman’s house?
Willie Eason:
Well, I would use different boys and things that knew me. Like in the church you had these mothers, and different people in the church, well they all took me as a great player, a musician, whatnot.
Robert Stone:
Yeah. But I’m talking about when you got started.
Willie Eason:
Oh yeah.
Robert Stone:
How did you get over Troman’s house? Did you walk over there from your house? When you lived at [crosstalk 00:45:02].
Willie Eason:
I had a lot of assistance, I had a lot of friends because there was a lot of them was trying to learn how to play and whatnot. That’s why it is so hard to take my mind back in there, because a lot of them was sticking around me, and trying to learn how to play the guitar.
Robert Stone:
This was before you knew how to play.
Jeannette Eason:
What he is trying to get to is…
Robert Stone:
Did Troman live down the street or something, and you walked over to his house to visit him, or you had to take a bus across town or?
Willie Eason:
Well, mostly I was-
Jeannette Eason:
If he put the guitar down, this is what he’s trying to understand. You would take it, when Troman wasn’t looking, and take it and try to play it. But can you remember if this was in Troman house, or was he in your mother’s house at the time?
Willie Eason:
It was in my mother’s house, and father, it was in Troman’s house.
Jeannette Eason:
Because don’t forget, you haven’t got out your mother’s house yet.
Robert Stone:
So you’re still in school. You’re a school boy, you’re 13, 14, 15, whatever you were, 16.
Jeannette Eason:
Because you say you could remember how you used to steal it, and take it into the room, and pick it, and then try to put it back before the Troman catch you with it.
Willie Eason:
Well, no, it would be out there in the living room and whatnot. And he would be gone to, the shop or something like that.
Jeannette Eason:
Without permission to play it.
Willie Eason:
Yeah, without permission.
Jeannette Eason:
Yeah.
Willie Eason:
I would get down there and I’ll go, don’t forget I’m looking at them, with the string and now that sound distilled in here.
Robert Stone:
Right, I got that.
Willie Eason:
Just like now, because let my mind run over just mostly anything. I wish I could, just to show you. That I- [crosstalk 00:47:11] All I have to do, don’t forget its 12 different chords on the Hawaiian.
Robert Stone:
We’ve got it. Tell me about Henry.
Willie Eason:
Henry.
Robert Stone:
Now Henry was older or younger than you?
Willie Eason:
Was that Henry Eason or Henry Nelson? Henry Eason?
Robert Stone:
Yeah.
Willie Eason:
He was younger than me.
Robert Stone:
Okay. And tell me about him playing, how did he get started playing?
Willie Eason:
In other words, some of it was the similarity of the same way I did, going on street corners.
Robert Stone:
Yeah, but I mean, how did you show him some stuff?
Willie Eason:
Oh yes. Oh definitely. Oh definitely.
Robert Stone:
I’ve heard. Did he play more like you, or more like Troman?
Willie Eason:
More like…
Jeannette Eason:
No, he played more like…
PART 2 OF 4 ENDS [00:48:04]
Willie Eason:
Right.
Jeannette Eason:
And then he played more like Henry Nelson. His playing was not like Troman’s.
Willie Eason:
I don’t think he could-
Jeannette Eason:
He couldn’t play as good as Troman.
Willie Eason:
No, he couldn’t play as good. No, no.
Jeannette Eason:
It was even jealousy, built up. Even when-
Willie Eason:
Well, that’s true.
Jeannette Eason:
After I got married to him, between him and Henry. Henry was a type, he figured he knew it all. And he even fought him, and told him he was on his corner, and what he doing on his corner, singing and all.
Robert Stone:
So he-
Jeannette Eason:
This was after he had taught him.
Robert Stone:
Henry played some street corners?
Jeannette Eason:
Mm-hmm (affirmative). Yeah. But Henry was more like, wild songs. The only good song Henry really played was Give Me My Flowers.
Willie Eason:
Give Me my Flowers While I Yet Live.
Jeannette Eason:
And you know, that was the…
Robert Stone:
The Consolers.
Jeannette Eason:
Yeah, his tenants.
Willie Eason:
Yeah, that’s right.
Robert Stone:
So that wasn’t until the ’50s, they didn’t write that until then.
Jeannette Eason:
Mm-hmm (affirmative). Yeah.
Robert Stone:
Early ’50s.
Jeannette Eason:
And he would play this song-
Robert Stone:
Was he a pretty good singer?
Willie Eason:
He wasn’t bad. He was pretty good, because he was accepted in our program.
Robert Stone:
Not as good as you, though?
Willie Eason:
Huh?
Robert Stone:
Not as good as you though?
Willie Eason:
Well, I don’t pin flowers on the… I let the audience…
Robert Stone:
I’m kidding.
Willie Eason:
I’ll work on that thing down there. Making runs and all like that.
Jeannette Eason:
But he, Henry would, [inaudible 00:49:33], just to get the people attention, and he tried to sing one or two songs then he’d play it, like, just the song without singing. But one of his main song on the street corner, You Can Run, But You Can’t Hide. The next time you go to that woman, you won’t knock no more.
Jeannette Eason:
You know? And that’s what he did.
Robert Stone:
Right.
Jeannette Eason:
To get the people laughing.
Willie Eason:
You may run and hide, slip and slide,
Jeannette Eason:
Slip and slide,
Willie Eason:
Trying to have a date with your neighbor’s wife… [Singing]
Jeannette Eason:
[singing]
Robert Stone:
Now, where’d you get that? Where’d that song come from?
Jeannette Eason:
Henry. Henry created that song.
Willie Eason:
My brother Henry. He was younger than me.
Robert Stone:
He made it up?
Jeannette Eason:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Robert Stone:
Really?
Willie Eason:
Yeah.
Willie Eason:
Because that’s the way, mostly. I hear you sing a song, I sit there. I ignore it, like I’m not listening, but I can add words to that.
Robert Stone:
Uh-huh (affirmative).
Willie Eason:
I can add words to that, and make a song out of it.
Robert Stone:
Uh-huh (affirmative). Now called him Big Eason, right?
Willie Eason:
No.
Robert Stone:
Henry, they called him Big?
Willie Eason:
No.
Robert Stone:
I heard they call him Big Eason.
Willie Eason:
Huh?
Jeannette Eason:
Just Henry.
Willie Eason:
Just Henry. This is my brother, I ain’t talking about Henry Nelson, now.
Robert Stone:
No, no, no. They didn’t call him Big? I thought they, I thought his nickname was Big Eason.
Jeannette Eason:
No.
Robert Stone:
No. How heavy was he?
Jeannette Eason:
He was pretty heavy at one time. Because he was over 200, about 250, or something like that. But then he had sugar diabetes, and he lost a lot of weight like that. But he, I mean he ate good, but I never heard nobody call him Heavy, or Big Henry. Mostly just Henry.
Willie Eason:
He carried some jealousy with him, but I taught him.
Jeannette Eason:
Yeah, but it was mostly Henry.
Robert Stone:
How much younger than you was he?
Willie Eason:
That’d be about three years younger.
Jeannette Eason:
Wait a minute, who was between you and Henry? Joe?
Willie Eason:
Joe.
Jeannette Eason:
Joe was between you and Henry?
Willie Eason:
Yeah.
Jeannette Eason:
Right?
Willie Eason:
Yeah.
Jeannette Eason:
So if he, say, two and two, that would be four years.
Willie Eason:
We sure had a big family, oh boy.
Robert Stone:
I assume you did.
Jeannette Eason:
I would say anywhere from four to five years younger, than Willie. Henry was young, though.
Robert Stone:
Now tell me about Leroy and how did Leroy Eason, Troman’s son. Now, according to Barbara, Troman taught Leroy. He was the first one, she said, that he taught, of the family. But she said that she said that Leroy didn’t stay with it.
Willie Eason:
She hit it halfway right. Well, maybe a little bit more than halfway.
Jeannette Eason:
Well Ella Mae was the oldest.
Willie Eason:
Of Troman’s children, Ella Mae was the oldest.
Jeannette Eason:
And age wise, that’s why I say… I’m like this, Bob, if you can’t remember, don’t put something false in there, to carry it over.
Robert Stone:
Right.
Jeannette Eason:
So now, Leroy was much younger than you. Leroy had just graduated from school and got that job with the government.
Willie Eason:
Oh yeah, that’s right, he did work for the government.
Jeannette Eason:
Then he went to jail, for fraud.
Willie Eason:
Yeah.
Jeannette Eason:
And come out. When he come out, we was there in Philadelphia. When he came out, and started working back for the city again, right?
Robert Stone:
Well we know his dates of birth and death. We’ve got that from the-
Jeannette Eason:
What date did they give?
Robert Stone:
I can’t remember where we got it from his funeral, the program book-
Jeannette Eason:
Because they should be on that. But I know he’s much younger than Willie.
Robert Stone:
Yeah, what I’m interested in is how did you… You recorded more with him than anybody. You did those four records, eight sides, eight numbers. For Queen, King and Queen.
Willie Eason:
Well, Leroy went with me a lot on the street corners.
Jeannette Eason:
Yeah, that was on the streets and all, and then Ella Mae, he took Ella Mae a lot.
Robert Stone:
Why? So, Leroy traveled with you? Or just in Philly?
Willie Eason:
He went with me out of town, a couple places. But mostly around in town there, because we wanted extra money, all I had to go out to some street corner, go to somebody’s door, and knock on there, whatnot. Explain to him what I’m doing, and whatnot. It was religious, all religious songs, and whatnot. And this is the way I do. And the people, they never turn you down. Most of them, 90% of them-
Robert Stone:
You have to, the reason you have to talk to them, you needed electricity, correct?
Willie Eason:
That’s it. And they run the cord through the window, or through where I can, it was a plug in.
Robert Stone:
Now this was homes, as well as businesses. Is that right?
Willie Eason:
Well, it was… I’ve done this at my own house.
Robert Stone:
Right.
Willie Eason:
I’ve done that at my own-
Robert Stone:
So I mean, when you go knock on somebody’s door was it business, or a home, or either?
Willie Eason:
Well, it’s either. Because I know at the time, when I, when the Soul Stirrers first heard me, it was about one, two, three doors from the corner of 58th, in Chicago. This was in Chicago. And I put the cord, went in the yard, in their back door. Where they put the clothes on that steamer, and push the machine down. My lights and electric came out of that.
Robert Stone:
Out of like a dry cleaner’s?
Willie Eason:
Yeah, a dry cleaner’s. Yeah. So one of the, the main Soul Stirrer, he owned that cleaner’s.
Robert Stone:
Which, who is that? Medlock, or…?
Willie Eason:
Wait a minute, Medlock. Maybe it wasn’t. Medlock and another one. But Medlock was the main one. Medlock.
Jeannette Eason:
Harris, you had Harris, Medlock.
Willie Eason:
They were the ones that, when they heard me playing on the corner, one had told other one. One told the other one. And I wind up, Harris, who was the manager, had me up on 58th and Prairie. And that’s where, Harris, they knew them, and knew he was one of the Soul Stirrers, and he plugged my cord in there. So I’d have electricity. Back when I was doing that Pearl Harbor and Roosevelt.
Robert Stone:
Now, was that the dry cleaner?
Willie Eason:
Dry cleaner, right. That’s right. As I remember somewhere. If they was here, one of them was here. Because we was all close friends. We was all really close friends.
Robert Stone:
So Henry played on the street corner some, too. But let’s go back to Leroy. Why did you go with Leroy to record?
Willie Eason:
To where?
Robert Stone:
You went when you recorded in Cincinnati.
Willie Eason:
Right.
Robert Stone:
For King and Queen.
Willie Eason:
Right.
Robert Stone:
And why did you pick Leroy?
Willie Eason:
Because he was the only one that ever rehearsal with me, and practice with me.
Robert Stone:
Is that right?
Willie Eason:
That’s right.
Robert Stone:
Was he a good singer?
Willie Eason:
Yes. Oh yes. Oh yes.
Jeannette Eason:
Oh his voice got much better than what you hear on that tape.
Willie Eason:
Yeah.
Robert Stone:
Yeah.
Jeannette Eason:
That boy could upset a house.
Willie Eason:
Oh yeah, he could upset a house.
Robert Stone:
How would you describe his singing? Was he smooth? Rough? Or loud, or…?
Jeannette Eason:
No.
Willie Eason:
You’ve been around holiness people, so you know.
Jeannette Eason:
A smoothness, and yet and still, Leroy was a little bashful along with it. So it was hard to even get him to sing in front of a crowd. But if he come out singing, it’s very smooth, and he could get the attention of everybody. And I mean, his voice was beautiful.
Willie Eason:
No way he take with the public.
Jeannette Eason:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Willie Eason:
Takes with the public. Because I know you done seen, you know what I’m trying to say, taking the public. Because all you have to do is look at the audience, and see whether you satisfied them or not.
Robert Stone:
Now did he, when you met him… It sounds to me, I’ve got taped copies of one or two of those records, from when you call yourselves the Gospel Trumpeteers, you and Leroy. It sounds like one of you is, probably him, on at least one song, is playing a regular Spanish guitar. Did he play Spanish guitar too?
Willie Eason:
No. Was that Eberhardt?
Jeannette Eason:
It had to be Eberhardt.
Willie Eason:
Huh?
Jeannette Eason:
It had to be Eberhardt.
Willie Eason:
If it was Spanish guitar, it had to be Eberhardt.
Robert Stone:
So he might’ve gone with you to record, but he didn’t sing. It was just you and-
Willie Eason:
That’s right. That’s right. That’s right. That’s right. You’ve been doing some-
Robert Stone:
Do you know how to spell his name? His last name? Eberhardt?
Jeannette Eason:
E-L. E-H-A-R-T, is it?
Willie Eason:
B-E-R-T.
Jeannette Eason:
Yeah. Eberhardt.
Robert Stone:
E-B-E-R-H-A-R-
Willie Eason:
H-A-R-T. Hart, yes. Eberhardt. That’s right.
Robert Stone:
Roosevelt.
Willie Eason:
Yeah.
Robert Stone:
So he was probably the one that played the Spanish guitar on here. On your recording with the Trumpeteers?
Willie Eason:
That’s right.
Robert Stone:
He went to Cincinnati with you?
Willie Eason:
Yeah.
Robert Stone:
Okay. Can you describe Eberhardt? Chuck told me that he saw him. He thought he looked like Duke Ellington or something.
Jeannette Eason:
Well, that height.
Willie Eason:
He was, in other words-
Jeannette Eason:
Complexion, mm-hmm (affirmative).
Willie Eason:
He was a lover with the girls. The girls fall for him easily. He’s very-
Jeannette Eason:
And he had the complexion of Duke Ellington. And he wasn’t an ugly man. He was good looking.
Robert Stone:
Uh-huh (affirmative). Was he sharp-
Jeannette Eason:
Very wavy hair.
Robert Stone:
Wavy hair, sharp?
Jeannette Eason:
Oh, sharp dresser and all. And a sweetie. That’s how he got on.
Robert Stone:
Smooth talker?
Willie Eason:
Yeah, yeah. That’s-
Robert Stone:
This guitar isn’t too loud in the mix on that tape. Of course, it’s from the 78, so it’s scratchy. It sounds like he’s playing some pretty cool stuff.
Willie Eason:
Oh yeah. Well don’t forget, he used to background me, just me and him sometime. I’d take him out, because he understood my- I understood him-
Jeannette Eason:
Many times him and Willie went on the street corner.
Willie Eason:
Yeah, just me and him.
Robert Stone:
Now did he always, did he play acoustic, electric, or…?
Willie Eason:
Spanish. Electric Spanish.
Robert Stone:
Now was it like an arch top?
Willie Eason:
The large… Wooden.
Robert Stone:
Did it have a round hole in it, or-
Willie Eason:
The round hole.
Robert Stone:
The F holes.
Willie Eason:
No, the round hole.
Jeannette Eason:
No, the round hole.
Robert Stone:
So it was a flat top, what we call a flat top?
Willie Eason:
Not no flat top like that. It had a hump in it.
Robert Stone:
Right.
Willie Eason:
Yeah.
Robert Stone:
Uh-huh (affirmative). Okay. So, but with a round hole, it didn’t have the F holes that look like that.
Willie Eason:
But he was-
Jeannette Eason:
He could also-
Willie Eason:
He was a good background, though, for me.
Jeannette Eason:
I also play the Hawaiian guitar.
Willie Eason:
Yeah.
Jeannette Eason:
Because he had 10 strings.
Robert Stone:
He had a 10 string one.
Jeannette Eason:
Uh-huh (affirmative). He used to come over, and him and Willie play together. He tried to get Willie on his. Willie’s like, “Nah, you play yours, I’ll play mine.”
Robert Stone:
Okay.
Jeannette Eason:
And when they had the concert over here, when the old evangelist came down here to a… Oh, gosh.
Willie Eason:
What, speak up. Maybe I can help.
Jeannette Eason:
The center, over here. Enoch Davis Center.
Robert Stone:
Yeah.
Jeannette Eason:
When they was doing the Sacred Steel, Make a Joyful Noise, they had here in Saint Pete, on a Wednesday night. And he went over there. So I had told him, I said, “Didn’t nobody invite you. You know?” And I was feeling kind of funny about letting him go, because I don’t like to buck in on nobody’s program.
Robert Stone:
Right.
Jeannette Eason:
But Ed’s girlfriend is the one that called me and told me, said it would be at Enoch Davis Center.
Willie Eason:
Oh, yeah.
Jeannette Eason:
And they wanted to get people that was free to learn about the Hawaiian steel, sacred steel guitar. And it was your boy that did the emceeing, at Winter Park, the first night. No, that’s Saturday. No, that first night, the one that yo-
Robert Stone:
Elton. [Tape stops]
Robert Stone:
You told me before, and I don’t have it on tape. Is that you told me you had to overcome shyness. You were shy. I mean, today you really like to perform, but you were telling me when you were young, you had to overcome, you were shy about performing.
Willie Eason:
Yeah.
Robert Stone:
Can you talk about that some?
Willie Eason:
Yeah. Well what it was, when I first started playing, whatnot. I’m just explaining this to you. In other words, the thing is, come to me, how clear can you make that sound? Then I heard what sounds I’ve made. Then I go back. This was through my rehearsals, and all. And, the closer I can make it sound to you can understand it, words. That’s what I went after, like a-
Robert Stone:
But where are you shy?
Willie Eason:
Never shy.
Robert Stone:
You told me before you were. You weren’t shy as young man?
Willie Eason:
Well, you could call it shyness, because I didn’t just get right up there, let’s start right up. Like I can get right up there now, I couldn’t. But now you call on me, I’m ready.
Robert Stone:
Yeah, but when you were a young man, did you worry over it any? I mean, what?
Willie Eason:
Never, never.
Robert Stone:
No.
Willie Eason:
No. Because I know you done heard me sometime, on certain songs, I talk to the guitar. Just like you and me. I said, “What did you say?” You done heard me to do that.
Robert Stone:
Right.
Willie Eason:
Never heard. I said, “You hush your mouth.”
Willie Eason:
And then the crowds go up. See, a certain thing, you know I’m doing it for that audience. And I see what they go for. And I see you go for that, then I go back again. And-
Robert Stone:
I swear he told me he was shy when he was a young man about playing, that he had-
Jeannette Eason:
Stage fright.
Robert Stone:
Yeah.
Jeannette Eason:
Yeah, he did.
Robert Stone:
Did you have stage fright?
Jeannette Eason:
He didn’t want to get in front of a big audience. He was trembling, and all. He would be afraid to step out. And then finally he got out of it. Yeah. Probably just can’t remember what he told you.
Willie Eason:
Excuse me. I didn’t even know, how did this guy find out, unless he was at that convention? I keep wondering.
Jeannette Eason:
Who’s that?
Willie Eason:
The guy that [inaudible 01:05:21]
Jeannette Eason:
He was the one that-
Robert Stone:
He was the emcee.
Jeannette Eason:
… the emcee of the program.
Willie Eason:
Oh my wife said something, but- [inaudible 01:05:28]
Robert Stone:
Did you know he studied under Ghent? He studied under Ghent in the state apprenticeship program, [inaudible 1:00:05:38]… But see, then he moved to Georgia, to Atlanta, and he moved back to Florida to Apopka. And then he, by the time he did that program, he had just moved to Fort Pierce.
Willie Eason:
Ain’t that something?
Robert Stone:
Well, I don’t know where. I think he’s living in Fort Pierce, but he said he was going to be pastoring in Fort Pierce.
Jeannette Eason:
Oh, okay.
Willie Eason:
Because I kept wondering how did he know that I was going to be there?
Jeannette Eason:
Yeah, but where he struck the audience and all, because this kid got a double neck guitar.
Robert Stone:
Right.
Jeannette Eason:
And Willie don’t play double neck.
Robert Stone:
He only plays one neck of it, though.
Jeannette Eason:
So he got up there and played it, so now, and Jethro called Edward, because now he done got Jethro scared. They had go on up and play a double neck guitar. So Edward called me, “Mom.” I ain’t got home- “Mom, did you hear the thing? Did you know Dad was playing a double neck?”
Jeannette Eason:
I said, “No.”
Jeannette Eason:
He said, “Well, they on the way home now, so Jethro will tell you about it.”
Jeannette Eason:
He said, “What is he doing on the double neck?” So I laughed. “Well what’s so funny about that?” I said, “Edward, Roosevelt had a double neck.”
Willie Eason:
I’m glad that guitar was tuned in A tuning.
Jeannette Eason:
And so don’t forget, you had… Willie used to teach music.
Willie Eason:
Was that Eberhardt?
Jeannette Eason:
Uh-huh (affirmative). Willie used to teach music in Chicago, Philadelphia, and New York. And a lot of these guys had double necks.
Willie Eason:
I even showed some of them, when they was getting started off. They’d go there, and I’d show them certain things, because they ask me certain questions. And I’m not that selfish. You know what I mean? And whatnot. Just like this one fellow we talking about now. I had to shake his hand again. Those people stood in line to shake my hand. They was just a men in white. You hear me, Bob?
Robert Stone:
Oh yeah.
Willie Eason:
Yeah, they stood, and they shook my hand. And the handshake was real.
Robert Stone:
Yep.
Willie Eason:
I couldn’t honestly… Well, how did they? And I was telling my son’s girlfriend. I said, “You know what, if you hadn’t told me, I would have came by, and I wouldn’t have been selfish [inaudible 01:08:17] and whatnot. And here I am, he done put me on the program. And here’s this long line of people coming.
Jeannette Eason:
But me, I don’t usually… I had to go out and be with the 91 year old lady that night. And I don’t usually let his music go, unless I’m with him. I mean you can mess up. Like I left him home, he didn’t come to Gainesville. Because since then I don’t let it go out of my sight. Everyone here will use one of the amps, for his shows. But that guitar don’t get touched, see? And that night I had told him, he said, “Would it be all right if I go over there?” I said, “Yeah, you can go.” I said, “Well, I’m going to tell you now, I don’t want the music to go.” So I get back here, Bob, and after, and they tell me what all went on.
Willie Eason:
It wasn’t my fault.
Jeannette Eason:
No. And they said, what all went on. I said, “And you took your music?” “No. I didn’t disobey you. That music was there. I didn’t take that music with me. I played his music.” And that’s when Edward, he got in the conversation, “Oh my God…”
Willie Eason:
I was just hoping it was in A tuning.
Jeannette Eason:
But he said when he got up there, Jethro said when he got to the church and he said, “Oh no, it’s in my key.”
Robert Stone:
Right.
Jeannette Eason:
And the crowd went up and that was [crosstalk 01:09:41].
Willie Eason:
Yeah, the crowd went up. Crowd went up. Crowd went up. I said, “Oh my God.”
Robert Stone:
Well, let’s, again, just for the purposes of getting the whole timeline straight.
Jeannette Eason:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Willie Eason:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Robert Stone:
Yeah, matter of fact, where it sounded like going back to your Queen recordings here, in Cincinnati.
Willie Eason:
Yeah.
Robert Stone:
Now, how did they come? Do you remember how the guys, it was the King label…
Willie Eason:
Right.
Robert Stone:
King and Queen. How did they come to say, “Willie, let’s go to Cincinnati and make records?” Where did they see you? Do you remember? Or how did that-
Willie Eason:
Wasn’t that in New York, where the guy was driving down some… What would that be? Lenox Avenue. You remember that?
Jeannette Eason:
That’s the one, they tried to get you to change to blues. Now Cincinnati, you’re going way before my time.
Robert Stone:
Yeah. Well, it was ’46.
Willie Eason:
Yeah. Some guys got out that car and run over. Remember I even played on the radio the next day. They made me-
Jeannette Eason:
That was in New York.
Willie Eason:
That was in New York?
Jeannette Eason:
Yeah.
Willie Eason:
The guys, they jumped out the car and come running.
Jeannette Eason:
Well, tell me this, was they… All right, just like the company from New York came here, but Bob, was they headquarters in Cincinnati?
Willie Eason:
I think that’s what it was.
Jeannette Eason:
And they was picking up talent in New York, and you did it there?
Willie Eason:
And I guess I come as a surprise.
Robert Stone:
But they saw you in New York?
Willie Eason:
Yeah.
Robert Stone:
Uh-huh (affirmative). You were playing on the corner, or something? Remember?
Jeannette Eason:
Yeah, he was on a corner. And he said, a man backed his car all the way up.
Willie Eason:
Yeah.
Jeannette Eason:
And had him to go to the studio.
Willie Eason:
Yeah, that’s what I come to the studio. When I do a number in the studio with- these guys was from record companies or something. It was affiliated with, you can tell they was affiliated with-
Robert Stone:
So you took, I mean, you took Leroy with you.
Jeannette Eason:
Leroy.
Willie Eason:
Yeah.
Robert Stone:
And I’m just looking at my notes here on the first, one of the things you did with them was, “Oh, What a Time.”
Willie Eason:
Yeah.
Jeannette Eason:
Right.
Robert Stone:
And that’s the one where it sounds like there’s somebody who’s playing a Spanish guitar and it’s kind of like some nice passing chords. That’s the one you think would have been Everhardt?
PART 3 OF 4 ENDS [01:12:04]
Willie Eason:
King and Queen. That’s the King and Queen label.
Robert Stone:
Yeah, right.
Willie Eason:
Out of Cincinnati.
Robert Stone:
Right.
Willie Eason:
I tell you something. I’m trying to think of all the- you know…
Robert Stone:
Ella Mae remembered that you went to Cincinnati. Because you see, Leroy went with you.
Jeannette Eason:
Mm-hmm (affirmative). Well, Ella Mae went with him to because she was the money girl. Counting his money when he got through singing. But, now, let’s go back to the funeral home.
Willie Eason:
Yeah, that’s where this lady let me play up on top of the garage.
Jeannette Eason:
On top of her garage and the hearses-
Willie Eason:
Remember they had called the cops and everything?
Jeannette Eason:
Right.
Willie Eason:
And the cops, what did the cops do? After the people… Had the crowd and the streets were so crowded, whatnot. See, I was sitting up on top of the garage. I know you seen these low garages where they could-
Jeannette Eason:
They drive the hearses underneath.
Willie Eason:
Yeah, it was a hearse garage. Where they’d drive the hearses there.
Robert Stone:
This was in Philly?
Willie Eason:
This was-
Jeannette Eason:
Cincinnati.
Willie Eason:
Cincinnati.
Robert Stone:
Cincinnati.
Willie Eason:
And I was up on top of this garage. This is where I got at. And the lady that owned the funeral home, let me plug in her funeral home, run my cord there. And-
Robert Stone:
And you sat on top?
Willie Eason:
On top.
Robert Stone:
And played.
Jeannette Eason:
It was like a flat top. Yeah, like a little patio over the garage.
Robert Stone:
Right. Well, that’s good because people could see you.
Willie Eason:
Yeah, well that’s what they- yeah.
Robert Stone:
And this was in Cincinnati?
Willie Eason:
Yeah. And people just running. You could see them running down the street. That’s right. It was really something. The little hotel I stayed in was halfway a block up the next street. Since you mentioned, it brings me back.
Robert Stone:
Now, this was when you went to make the recordings? then you played on the street, too? Or you played on the hotel? Was that at that time or another time?
Willie Eason:
I’m trying to see when did I play “That Old Water Time” and “Tell Me Why You Like Roosevelt.”
Robert Stone:
1946 was when you recorded it for King and Queen.
Willie Eason:
Yeah it’s around the same, it had to be.
Jeannette Eason:
I’m thinking it was more in Cincinnati-
Willie Eason:
That’s right.
Jeannette Eason:
…than it was the recording because it’s another company that I’ve heard him mention. They moved to Chicago. He had a big a Doberman pincher in his office.
Robert Stone:
Well, the other company he recorded for was Aladdin.
Jeannette Eason:
Yeah.
Robert Stone:
Aladdin, out of Chicago.
Willie Eason:
I remember that.
Robert Stone:
Because that’s where you did with The Soul-Stirrers.
Jeannette Eason:
Right. Aladdin in Chicago.
Willie Eason:
That’s right.
Jeannette Eason:
So this one had to be in Cincinnati.
Robert Stone:
King, I know it was.
Jeannette Eason:
The one that wanted him in New York. Because what he was telling you, when he was singing on this garage, it was so many people so the police had come up and put a roadblock to block the block off.
Willie Eason:
Yeah. That block-
Robert Stone:
Now we’re back in Cincinnati.
Jeannette Eason:
Right.
Willie Eason:
That’s Cincinnati, yeah.
Jeannette Eason:
So, evidently, that’s where that record was made.
Robert Stone:
Okay. Now do you think, was it because they saw you playing there?
Jeannette Eason:
And maybe because they pulled the crowd or something.
Robert Stone:
Yeah. Okay.
Willie Eason:
This was on top of the undertaker, all that was at the undertaker.
Robert Stone:
You don’t remember the name of that funeral home, do you? That’d be good if you did.
Willie Eason:
Good as I know-
Robert Stone:
Streets, or anything? How about the hotel you stayed in? Remember the name of that?
Willie Eason:
It was more like a… What’d you call them house?
Robert Stone:
Boarding house?
Willie Eason:
Boarding house. I sure did, I stayed on the second floor.
Robert Stone:
Now, did Earline come with you over there?
Willie Eason:
Who dat?
Robert Stone:
Earline?
Willie Eason:
I don’t remember. That’s my sister, Earline. I don’t remember her being… She wasn’t-
Robert Stone:
I mean, Ella Mae.
Willie Eason:
Yeah, well, now that’s better. Ella Mae, Leroy. They was there. Because don’t forget, they aunt stayed there in Cincinnati.
Robert Stone:
Oh, is that right?
Willie Eason:
Yeah, they did, so when they came… When I find a corner and I go play on that corner, I ain’t got to worry about no crowd because I got my crowd.
Robert Stone:
Right. And Eberhardt come with you?
Willie Eason:
Oh yeah. Yeah.
Robert Stone:
In Cincinnati?
Willie Eason:
Yeah.
Robert Stone:
So that could have been him on that record.
Willie Eason:
Right. Right. Right.
Robert Stone:
Okay. We’re getting somewhere. It ain’t easy.
Willie Eason:
But Eberhardt, we become really close friends.
Jeannette Eason:
They like brothers.
Willie Eason:
Yeah, and they all thought of it, like nothing… Like we’re very good friends.
Jeannette Eason:
But New York, he was down on 7th and 125th street. When you was playing that music and this guy come and got you and took you to the studio?
Willie Eason:
The white guy.
Jeannette Eason:
Yeah. He even let you play it in the studio and all.
Willie Eason:
That’s right. That’s right.
Jeannette Eason:
But what he wanted him to do was record blues.
Willie Eason:
Yeah, but I told them I wasn’t-
Jeannette Eason:
And he said, “Oh Lord.” And he said, “No, no, no.” He said just change it to “baby.”
Willie Eason:
Yeah. He was trying to get him to change over. But that wasn’t my shtick. You know what I mean? And what I looked like making a record like this, one of my first times?
Robert Stone:
You don’t remember that record? Was that Savoy?
Jeannette Eason:
Savoy Records. Yes.
Willie Eason:
Savoy!
Jeannette Eason:
That’s who it was. But he-
Robert Stone:
But you never did record… You didn’t record for them? Okay.
Willie Eason:
No, I didn’t. Because it was [crosstalk 01:17:34].
Robert Stone:
There’s no records of you ever making a record for Savoy. So that was why.
Jeannette Eason:
Yeah.
Robert Stone:
Do you know about when that was? It was during your marriage, right?
Jeannette Eason:
Uh-uh (negative). This was just before our marriage.
Robert Stone:
Okay. So when was that?
Jeannette Eason:
What? ’40- Oh, no. It was later than that, man. When he got you there in New York. It had to be around ’50, ’52.
Robert Stone:
Okay, that’s good.
Jeannette Eason:
The year ’50, ’52. And then that was just before we got married.
Robert Stone:
Okay. Now, now this ought to be easy because you can remember a lot of this. I want to establish… Well, I think we know when you separated or got divorced from Alyce, Alyce Nelson. And then, then you guys met in Ocala.
Jeannette Eason:
Uh-huh (affirmative).
Robert Stone:
Okay. When was that? When did first… Do you remember when you first met Willie?
Jeannette Eason:
Uh-huh (affirmative). In 1952.
Willie Eason:
She’ll not never forget that.
Robert Stone:
And was that when you gave him the note?
Jeannette Eason:
No. 1952 in the church. They always had me organizing for the Christmas play.
Robert Stone:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Jeannette Eason:
And my father was acquainted with Bishop Nelson.
Willie Eason:
That’s my first wive’s father.
Jeannette Eason:
So that’s how I came in- I was a piano player. And we had a group of singers. My sisters and brothers.
Robert Stone:
The Davis Family.
Willie Eason:
The Davis Family, right.
Jeannette Eason:
And I met him like that. And then we all, we went to service.
Robert Stone:
So did you meet him at… Was that at Mount Canaan?
Jeannette Eason:
Yeah, at Bishop Nelson’s church.
Robert Stone:
Out there by Silver Springs.
Willie Eason:
He said Mount Canaan was the country town outside of Ocala.
Jeannette Eason:
Oh no, that’s in Silver Spring now, right?
Robert Stone:
Yeah.
Jeannette Eason:
Mount Canaan? Yeah. No, this was Fort King. [crosstalk 01:19:46].
Willie Eason:
Fort King. Yeah. Don’t get Broadway and then Fort King.
Jeannette Eason:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Robert Stone:
Broadway and-
Willie Eason:
No, see look. Broadway was the main street, Black businesses and what not.
Jeannette Eason:
Fort King was the cross street. And the church sits, what, on that next corner for Broadway?
Willie Eason:
That’s right.
Jeannette Eason:
Yeah.
Willie Eason:
Yeah.
Robert Stone:
So one block off Broadway?
Jeannette Eason:
Right. Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Robert Stone:
Okay.
Willie Eason:
House of God. They got the sign there. House of God. But I noticed that-
Robert Stone:
Is it still there?
Jeannette Eason:
I don’t know, because they said the city was buying that property in and then Mary was telling me-
Robert Stone:
That’s okay. I was just there last Friday. But anyhow, so that was about 1952. You were in church at House of God on 14th street, a block off Broadway. You played the piano. Did you sing, too, with your family?
Jeannette Eason:
Along with my sisters and brothers.
Robert Stone:
Right. And that’s when you saw this guy. Was he playing the steel?
Jeannette Eason:
He was playing steel guitar, but he was married.
Robert Stone:
Uh-huh (affirmative). He was married to Alyce.
Willie Eason:
Alyce. Right.
Jeannette Eason:
I ain’t say nothing-
Willie Eason:
She ain’t say nothing – [laughing].
Robert Stone:
So when did he get the divorced? Do you remember?
Jeannette Eason:
They broke up in April.
Robert Stone:
Of what?
Jeannette Eason:
Of ’53.
Willie Eason:
Fifty what?
Jeannette Eason:
’53. Bishop Nelson, her father. He was trying to get Willie locked up for child support? Because it was a bunch of stuff going on there. Incest and everything. So he was trying to get him locked up for child support. My father told me… Matter of fact, the night he was locked up, he had come to Tampa and traded in, what was that? A ’41 Cadillac?
Willie Eason:
Oh! Oh yeah.
Jeannette Eason:
And you got what? The ’52 Cadillac, with the visor over it, the pea green Cadillac. And you drove it back to Ocala. When the Alyce shook your keys. You remember that, don’t you? Talk to me, you act like-
Willie Eason:
No, no, I’m giving you the nod. [crosstalk 01:22:10].
Jeannette Eason:
Yeah but I want you to say I’m right, you know. Anyway, that night we had a program. See what he’d done, he-
Robert Stone:
Willie and the Davis Family?
Jeannette Eason:
The Davis Family and Willie Eason was supposed to go to the, I think it’s the minister… Belonged to the Masons in Wildwood.
Robert Stone:
In Wildwood.
Jeannette Eason:
From Ocala. And this was a big program he had set up for us to go there. And the church was packed. So when my father drove round to his house, you couldn’t get up to the house because you’re got people from the neighborhood, crowding the streets and all. It was-
Robert Stone:
Your father drove up to whose house?
Jeannette Eason:
To Willie’s house.
Robert Stone:
Willie’s house. So you you weren’t living with-
Jeannette Eason:
Yeah. He was living Alyce.
Robert Stone:
With Bishop Nelson, or you had your own-?
Jeannette Eason:
No, he had his own home. What was your street there?
Willie Eason:
Well, don’t get… You talking about it… This was before I married Alyce?
Jeannette Eason:
No, this is after.
Willie Eason:
Oh.
Robert Stone:
Where did you live Alyce?
Jeannette Eason:
When you got the 1952 Cadillac.
Willie Eason:
Yeah. Okay. Okay. Okay. She have to help me.
Robert Stone:
Yeah. That’s right. Do you remember where you lived?
Jeannette Eason:
She took the things. It’s right down… Mary’s house, which is my father’s sister, was sitting here on this corner and you drive right down. And that was your house on that right-hand side. What was the name of the street?
Robert Stone:
The old Nelson home house?
Jeannette Eason:
Uh-uh (negative). They was out, they had their own little home. Ocklawaha and what?
Willie Eason:
Sorry, I don’t recall it right off hand. I’m getting old now.
Jeannette Eason:
You can remember that ginger beer. You better come on here and-
Robert Stone:
But are you saying that him and Alyce lived near Mary Linzy?
Jeannette Eason:
No, no, no. My aunt Mary-
Robert Stone:
Your aunt Mary.
Jeannette Eason:
On my father’s side. Ocklawaha avenue at the time and I can’t think of the street.
Robert Stone:
That’s not a real big deal.
Jeannette Eason:
But he was living there with her. And Willie had purchased apartment houses in Chicago, singing on the street.
Willie Eason:
Well, I got into real estate.
Jeannette Eason:
So he was also trying to get her to leave here and go to Chicago. But that night, when he come up with the new Cadillac, we were supposed to go to this big church over in Wildwood.
Robert Stone:
A House of God church?
Jeannette Eason:
No, this was something like a Methodist church. Because I remember the guy, he had a big Lincoln and had that big Mason ring on his finger.
Robert Stone:
The minister?
Jeannette Eason:
Right. Uh-huh (affirmative). And when he got back and was getting ready to come go to the program-
Robert Stone:
When Willie got back?
Jeannette Eason:
Yeah. Alyce snatched his keys. Her and her sister-in-law Charles’ wife.
Willie Eason:
Yeah, Myrtle.
Jeannette Eason:
Myrtle. And they told him, no, they wanted to go to a movie. If he was going to leave out of town, they wouldn’t go to a movie that night, not him going to church. So that’s where the dispute came in. And when the police got there and all, well, he asked him… Everybody knew him because he sung right there in Ocala [crosstalk 01:25:26].
Willie Eason:
Oh yeah, every week.
Jeannette Eason:
You know, and they were shocked. And they was trying to calm it and on his car and all, and he said, “What’s happening here?” And he said, “Well, she got my keys and I got a program in Wildwood with the Davis family and I’m supposed to go there.” So but she wanted to go to the movies, it’s her sister in law, that’s pushing her up. And made me go to the movie.
Willie Eason:
Yeah. Myrtle.
Jeannette Eason:
Yeah. So by that time he came over and he told my father, he said, “Look, Dad.” And he said, “I can’t go with David.” He said, “You see what I’m into here.” He said, “She got my keys and everything.” He said, “I was supposed to leave out of here, I don’t know, a couple of days later going to Chicago. Take care of the business up there.” And he told us to go ahead to the church. And when we got there people were standing even outside.
Robert Stone:
So you went without Willie?
Jeannette Eason:
Yeah, we went without him.
Robert Stone:
Uh-huh (affirmative).
Jeannette Eason:
So he stayed and she tried to get him locked up. She told a lie, she said, he hit her. And the police officer, the white police, they told us they said, “No. If he had have hit you, that would have been the first thing come out your mouth.” He said but since it’s family feud between husband and wife, I can’t make her give you your keys. He said, “But I can give you authority to pull your car.” And that’s what he done. He pulled the car downtown. So the next morning my father told him who to call. It was drop the switch, wasn’t it? On the car where you could get it started. So don’t forget, they just pulled it down. They couldn’t get it started. And the man fixed it in that early morning, it had to be like the 1st of May. He’s almost doing-
Willie Eason:
That’s when I was getting ready to-
Jeannette Eason:
When you was getting ready to go back to Chicago.
Willie Eason:
Go back to Chicago.
Jeannette Eason:
And he came by my father’s house. And dad was fixing him breakfast. And mother and Bishop Nelson and Sister Nelson came back along then to try to see was he still in town.
Willie Eason:
Well, they came to me- it’s more or less- I saw the little family feud in there and all that. I loved the Davis family. I loved the way they handle themselves and whatnot. This was a little group of them. And they came, this was around Christmas time.
Jeannette Eason:
Yeah, that’s when we first came. But now at the house, Bishop Nelson took him off. Well see, I was 15. But at that particular time, your parents didn’t allow you to stay around the grownups talking. And I’m inside the house and they’re sitting on the porch. And Bishop Nelson came up and he told him to get in the car, come take a ride with him. And when he got in the car, evidently he must have told, no, he going talk right here. He never closed that door. Right? And when he got out, he was telling my father on the porch, he said, Bishop Nelson, didn’t ask him nothing about going back to his daughter, what you’re going to do about your wife and your kids. Nothing like this. What he asks about, how much money you’re going to send back to your kids. And he was hurt over that because he thought the father would try to get them back together.
Willie Eason:
Yeah. So what I believe in living with a girlfriend and a wife or two women, or being involved with two women. So what I done, no love affair, nothing that… It was a while before we-
Jeannette Eason:
And the thing about it, Bob, when I seen him crying, right?
Willie Eason:
Well, I just can’t help it. That’s a habit I got.
Jeannette Eason:
He’s hurt then he cry like a baby.
Willie Eason:
If I get hurt, I shed tears, I can’t help it.
Jeannette Eason:
I lived with my aunt down the street. That night I went and wrote him a letter telling him that I would make you a better wife. I’m trying to console him, not realizing I’m proposing to him. I only went to the fourth grade. So you could imagine that letter. But at the same time I had no boyfriend. Sex was nowhere in my life. I would support my father, my mother and my sisters and brothers working in the fields right out in Ocala. All right? So I wrote the letter and in the letter I told him… He kept the letter until we got burned out. I told him I would make him a good wife, keep his shirts, his handkerchiefs, his shoes shined. Because I know how to shine shoes. Right? All this clean for him to go sing on the street.
Willie Eason:
I was so enthused. I couldn’t believe it. Because she’s pretty- years younger than I am.
Robert Stone:
All right, so I want to get this straight. You gave him this letter as he was leaving?
Jeannette Eason:
As he was leaving on the way to Chicago.
Robert Stone:
On the way in Chicago, in the midst of all this strife.
Jeannette Eason:
Right.
Robert Stone:
Bishop Nelson, Alyce and his car. [crosstalk 01:30:56] His Cadillac was only a year old, right? So somebody wanted that car.
Jeannette Eason:
Yeah. And the other one was ’41. So it was what, close to 11.
Willie Eason:
Yeah.
Jeannette Eason:
Right? So what I done-
Robert Stone:
But he had traded that in, right?
Jeannette Eason:
Yeah. Over here in Tampa. And what I’d done, I took the note. His coat was on the porch over a chair, like that. So when I come up from my aunt’s house, I took the note and I pushed it down on the inside of the pocket. And I went on and I helped set the table, put the dishes on the table and everything. And my mother and father went into the kitchen. So that gives me a chance to tell him in his ear, “Look in your inside coat pocket.” But after I said that, I was running all the way back to my aunt’s house. Because I was so afraid that he was… You know how people would go to your parents.
Robert Stone:
Right.
Jeannette Eason:
That he would say, I wonder what kind of note it is that your daughter told me to look at it in my pocket? Oh God, I would have been a dead person.
Robert Stone:
Uh-huh (affirmative).
Jeannette Eason:
If he had said. So he said he was still crying and upset when he got… Because he went back by the house.
Willie Eason:
That’s a relief to me. If I shed a tear, it’s a relief. I get rid of whatever’s hanging, try to get rid of it. I’m just like that. It runs in my family.
Jeannette Eason:
He got up to Gainesville.
Willie Eason:
That’s when I got-
Jeannette Eason:
And went to gas up. And he said, “Wait a minute. That little girl told me she put a note in my pocket.”
Willie Eason:
Yeah. And I went in my pocket, I forgot it was even in there.
Jeannette Eason:
And he said he stood there and he read, and he started laughing. He said that gave him encouragement to keep on going to Chicago. But when he read it, he said, “Oh, she ain’t nothing but a baby.” But don’t forget, he was 31.
Robert Stone:
And you were?
Jeannette Eason:
15.
Willie Eason:
- Yeah.
Robert Stone:
So, then you went up to Chicago and did you visits. And then it was sometime before y’all got married, right?
Jeannette Eason:
Oh yeah. Close to five years.
Robert Stone:
Close to five years. Where were you when you got married?
Jeannette Eason:
We were back in Florida.
Willie Eason:
Back in Florida.
Jeannette Eason:
Because he went to Chicago, we was migrating as farm workers to Pocomoke, Maryland.
Robert Stone:
Okay. Let me-
PART 4 OF 4 ENDS [01:33:22]
Robert Stone:
… Goes to Chicago with the note-
Jeannette Eason:
Right.
Robert Stone:
… and tends to his business and then-
Jeannette Eason:
We left.
Robert Stone:
Then your family is migrating, doing agricultural farm work-
Jeannette Eason:
To the East Coast, Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Robert Stone:
… the East Coast up to Maryland, you said?
Jeannette Eason:
Maryland, Virginia, in that area.
Robert Stone:
What were you picking up there? What kind of crops were you working?
Jeannette Eason:
From strawberries through to turnip greens. You have strawberries, tomatoes, potatoes, beans, corn, and the last big crop the farmers would grow is the turnip greens.
Robert Stone:
Then so how did you ultimately connect to get married?
Jeannette Eason:
By coming… My father gave him address in Maryland where he would be at, the post office box number, that was the only thing we had, we didn’t know where we was going in the vehicle and he gave him the post office box to keep in touch, like that, with him.
Robert Stone:
Because you were friends and you do gigs together, is that right-
Willie Eason:
Right.
Robert Stone:
… programs.
Jeannette Eason:
He was doing it for the Davis family period and he came across… was it in the summer of ’53? Yeah, during the summer of ’53, but when he came across Alyce had already got her divorce, Bishop Nelson got the divorce quick and he was telling my mother about the divorce and how bad he wanted his kids. He didn’t want to leave his kids behind for another man to raise and all. I heard that conversation by listening at the door and what he done there in Maryland. He came over and got our group started to the… the name of it was the Golden Harps.
Robert Stone:
Who was in that group?
Jeannette Eason:
The folks up in Maryland. My four brothers, my sisters. It was two girls and four boys.
Robert Stone:
The Golden Harps?
Willie Eason:
Golden Harps.
Jeannette Eason:
Of Pocomoke City, Maryland.
Robert Stone:
What city?
Jeannette Eason:
Pocomoke City?
Robert Stone:
Pocomoke.
Jeannette Eason:
Uh-huh (affirmative). P-O-C-O-M-O-K-E, Maryland.
Willie Eason:
Pocomoke.
Robert Stone:
Never heard of that.
Jeannette Eason:
It’s up… Princess Anne, Maryland is the next biggest town, Snow Hill, Maryland and then you got Salisbury.
Willie Eason:
Wasn’t no big towns, very small.
Robert Stone:
Farming towns.
Willie Eason:
Yeah.
Robert Stone:
Small towns.
Jeannette Eason:
Yeah. Pocomoke is a farming town, yes.
Robert Stone:
Uh-huh (affirmative). The Golden Harps?
Jeannette Eason:
Mm-hmm (affirmative) of Pocomoke, Maryland.
Robert Stone:
And Willie hooked up with you then but that was still-
Jeannette Eason:
No, but we wasn’t… No, we weren’t-
Robert Stone:
Yeah, he-
Jeannette Eason:
Yeah, he hooked up with the family, he wasn’t-
Robert Stone:
Right. So it was sometime later, what’d you say, like four years later before you finally-
Jeannette Eason:
Yeah. We came back to Florida. Well, don’t forget he booked us all through up there in Maryland.
Willie Eason:
Don’t forget I promoted [crosstalk 00:03:28]
Jeannette Eason:
Yeah. He even did promotions with Archie Lee Brown [Archie Brownlee].
Willie Eason:
Oh yeah-
Robert Stone:
Archie Brownlee, yeah.
Willie Eason:
Yeah, the-
Robert Stone:
The Blind Boys-
Willie Eason:
Blind Boys, yes.
Jeannette Eason:
The Harmonettes in Salisbury.
Willie Eason:
Blind Boys, I used to kept them-
Jeannette Eason:
Cambridge, Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Willie Eason:
… when they didn’t have money to stay all night or whatnot, I gave them a place to stay because a lot of times they was broke. You’d think that they was-
Jeannette Eason:
Well that was in Philadelphia after we got married, but this was… With him being in promotions because he started in Georgia with C.L. Franklin, he knew exactly where the singers would be.
Robert Stone:
Right.
Jeannette Eason:
See by calling the-
Willie Eason:
You know Otis Jackson?
Jeannette Eason:
Yeah, by calling the promoter.
Willie Eason:
I bet you heard of him.
Robert Stone:
Who?
Willie Eason:
Otis Jackson.
Robert Stone:
What about him?
Willie Eason:
Well, he was a promoter.
Robert Stone:
Where was he?
Willie Eason:
He worked at… just like I went to work with… I forget, but he’s ahead of me. He’s the one that really had it going.
Robert Stone:
Where was he based?
Willie Eason:
Where was Otis?
Jeannette Eason:
Canal Park, Florida. Anywhere through Florida.
Willie Eason:
Well, he booked mostly in Florida.
Robert Stone:
Was he living in Jacksonville or Orlando?
Jeannette Eason:
He lived up around Jacksonville.
Willie Eason:
He wasn’t no singer or musician, but he was a promoter.
Jeannette Eason:
Yeah.
Willie Eason:
He’d promote a few of these-
Jeannette Eason:
What he was doing, Otis was a very slick promoter, something like Ronnie Williams and what he’d done, he had heard of the Blind Boys of Alabama, right? But what Otis would do was go through Georgia and South Carolina, get a vying group, and he put on his fly card The Blind Boys from Mississippi.
Willie Eason:
But he wouldn’t tell what Blind Boys it was-
Jeannette Eason:
In Alabama and when the people get down there it’s a different group.
Willie Eason:
See, the original Blind Boys, they’d draw the crowd.
Robert Stone:
So he was a shifty guy?
Jeannette Eason:
Yeah.
Robert Stone:
Well, do you think he actually wrote the Roosevelt song and the Pearl Harbor thing?
Jeannette Eason:
No, are you kidding? That’s the lying-est man ever walked the earth.
Robert Stone:
Is that right?
Jeannette Eason:
Oh my God.
Willie Eason:
But he got by with a lot of stuff that he was doing.
Jeannette Eason:
He was the one the night Willie… To show you the jealousy this man had in him, we went out on a boat ride with Rosetta Tharpe.
Willie Eason:
Sister Rosetta Tharpe. You heard of her.
Jeannette Eason:
And the boat ride was sold out. It would take you out from the pier in Philadelphia on the boat and you go up the river.
Robert Stone:
Right.
Jeannette Eason:
It was sold out. The crowd was loaded. Willie got the people down there on the boat. Here come Otis Jackson. Right there in Philadelphia… Delaware River, that’s what you’d ride on, going out and they’d take them tours out like that and got back to the boat and the man had engine trouble. And he kept telling Willie, he said, “I’m trying to start it. I’m trying to start it.” He said that it will not start.” So even Rosetta told us, said, “Well, Willie said, ‘Look, get him to rock it.’ If he started rocking it, baby you and I are going to rock it.” She’s such a beautiful person.
Willie Eason:
She was a very lively person. Sister Rosetta Tharpe.
Jeannette Eason:
After the program. He didn’t even know what he said ’til after the program, Otis Jackson. He went through trying to tell everybody on that boat, “Go down then and get your money back because the boat didn’t sail.”
Willie Eason:
He’s trying to hurt, you know, that jealousy.
Robert Stone:
And it wasn’t his program, it was-
Jeannette Eason:
No.
Robert Stone:
He just was there.
Willie Eason:
No.
Jeannette Eason:
And you know something else he would do? If you had tickets made up for your program, he would do a reproduction of your own tickets and sell them.
Robert Stone:
Is that right?
Willie Eason:
Oh yeah.
Jeannette Eason:
And put the money in his pocket.
Robert Stone:
Where did that… that happen to you?
Willie Eason:
No, he did never do it to me.
Robert Stone:
But you heard of it?
Jeannette Eason:
But he’s done it to Ronnie Williams so many times, wasn’t nothing-
Robert Stone:
Who’s Ronnie Williams?
Jeannette Eason:
Ronnie Williams was another big crook out of New Jersey.
Willie Eason:
He was a promoter, he promoted.
Jeannette Eason:
A promoter. He’d get all the singers there, Bob. They perform and everything and look for him, he gone back to Newark.
Willie Eason:
He gone with the money.
Jeannette Eason:
The singers were stuck in Philadelphia. This is all mine!
Willie Eason:
He gone with the money.
Robert Stone:
Yeah, I know. That’s why so many of them demanded cash.
Jeannette Eason:
Right, yeah.
Willie Eason:
They’re going with the money.
Jeannette Eason:
But Willie struggled with everybody that he ever promoted. Even if his program fell through, he wouldn’t treat one no better than he’d treat the others.
Willie Eason:
That’s right because you could ask him-
Jeannette Eason:
He seen that every one of them-
Willie Eason:
… both groups of the Blind Boys-
Jeannette Eason:
Yeah.
Willie Eason:
… The Happy Land, and what’s that other boy name, Archie?
Jeannette Eason:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Willie Eason:
I treated them all-
Jeannette Eason:
Clarence.
Willie Eason:
Clarence, that’s right. I treated them all fair. All of them loved me. Not only that, I even took them into my house and fed them instead of letting them go to the restaurant.
Jeannette Eason:
Even have paid their hotel bill when they get to town. They’d come in-
Willie Eason:
They’d come in broke.
Robert Stone:
But Otis Jackson was a shifty guy, huh?
Willie Eason:
Oh yes he was.
Jeannette Eason:
He would try to take anybody’s song. Well, not only that he copied behind Willie’s songbook. Willie sang it and he come up here to steal his songbook.
Robert Stone:
Do you think he wrote that Pearl Harbor and Roosevelt?
Jeannette Eason:
No way.
Robert Stone:
No?
Jeannette Eason:
No way.
Robert Stone:
Where did it come?
Willie Eason:
Well, only thing I know…. I can’t say exactly who, but the thing about it, it was taken by at least two as far as I know that would try to use words, some of them used a few different words, but it’s the same song. It’s the same song.
Jeannette Eason:
But he always told us and the way he could repeat it whether he had the music or not.
Robert Stone:
Who?
Jeannette Eason:
Willie. That made me believe because up until the day that man can repeat that Roosevelt and it’s just like his music. Even now with Alzheimer’s, I have Edward and them to watch him. He might forget and sing a song twice, but in that song, he never mix two songs together. He might sing it twice with the Alzheimer’s, but you’ll never hear him mix two songs like Little Wooden Church with Never Hurt a Man. He might sing Never Hurt Man twice, but he don’t mix them.
Robert Stone:
Right. Let’s get back. Excuse me if I get, but I got to get out of here about 4:30-
Willie Eason:
Right.
Robert Stone:
… or 4:00 and want to get…
Jeannette Eason:
Oh, God.
Robert Stone:
Of course, I can always call you if I need something.
Jeannette Eason:
Right, I got to run and pick the kids up.
Robert Stone:
You got to go?
Jeannette Eason:
Dominique and JJ up.
Robert Stone:
Okay. Well, can you give me just a couple minutes we’ll talk about… Let’s get down and when y’all actually got married.
Jeannette Eason:
We got married February, the 15th, 1956.
Willie Eason:
She got it right.
Robert Stone:
2/15/56.
Jeannette Eason:
In Folkston, Georgia.
Robert Stone:
And you were on the road with your family at the time?
Jeannette Eason:
Yeah, we was back down here in Florida out near Lake Mirror.
Robert Stone:
Okay, so your family was in Florida? Why did you go up to Folkston?
Jeannette Eason:
Up to Folkston because my father wouldn’t let us get married, and he told Willie that about four or five times and yeah, he let us get married the minute he’d leave, he knocked me down, “What you want to marry him for?”
Robert Stone:
And you could… See, I was raised in Florida in those days, in ’56, you can get married in Georgia younger without your parents’ permission, is that right?
Jeannette Eason:
Right.
Willie Eason:
That’s right.
Robert Stone:
That’s why… and Folkston is-
Jeannette Eason:
No, I was 19, almost 20. February… March, I would have been 20. I was 19 and that’s what my father brought up. That I couldn’t get married because I was under age.
Robert Stone:
You were under 21?
Jeannette Eason:
Yeah.
Robert Stone:
Yeah.
Jeannette Eason:
But Georgia, the Reverend Green-
Willie Eason:
Yeah, that man changes in Georgia…
Jeannette Eason:
The funeral home told him, he said, “Reverend Davis,” he said, “I hate to… what’d he say, “I hate to disobey what you’re saying,” he said, “but in this county she’s grown. She’s 19 years old.”
Robert Stone:
This in Ocala or-
Jeannette Eason:
No, in Folkston, Georgia.
Willie Eason:
In Folkston, Georgia.
Robert Stone:
Yeah. Right.
Jeannette Eason:
Because, “She’s wrong, she’s 19 years old.”
Robert Stone:
Okay.
Jeannette Eason:
“You cannot stop this wedding.”
Robert Stone:
So was he pretty upset when you come back?
Jeannette Eason:
Ooh, my father cursed all the way back home.
Willie Eason:
Yeah, but they learnt to love me, Bob. Before it was over with-
Jeannette Eason:
That’s what he learned, Bob.
Willie Eason:
That’s right. They all learned to love me because I had to take care of all of them.
Jeannette Eason:
Afterwards he learned, but…
Robert Stone:
But you were still booking the family?
Willie Eason:
Yeah.
Jeannette Eason:
Well, not only was he… At that time, no, he was just traveling back here from Chicago, and made several trips and bought food because I took sick and I had pleurisy in the sides. My tubes and things was green and that’s when he had my sister to call him the last time. That had to be in January, or the first of February wasn’t it?
Willie Eason:
Somewhere along there.
Jeannette Eason:
Because we left and went to Chicago in March to play Evans Church.
Willie Eason:
Clay Evans, yeah.
Jeannette Eason:
It was the fourth or fifth Sunday in March.
Willie Eason:
It’s really outstanding.
Jeannette Eason:
He had us booked on that program-
Willie Eason:
Baptist ministers in Chicago.
Jeannette Eason:
… after we got married in February.
Robert Stone:
The Davis family?
Jeannette Eason:
Uh-huh (affirmative). And from there then that’s when the programs really-
Robert Stone:
When are you going to be back?
Jeannette Eason:
I’ll be back in about five minutes. They going to call us.
Robert Stone:
Oh no, that’s no big deal.
Jeannette Eason:
Well, it won’t be too long. I just got to fight with the traffic.
Robert Stone:
Yeah, right.
Jeannette Eason:
Yeah.
Robert Stone:
Willie, when you were up in Chicago in the ’50s, you were living up there? When you married Jean when you came down to marry Jean, you were living in Chicago?
Willie Eason:
We lived there for a while but-
Jeannette Eason:
No you was in Chicago when you came down to Mirror.
Willie Eason:
Oh yeah, when I came down-
Robert Stone:
You already had some apartments then? You were already in real estate then?
Willie Eason:
Yeah, I was already there.
Jeannette Eason:
[crosstalk 00:14:38]
Robert Stone:
How much stuff do you have? Do you remember? And where they were?
Willie Eason:
In Chicago… Now that, I wish you had told me… I could have wrote all this down.
Robert Stone:
That’s all right, do what you can.
Willie Eason:
But I could-
Robert Stone:
South Side?
Willie Eason:
South side.
Robert Stone:
Uh-huh (affirmative).
Willie Eason:
South side, that’s right. That where I met the Soul Stirrers there. Do you have it?
Robert Stone:
One or two buildings or five buildings or duplexes or do you remember?
Willie Eason:
Just had two buildings, two buildings.
Robert Stone:
Two buildings?
Willie Eason:
Yeah.
Robert Stone:
How many apartments, how many units, five, 10?
Willie Eason:
Well, I only had just a couple apartment, I mostly rent the rooms, I make more money.
Robert Stone:
You rented rooms to single men or what?
Willie Eason:
Well, single men with their girlfriend. You don’t know whether they girlfriend and boyfriend. So you-
Robert Stone:
So you just rent a room, not to a single person-
Willie Eason:
That’s right. So if something happen, it’s up to them.
Robert Stone:
Right. Would they pay by the week or the month or…
Willie Eason:
Well, some of them paid by the week because most of payday was around Friday.
Robert Stone:
Right. Now when you left to go travel to Florida who took care of your apartments? Who collected rent?
Willie Eason:
My program was booked as such. You know that nobody was booked. In other words like take Harris out of the Soul- he was just great. He was a great promoter, Harris out of the Soul Stirrers.
Robert Stone:
Rebert Harris?
Willie Eason:
Yeah. And the thing is, we got to be real great friend and I was on a lot of their programs and they was on my program. That’s right, then I went into promotion and that’s why I started into promotion and now that’s when I-
Robert Stone:
But-
Willie Eason:
… you remember Amos ‘n’ Andy?
Robert Stone:
Yep.
Willie Eason:
I’m the first one that booked Amos ‘n’ Andy in Chicago.
Robert Stone:
Is that right?
Willie Eason:
That’s right.
Robert Stone:
You got to know those guys?
Willie Eason:
Yes.
Robert Stone:
How was that? The Black people liked them?
Willie Eason:
Oh, yeah.
Robert Stone:
They liked Amos ‘n’ Andy.
Willie Eason:
Yes, they did.
Robert Stone:
Uh-huh (affirmative), but it was white guys that played the parts, right?
Willie Eason:
Yeah.
Robert Stone:
They were white guys?
Willie Eason:
These here, the ones I’m talking about was Black.
Robert Stone:
I see.
Willie Eason:
Yeah, they were Black. They was Black. I was glad to meet them. That’s the first time… I had- him a lot and whatnot doing their shows and all, by the first time I had met them, you know?
Robert Stone:
When you went out of town who collected the rent for you, from your rooms?
Willie Eason:
Well, the ones who collected my rent, I think I got bit once or twice, but I had pretty good tenants. My tenant clientele was very good. They didn’t give me a whole lot of mouth, like a lot of tenants try to do…
Robert Stone:
So you could leave for a week or two and then come back and collect rent?
Willie Eason:
That’s it.
Robert Stone:
You didn’t have to leave anybody to look out for it?
Willie Eason:
Right.
Robert Stone:
All right. But you couldn’t go too long?
Willie Eason:
No, that’s right. You’re right.
Robert Stone:
Yeah.
Willie Eason:
Right. You, telling me the story.
Robert Stone:
Well, I’m just trying to put it all together.
Willie Eason:
Yeah, and the thing is, Bob, it was just like… you know a couple times you know when I met you and when I had been meeting different ones… Well, I’d be constantly meeting different ones, because you’re out there in the field, but the thing is, I can say, out of all the groups that I’ve met, that you are functioning with, and whatnot, I have to give it to what you call them boys, them brothers, Campbell Brothers.
Robert Stone:
Yeah?
Willie Eason:
They seem to be very honest, down to Earth.
Robert Stone:
Well, you got that right.
Willie Eason:
Yes, he was like a person I used to use that phrase, “You’ll tell on yourself.” you know what I mean? You don’t intend to, but if you’ve done something bad or whatnot, and it comes to light, it comes where it can be seen and whatnot, the thing is the song that we used to sing, You Can’t Hide. That’s right. God got your number, no way you’ll live. It said, “Death got a warrant for you.” I remember that. So, you can’t hide. That’s right because eventually somebody’s going to get to know what you is, who you is and whatnot.
Willie Eason:
That’s the way it has been with me because I got some of the biggest surprises, with programs are things I went… The thing is I found out that certain things that I was doing, I had to change around a little bit like in making the guitar seem like it’s saying exactly what I’m saying and after I found out that was helping me I threw that in. Never hurt a man, I said, “Watch your mouth,” you know like that, and you just went to going with the public. I asked the guitar, “What did you say?” “Yeah, we heard.” I said, “You’re good.” And that built me up some.
Robert Stone:
So when did you leave Chicago?
Willie Eason:
I stayed in Chicago a good while. I even come back, me and my wife was separated, I’d say a couple of weeks or whatnot, but I came back over when I got my wife last I went back to Chicago because I was making a heck of… some money on them streets. On them street corners?
Robert Stone:
How much money did you make?
Willie Eason:
On them street corners?
Robert Stone:
Yeah.
Willie Eason:
Oh my God. I couldn’t say. If I told you exactly I’d be lying. To tell… Yeah, because some corners you’re going to do better than you do on other corners.
Robert Stone:
Now you and Jean lived in Chicago?
Willie Eason:
We lived in Philadelphia…
Robert Stone:
But when you first got married, you live in Chicago, right? That’s when you took the cars up there?
Willie Eason:
When we first… Yeah, we lived in… No, no, no, no. We’s come back to Florida. We lived in Florida for a while.
Robert Stone:
Okay.
Willie Eason:
And for not that long, for a few months and don’t forget all of my work and my house, my rentals and everything was up here in Philadelphia. The thing is, I was playing on the street corners, I done that practically and away I went, I’d just go and knock on your door and say, “Bob, I’m a gospel singer. I play steel guitar. If you want to hear me, I’ll play for you.” I’ll say, “I’d like to hook up to your current. I’ll pay you for it, whatever you… You give me a price, if it’s $2, if it’s $5, whatnot, then you let me hook up. That’s how I got started playing in the street.
Robert Stone:
And how did-
Willie Eason:
That’s how got met with the Soul Stirrers, playing on the street right on the corner there. Right around the corner I was singing, I was hooked up to the back of their… They had a… what you call it?
Robert Stone:
A dry cleaner?
Willie Eason:
A dry cleaner. That’s right.
Robert Stone:
Who owned that?
Willie Eason:
Well, I don’t know how many of them owned it, but don’t forget, it was about five or six of the Soul Stirrers, but I know at least… let me see, Medlock, Harris, those are the two main leaders and they was the head of the Soul Stirrers.
Robert Stone:
Right and they had a share of this dry cleaners?
Willie Eason:
Yeah. I assume it because those are the main two that was… Those were the ones that you-
Robert Stone:
You plugged in there. You plugged your amp to the dry cleaners?
Willie Eason:
Right, and then I remember while they were down on 47th and Prairie, Harris, who used to be the manager, after he heard me, he introduced me to another dry cleaner friend of his up on 58th and Prairie. Yeah, so that’s the way…
Robert Stone:
And you played, you hooked up there too?
Willie Eason:
Oh, yes, yes. And I’d make more money there doing that than I would if I’d go on a job somewhere because them people give. That’s right. I had one man, anytime I played Pearl Harbor, he come from up the street, that’s on 47th and Prairie, that man would come down there and said, “You know what I want.” I said, “Roosevelt.” “Yeah, you got it, you got it.” But he’d wait till I played the song, he’d come in, stick it up there in my pocket.
Robert Stone:
What’d he give you?
Willie Eason:
Huh? $5.
Robert Stone:
$5.
Willie Eason:
Yeah.
Robert Stone:
This was the undertaker?
Willie Eason:
Hmm?
Robert Stone:
This was-
Willie Eason:
No, this here, he wasn’t an undertaker, he was some other politician guy, this guy was.
Robert Stone:
Uh-huh (affirmative).
Jeannette Eason:
I’m back.
Robert Stone:
Hey.
Willie Eason:
I was telling him about Harris and all of them-
Robert Stone:
Hey.
Willie Eason:
… but I’ll tell them about how I got to playing on the street corners.
Jeannette Eason:
You told him about the properties?
Willie Eason:
Huh?
Robert Stone:
No, I was trying to get straight on that. Now when-
Jeannette Eason:
He owned….
Robert Stone:
When you got married, he said you said you stayed in Florida for a while, just a few months.
Jeannette Eason:
Only… what he done, we got married on the 15th of-
Robert Stone:
February.
Jeannette Eason:
Of February. He took off on the 17th and went to Chicago. He had just bought a brand new ’56 Cadillac when he drove down. When he come down he had my wedding suit, my blouse, my corsage, my pearls, my shoes, my stockings in the trunk of that car.
Robert Stone:
He brought it all and brought to you. Surprise.
Jeannette Eason:
The corsage, everything. Corsage, everything.
Willie Eason:
Right from Chicago.
Jeannette Eason:
Right from Chicago.
Robert Stone:
Did you like that?
Jeannette Eason:
Oh, he paid with [inaudible 00:25:29].
Robert Stone:
On that you were tickled though.
Jeannette Eason:
That’s too…
Willie Eason:
It was exclusive store, very exclusive.
Robert Stone:
Yeah because he was a high roller then right?
Jeannette Eason:
Oh, yeah. Oh, when he stepped out, he had on this. Never will forget it.
Robert Stone:
What’d he look like? Yeah, tell me. Tell me what y’all wore when you got married. Yeah.
Jeannette Eason:
And this is where Henry got his dressing from. Henry wasn’t a dresser by his self.
Willie Eason:
No.
Robert Stone:
Is that right?
Jeannette Eason:
Him and Willie Eason and Eberhardt was the best dressed men that was. They matched everything. Now, the Cadillac was a Goddess gold and yellow.
Robert Stone:
A what color?
Jeannette Eason:
Goddess gold.
Willie Eason:
Goddess gold, that’s what the name is called.
Robert Stone:
Goddess gold.
Jeannette Eason:
And yellow. All right?
Robert Stone:
Uh-huh (affirmative), and yellow, two toned.
Jeannette Eason:
Two toned.
Willie Eason:
Two toned, yeah.
Jeannette Eason:
Now when he got out that car he had one of these, I know you seen them, a Stetson hat, but it’s made out of cowhide. So you know how the brown is in the cowhide and then the beige is in the cowhide, that’s the kind of hat he had on. He had on shoes to match.
Robert Stone:
Gold shoes?
Willie Eason:
More like alligator shoes.
Jeannette Eason:
Yeah, with a little alligator going through it.
Robert Stone:
Uh-huh (affirmative).
Jeannette Eason:
And he had own brown beige pants with a shirt with beige in it, but it looked more like silk and when he got out he sashed.
Robert Stone:
Did he have a tie on?
Jeannette Eason:
Yeah. No, he didn’t have a tie on. He was sporting, you know, free man.
Robert Stone:
The Stetson hat was like the… what do they-
Jeannette Eason:
It wasn’t no-
Robert Stone:
They call it-
Jeannette Eason:
… wide brim hats like the… what you call it, my father had one and like the guys wear now but it’s a Panama.
Willie Eason:
Was it a-
Jeannette Eason:
It wasn’t that.
Robert Stone:
It was smaller.
Jeannette Eason:
Yeah, it was small.
Willie Eason:
Smaller.
Robert Stone:
Smaller brim.
Willie Eason:
At the time they called them the Stetson hats. They mostly sold them in New York and-
Robert Stone:
That was a brand.
Jeannette Eason:
Yeah.
Robert Stone:
And it was that calf skin, like calf skin-
Jeannette Eason:
Yeah, the calf skin.
Robert Stone:
Brown and white, it was?
Jeannette Eason:
Brown and white.
Robert Stone:
Now, did you have any custom stuff on your car at that time on that ’56 Cadillac?
Willie Eason:
Oh my God-
Jeannette Eason:
[crosstalk 00:27:36]
Willie Eason:
… you shouldn’t have said that.
Robert Stone:
Tell me.
Willie Eason:
You shouldn’t have said that.
Jeannette Eason:
Well, the ’52-
Robert Stone:
Tell me about this ’56 where he drove down to get you there.
Jeannette Eason:
The ’56, was brand new off the floor, but then he had the Vs over back bumpers of each bumper.
Robert Stone:
Oh, Cadillac V?
Jeannette Eason:
He had one sent all the way to Hollywood-
Robert Stone:
California.
Jeannette Eason:
… to get the extension of the trunk with the toweling.
Robert Stone:
Right.
Jeannette Eason:
Am I missing something?
Willie Eason:
No, she got a good memory.
Robert Stone:
The visor, spotlights, what?
Willie Eason:
Oh, the visor, yeah.
Jeannette Eason:
The visor was on there, and in the front, he still had the smaller Vs, right, they were on that fender over the tire. I mean, it was spotless.
Robert Stone:
How about did he have fender skirts on it? You remember those fender skirts?
Jeannette Eason:
I don’t remember the skirts.
Willie Eason:
Only on the rim.
Jeannette Eason:
On the rim, yeah.
Willie Eason:
On the rim.
Jeannette Eason:
Yeah, on the rim.
Willie Eason:
Two rims.
Jeannette Eason:
Yeah.
Robert Stone:
And it was Goddess gold and yellow?
Jeannette Eason:
Mm-hmm (affirmative). And that chrome bumper on the back with the tie-
Robert Stone:
Continental… continental clip they call that.
Jeannette Eason:
Yeah, he had all that done to the car.
Robert Stone:
And how about the interior? What was it like?
Jeannette Eason:
It was white leather.
Robert Stone:
White leather.
Jeannette Eason:
Yes, I’ll never forget.
Robert Stone:
I must have been some car, right?
Jeannette Eason:
Yeah, it was gorgeous.
Willie Eason:
You know, I [crosstalk 00:29:06]
Jeannette Eason:
But my father almost fainted when he seen it.
Robert Stone:
[crosstalk 00:29:07] today. Yeah, and then hey-
Willie Eason:
You wish you had it-
Robert Stone:
Did you pay cash for it?
Willie Eason:
No, I did not.
Jeannette Eason:
No, he was on a payment. His payment was $356 a month.
Robert Stone:
Wow. That was a lot of-
Jeannette Eason:
That’s shows you how much Willie was making.
Robert Stone:
That was a lot of money.
Jeannette Eason:
He had his apartment building.
Robert Stone:
Remember what that car cost back then?
Willie Eason:
No, I can’t… this right offhand. Don’t forget I was making payments. I finally got up that down payment.
Jeannette Eason:
What’d you have? You had like three years back then-
Willie Eason:
Or something like that.
Jeannette Eason:
… to pay for a car.
Willie Eason:
Yeah.
Jeannette Eason:
You know they just started this four and six year crap. Pay the-
Willie Eason:
You know it just built my credit. Hey, it built my credit to own it, to be able to get it.
Jeannette Eason:
Because he owned his houses. He had-
Robert Stone:
How many units did he have at that time?
Jeannette Eason:
At 1918… Well there you can rent the basement-
Robert Stone:
1918 what?
Jeannette Eason:
West Adam Street in Chicago.
Robert Stone:
Okay.
Jeannette Eason:
You had apartment in the basement floor. Then you had the first floor and as you come up the steps that was a second floor. What they have, about three floors there?
Willie Eason:
Yeah, well you talking about Adams street with the-
Jeannette Eason:
Yeah, Adams, West Adam, 1918.
Willie Eason:
Yeah. Yeah.
Jeannette Eason:
And there you had tenants throughout.
Willie Eason:
Oh, yeah. I wasn’t worried about no tenants.
Jeannette Eason:
But what he done, the reason why we didn’t get… eventually got up there, until he went back, on the 16th he left the car with me and we took him to the airport and my father… No, you got somebody else to take them to the airport.
Willie Eason:
I can’t recall.
Jeannette Eason:
I think it was Andy Jones.
Robert Stone:
You left that brand new Cadillac with her?
Jeannette Eason:
He left it parked there in the yard with me. Well, my father was so happy that he left it, he figured he’d want to play big shot.
Willie Eason:
Yeah, her father, when I see him, he left it-
Jeannette Eason:
…he would have taken it and drive it.
Robert Stone:
Sure, who wouldn’t?
Jeannette Eason:
And show people it was his car.
Robert Stone:
Who wouldn’t?
Jeannette Eason:
But then when… I guess, like I’ve always been a grown up and I respect other people materials and things. He asked me for the keys, I said, “Willie didn’t leave me no keys.” But I had went and hid the keys in the dirt under the house to make sure, in a jar, that he couldn’t find it. [Tape stops]. Now, he got angry with me.
Robert Stone:
Your father?
Jeannette Eason:
Yeah.
Robert Stone:
Yeah.
Jeannette Eason:
And he knew, him and Willie had sit down and talked, this is after we’re married, that Willie had wanted to take the family to Chicago. He said, “Dad, I’m going back, and I want to go and I got to get some tenants out in order for you and your family to live and be comfortable.” He said, “I’m doing this for the Davis family,” right? So Willie got up there and in about four or five days he got in touch with me. He wrote me because we didn’t have a phone and he said, “Jeannette,” he said, “Honey,” he said, “I want you to come up. Here’s a plane ticket. I want you to come up and see where do you want to live in this house as my wife,” right?
Robert Stone:
Uh-huh (affirmative).
Jeannette Eason:
So with my father having an understanding and all, I couldn’t take that plane ticket and leave, but see, it wasn’t on my father’s part, it was the respect I had for my father, even though I was married to him. I kept them vows and abide by obey your parents and all. So he said, his words to me was, “If you get on the plane, I will have you taken off and I will embarrass you in front of this town,” and embarrassment was something I lived with. I didn’t want this. So I wrote him back. He took the money on it. Now, it was in my name, the ticket. My father was so well known, he went down to the post office to Mrs. Payne in Longwood, Florida and cashed that money and kept it.
Robert Stone:
So it was a money order for a ticket?
Jeannette Eason:
It was a money order for a ticket and he told me, he had my flight made and everything, and he had told me what to do and all. So when he did that, he took my oldest sister, they went down and done it and he told me, he said, “If you think for one minute. I’m going to let… and he told him this before we got married, “That I’m going to let you take my support away from me, you got another thought coming. You’re crazy.” And that’s what he told me. He said, “I don’t care how much money he spend.”
Jeannette Eason:
So I wrote Willie back through Amos Jones, a neighbor. I could not write Willie Eason and mail a letter. I had to write Amos Jones. Amos Jones would take my letter, he’d come up to the house, pick it up, take my letter and send it to Willie. Willie would send a letter back to Amos Jones and Amos would come down the road, if it was no mail, you didn’t hear nothing, if it was mail, Amos would whistle.
Jeannette Eason:
So I’m the one that’s always cleaning the yard and everything and he would whistle, but before he got in the… it was like a little picket gate like fence, he would drop the mail on outside of the fence and nothing to see, there wasn’t no scenic roads or nothing. So with me being outside all time cutting the wood and cleaning and all, I’d go out and I’d see that tree. I got the rake under that tree now, and when I go down, I get a letter and I fold it up, put it in my pants. I always wore pants and he would go and sit on the porch and talk to my parents and entertain them while I go back in the woods and read my letter. So finally, Willie came down. We had a ’51 Pontiac Buick that I had bought my father by working in the field.
Robert Stone:
Pontiac Buick?
Jeannette Eason:
Pontiac, ’51 Pontiac and we had a 1941… what was that? Dodge that Tony gave us from Maryland? That was Buick. No, that was a Buick. A ’41 Buick sitting in our yard. Mind you, his Cadillac was sitting there too. This man, the night we laid down to take a nap, he started crying and I said, “What’s wrong?” He said, “In order to get you and your family, 15 people to Chicago,” he said, “Jean,” he said, “I don’t know how you’re going to take this. If you want to quit me now, go ahead and quit me,” he said, “but I got to give the car up.”
Jeannette Eason:
I told him that night I said, “What do you mean give the car up?” He said, “Because financially, I can’t do it. I can’t make those payments and take care of your family.” He gave that car back to the finance company and he picks the ’51 Pontiac and the ’41 Buick up and that’s what he took 16 here the people to Chicago.
Robert Stone:
One of them a station wagon?
Jeannette Eason:
No.
Robert Stone:
No, just-
Jeannette Eason:
It’s two cars.
Robert Stone:
Just big cars?
Jeannette Eason:
Yeah.
Robert Stone:
And that’s another thing. You had a reputation of being a guy who could fix cars.
Willie Eason:
Well, I wasn’t no mechanic, but I tried to keep them going.
Robert Stone:
They run.
Jeannette Eason:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Willie Eason:
Yeah, keep them going.
Robert Stone:
Because that was actually part of your trade. I mean with traveling and-
Jeannette Eason:
Oh yeah.
Willie Eason:
Oh yeah, yes.
Jeannette Eason:
And walking down a road with a flat tire rolling it try to get to a service station with no spare.
Robert Stone:
So he moved the 15 of you up. When was that?
Jeannette Eason:
That was in March.
Robert Stone:
Of?
Jeannette Eason:
I can’t recall-
Robert Stone:
Of ’56, that same year?
Jeannette Eason:
Of ’56. Yeah, it was ’56, because on the fourth Sunday in March, we was at Clay Evans Church-
Willie Eason:
Clay Evans.
Jeannette Eason:
… with the Davis Sisters, Maceo Woods.
Willie Eason:
Right.
Jeannette Eason:
… and our group was there because-
Robert Stone:
What church was that?
Jeannette Eason:
That was Clay Evans.
Willie Eason:
Clay Evans, who was a very known well known minister.
Jeannette Eason:
You know what street that was on?
Willie Eason:
Yeah, State Street.
Jeannette Eason:
State Street.
Robert Stone:
Great.
Jeannette Eason:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Robert Stone:
Davis and Maceo Woods.
Jeannette Eason:
Mm-hmm (affirmative), and the Davis Sisters out of Philadelphia.
Robert Stone:
Oh and the Davis Family?
Jeannette Eason:
Yeah and the Davis Family.
Robert Stone:
Okay. Wow, that’s-
Jeannette Eason:
But then the reason he changed it to the Davis Family was because Harris wife of the Soul Stirrers heard about the Golden Harps of Pocomoke City, Maryland. She was the Golden Harps of Chicago, remember, Jeanette.
Willie Eason:
Yeah, there was one-
Jeannette Eason:
Her name was Jeanette too, and she start complaining that Willie had give us her name.
Robert Stone:
And Willie had nothing to do with it.
Jeannette Eason:
Had nothing to do with it. I mean, you’re thousands of miles away, you understand? And we went and we sung and that’s when Willie changed it and said, “No, we’re going back to the original Davis Family.”
Willie Eason:
That’s right.
Jeannette Eason:
And that way, Harris, nobody couldn’t say nothing because no-
Willie Eason:
They wasn’t nothing but kids [crosstalk 00:39:31]
Jeannette Eason:
… because it was mostly jealousy.
Willie Eason:
People went wild.
Jeannette Eason:
Yeah, because we went to Clay Evans and it was so funny. Now the Davis Sisters had heard us in Philadelphia, remember? In the Met.
Willie Eason:
Yeah.
Jeannette Eason:
And now they’re out in Chicago, but when they heard us at the Met… now that had to be in ’53… Wait a minute, come on, let me help you. That had be in ’53 when you took us to Philly to sing at the Met.
Willie Eason:
That’s right.
Jeannette Eason:
Because we hadn’t gone to Chicago.
Willie Eason:
That was a big theater.
Robert Stone:
Yeah, I’ve seen it.
Jeannette Eason:
On Broad and Poplar.
Robert Stone:
I’ve seen it.
Jeannette Eason:
Yeah.
Willie Eason:
Broad and Poplar.
Jeannette Eason:
He took us up there to get us introduced, right, but when he got there, they didn’t want us to sing. So he finally got… It was Ronnie Williams. He got Ronnie Williams, and he told him, he brought him all the way from Maryland up there and, “Just give him a chance.” He said, “I promise you once you hear him you won’t regret letting them over the program.” Them boys got over that program Bob, Baby Sis come walking out to the mic.
Willie Eason:
That’s one of the Davis Sisters.
Robert Stone:
Right, I know.
Jeannette Eason:
Yeah, the big one.
Robert Stone:
Right.
Jeannette Eason:
“How did y’all enjoy that?” “Huh?” “These are my cousins.”
Willie Eason:
I don’t believe I-
Jeannette Eason:
Oh, the Ward singers was on that program, Clara Ward.
Robert Stone:
This is back at the Met now?
Jeannette Eason:
Yeah, back at the Met in Philly. Clara Ward was there. She put on my shoes to go out on stage with her because her feet was hurting so bad. Right there the Met at Broad and Poplar.
Robert Stone:
That’s great. Let’s get back to Chicago.
Jeannette Eason:
Yeah.
Robert Stone:
So he takes a 15 of you up here. What is-
Jeannette Eason:
It was 16.
Robert Stone:
- So you had to throw out, you had to evict some of your tenants?
Jeannette Eason:
Right, uh-huh (affirmative). For the apartments, because my brother and his wife, Charles and they baby. Then we had the nine sisters and brothers at home, so that’s 12 right there.
Robert Stone:
Right.
Willie Eason:
I took all of them in and slept them all.
Jeannette Eason:
My sister had a baby and my mother and father.
Robert Stone:
Your sister who had a baby?
Jeannette Eason:
Susan. Then my mother and father and myself.
Robert Stone:
Wow. And so did y’all stay in the one building that 18 West Adams?
Jeannette Eason:
Right, well they was-
Robert Stone:
Was it three story?
Jeannette Eason:
Yeah.
Robert Stone:
Okay.
Jeannette Eason:
And my mother and them was all up on the second floor bedroom. My brother Charles had his own room, but see the apartment was big, like six or seven rooms.
Willie Eason:
Yeah, you get two apartment on one floor.
Jeannette Eason:
Yeah.
Robert Stone:
Now was this like a row house or big freestanding house or apartment or what?
Jeannette Eason:
No, big three floor… yeah, it was a row house. Yeah.
Robert Stone:
I’m wondering that. Yeah.
Jeannette Eason:
Row houses that run together, yeah.
Willie Eason:
Yeah, yeah.
Jeannette Eason:
It was a big row house.
Robert Stone:
Okay.
Willie Eason:
Yeah.
Jeannette Eason:
Yeah, and after we got there, he also had, 1806 West Adams.
Willie Eason:
Yeah. I bought that down in that neighborhood too.
Jeannette Eason:
Yeah, in the other block. So he had two houses then. After we got married, he bought another one, 1403 West Adams Street, going on the other side of the Damen and that’s the one that was all froze up.
Willie Eason:
Damen, yeah.
Jeannette Eason:
That’s where he taught me how to do plumbing.
Robert Stone:
The pipes burst one winter?
Jeannette Eason:
Yeah, it was frozen and all.
Willie Eason:
Want to hear what she got?
Robert Stone:
Yeah.
Willie Eason:
I taught her how to do plumbing. I didn’t have to mess around with too many plumbers, I could do all my plumbing work.
Jeannette Eason:
Yeah.
Robert Stone:
Yeah, couldn’t make any money if you hired all that out.
Willie Eason:
Right.
Jeannette Eason:
We stayed there until ’59.
Robert Stone:
In Chicago?
Jeannette Eason:
Uh-huh (affirmative).
Willie Eason:
Yeah.
Robert Stone:
And then where’d you go?
Jeannette Eason:
We came over to Philadelphia because Peggy, she was born in Chicago.
Willie Eason:
Did we go to Philadelphia or New Jersey first?
Robert Stone:
What address do you remember?
Jeannette Eason:
No. We came to Philadelphia-
Willie Eason:
Philadelphia.
Jeannette Eason:
… 1938 North 60.
Willie Eason:
1938 North 60, that’s right.
Jeannette Eason:
His brother, Henry lived right around the street on Morris, 608… No…
Willie Eason:
Henry lived-
Jeannette Eason:
At 608 West Morris.
Willie Eason:
See, I had a brother named Henry too.
Robert Stone:
Right.
Willie Eason:
And he played a steel guitar.
Robert Stone:
Before I lose track of it. I liked when you were talking about… So did I understand you to say that Willie was like the original sharp dresser and then-
Jeannette Eason:
Mm-hmm (affirmative) and Henry Nelson-
Robert Stone:
And Eberhardt?
Jeannette Eason:
… and Eberhardt.
Robert Stone:
They kind of imitated him?
Jeannette Eason:
Oh yeah.
Robert Stone:
So you were the guy that had everything, that you like your clothes matched.
Willie Eason:
Well, don’t forget what I… Actually I told the Campbell Brothers, I glorified in them because the truth that… you know a lot of times you go to some of them places, “Oh, he got that from me. I had one…” you know what I’m talking about, but whatnot, but a lot of times-
Jeannette Eason:
Yeah, but even Henry, even before we got married, Henry and I, wrote each other for, what, about close to two years and he had left Ocala and went to Leesburg. He was living down with some lady there had done fell for him, had owned a hotel or something and Henry was a trip. Me and Henry had so much fun because he was a nice looking man and boy did he try to dress. I mean, he was a good dresser and the women just flocked to him. The Campbell Brothers… I mean, they ain’t telling no tale when they say how do women flock to Henry. Mm-mm (negative) and during that period where they say Henry left the church and they couldn’t find Henry, Henry was up there in Brooklyn with us. Am I lying?
Willie Eason:
That’s right. That’s right.
Jeannette Eason:
He was up there. That’s when he married Johnnie.
Willie Eason:
When we-
Robert Stone:
And did he drop out of the church?
Jeannette Eason:
No, he didn’t drop out the church. Johnnie father was a minister.
Robert Stone:
In another church?
Jeannette Eason:
In another church.
Robert Stone:
What kind of church?
Jeannette Eason:
Holiness Church.
Willie Eason:
Holiness Church.
Jeannette Eason:
Yep.
Robert Stone:
But I mean, he dropped out of the House of God or what, he didn’t participate that much?
Jeannette Eason:
He didn’t participate that much. Henry started back-
Robert Stone:
Quit going to the General Assembly.
Jeannette Eason:
Right. He started back, we was at 862 Shudder Avenue and this had to be in the ’70’s because I listened at what they said was about, what, about close to 12 or 13 years they didn’t know where Henry was, when he went to California and he come in there with the don-don-don-don-don, playing that music and singing, and he had changed up some with his lyrics, Henry Nelson.
Robert Stone:
He went to California?
Jeannette Eason:
He went to Bishop Jenkins for the General Assembly.
Willie Eason:
General Assembly.
Jeannette Eason:
He come to Nashville for the General Assembly.
Willie Eason:
General Assembly.
Jeannette Eason:
And you know who help him come? That man sitting right there.
Robert Stone:
You helped him get in?
Jeannette Eason:
Johnnie Mae had to come, she drove into us and she was really mad with me. She said, “Henry just left and ain’t no food in the house for feeding the kids,” and he was determined to go and all. So it was between him and Henry and I always have been the type, I’m not going to interfere and call [inaudible 00:47:28] on the man.
Robert Stone:
Right, that’s smart.
Jeannette Eason:
I never mentioned how Henry got out to California, you understand? But between him and say the man in white, he should have made provisions for his family before he jumped, but knowing the church hate- the church didn’t care what his family was doing back home, you understand, and Johnnie Mae would come over and what would we do? Give hers chickens, food-
Willie Eason:
We would fix dinner for them.
Jeannette Eason:
… bread and everything.
Robert Stone:
You were living in-
Jeannette Eason:
In Brooklyn.
Robert Stone:
In Brooklyn.
Jeannette Eason:
Mm-hmm (affirmative). And let her take it back home like that, but in ’68, we bought a house in New Jersey because my kids was getting up in size and in Brooklyn, we moved, what, three or four times? We was doing like the gym, we was running trying to get a decent neighborhood to live in. I told him, I said, “No,” I said, “let’s go to Jersey and look out there,” because we had heard so much and we found this a 10 room house with an unfinished basement and an office for $28,000.
Robert Stone:
And that was in Teaneck?
Jeannette Eason:
In Teaneck, New Jersey and we moved out there, but we still, most of the time, we would only go home on the weekends because when we first started out with our business, we worked seven days a week.
Robert Stone:
What business?
Jeannette Eason:
A barbecue place.
Robert Stone:
In New York?
Jeannette Eason:
In New York.
Robert Stone:
How many? One or-
Jeannette Eason:
No, it was one at that particular time, Fat Willie from Philly.
Robert Stone:
And where was that?
Jeannette Eason:
On 19th… No, 19th… 862 Sutter Avenue.
Robert Stone:
862-
Willie Eason:
You mean the barbecue place?
Jeannette Eason:
Yeah, 862 Sutter Avenue, that was the first one we started.
Robert Stone:
And it was Fat Willie from Philly?
Jeannette Eason:
Fat Willie from Philly.
Robert Stone:
And when was that?
Jeannette Eason:
We opened it up in ’68… No, ’66. Jolene was born. Michael was born in ’68. It was ’66.
Robert Stone:
And you had more than one at a time?
Jeannette Eason:
Oh yeah. We had the three going at one time. 868 New Lots.
Robert Stone:
What’s…
Jeannette Eason:
New Lots.
Willie Eason:
New-
Robert Stone:
New Lots?
Jeannette Eason:
Uh-huh (affirmative).
Robert Stone:
868 New Lots?
Jeannette Eason:
Uh-huh (affirmative).
Willie Eason:
Lots, yeah… Avenue.
Jeannette Eason:
Avenue.
Robert Stone:
Uh-huh (affirmative).
Jeannette Eason:
And 2186 Atlantic Avenue.
Robert Stone:
And these are in what part of New York?
Willie Eason:
Brooklyn.
Jeannette Eason:
What they call East New York at the time.
Robert Stone:
Okay.
Jeannette Eason:
You know, they changed the boroughs up so much.
Robert Stone:
And where they all called Fat Willie from Philly?
Jeannette Eason:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Robert Stone:
Great. Now you weren’t playing music on the corners at that time were you or were you?
Jeannette Eason:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Robert Stone:
You still did some of that?
Jeannette Eason:
Yeah.
Willie Eason:
Yeah, on the side because it’s good clean money-
Jeannette Eason:
Not only that, he was traveling from there going into Manhattan around 125th Lenox and…
Willie Eason:
Don’t forget you got five boroughs.
Robert Stone:
Up in Harlem?
Jeannette Eason:
Yes.
Willie Eason:
You got five-
Jeannette Eason:
7th and Lenox-
Willie Eason:
… five boroughs to work in.
Jeannette Eason:
Yeah, out in Jamaica. And that’s where we ran across Henry at? You remember?
Willie Eason:
Yeah.
Jeannette Eason:
Henry was sitting on the porch in Jamaica-
Willie Eason:
Oh yeah.
Jeannette Eason:
… on his mother-in-law’s porch.
Willie Eason:
That’s right.
Jeannette Eason:
And Willie was like down on that corner on-
Willie Eason:
On the next street over.
Jeannette Eason:
It’s a main street, I can’t think of the name of it, but he was on that corner and had hooked up his music and was singing, and he was giving a prayer.
Robert Stone:
Is this when you were on the truck?
Jeannette Eason:
Uh-uh (negative), this on the street, right?
Robert Stone:
Okay.
Jeannette Eason:
He was singing there and Henry heard the music and Henry said, “That’s got to be Willie Eason.” And that’s how we found each other right there in… Well, Jamaica, Queens, New York. You know that’s-
Robert Stone:
He didn’t even know he was there, huh?
Jeannette Eason:
Didn’t even know he was there, uh-uh (negative). That’s when we got introduced, we first met Henry, the oldest boy, they come down here and another boy and the girl was the only ones they had.
Robert Stone:
They had three kids?
Jeannette Eason:
They had three kids after that.
Robert Stone:
And that’s when you met her father too at the time?
Jeannette Eason:
Her father, her mother and all.
Robert Stone:
Uh-huh (affirmative) because they lived close by to…
Jeannette Eason:
Not close by us.
Robert Stone:
But close by-
Jeannette Eason:
Henry was visiting them on they steps.
Robert Stone:
Oh, so he was sitting at their house.
Jeannette Eason:
Uh-huh (affirmative), he was sitting at their house.
Robert Stone:
Where was that, you remember?
Jeannette Eason:
It’s Jamaica Avenue in Queens and I don’t know the other street that is…
Robert Stone:
That’s Okay.
Jeannette Eason:
I bet if I went through there I could find it. Never forget them corners in there, but he’d sung all through there. Roosevelt went with him many times up until he died.
Robert Stone:
Roosevelt Eberhardt?
Jeannette Eason:
Yeah.
Willie Eason:
Yeah.
Robert Stone:
So he would work with you on the corners?
Jeannette Eason:
Oh, yeah.
Willie Eason:
Oh, yeah.
Robert Stone:
I didn’t know that. So you guys were pretty close, huh?
Willie Eason:
Yeah.
Jeannette Eason:
Roosevelt, he act, a lot of time, like a bodyguard.
Robert Stone:
Was he a bigger guy or no?
Jeannette Eason:
He’s tall.
Willie Eason:
Tall.
Jeannette Eason:
Yeah. He’s six feet. He was about six feet.
Willie Eason:
The last time I think we seen him, me and you went to the hospital together?
Robert Stone:
How tall are you Willie or how tall…
Willie Eason:
I’m 5’6″.
Jeannette Eason:
He’s probably 5’6″.
Robert Stone:
5’6″, yeah were always short. So at six feet, he was a pretty-
Jeannette Eason:
Yeah, he was tall.
Robert Stone:
See back then there wasn’t that many six footers.
Jeannette Eason:
Mm-mm (negative).
Robert Stone:
I remember my mom used to say, “Oh yeah, he’s six feet.” Now six feet is nothing, you know, really.
Jeannette Eason:
Yeah.
Robert Stone:
It’s, “Oh, yeah. He’s a good looking guy, six feet.” Now if you’re not six feet you’re short.
Willie Eason:
You know, I could give Eberhardt-
Jeannette Eason:
Don’t you want some melon or something? I’ll be glad to get it.
Robert Stone:
I got it. Early dinner, we’re eating at 5:00. I never eat that early.
Jeannette Eason:
Well you can-
Robert Stone:
Over in Dade City,
Jeannette Eason:
Yeah, you can eat-
Robert Stone:
This is like… Oh yeah, I appreciate it.
Jeannette Eason:
But Johnny don’t know up until the day had happened.
Robert Stone:
What?
Jeannette Eason:
The way Henry got to his conventions. So that’s like with the Campbells they talk all-
Robert Stone:
In Nashville you mean?
Jeannette Eason:
Yeah, Nashville and he went out to-
Robert Stone:
You’re talking-
Jeannette Eason:
… Bishop Jenkins in California.
Robert Stone:
How did he get out there, flew?
Jeannette Eason:
He flew out, mm-hmm (affirmative). And back then I know, was it $600 round trip? I think that’s what he told us.
Willie Eason:
I’ve got nobody-
Jeannette Eason:
… to go from there to California, $600 round trip.
Robert Stone:
Yeah, that old-
Jeannette Eason:
Because plane fares wasn’t that high then.
Robert Stone:
Them old DC3s. They took forever. Man, that took about six hours to go from New York to Miami.
Jeannette Eason:
Yeah.
Robert Stone:
Must have took a couple days to go to California.
Jeannette Eason:
Go to California. Yeah.
Robert Stone:
See my dad, when we moved to Florida in ’52 my dad had worked for Pan-Am. I was born in New Rochelle, New York. So we would go back and forth once or twice a year. It took forever on those old DC3s.
Willie Eason:
Rrrrrrrrrrrrrrr [engine sound].
Jeannette Eason:
We used to stand in the fields and listen them boy. That sound like it was coming down. Mm-mm (negative).
Willie Eason:
Yep, but-
Robert Stone:
It was-
Willie Eason:
You know I have to… Me, I glory and when I was here with the Campbell brothers, then I was out, they gave me-
Jeannette Eason:
Excuse me, Bill, I don’t mean to cut you off, but when I think about something, I like to make sure Bob- You remember the man that’s on that tape that heard Willie do the Roosevelt song and all? And he said, “Yeah, well Willie hooked that guitar up and do that Roosevelt song how many people-
Robert Stone:
Jones, that was J.T. Jones.
Jeannette Eason:
He’s out of where?
Robert Stone:
He’s in New York, Rochester now, but he was from Ocala because when he was talking about that he was talking about Willie in Ocala.
Jeannette Eason:
Isn’t that something? I know I had seen that man face before, but I couldn’t remember where.
Robert Stone:
Because I met him at Mary Linzy’s house, when Henry came down to visit for Christmas he was over there.
Jeannette Eason:
Isn’t that something.
Robert Stone:
Or Thanksgiving. That reminds me of something. Because let’s talk about Ocala. Between the two of you… First of all, what’s this Buddy B’s he played over by Buddy B’s, it was a joint, a juke joint or something?
Willie Eason:
That’s right.
Robert Stone:
But he didn’t play inside, of course he played-
Jeannette Eason:
No, outside under the tree.
Robert Stone:
Do you remember where it was?
Jeannette Eason:
On Broadway.
Willie Eason:
On Broadway. Right on Broadway.
Jeannette Eason:
Downtown Ocala.
Willie Eason:
Downtown Ocala.
Jeannette Eason:
It was more like in the Black section of Ocala. Broadway then was Black. Dr. Hampton and the up-to-date people is the one that had the shops along there and all.
Robert Stone:
Right.
Willie Eason:
Henry and the Campbell brothers, I have to give it to them. That’s what they told us, this two block area. I didn’t want to believe it myself because a lot of them they fib a lot and they want to be known and whatnot and-
Jeannette Eason:
But who told you about Buddy B’s, Linzy, Mary?
Robert Stone:
Yeah. I think either her or Henry. So that was a popular juke joint like?
Jeannette Eason:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Robert Stone:
Would you stand out right in front or across the street or under a tree?
Jeannette Eason:
Not only that-
Willie Eason:
No, they have a big lot which extended all the way in the front, and the-
Jeannette Eason:
Trees and all.
Willie Eason:
Right.
Robert Stone:
And when would you go out there?
Willie Eason:
Mostly on Saturdays.
Robert Stone:
Pay day?
Willie Eason:
Yeah, but you know who I give credit to-
Jeannette Eason:
Friday evening keep your mind on Ocala because they did that by the Campbell brothers. Ocala, Buddy B’s you would sing there on Fridays and Saturdays, right?
Willie Eason:
Yeah. Friday evenings.
Jeannette Eason:
[crosstalk 00:58:09]
Robert Stone:
Anywhere else? You must have had more than one spot?
Jeannette Eason:
Leesburg. Would you say down in Leesburg?
Willie Eason:
Yeah, I would sing in Leesburg. Yeah, Leesburg, on of my callings.
Jeannette Eason:
I know you sung… Well, I know you used to sing in Orange City going up towards Daytona.
Robert Stone:
How about Apopka? Did you go up there?
Willie Eason:
Oh, yeah, yeah.
Robert Stone:
Now I have about the stuff of Ella Mae traveling with him? She did some of that, she said, while you were married to Alyce and some while you two were married.
Jeannette Eason:
Yeah.
Willie Eason:
Well, yeah.
Robert Stone:
And that was so you could stay home with the family, is that right?
Jeannette Eason:
Oh, yeah. Yeah, because I mostly stayed home, took care of business and if it wasn’t Ella Mae it was Earline.
Robert Stone:
Anybody else?
Jeannette Eason:
He’s had other ministers to go with him if they was doing street work or something like that.
Robert Stone:
So they might preach when you played?
Jeannette Eason:
Yeah, and call prayer in the corner.
Willie Eason:
Most of them had prayer.
Robert Stone:
Uh-huh (affirmative).
Jeannette Eason:
Yeah.
Robert Stone:
Anybody you remember? Any ministers?
Jeannette Eason:
What was just the Hyde name? I can’t remember.
Willie Eason:
Hyde was her last name.
Jeannette Eason:
Yeah. And… Ooh, the one in New York. Oh, Lordy, let me think of her name. She wanted to beat you playing the guitar. She used to get on that floor-
Willie Eason:
Oh, Barbara. Wait a minute. Say this again? What her name now? Elder Barber.
Jeannette Eason:
Elder Barber.
Robert Stone:
Elder BB.
Willie Eason:
Yeah.
Robert Stone:
BB Barber?
Willie Eason:
Yeah.
Robert Stone:
Yeah, tell me about her. I haven’t met her. I think she’s still alive. Elder-
Jeannette Eason:
Yeah.
Willie Eason:
Yeah, she’s a little comical and she loved to be around when we’s playing and singing.
Jeannette Eason:
She knew a few notes, but what she would do, she would get with Willie and she’d look at him and, “Show me this,” and “Show me that,” but then she got a little jealousy in her, like Henry and if he was singing on, what was it, 7th Avenue and Lenox?
Willie Eason:
Yeah.
Jeannette Eason:
She’d be on the next corner trying to pull his crowd and she’d get mad because she couldn’t pull that crowd away from Willie. It was so comical.
Willie Eason:
I had… in there where the Soul Stirrers… what’s the name of that place now? Where the Soul Stirrers lived at?
Jeannette Eason:
Chicago?
Willie Eason:
Yeah. In Chicago, I was thinking about when they… a lot of people, when I’d be talking, instead of… they want to see what it is, I can understand. They get carried away when they see the people coming up, throwing the money like that. I could tell you so many incidents right there on St. Lawrence and 47th in Chicago, some police came up and I was playing and I was singing, and I don’t know who done it, but they’d get jealous, and they’d call, like send in a complaint or whatnot.
Willie Eason:
One time I even went to the precinct, they took me to the precinct and I told him, the guy there who was in charge whatnot, and some guy, somebody had some kind of pull. I don’t know what kind of pull they had, but they had called another-
Jeannette Eason:
Captain of the precinct.
Willie Eason:
Yeah, they call a guy in that had a pull with the city. [Tape stops]. The thing is, they came back. When they call the police, these police come in and I’ve had at least two of them, they were stunned. I said, “What did you say?” I said, “Never heard of him.” I said, “You better hush your mouth,” and the police, they’re laughing. They said, “Did you hear that?”
Jeannette Eason:
Well, tell him about… Oh, God, this little town right down here in Florida, the police wanted to stop you from playing. You singing the Roosevelt song. I forget… Now we was with you that time, me and Susie, and Edward and Charles and all of us.
Willie Eason:
Right.
Jeannette Eason:
I’m trying to think of what that town that was.
Robert Stone:
It’s all right. Just tell the story and maybe you’ll think of the town.
Jeannette Eason:
No, a hop, skip and jump town.
Willie Eason:
It wasn’t Dorothy.
Jeannette Eason:
No, we went there and you had hooked up to sing and you had grew this crowd and the people was enjoying it and these two policemens came up. The first ones came up, they wanted to make you stop, but the second car came up on the other end, which was closer to him and they listened because they couldn’t get through the crowd. They listened. The first crowd had approached him. The first ones had approached him and told him he couldn’t be singing out there and he didn’t have no permit. You know it was the police [inaudible 01:03:29]. The ones that come from this side, Bob, told us that, “Uh-uh (negative). Hey, you don’t see no fighting and shooting around here,” he said, “You let this man play,” he said, “I’m enjoying the song myself.”
Robert Stone:
This was a what, in the ’50s?
Jeannette Eason:
Yeah, it had to be in the late ’50s.
Willie Eason:
Late ’50s.
Robert Stone:
Late ’50s?
Jeannette Eason:
Yeah.
Robert Stone:
You don’t remember the town, huh, somewhere in Florida? North or South?
Jeannette Eason:
It was somewhere going up because… Well, we travel like from Leesburg going on up the road to different little towns… Weirsdale?
Robert Stone:
And I’m assuming these were white cops?
Jeannette Eason:
Yeah.
Robert Stone:
Yeah, of course. There wasn’t no Black cops in those days in Florida.
Jeannette Eason:
I’m thinking It may have been Weirsdale.
Robert Stone:
Weirsdale?
Jeannette Eason:
Yeah.
Willie Eason:
Could have been.
Jeannette Eason:
Yep, that’s where it was because the orange groves and the pickers. Mm-hmm (affirmative), in Weirsdale, but it’s so much when you start thinking.
Robert Stone:
So that, I take it the second cops won out the ones that said, “Let him play?”
Jeannette Eason:
Oh yeah. They tell them, they said, “There’s no fighting. We wasn’t called out here because the crowd is making a big ruckus, it ain’t no shooting, ain’t no fighting.”
Robert Stone:
Did you ever have cops that wanted you to give them a cut?
Jeannette Eason:
Oh, Lord, yeah, in Chicago.
Willie Eason:
Yeah.
Robert Stone:
Yeah?
Willie Eason:
“Hey buddy.” Some of them come lean over you. I’d be playing and like I’ll turn it down and begin to play on that, “Hey there. Got a…” I don’t know what they use different phrases-
Robert Stone:
Yeah, speak up so we can get it.
Jeannette Eason:
Sawbuck. A sawbuck.
Willie Eason:
And they-
Jeannette Eason:
They’d be like “Hey, yo man, I see you got many sawbucks in there. Can’t you give me one?”
Robert Stone:
That’s a $10.
Jeannette Eason:
He didn’t give-
Willie Eason:
I ran into a-
Jeannette Eason:
Oh, yeah. They would do that even if they pull you over for a ticket and go around, they’d walk around the car. When they go to walk around the second time-
Willie Eason:
But they they let-
Jeannette Eason:
… like they inspecting your car-
Willie Eason:
But they’ll look at you and they’ll let you know-
Jeannette Eason:
Yeah, [crosstalk 01:05:38]
Willie Eason:
… see what gleams in your face and your eyes and then they-
Jeannette Eason:
Yeah, “Man, I’m hungry.” And you begging they don’t write a ticket.
Robert Stone:
Right.
Jeannette Eason:
“Man,” they’d say, “I’m hungry.” “You want his ticket? or you want to give me what you’re going to pay on the ticket?”
Willie Eason:
And fill it right there from eye to right around the corner.
Jeannette Eason:
Yeah, I mean it’s crazy, crazy.
Robert Stone:
You must have carried a lot of cash on you, huh?
Willie Eason:
No, but what it is-
Jeannette Eason:
They see him singing and tailgate him-
Willie Eason:
And they see that all them quarters and everything, it look like a whole lot of money.
Jeannette Eason:
People would throw dollar bills in there-
Willie Eason:
Then they’d throw dollar bills.
Jeannette Eason:
… and like this Jones said it, if the guy liked Roosevelt, he’d give him $5.
Willie Eason:
Yeah, he’d come in-
Jeannette Eason:
… Every time you turn around and sing that song, they throw $5 out-
Willie Eason:
47th and Prairie. A guy come from nothing, take a pile and he, what he done, “You know what I want?” He’d put that $5 in, “You know what I want.”
Robert Stone:
You ever get $20s?
Willie Eason:
Huh?
Robert Stone:
You ever get $10s or $20s?
Jeannette Eason:
He got $10s.
Willie Eason:
I have got-
Jeannette Eason:
Up in New York.
Willie Eason:
You don’t do it too many times but sometimes they may come and they’re done.
Jeannette Eason:
Some people, you had some men that was very dedicated to their mother and if you played, “If I Could Hear My Mother Pray Again”-
Willie Eason:
That’s the song they-
Jeannette Eason:
… that was they song. You’d have grown men standing in the audience crying. “Look, I want you to play that. That’s for my mother.”
Willie Eason:
Well Mother’s Day, that’s the greatest song.
Jeannette Eason:
Well, don’t let it be around Mother’s Day.
Robert Stone:
That reminds me. Didn’t you have a thing in Chicago where you do flowers for Mother’s Day?
Jeannette Eason:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Robert Stone:
Tell us about-
Jeannette Eason:
Yeah.
Robert Stone:
You did the thing with flowers?
Jeannette Eason:
Flowers.
Willie Eason:
Give me my flowers.
Jeannette Eason:
No.
Robert Stone:
No, no, no, but you made-
Jeannette Eason:
We sold flowers-
Robert Stone:
You sold flowers.
Jeannette Eason:
… in Chicago.
Robert Stone:
Tell me about that.
Jeannette Eason:
That’s what he was doing, when we met him. Willie was making corsages.
Willie Eason:
Oh, I make corsage.
Jeannette Eason:
Yeah.
Willie Eason:
Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.
Jeannette Eason:
He had originated out from his parents. Then I learned it from my Godmother in Maryland because she did all that for the white people there in Maryland when their [crosstalk 01:07:45]
Robert Stone:
Now are these real corsages or paper?
Jeannette Eason:
It’s made out-
Willie Eason:
Wood fiber.
Jeannette Eason:
… what they call wood fiber.
Willie Eason:
Wood fiber.
Robert Stone:
Wood fiber.
Jeannette Eason:
Wood fiber.
Robert Stone:
What’s that?
Jeannette Eason:
It’s a material that… some kind of way it comes from the wood.
Willie Eason:
I’m sorry. Now, I was thinking that is a wood fiber-
Jeannette Eason:
Oh he’s thinking… Oh Lord, have mercy. You’re thinking that [crosstalk 01:08:08]
Willie Eason:
Looking at, that’s like wood fiber and-
Jeannette Eason:
But that was-
Willie Eason:
… the material.
Jeannette Eason:
It looks similar to the watermelon, but it was very soft.
Robert Stone:
It was red?
Willie Eason:
Yeah, right, well red and-
Jeannette Eason:
Well, it had red, yellow, blue pink, white.
Willie Eason:
Double covered orange. Orange-
Robert Stone:
Was it like paper?
Jeannette Eason:
No-
Willie Eason:
No.
Jeannette Eason:
… it was more like a felt, but it was very-
Willie Eason:
Feel it, just feel that.
Robert Stone:
Something like a paper towel?
Jeannette Eason:
Yeah, and it was just that thin, but then you got it in blocks-
Willie Eason:
You get it in blocks.
Jeannette Eason:
… that was already cut and what they call the gross.
Willie Eason:
It’s a quarter of an inch thick.
Jeannette Eason:
Yeah and a lot is a quarter of an inch.
Willie Eason:
Yeah. So in other words, some of it is three eighths and some is…
Jeannette Eason:
Yeah.
Robert Stone:
And then how would you shape it into flowers?
Jeannette Eason:
Well, you had your pattern.
Willie Eason:
You have a pattern.
Jeannette Eason:
You take it and you cut it and out the square, you didn’t cut that, you only cut the small ones for the small roses.
Willie Eason:
Yeah, and don’t forget we had a little piece of-
Jeannette Eason:
The square, you fold it and you put like the bud in the center and then you take wire and you’d make that… Keep the pedals going around the wire, when you got through, you just twist it at the bottom and you hold it like that and it’s a rose.
Willie Eason:
It’s a rose. I mean a rose, rose looking just like that, if not better.
Jeannette Eason:
They’re selling them in the… Yeah, they come out just like this.
Willie Eason:
That’s how come out, but you open it up-
Jeannette Eason:
Yeah, but it’s much softer-
Willie Eason:
… you can open that up into a whole rose. You can just open one of them up.
Jeannette Eason:
You can just take your finger and go down the center like that over your bud and open the whole rose up and then we put fern-
Willie Eason:
Fern, right.
Jeannette Eason:
… leaves, fern and then the ribbon.
Robert Stone:
Well, how would you sell them, on the street corner?
Willie Eason:
On the street corner.
Jeannette Eason:
On the street corners.
Robert Stone:
What’d you sell them for, you remember?
Jeannette Eason:
The single rose was 25¢, the carnations, right? If they want two roses, it was 50¢, if we put two roses on the corsage with the ribbon it was a $1.50. Then if somebody wanted to special made-
Willie Eason:
Yeah, they got buds, you put buds-
Jeannette Eason:
… “That’s my mother. I want…”
Willie Eason:
Yeah, I put-
Jeannette Eason:
… six buds and three-
Willie Eason:
If you put buds on them-
Jeannette Eason:
… three buds, three roses.
Willie Eason:
We specialize in that. Now you-
Jeannette Eason:
And that was what we like, $7. We never went over $10, but if somebody wanted it special made then that not run them about $7, like that.
Robert Stone:
And who was doing this, you and him-
Jeannette Eason:
Him and I.
Robert Stone:
… or have the kids working on them at all?
Jeannette Eason:
No-
Robert Stone:
Just the two of ya’ll.
Jeannette Eason:
We didn’t have nobody, just him and I.
Robert Stone:
Just on Mother’s Day?
Jeannette Eason:
It was just for Mother’s Day. What, we traveled to Chicago [crosstalk 01:10:54]
Willie Eason:
We have traveled all the way to Chicago because when we sell them for Mother’s Day and Easter-
Jeannette Eason:
Four or five years, we did that.
Robert Stone:
Easter too, you did it?
Jeannette Eason:
Yeah.
Willie Eason:
Yeah, well mostly for Mothers Day.
Robert Stone:
Where were you based when you were doing this, where were you living?
Jeannette Eason:
In Philadelphia.
Robert Stone:
And you go out as far as Chicago?
Jeannette Eason:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Robert Stone:
You go in-between too?
Jeannette Eason:
Drive over 13 hours. Everybody tried to beat out timing and couldn’t do it.
Robert Stone:
So it must have been worth your while to go over there.
Jeannette Eason:
Oh, yeah.
Robert Stone:
How many of these things would you sell?
Willie Eason:
You know I sure… you know what? It was somewhere we-
Jeannette Eason:
I tell you what. On his corner alone, he could make over $1,500. So what we did, we used my brother and what was that, Edward Charles.
Willie Eason:
Edward, Charles.
Jeannette Eason:
And then Herman would be with Charles. Paul would be with Edward on a corner. We’d put them on certain corners that was like downtown.
Robert Stone:
Were they living in Chicago?
Jeannette Eason:
Yeah.
Robert Stone:
Yeah. So you came from Philly?
Jeannette Eason:
Right.
Robert Stone:
And you put them to work for you?
Jeannette Eason:
Because my father started making them after Willie had taught my mother how to make them. So he going to cut Willie’s throat and he going to go out… Oh, Lord, Jesus. He tried to make them.
Willie Eason:
But look, I love him though.
Jeannette Eason:
We even made him-
Willie Eason:
They called me Bill.
Jeannette Eason:
When we stopped making them, the gypsies, they found out that the corners we were going were real good corners, so they come up with these little plastic carnation flowers.
Robert Stone:
The gypsies did?
Jeannette Eason:
Yeah, sell them for 25¢ a piece. So I told him, I said, “It’s not worth it. You got to start… We started in January and would make flowers all the way up until May.
Robert Stone:
Wow. And when was this?
Jeannette Eason:
In… God, we started… when we got to Chicago we started.
Willie Eason:
Right. Yep.
Jeannette Eason:
Because I got pregnant with Peggy on my wedding night and I had to stay in bed for six months due to the fact I was anemic and right away he put me on a specialist, but I still sit there in bed and made flowers. You remember that?
Willie Eason:
Yeah.
Robert Stone:
So that was back in ’56?
Jeannette Eason:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Willie Eason:
Yeah.
Robert Stone:
And then you stayed in Chicago to ’59?
Jeannette Eason:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Robert Stone:
But you said you kept doing this when you were in Philly?
Jeannette Eason:
Yeah, we come to Philly-
Robert Stone:
So on into the ’60s I guess, huh?
Jeannette Eason:
Oh yeah. It was, I think ’63 was our last year going out there because then we had bought the little farm down at Dorothy, New Jersey and he was up in-
Robert Stone:
You guys are hard to keep up with.
Jeannette Eason:
We bought a five acre farm out there for-
Robert Stone:
You found out you weren’t a farmer, right?
Jeannette Eason:
Mm-hmm (affirmative). $8,500 it cost and today-
Willie Eason:
Had mowing tractors.
Jeannette Eason:
… the farm now is selling close to $300,000.
Willie Eason:
Had my own tractor-
Jeannette Eason:
See, I was a farm girl.
Willie Eason:
… make our own rows and everything for planting and everything.
Jeannette Eason:
I taught him how to drive a tractor and when you get to the end of the road, hit the left brake and-
Robert Stone:
Turn it in.
Jeannette Eason:
… the tractor would turn right into your row and you come on back down.
Willie Eason:
Yeah. Bob, we been together as a family, seemed like got… Oh, it was two guys that-
Jeannette Eason:
No, let me tell him this. Now when we was at Dorothy, nobody wanted to hire me. Same thing happened in Philadelphia. Now we’re coming into the winter months, right? So we stayed there until October. Now it’s going to get cold. So we learned how to cut the thermostat down, keep the pipes from bursting, right? We wrapped pipes and all. We come to Florida, ’60, ’61 and ’62 and stayed until about the, what, about the 25th of April?
Willie Eason:
Something like that.
Jeannette Eason:
That’s where the cane-
Robert Stone:
The sugar cane-
Jeannette Eason:
… came in-
Robert Stone:
Right.
Jeannette Eason:
… because our payment at the farm was on $85. The same payment we made on a three family house in Philadelphia was $80 a month and that one we sold and bought the farm. He was paying $85 for five acres and, what was it, eight rooms?
Willie Eason:
Yeah.
Jeannette Eason:
With chicken houses on the property.
Robert Stone:
That was in Dorothy?
Jeannette Eason:
Dorothy, New Jersey, that’s 12 miles out of Vineland, 40 miles to-
Willie Eason:
Spelled just like a girl-
Jeannette Eason:
…. Atlantic City.
Willie Eason:
Spelled just like a girl’s name, Dorothy.
Jeannette Eason:
Mm-hmm (affirmative). There’s only one little school in the town and it was like, there’s this straight building like that, first grade through, I think it was fourth or something like that.
Robert Stone:
So that was in, what’d you say, ’60, ’61, ’62?
Jeannette Eason:
’61, ’62.
Robert Stone:
When you came down in Mother Pearls.
Jeannette Eason:
Mother Pearl, ’60, ’61 and ’62.
Robert Stone:
Okay.
Jeannette Eason:
We done that for three years and when we went back, he went to New York and was singing up in New York. I was working a concession stand at Lawnside, New Jersey.
Robert Stone:
Yeah, you told me once before. Why was it that Lawnside was an infraction? Wasn’t it something about being able to buy liquor on Sunday?
Jeannette Eason:
Oh, that’s what it was. The bars, everything was open on Sundays in Jersey.
Robert Stone:
In Jersey, but not in Pennsylvania.
Jeannette Eason:
Not in Pennsylvania.
Robert Stone:
So Lawnside is just across the border?
Jeannette Eason:
Right, just across the… what’s that bridge?
Willie Eason:
County Bridge-
Jeannette Eason:
Benjamin Franklin.
Willie Eason:
Benjamin Franklin.
Jeannette Eason:
Yes. So anybody could go over there and buy liquor.
Willie Eason:
Just go across the bridge and you’re in Philadelphia.
Jeannette Eason:
Yeah.
Robert Stone:
On Sunday.
Jeannette Eason:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Robert Stone:
So, that was a big attraction, go on Sunday?
Jeannette Eason:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Willie Eason:
Yeah.
Jeannette Eason:
They would flood that place. She had beautiful clothes there and light guys had some nice clothes out there.
Robert Stone:
So there’s a lot of Black people came in particular to Lawnside?
Jeannette Eason:
Yeah. You couldn’t get no white up in there, not in there.
Robert Stone:
Is that right?
Jeannette Eason:
Not with the motorcycle riders and she had a little bit of everything up in-
Robert Stone:
Ada told me she’s joined a motorcycle club.
Jeannette Eason:
Yeah, she-
Robert Stone:
In Rodanthe, North Carolina.
Jeannette Eason:
North Carolina.
Willie Eason:
Oh yeah met Ada, huh?
Robert Stone:
Yeah, I talked to her just the other day.
Jeannette Eason:
My nephew, he didn’t want to tell me, but then he came out and told me when we was up there for the funeral that he’s cheap. I got his card and all, and on this card is, “God forgive, but we don’t.” He didn’t want me to know that and, “Auntie, I want to give you this card.”
Robert Stone:
Yeah. Tell me, it’s something I don’t have on tape either and I probably only got about 15 minutes worth of tape left is when you were growing up, they call you Shadow, right?
Jeannette Eason:
Yeah.
Robert Stone:
Why is that?
Jeannette Eason:
I was a fast runner and a fast worker. My father would look out and he said, “Oh, there she is over there” and mother would tell him, said, “Well, call Shadow and tell her to come in.” Well, I would be over on the other side. I done finished that job over there, I’m going over there. And he always said, I was like a shadow, couldn’t nobody keep up with me. I used to run and catch the rabbits for him in the field.
Robert Stone:
You catch a rabbit?
Jeannette Eason:
Catch a rabbit.
Robert Stone:
How, with your hands?
Jeannette Eason:
With my hands. See, when the rabbit run, he, “Doo-doo-doo.” You got to know how to do it, and my mother taught me that. She was Cherokee Indian. My mother taught me how to shoot, how to throw-
Robert Stone:
How would you grab a rabbit?
Jeannette Eason:
With his hind leg. They shake you to death until you get that other leg, but once you get that one leg and your daddy said, “Don’t turn him loose,” you ain’t gonna turn him loose. You going to try to reach for all four legs at one time.
Robert Stone:
Because you ate them?
Jeannette Eason:
Huh? Oh, sure. Cleaned them and ate them. I was like-
Robert Stone:
You ever get bit?
Jeannette Eason:
No, I never got bit by one.
Robert Stone:
Didn’t you tell me that they’d use you to detect snakes?
Jeannette Eason:
No, this was the man I worked for that I bought that ’51 Pontiac from him in Sanford, my father. It was a man I worked in the fields with him and he was afraid of snakes and when he found out that once my feet touched the ground, I could tell him whether it was a snake on there. Where I got that from, I can’t explain it to nobody, but my feet, I get jittery. I get nervous.
Willie Eason:
Well, sometimes to me, all I can say is some kind of instinct and went up into-
Jeannette Eason:
I got jittery and nervous.
Willie Eason:
… and it came more from the older people, that instinct. You got that feeling. You can’t describe to tell where it comes from. All you know you got it and you move-
Jeannette Eason:
When I got to the field, he’d ask me, “Hey, Shadow?” I said, “Well, I feel it, but not as strong.” He says, “Okay. I’ll see you in a while,” and he’d go up high in this building and sit up there.
Robert Stone:
He’d go what?
Jeannette Eason:
Go up on the, what they call a mule train. It was conveying belt, you had packers on there that was packing the corn or whatever we was cutting, celery and then they had a truck on the other side that was loading it at the same time and I mean, big machine going through, I guess they carried close to 50, 100 rows of corn at one time.
Robert Stone:
So basically you did farm work all your life until you moved to Chicago with Willie?
Jeannette Eason:
All my life until I moved to Chicago with Willie, and then when we come to Dorothy and we come down here, I came back because I told them, I said, “Hey, we can make it in Florida, because I’ll go back to the field.” He said, “What’d you mean? I don’t want you in no field.” I go, “Oh, yes, I will go back to the fields,” but I ran out because the day I went to the car, the girl and I, Verna, going to the car in Pompano Beach, out in the country area, we’re going to get our lunch and this snake is going in the car. I left Verna standing. I ran all the way back to the main road and even running back, you had to jump over the snakes. It had to be like 100 degrees.
Jeannette Eason:
It had to be a “black panther,” but a canal separated us. And this is in the evening, I guess, about 4:00 or 4:30. We’s running down this road and I mean, I’m panting as it is, sweaty and all, and all at once we hear this noise, “Rrrrrww,” and she start, “Oh my God,” for that cat. Well, I had learned about the “black panther” and we got to running and we ran and they had one paved road coming out of Pompano, out to where the Black people lived at and all, and when we got to that road, we were so tired, we just laid down on the road like that.
Jeannette Eason:
We were scared to get on the dirt and a truck driver come along and took us up to the lady’s, the minister’s house where we were staying with Mother Pearl, and when we told him about the cat making that sound, he said, “Well, baby, the only thing saved your life was that canal because they do not like to get in the water and that stopped me from in the field. I was making $12 a day.
Robert Stone:
How far did you run you think?
Jeannette Eason:
Close to two miles an hour. It seemed like it was going to be 10, but it wasn’t that far.
Robert Stone:
You just couldn’t get away from those snakes.
Jeannette Eason:
Yeah. Oh God, and up until today I have no dealings with them. Don’t watch them on TV or nothing. Yep. Now I got to go pick up Dominique and Chantel. That’s part of my day.
Robert Stone:
Yeah.
Jeannette Eason:
But they were supposed to be picked up-
Robert Stone:
Well, I got to get going.
Jeannette Eason:
Hey, they were supposed to be picked up at four.
Robert Stone:
I got to get going too. Alrighty.
Jeannette Eason:
I’ll be right on back with them, they right around the corner.
Robert Stone:
Okay.
Jeannette Eason:
But I just don’t allow them to walk home because there’s too much going on.
Robert Stone:
Right.
Willie Eason:
[inaudible 01:23:53]
Robert Stone:
I’m going to end the tape here.
Mike Stapleton:
What kind of bar are you using, Willie?
Willie Eason:
Well I use mostly this one. I’ve been using this one for about 35 years.
Mike Stapleton:
Just a big piece of brass.
Willie Eason:
Yeah, but I just use this because I had left this over at a fundraiser. I had been in Orlando, I think I told you, I played for a fundraiser, and I had been in Orlando, so I used that one, and that helped me keep bouncing around on the string, when you go to hit it. Because sometimes you get some of the rattle in the strings. I guess when you’re recording, you got to watch everything but I know sometimes you sit there, almost a whole day in the studio. You’re half hoarse, then you’ve got to come back again to set up everything in the studio for you to record. So-
Mike Stapleton:
How do you got this tuned?
Willie Eason:
In a A tuning. A tuning, what they call A tuning. We got the-
Robert Stone:
You got A, C sharp, E?
Willie Eason:
Well these three is tuned just like this.
Robert Stone:
Right, A, C sharp, E.
Willie Eason:
Right, so if I have to play the same song, if I have to play the words with the song I can play it on bass, because they’re tuned just like the front. See, now for instance, see if I just wanted to play a verse like this, take you see The Old Rugged Cross. See, I’m just playing a song, so I have to play the words of it. I’m not singing or nothing, and I let the congregation sing, if they say, “play a hymn.” So you have to do it like this. See, that’s a new pick and it sure make you make mistakes, but sometimes the audience, they don’t know, so you can get over them. You can go about that. See, this is the words. You know that song.
Mike Stapleton:
You do a lot of slanted bars too.
Willie Eason:
Yeah, a lot of times I do that to make the off key, the off note. You have to. There’s one there, see? And if you go up here, you see? Then when you go up here, it’s hard to do too many slants all the way up here, but back from here back I will slant a lot.
Mike Stapleton:
Put your slants on here.
Willie Eason:
Yeah, especially if I’m playing solos. You see, if I’m playing solos, then I can start slanting, that’s right.
Mike Stapleton:
I saw this. A lot of the other guys don’t do that.
Willie Eason:
No, because see, a lot of that they didn’t learn. Though I guess, probably playing so long, and getting it to be a part of me. Don’t forget, sometimes the guitar, I’ll be so hoarse doing a program, but I had to make the guitar make up for it. And see, just giving you an idea here, because sometimes I’ll be playing, things just come to me and I start putting it on the guitar, and you have to do that to fill in. Because see, I don’t have to tell you, Pentecostal people, they get to going, somebody start in a key over here, that means I got to change key, and they’re singing in the 12 keys, you don’t know where they’re going to start at, and you got to be able to play wherever they’re singing at.
Somebody’ll pick up a song over here, When the Saints Go Marching In. Another one’ll drop over here (singing). Like that, and you got to know where to pick them up at.
Robert Stone:
I know, it’s amazing. We’re both musicians, so when we see that-
Willie Eason:
Oh, no wonder he knows.
Robert Stone:
But when I say, when I watch Aubrey or Henry Nelson, they just start playing. I say, “How’s he know what key these people are in?” Because somebody out of the congregation’s singing, and-
Willie Eason:
They don’t get- some of the keys on the piano and organ that I’m not familiar with as good as I am other keys, and I’ll be so glad I can switch up. Sometimes I try to go up in another key, until I get them down in that key. If I want to get them in the F, see the chords F and G, B flat, and B flat is my main key, do you know what I mean? I’ll go ahead and play a little bit in C, I just fold them three or four chords there, just to be going along with the service. But then you got other people just be there playing, and they’re out of key, and the people singing are in another key. They disrupt the service.
Mike Stapleton:
Boy, especially on a fretless instrument, you get someone in between keys somewhere-
Willie Eason:
That’s right, that’s it. That’s it, yeah.
Mike Stapleton:
See, we both play fiddle, and it’ll happen with us. They’ll get between notes, and then you can’t match either one of them.
Willie Eason:
That’s it.
Mike Stapleton:
Broken string don’t work.
Willie Eason:
You got that too. Well you know, because you’s a musician, you know. There’s a lot of people, when you be sitting there doing it, I said, “Well these people don’t realize.” All they’re doing is having a good time, and they’re throwing back on you, for you to keep the service intact and spiritual, because it do throw off the service. It throws the service off. You singing in one key, and the music is playing in another key.
Mike Stapleton:
A lot of times they don’t know what it is, they just feel it’s not right.
Willie Eason:
Absolutely, absolutely. You got it.
Mike Stapleton:
Doesn’t look right.
Willie Eason:
I’ve heard a lot of the musicians do it, like be playing the Hawaiian guitar. So I showed them that you can play in all keys, and I just would show them, go back five… See, I play by the crosses here, and I show them, if you want to get an off key you go up three, come up in here like that. And some of them start playing that, but other than that they just play the regular four chords.
Mike Stapleton:
Whatever their ear sends them to is what’s going to happen. So did you start playing steel first? Was that your first instrument?
Willie Eason:
Yes. I started playing a wooden guitar, the old wooden guitar.
Robert Stone:
Acoustic. How old were you?
Willie Eason:
When I started playing that, I had to be about 15, I was playing it. But I was still playing the Hawaiian style across my lap, but it was pretty big in my lap.
Mike Stapleton:
Did you have a guitar where you raised up the strings, or was it a regular Hawaiian guitar?
Willie Eason:
No, when I went to electric, the only one I raised strings on was, and I wasn’t used to playing it, was the 16-string, see. The 16-string, let me see now. It was double-neck. I could play E7 over there and I could come back to my A tuning here. I could make my runs over here, on the E7. See, like I said, just like I said. I could, then I may hit up here an E7, and I make a run. But if I make the run, then I make it on E7, because it sounds better. This sounds better with the more Hawaiian style on the E7.
Mike Stapleton:
So you had a double-neck.
Willie Eason:
And I just played, but I feel comfortable, I even come back to it from a seven string to a six. I feel more comfortable there. I feel more comfortable there, because to me I can get just as much music out of the six strings, and I know Bishop Harrison from Bishop Jewell, he played the double-string. He played the 16. They had about five or six pieces, about six pieces in their band, see? One time I played for Bishop Lockley, he had about four pieces.
Mike Stapleton:
Now Bishop, what was his name? Bishop Lockley?
Willie Eason:
Bishop JR Lockley.
Mike Stapleton:
How do you spell his last name?
Willie Eason:
L-O-C-K-L-E-Y.
Mike Stapleton:
Okay, and where was he out of?
Willie Eason:
Well when they took me, they was living in Brooklyn, New York, because I went back there when I was 16 years old. That was after I got interested in it, it was hard for my mother to keep me in school, so she took me over to him, and so I went to traveling at that age. And of course, just a quick story behind that. I hate to go into that. After I found out what they was using me for with the big tent services and all, and I wouldn’t get nothing out of it, and they’re taking up all these offerings and whatnot. I had come up in a time when musicians didn’t get paid, so that’s what made me go to the streets. And I don’t know what Henry Nelson told you, I made my living from the street.
And not only that, I’m the father of 15 children, and I fed all them children. I had one daughter, she’s down at the Mantel now, she’s still in the reserves. She was in Saudi Arabia for… When I played for Lockley, but let me get back to this. When I was making on corners, like in Chicago? They liked to hear me sing, and I won’t try to mess with it too much now. Let me see. (singing) See, these are the songs that I had to do these type of lyrics. (singing – In the year of 1945, good president laid down and died. You know how all of the poor people felt, they received the message they lost Roosevelt …) Wait, that’s a little too low. Let me try to get a higher key. (singing) Then I go up there, that’s… (singing) See, below I play that. I just want, let me sing one verse of that for you. I have to rehearse it. (singing)
Oh, singing two songs. Excuse me, I’m singing two songs. I’m singing you Pearl Harbor, and then I’m trying to sing a little bit of the… She knew what I was doing. I don’t sing these songs, and people try and get me to sing them. I don’t sing these songs no more. Don’t let me do nothing on the guitar. I’m just going to let that background. Let me do a little bit of Roosevelt. Yeah, just let me do a little bit of Roosevelt, one verse of Roosevelt, then I’ll do a verse of Pearl Harbor, so you’ll see where I was getting both of them mixed up. Let’s see. (singing)
I don’t play that thing no more. Okay, now I’ll show you. That was one verse of Tell Me Why You Like Roosevelt. But these are lyrics people used to like to hear- do on the street. That has about six verses to that. That’s how long each verse is.
Joeline Eason (Daughter of Willie and Jeannette Eason):
I like the one with the paint brush in it.
Willie Eason:
Huh?
Joeline Eason:
The one with the paint brush?
Speaker 5:
Oh yeah, Elizabeth Shoumatoff?
Joeline Eason:
Yeah, I like that one. I like that one.
Mike Stapleton:
You got a request.
Joeline Eason:
I like that.
Willie Eason:
That’s the first part of the song. Okay, if I make the… Wait a minute. How to I start in the… You know something, I don’t believe this.
Joeline Eason:
You have the brush-
Willie Eason:
Let me see. (singing)
Joeline Eason:
Don’t you rush (lyrics).
Willie Eason:
(singing) Now you see? Now that was the first verse. The verses are very long. So when I sung on the street, I got a guy come up there. I had an undertaker that used to come and give me five dollars. He’d say, “Sing it again.” Well then I couldn’t just keep singing them verses. I thought, “I’ve got a great big crowd around me.” Then I go back, what I done, I liked to sing the four verses I noticed they loved to hear. You can look at your audience and tell what they want to hear. And that’s when the money, they start throwing the money at you, so you go back to them verses. It’s like (singing). This is the song I’m getting confused with it. (singing) See, I’m getting the two songs mixed up, because the verses, it goes something alike. But these was lyrics that the people wanted to hear.
Robert Stone:
So you just carried a small amp with you and your guitar, and set up?
Willie Eason:
No, I had bigger amps then.
Mike Stapleton:
You had a big one.
Willie Eason:
This is more compact. If I go to a program now I can handle this here. But that other stuff, rolling on wheels and all that stuff.
Joeline Eason:
You had a megaphone type back then.
Mike Stapleton:
Yeah, boy them things were heavy on those days.
Willie Eason:
Well I put four wheels on mine. I put four wheels, no I could roll-
Mike Stapleton:
I can see why.
Willie Eason:
Yeah, then all that, I let someone else help. I had a big handle on it, so they just picked it up and carried it in the church.
Mike Stapleton:
And then the storefronts would let you plug in?
Willie Eason:
Oh yes. Oh yeah, oh yeah. Oh yeah, if I’m on the street, what they’d do, like I come to your door here, this is your house. And I’d tell you, I’d say, “I’m a gospel singer, and I’d like to remember the service in a song, if you don’t mind.” And a lot of people, I made a lot of people happy. And don’t forget, in Jacksonville, Florida, I could go and tell you historical things that happened. Some of them used to just laugh. So one lady, she came out, and this was on Ashland and Davis in Jacksonville.
And I went to this project where these people lived, and back in those days, the people, they had these aprons like they was in the kitchen, and they’re making this dough flour. They rolled it to make the bread and stuff. And this lady that cried as soon as I start playing. I hit a good, fast number. Something I could sing fast, like they never heard a man… Something I come at. And I start playing the guitar and they say, “Oh, listen to that instrument. It’s saying the word.” Well this is what I want to get them, to start getting, I arouse them. This lady come out and she said, “My goodness, I’m wanting to go to church, and I couldn’t get to church, and God sent the church to me.” And she just shouting- you know- Yeah, I could tell you so many things.
Like I was playing Just a Closer Walk with Me. You’ve heard that song. And I was playing that song once. I said (playing)… And then I said (playing) … But you see, when I was doing this, see when I started doing it this lady said, she was standing but she was half high, and she said, “Don’t do that no more.” So I just do it for a minute, I go way down there and I said (singing), and I go way down the five keys and I come back. She said, “I told you not to do that no more.” And do you know what she done? The guitar was in my lap, because see at that time I didn’t have this belly. And so she just sit down on the guitar, and three or four men couldn’t hardly pull that lady off that. She said, “I told you not to do that.”
I have so many, I could tell you some things that, you’re talking about [inaudible 00:21:21], I wouldn’t even want to tell some things that happened. But I made real good money. In Chicago I would sit down and make, just over the weekend, Friday, Saturday, Sunday I could make about $500, just people throwing it. But I had men told me, I saw it later, but for some reason, I believe I could’ve been a millionaire just over three or four times, but the only thing about me, I was too honest. In other words, I have guilt if I do you wrong. The guilt rests on me. I’ve even tried to try to get in my mind, to try to go after some of the money that… Even when they had me in the studio once, they had me there and they said…
So I used to be a promoter. I used to promote five or six, as high as 10 groups at one time. Like James Cleveland, the Soul Stirrers, all them. I used to promote all of them. Shirley Cecil, all of them. I used to promote them. I don’t know whether Henry Nelson told you that or not.
Robert Stone:
Yeah.
Willie Eason:
Yeah, they would’ve told you, yeah, I was a promoter. I remember one time I had put 5500, that’s the Met, Broad and Poplar in Philadelphia, and they wouldn’t let me put, the fire marshal wouldn’t let me put nobody else in the building. They had them standing all over on the walls, and whatnot. And that was the Davis Sisters’ anniversary. That’s who I promoted there.
Robert Stone:
When was that?
Willie Eason:
That was-
Robert Stone:
When were you promoting?
Willie Eason:
Now that program with the Davis Sisters, in ’59. I remember that. That was 1959 in Philadelphia at the Met, Broad and Poplar.
Robert Stone:
So in the ’50s you were promoting?
Willie Eason:
Oh yes, oh yes. I was promoting on in through the ’60s. I got to be a pretty big promoter. When I met Sam Cooke, he was going to DuSable High School. I promoted, I used the auditorium at DuSable High School in Chicago. Right there on, I can’t think of the name of that street. State Street in Chicago, that’s where I promoted at. One time I had, my aggregation was, I had both groups of the Blind Boys from Alabama and Mississippi. And then what happened was, they had to even stay at my house. Then I had the Davis Sisters on that program. And at the time both of them had hot records. So that’s what you go by, anyhow. You pull those hot records, that’s what pulls the people. And what I done, I had my placard. I had to use big placards. And it read, “Will the famous Davis Sisters defeat both groups of the Five Blind Boys?” and that was my seller. I tell you.
Mike Stapleton:
That was your draw.
Willie Eason:
Yeah, and I’d have them stand in line, and Chicago blocks is long. I don’t know if you’ve ever been there, but they’re long. Long blocks, like almost three blocks of the regular block. People standing all the way down. Couldn’t hardly get them in, that’s right. And the money was coming in through the window. My wife asked me, I had to go get change. We had run out of change. And my wife was ticket girl, plus her mother, and she said, “What are we going to do?” I said, “Look, I’m going to go and get change. All I ask you, keep that door,” where they come into there, that door to where you enter, where the cashier was. I said, “Don’t let nobody come in that door. Just rake the money on the floor,” because the drawer was full. And I just hat them rake the money over, down on the floor. That’s right. That’s right. These things, like I say, I never forget that. The big things that happened in my life.
Robert Stone:
Sure, sure. How about your recordings? You said you’ve done, what? Three or four?
Willie Eason:
I tell you, Canyon Queen is out of Cincinnati, but I was trying to study, was I in Atlanta when this guy, when they took me in and done that session. I only done four sides. That was a 78 record.
Robert Stone:
And when would that be about?
Willie Eason:
I’m only going to guess. All I can do is guess. Let’ see. Every time I say that, but I’m not… I’m trying to think, the main number. See, that song wasn’t the main number. Because see, they take the selling side, that’s the seller. But they just said, “Do three other numbers to make the session.” I had to do the four numbers. That’s on a 78 record. You remember the 78s. So I know, In Every Time and… No, it’s No Grumblers There.
Mike Stapleton:
No Grumblers There.
Willie Eason:
No Grumblers There. Just let me do a little bit of it here.
Mike Stapleton:
Sure, go ahead.
Willie Eason:
To show you, I think I can remember a little bit of it.
Joeline Eason:
Willie, that wasn’t the main-
Willie Eason:
I know, that wasn’t the main number that they wanted. The main number, they just told me to build around it. Let’s see. (singing) And I remember that much of it.
Robert Stone:
Is that original?
Willie Eason:
Huh?
Robert Stone:
Is that your composition?
Willie Eason:
That’s mine, that’s my comp-
Robert Stone:
Same with the Roosevelt song?
Willie Eason:
The Roosevelt song is mine, yeah. Pearl Harbor. But I tell you what I done. I remember I lost the lyrics. But that daughter that you saw sitting over there, they got together, because they done heard me sing. She remembered some of it, my wife remembered some of it. Every time I get to a part or verse, they would help me think of the rest. So what I done, while we’re done, when I went to the motel, and what we done, we put it back together. So that’s what I done. I put it on paper, so that way if I had to go back and if I had to redo it, because see, I don’t like what they’ve done. See they didn’t let me sing it, my style that I was singing on the street, the way the people craved over it. They made me sing it the Soul Stirrers way.
This was before Sam Cooke was with the Soul Stirrers. This was Harris, he was leading. And to me, he could out sing Sam Cooke, only Sam Cooke had the wavery voice. That pretty wavery voice. But the old man, we used to call him the old man, Harris. He was the main guy. I remember when, at Deuce Harbor High School, Sam Cooke, that’s where he used to go to high school, before he come out and went with the group. That’s right, and he was waiting to come out, to go with the Soul Stirrers there. That’s how far I go back. So even Sam Cooke, he got carried away. I remember at 47th and Prairie, and I was at 58th and Prairie in Chicago. He wanted to go out in the street because he got to see all them people and whatnot, so they even made some kind of flatbed truck and they used to set me up. And even Henry Nelson can tell you, in Jamaica, Long Island, they used to set me up in a high bed truck, because there were so many people. Just all around me, and I just entertained them, just from the guitar, and they just loved to hear me.
Willie Eason:
And sometimes I’d just have a prayer with them. I remember, that same place, on that bed truck, by Henry Nelson and his wife, her father, they all came out, that was the first time they had ever seen me, and I was on this corner, and people wanted prayer so bad, and whatnot. And I guess they thought I was the man, and what I done, I just had them over. They was all standing. Now some people had got seats, brought their chairs and all, just all over this vacant lot, but I had them all standing on the street because now the police coming. He said, “Look,” he was, “Can’t you make them come in?” Said, “You’ve been standing on the street corner long enough. Can’t you go tell them…” And I tell you, I could tell you, I could go on and tell you some things have happened in my life.
Willie Eason:
But God did bless me down through the years. Even though I was soft-hearted, and let people took me in for my monies and all, God blessed me. I believe though, even now sometimes I let my mind go, but I try to throw it off me, because the Lord really blessed me and gave me a living through it. But I was taken, like the Bishop Lockley and all of them, they just used me, and just took me, and it’s like, “You’re going to hell if you don’t play.” Like frighten you and scare you up, and I got in all that trend and whatnot. But I found out that it was altogether different as I got older.
Robert Stone:
And this is when you were a teenager? Or-
Willie Eason:
Yeah, I was a teenager. I was a teenager, and on into my early 20s, but that’s when I… After I got married, I knew I had to go out and make a living. That’s when I started making a living with it. Really started making a living with it. That’s when I got on the road and started traveling. Had my own car, bought my own first house at 22 years old.
Robert Stone:
Wow.
Willie Eason:
Yeah, in Philadelphia.
Robert Stone:
In Philadelphia.
Willie Eason:
1203 Flora Street.
Robert Stone:
Where were you born?
Willie Eason:
Well I tell you, I thought I was born in Philadelphia, because what I knew myself, I went to school when I was five years old at the Ludlow School, Sixth and Master Street. I got a brother live there now, on Master Street. He’s 78 years old. And I went to school there, but a street between Sixth and Seventh, called Randolph Street. When I knew myself, that’s where I lived at, and when I come to myself, see, all I knew, I was born in Philadelphia. That’s where I thought I was born at, but then after I got in my 60s, and to draw social security and whatnot, the only way I could do it, you got to get the birth certificate. Because all that time, I didn’t have my birth certificate.
Because I have an aunt now, but she’s 106, she’s in Plains, Georgia, but she’s still living. She’s a great… She was not one of these here fake healers. I was even healed through her. I remember when I was about eight or nine years old, I couldn’t walk or nothing. And I know she fasted and prayed with me. Oh gosh, I don’t know how many days. I know she went high as 30 and 31 days. No water, no drink. And my mother died, she come off of fasting, she ate the wrong thing. She got a lot of indigestion. She come off a big, about a 18-day fast, and she ate this cabbage at night, and she’s in the country. So but anyhow, they prayed for me, I got all right. They just said I was one of the blessed childs out of the part… My mother was 18. My wife’s mother’s mother was 19. I’m the father of 15. There’s one sitting there, and there’s one sitting there that you saw. So what I got-
Robert Stone:
So where were you born?
Willie Eason:
Oh, come back, I’m glad you brought me back. You’ve got to tell me. Look, I’m getting old. My thoughts waver. That’s why I’m glad you brought me back there. No, so after I got the certificate that showed I was born, I wasn’t even named. I wasn’t even named. They had to go back, the way they had to find the social security, what child was born between this child and that child? That’s how they got there. And I was born in Georgia.
Robert Stone:
What’s the date?
Willie Eason:
Believe it or not, they made me a year older. That’s been recent, that was in the last six years. When I got the certificate, because right now I’m supposed to be 70 going on 72. I’ll be 72 my next birthday. My mother gave me July the 15th, but it’s June 26th. I was born of a midwife.
Robert Stone:
June 26th, what year?
Willie Eason:
1921, instead of 1922.
Robert Stone:
And where in Georgia?
Willie Eason:
This was Waycross County. That’s out at Ellaville, Georgia.
Robert Stone:
All right.
Willie Eason:
You’ve got to bring my mind back. My children, they say, “Daddy, well you know you…” I say, “Yeah,” I say, “I forget, because I have to keep a lot of things on my mind, don’t forget.” Even after you hear me talking, I guess you can see, I went down through it with a lot of things. I’ve been into a lot of things, with the churches and ministers, and so many things. Then I come to be a minister myself. I never went in for… Because that wasn’t my gift, of healing, and all of this here. I’m not no fake.
I don’t put on, like I see a lot of… I know a lot of ministers, whatnot, I’ve had them tell me in Chicago. Say, “Man, you draw this kind of crowd,” and the guy come in my audience in ’47, I’ll never forget that. He took the little perfume bottle. I don’t know if y’all ever seen the little round perfume bottles?
Robert Stone:
Yes.
Willie Eason:
Okay. They used to have gardenias perfume in them and all. He’d take his and put olive oil in them. That man stood back there, and five dollars was like $25 is now. And he stood there, he saw me playing, and drawing this crowd. He said, “You don’t know what you’ve got.” The only thing about me, yeah, I could’ve made the money, but I’d have been guilty. That’s the only thing. If I could only avoid the guilt. But the thing is, I’m like a person, I want to feel free, I want to be free.
Mike Stapleton:
You’ve got to sleep with yourself at night.
Willie Eason:
That’s it. That’s right. That’s why I could never be with none of these hatred groups. I don’t care, Black or White. I could never be with neither one of them, you see what I mean? Because I’m too honest, I don’t believe that. See, all I know is one Adam and one Eve. You know what I’m saying? And I don’t hate. We’ve got a lot of, if you see, we’ve had some… Let me show you some of our pictures. Show there’s white that’s married in all of our family. My wife’s father, he’s Irish and he’s French. And that was back in World War I, see? And so I mean, so I don’t have nothing to do with what these people do or what you do or what you do. Only I try to live my life, and if I saw you, anything, if on the street, anything. And then if I could help you out, that’s how I feel, because I want to be real.
I try to be real, and I guess, yeah, I got hurt. I got hurt, like I said, financially and all of that. But as I think of it, yeah, sometimes it gets to me if I let it get to me, but-
Mike Stapleton:
Live and learn.
Willie Eason:
Yeah, but I really learned the hard way.
Joeline Eason:
Like what I tell people a lot of times, what’s amazing is that for me as his child, to have seen him go into the fields and different places throughout various cities and whatnot, playing his instrument. Not having to work any job or anything, and to give us, his kids, certain basic value in terms of respect for life and everything.
Willie Eason:
She finished college up in Ramapo, up in New Jersey. I lived in Jersey, too. Lived in Teaneck, New Jersey, lived in Ringwood. That’s where I lived before I came down here. When he said… You was the one that I was talking to wasn’t it, over the phone?
Mike Stapleton:
Over the phone.
Willie Eason:
So when you called I said, “How in the world could this man get my phone number?” Then it come back to me after he said-
Mike Stapleton:
It was amazing.
Willie Eason:
Yeah, but I said to myself, “He had to go something to get that number, to track me down.” But then it come back to me, I said, “Yeah, but you is known, and look what you done done, all over, everybody.” When you said, “Willie Eason,” and everybody would know.
Mike Stapleton:
You left a trail.
Willie Eason:
Yeah, but what it is, a lot of thousands and thousands of people, just wouldn’t know that phone number, or whatnot. They’d know about, I come out of Philadelphia and New York, but they would never know, to try to reach me.
Mike Stapleton:
Well we got you out of the thick of it. Right in the middle of that church. If someone in that church didn’t have your phone number, then wasn’t nobody’s going to have your phone number.
Willie Eason:
That’s right, yeah. Boy, I’m telling you, you said Mary Nelson. She used to be-
Robert Stone:
Mary Linzy.
Willie Eason:
Linzy, yeah. Well she got married, she used to be Mary Nelson. That’s Henry Nelson’s sister.
Mike Stapleton:
Right, she lives in Ocala. We were starting talking about the records, recordings you made.
Willie Eason:
Okay, come back.
Mike Stapleton:
What was it, Aladdin? Did you say-
Willie Eason:
Oh yeah, Aladdin, that was on part one and part two. That’s Tell Me Why You Like Roosevelt. Because the song was so long, the verses are long.
Mike Stapleton:
And about when was that?
Willie Eason:
Okay, let me see. Can I… I can only tell you approximately. Let’s see. In ’59 I was in Philadelphia. ’59.
Joeline Eason:
Who was the baby?
Willie Eason:
Huh?
Joeline Eason:
Who was the baby at the time? Me or Katie?
Willie Eason:
… You had to be the baby. Either was just before you…
Joeline Eason:
I was born in ’54.
Willie Eason:
’54, I think this was back ’49. These were back, ’49. Had to go back, like in the… Let’s see, ’54? ’54. That’d be around about ’49, ’48.
Mike Stapleton:
If you were singing about Roosevelt, is that-
Willie Eason:
Roosevelt, that was in… I got a sheet of paper where I took the song from about President Roosevelt, got by the Elizabeth Shoumatoff on that, she was painting a picture of Roosevelt, just before his death. I got that old paper. I found that old newspaper, and I keep that clip. That’s right, because that’s what I took the song from. Elizabeth, she was painting the picture of him. He was in the rocking chair.
Robert Stone:
So that’s what-
Willie Eason:
And he had infantile paralysis.
Robert Stone:
That was in the ’30s.
Willie Eason:
Okay, well then that’s when I done the Roosevelt.
Robert Stone:
And Roosevelt, what label was he on? The reason I’m asking, I think we can probably-
Willie Eason:
Roosevelt is on Aladdin. Aladdin.
Robert Stone:
Aladdin.
Willie Eason:
That was a Black label like Peacock label. See, I’m giving them to you as I remember it. Part one and part two.
Robert Stone:
Okay, because it was long. It was on a 78, so you had both sides of it, same song.
Willie Eason:
It was part one on one side, and part two on the other side. In other words, you see I sung one verse, do you see how long the song is? So ain’t no way in the world for you to get that much on… Now that’s a historical song. It all was taken out too, all out of the paper, where the artist was painting a picture of him just before his death. He was stricken with a cerebral hemorrhage. All that reads just like I’m singing it, only I just made some rhyme at the end, made the word-
Robert Stone:
You were singing and playing the steel, Hawaiian guitar. Was there other instruments on there? Did you have drums or anything?
Willie Eason:
No, believe it or not, you wouldn’t ever believe it. Just like you see me sitting there playing, that’s the way I was playing. I had to play my own background. When I was playing with Bishop Lockley, when we had them five people, you got an electric Spanish guitar, I don’t have to do no filling in. And all that filling in, trying to keep timing and all, I didn’t have to do all of that. But here, I’ve got to try to keep timing. I’ve got to sing the words, you know what I mean? Lyrics. Then backgrounding, then I have to keep my same beat, because I ain’t got no drum, see? Now I’ll tell you, if you had a guy pulling the strings, then that’s okay. That could substitute for a drum. But the drum is the main thing. Right now, if I’ve got a drum, it makes me feel like I’m at ease, because I won’t make as many mistakes. Like I’m coasting, because the drum is filling in. I’ve got good timing.
So you fellows know what I’m talking about. I’ve got timing. But here I’ve got to get my timing, get my timing right. That’s right. Sometimes the audience will slow me down, and I’ve got my timing. Here, I’m supposed to be up here. (singing) But that’s my beat. But when I performed it, they got me down here, got me dragging.
Mike Stapleton:
It’s tough to slow down. It’s easy to speed up. Man, it’s tough to slow down.
Willie Eason:
See what? And see a lot of people, they don’t understand. Unless, like you said, if you’s a musician, you know what’s happening to me. Like my daughter, who’s over there. She sang, but she just hates to venture out. I’ve been trying to push her. She sang with a choir, a beautiful choir. But I just can’t get her to… Every time I go somewhere, “You ain’t got none of your sons and none of your daughters?” And everybody I’ve taught in my immediate family, I taught them like the people in churches, and that’s how they was able to play Hawaiian for their churches and all. That’s right, because I know a lot of it they picked up they self, because I listen to a lot of them play, and they pick up a lot of that they self, but I’m the one starting them. Because they play different styles.
Mike Stapleton:
Who taught you to play steeL.
Willie Eason:
I’ll tell you where I got the idea from. My style is my own, but where I started from, my oldest brother, a fellow came from Hawaii. This was a Hawaiian. And I didn’t ever know, I always thought, I listened to the Hawaiian music on the record or whatnot, it would sound like they had electric guitar until I went to Hawaii and I had to play in Hawaii. And that’s when I… That’s right. She was stationed in Hawaii. That’s how I got there. Me and my wife went over.
Robert Stone:
But that was later.
Willie Eason:
Yeah, that was… You want to call me back, because my mind- I’ll tell you, because there’s too much on my mind. If you ask-
Robert Stone:
When you were starting out, your-
Willie Eason:
Yeah, I’m coming back, yeah so-
Robert Stone:
Your brother Troman, he played.
Willie Eason:
Yeah, so he played. But this guy come from Hawaii, and before he went back he started teaching my brother how to play the Hawaiian music, and I used to try, if I caught his back turned I would try to see if I could do it. I was about seven, eight years old.
Mike Stapleton:
And Troman was what? 10 years older than you?
Willie Eason:
Had to be. He had to be, yeah. 10 or 11 years older than I am. I can tell you, about 10, because I got a brother 78. That was Charlie. Then Blondie was older than Charlie, so Blondie would have had to have… 78, 79, 80. So Blondie would have to be about 80, and then Mamie if she was living, and then Troman. So it’d have to be about 10 years. He’d have had to be about 10 years older. So, because that’s where I got the idea, from listening to him, and I bought this old wooden box I told you about. Beat box. And that’s how I started trying to pick out the notes on that, listening to him. Now I’ll tell you, one of the first songs I played, Home Sweet Home. And then the old Sweet By and By. We shall meet on the other shore. Those are songs I used to play.
Mike Stapleton:
Did they ever teach you Hawaiian songs?
Willie Eason:
The only Hawaiian song that I played a little bit of was Blue Hawaii.
Mike Stapleton:
Blue Hawaii.
Robert Stone:
Do you remember who this Hawaiian guy was that Troman learned from? Got a-
Willie Eason:
No, I’ll-
Robert Stone:
Was that right in Philadelphia?
Willie Eason:
That was in Philadelphia, yeah. This guy, believe it or not. I’ve never seen him. I’ve never seen that guy. I never seen him. I was small, I never seen him.
Robert Stone:
Just heard about him.
Willie Eason:
But all I know, that he had the sheet music in front of him, and he would play. What they would do, they would take the note music and transfer it into what they called-
Mike Stapleton:
Tablature?
Willie Eason:
Os, Os like… If you’re going to hit the strings straight across without curving the bar, then you have a straight line of Os. Each O was for that string. But if you was going to hit the second string, it wouldn’t be an O there. It would be an O on the second string, on the second line. So you know how music lines read. They used to make an old F sign before the music there. Well he read that type of a sheet, but he transferred it from the notes, like do re me fa sol la ti do, you remember that?
Mike Stapleton:
Sure.
Willie Eason:
Well he took the notes, the notes were made always with that black oval, that line up like that. But they would transfer that music over to these numbers.
Mike Stapleton:
Like a graph.
Willie Eason:
Yeah, and so I even learned to read Home Sweet Home. Yeah, I learned how to read it on the guitar, and I played Home Sweet Home. Nearer My God to Thee was my second song. That’s right. And then after I learned that, I was brought up in the Holiness Church, Pentecostal. So I just had the rhythm already there. It was already there.
Robert Stone:
Now were your parents ministers, or anything in the church, or just active members?
Robert Stone:
Now, were your parents ministers or anything in the church, or just active members in the church?
Willie Eason:
Just active members.
Robert Stone:
And there’s Troman, but Troman, he started playing gospel music.
Willie Eason:
I’ve got one minister. She’s in Philadelphia, but this was later. She’s about three years older than me now. And she’s a minster. She went to Moody Bible Institute there in Philadelphia. She was raised there in Philadelphia, but she was born in Georgia. For me on up and the other children under me was born in Philadelphia. But from me on up was born in Georgia.
Robert Stone:
Georgia.
Willie Eason:
And under me, the four kids under me were born in Philadelphia.
Robert Stone:
So Troman learned from a Hawaiian guy, that got him started.
Willie Eason:
His teacher, he was Hawaiian, he definitely was Hawaiian.
Robert Stone:
Now, did he start on the acoustic or electric? Did he start on just a box guitar? He must-
Willie Eason:
No. He was playing… See, what it was, like I told you, over in Hawaii on that whole island there was only one electric guitar, Hawaiian guitar. And that guy got it from America, came from America. I learnt that part. It came from America. They played on regular guitars, regular guitars, just like I was playing on the big, wooden guitar, that’s what they play on. Only thing they’d do, they raised the string with a piece of steel like that. They raised the strings, that’s what they do.
Robert Stone:
Did you ever see any of those metal guitars, National guitars?
Willie Eason:
Yeah. It’s called all-steel. I played one of them.
Robert Stone:
You did?
Willie Eason:
Yeah, I played one of them. I left the wooden guitar. They had a better ring to it, a better sound.
Robert Stone:
Louder.
Willie Eason:
That’s right. That’s right. I went from there on to this type of instrument. I’ve got another guitar that’s much older than this one. I’ve got two, I think. I know I’ve got one right there in the closet that’s older than this one. I just keep it.
Robert Stone:
I’ve noticed a lot of the other guys, they use the Stevens, what I call the Stevens-type bar. It’s got that slot in it.
Willie Eason:
I used that for a while. I used it for-
Robert Stone:
Do you like this better? You’ve come back to it?
Willie Eason:
Well, for me, I’ll tell you, I think, to me, I guess it’s all in my mind, that for, some reason, this will give you a better melody. It making the harmony when you pick it out, or either you chime the guitar. I pick out chimes. If I’m playing slow numbers you can pick out the chimes and make your runs.
Robert Stone:
Most of these other guys don’t do that.
Willie Eason:
Well, I know-
Robert Stone:
Do you play the harmonics as chimes?
Willie Eason:
You know, I’ve had a lot of standing around when I used to do all this here. You could stand there and just chirp it. See, but you’ve got to have that bar on the fret, and you’ve got to be able to hit it right or a certain distance down, how many lines down to get it to chirp. You can put it one up or one below and you won’t get the-
Robert Stone:
It won’t do it.
Willie Eason:
That’s right, it won’t get the chirp. It’ll get that Hawaiian chirp. As soon as you get it, if you want to run it, you run it to where you want to run it because the guitar will hold the sound, so you run it there. That’s right.
Robert Stone:
That’s a good-sounding guitar.
Willie Eason:
Well, I like it. I had three of them just like that. I sold one of them. The other one, I donated to my son. He plays. They tell me he’s doing pretty good, my other son in Orlando.
Robert Stone:
He’s in Orlando?
Willie Eason:
Yeah.
Robert Stone:
What’s his name?
Willie Eason:
His name is Willie Jr.
Robert Stone:
Willie Jr.?
Willie Eason:
Yeah.
Robert Stone:
And he’s playing. There’s not a House of God church there.
Willie Eason:
It’s a Church of God.
Robert Stone:
Church of God.
Willie Eason:
Yeah. Its name is Church of God.
Robert Stone:
We might want to get ahold of him. That’d be nice.
Willie Eason:
Let me see. In one of my books I’ve got his-
Robert Stone:
Maybe before we leave-
Willie Eason:
I’ll can give it. I’m pretty sure he ain’t changed his phone.
Robert Stone:
You know what? One thing that we’re after in this project, we like the idea of including generations, one, two, maybe three. See, you’re almost a generation older than, say, Henry Nelson. Now, Henry, you inspired Henry to play.
Willie Eason:
Oh, yeah, I’m the one taught him. I’m the one taught him his first note.
Robert Stone:
Is that right?
Willie Eason:
I taught him his first note. He never would have played no guitar. That wasn’t what he would even think, but what it was, he got carried away because he saw how the people carried away over me and the church. See, his father, I used to go play for his father’s assemblies. I married his sister. He got enthused, and he just went to playing.
Willie Eason:
But he was one that had told all these other boys in Detroit, because he would meet them in the general assembly in Nashville, Tennessee. Because I know I went up to Bishop Fletcher’s funeral in Philadelphia, and several of these boys was there, and they were so happy to meet me. Guess what they called named me, called me? The Legend.
Robert Stone:
The Legend.
Willie Eason:
The Legend. That was the first time I heard that, they called me The Legend. Believe it or not, they took me, after the funeral and all, after the undertaker took the body and everything out, they had took me back upstairs and these boys wanted to hear, because Henry Nelson had been telling them, he said, “Now, he can play the words of the song,” and said all that. Said, “He can sing with it too,” and then when he went to describing it and they [inaudible 00:26:02]. They had heard my name so much, but these was like young boys coming on. So they carried me back up in the church.
Willie Eason:
I didn’t want to play, but all of them gathered around, about six of them. Henry, he was there in the bunch. He called me Bill. He said, “Bill, play a number. Play it, let them see. I want them to see. They think I’m joking.” So, I went on and played, I’ll never forget, I played Peace In The Valley. I played a solo number, a little bit of I Never Heard A Man.
Willie Eason:
I’ll never forget, I got a little carried away there. I said, “What did you say?” I was talking to the guitar. I said, “No,” because sometimes I do these things when you’re performing. I said, “Oh, hush your mouth,” and then let the guitar come in again. I said, “No,” like that, just like we’re going back and forth. These are things what the audience like and they want that. So, I played it. And I was trying to get my music up. They wouldn’t let me take up or nothing. They wanted me to play on, that’s right. They must have gave me about $26 there among themselves, said, “Well, do this. Do this. Do that.” And I just went on, and I said, “Just to make them feel happy.”
Willie Eason:
Oh, one of the guys from Detroit, one of the boys, I really enjoyed what he said, it was very encouraging. He said, “Tell me, you play… I never heard nobody just play the exact words,” like I played Old Rugged Cross or Blessed Assurance. I just played the exact words of the song, string-for-string, each note-for-note. So he said, “I heard them all play,” he said, “But they can’t play the words like that, just play the words of the song like that.” He said, “Gosh.” He said you got… Some kind of word he used, I don’t know. He said, “Man, that is something.” Most of them, if the service was going on, they just hit anything on the guitar because people don’t know. It’s better if they can stay in-tune and don’t go out-of-tune, as long as they stay in that key, the right key. But it’s bad when you’re playing in one key and they’re singing in another. It disrupts the service.
Robert Stone:
Man, what-
Willie Eason:
Wouldn’t you fellows…We’ve got some- Would you like to have some hot coffee?
Joeline Eason:
There’s soda too.
Willie Eason:
Some soda or coffee, soda?
Robert Stone:
I might have a little soda.
Willie Eason:
She’ll make you some cold soda. I’m just sitting here talking. I forgot she had some soda.
Robert Stone:
We keep getting off the track of recordings.
Willie Eason:
I’m glad you’re bringing me back. My zipper done… Oh, I know, I got it backwards. I got my zipper, I put it on backwards. It keeps sliding. Aladdin, like I told you, King and Queen and Savoy.
Robert Stone:
Aladdin, King and Queen.
Willie Eason:
The only thing I can tell you about Savoy, I would have to remember, but I can tell you who recorded with me because that’s how I got them on Savoy.
Robert Stone:
Who was that?
Willie Eason:
The Gay Sisters, God Will Take Care Of You.
Robert Stone:
God Will Take Care Of You.
Willie Eason:
(singing).
Robert Stone:
So they were singing and you were playing?
Willie Eason:
No, no, no. They made their own session, and they recorded me separately.
Robert Stone:
I see.
Willie Eason:
This guy wanted to know did I know anybody else. And I got several artists for recording companies because I could always tell talent. I wasn’t no real scout, but to get somebody far enough.
Robert Stone:
What are some of the titles you did for Savoy?
Willie Eason:
I can’t remember. The only thing I can tell you, if you go back, because we both recorded the session at the same time, if you go back and get the Gay Sisters on Savoy records, “God Will Take Care,” that was their main number.
Robert Stone:
And about what year was that? Do you remember, roughly?
Willie Eason:
That’s the only thing I can do is to tell you roughly, only thing I can tell you is roughly. Let’s see, ’50- It had to be in the ’40s. It had to be around the ’50s. It had to be in the ’50s. Had to be in the ’50s.
Robert Stone:
You know what I’m going to try and do is see if I can nail some of these down.
Willie Eason:
Another side of “God Will Take Care Of You” was “Jesus Is A Way Maker.” I can even hit a little bit of it because I remember that one on the piano. Jesus is a way maker, one day he made a way for me when my way was dark and dreary, Jesus came and answered my prayers. One day he made a way for me. These were two beautiful girls. Three of them used to sing, but I know one of them stopped singing, just the two of them, Evelyn, and I forget the other girl’s name.
Robert Stone:
Henry said he thought you had a pretty good hit with “Just A Closer Walk With Thee.”
Willie Eason:
“Closer Walk With Thee,” but I don’t know. I think I recorded it.
Robert Stone:
He said he thought they played that on WLAC down in Nashville on Randy’s records.
Willie Eason:
Could have. There’s another one that they heard me. Oh, and Every Town and City, I know they played that because they called me.
Robert Stone:
In Every Town and City?
Willie Eason:
Yeah, about No Grumblers There.
Robert Stone:
No Grumblers, and that’s yours?
Willie Eason:
That’s mine, yeah.
Robert Stone:
Your composition.
Willie Eason:
That’s right. They called me. They singers too, that’s off of my brother’s family there in Philadelphia. I taught him. He played the guitar. He used to do the same thing I would do on the street corners, made a zillion.
Robert Stone:
Who was that?
Willie Eason:
But he didn’t make nothing like I made. His name was Henry Eason. Henry, he’s dead.
Robert Stone:
That’s right. I heard of him too.
Willie Eason:
He’s dead. His wife called me and told me, said… She heard him out of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. She was living in Philly, but he was on some station. Harrisburg is like 100 miles from Philly, from Philadelphia. This guy, some kind of disc jock was playing it. And so she heard it, and she was trying to surprise me because they taped it. They taped it. And she asked me, said, “Do you know this is?” “Yeah, yeah.” I was shocked. I really was shocked. Yeah, you guys, boy, I’m telling you, I was shocked. When you went to telling me and said, “Henry Nelson,” and you went to naming them all, several of them, and Jewell Dominion. I said, “How this man found it?” I said, “It’s God.” Boy, you’re really with it.
Robert Stone:
It’s been almost two years, when you add it all up, that we’ve been working on it. Mike started gathering names in a store, and I’ve got a list of players. Now some of them are not very accomplished, all the way up to the guys who play a lot. I’ve got about 16 or 17 players around just in Florida, and also Henry. But you know Henry may be moving back to Florida.
Willie Eason:
What?
Robert Stone:
Yeah.
Willie Eason:
Let me see do I have-
Robert Stone:
He really wants to. He’s trying to get it together to move back to Ocala.
Willie Eason:
He would tell me. See, I had a barbecue place up there. He used to come in there and sit.
Robert Stone:
That’s right, you used to have a restaurant here. We tried that angle. I called every hotel and restaurant commission to see if there was a license under your name or something.
Willie Eason:
I was in Brooklyn. I was in Brooklyn. I had-
Robert Stone:
But you didn’t have a restaurant here in St. Petersburg?
Willie Eason:
Yeah. I’m the Fat Willie From Philly. In fact, just for curiosity, let me show you something. Let me just show you. Let me show you. I named my business there Fat Willie From Philly. You need something for attraction. This is one of my… I’ve been in so many things. I was going through some papers, and that came up.
Mike Stapleton:
Sweet potato pies.
Robert Stone:
So that was Fat Willie From Philly at 1371 16th Street South.
Willie Eason:
That’s right. If you go around there you’ll see the great, big sign, the great, big sign up there.
Robert Stone:
It’s still there?
Willie Eason:
It’s still there, it sure is.
Robert Stone:
You sold it out?
Willie Eason:
Yeah. See, what it was, my children thought that we could do the business down here we done in New York. See, because I done the chicken and ribs on a rotisserie. That’s the reason I’m so shocked at Kentucky chicken. Now mine, I’m cooking the same chicken. I’m down here before they ever thought about starting it with the rotisserie, but I was in the wrong spot.
Willie Eason:
My kids thought, because we used to have them standing on the wall waiting for them to come off the rotisserie. See, when I do the rotisserie, it’d be right in the window. And people just passing, when they look at it, they want it, that’s right. You see the grease dropping, it drops down in the pan. And, see, even from up at the top when that grease comes from the chicken it drops on the other one, and it keep them shiny and greasy. And people passing by, oh, we sold, oh, god. That’s right.
Joeline Eason:
[inaudible 00:36:08] too. You taught Uncle Henry’s kids, his daughters how to play, Henrietta and them.
Willie Eason:
She’s talking about my brother Henry Eason, the one I told you about in Philadelphia. His wife called down and told me about they heard me on that station. I taught her. She plays, one of his daughters is playing Hawaiian guitar.
Robert Stone:
Really? And what’s her name?
Willie Eason:
What is her name?
Joeline Eason:
Henrietta.
Robert Stone:
Henrietta?
Willie Eason:
No, that’s not Henrietta.
Joeline Eason:
Which one was that one?
Willie Eason:
It’ll come to me. Huh? No, it’s not Henry. Henrietta is the oldest one. It’ll come to me.
Robert Stone:
She’s living in Philadelphia?
Willie Eason:
Yeah, she’s in Philadelphia.
Speaker 5:
Roslyn, isn’t it?
Willie Eason:
No, that’s not Roslyn, no it ain’t, nope, nope, nope. Thought you had it. I thought I had my- I was going to give him… It would have to be in my other book, my address book, my main address book.
Joeline Eason:
Dorie Miller died in 1943.
Willie Eason:
You ain’t got that paper?
Joeline Eason:
That’s the photo mama had.
Willie Eason:
Dorie Miller, that’s the one I was singing, They Bombed Pearl Harbor about Dorie Miller. All that’s historical. Remember, he saved two battalions.
Robert Stone:
And you recorded that one, did you?
Willie Eason:
Yeah, “They Bombed Pearl Harbor,” “What a Time.”
Robert Stone:
And that was on Aladdin?
Willie Eason:
Wait a minute. Bombed Pearl Harbor, I believe, “Oh, What a Time,” since you just mentioned that, I believe that’s on the King and Queen.
Robert Stone:
King and Queen.
Willie Eason:
Where I sang “No Grumblers There,” could have been part one and part two, “Oh, What a Time.” I believe that’s what it is. I believe-
Robert Stone:
You don’t have any of these do you?
Willie Eason:
I did, but I don’t know how they got… They just got away. We’re talking going back 50-something years because I got back-
Robert Stone:
It’s a long time to hang on to a record.
Willie Eason:
And then they had give me a book of my songs I used to sing. I used to sell them books on the street. It cost me about 10 cents to make the book, but I would sell them for half a dollar.
Robert Stone:
The songs with the words.
Willie Eason:
The words, lyrics what I be singing, all that Roosevelt and They Bombed Pearl Harbor. I used to sing a little bit of a song about the Black, what you call it? Let’s see, something like a Black artist in the Black race. I sung a little bit of this about Black was… You’ve hard of Jessie Owens? I had brought him to- [singing] if you ever needed the lord before, you sure need him now. You ever needed the lord before, you sure need him now. You ever needed the lord before you sure need him now. You need him every day, every hour. If you’re Black like Joe Lewis with that dynamite right hand, knocked out bad Max Schmeling, send him back to the European land. Black was Jessie Owens, the greatest runner that ever lived. Hitler didn’t want to shake his hand, but he won the cup in Berlin. Remember when I- but I never recorded that one.
Robert Stone:
That’s too bad. How many songs do you think you’ve written?
Willie Eason:
Maybe about 12 or 15.
Robert Stone:
Did you copyright any of them? No?
Willie Eason:
A guy was telling me he was doing it, but he didn’t do it. You know how they tell, said, “Yeah, I’m going to do this for you, and I’m going to do that for you.”
Mike Stapleton:
The old cash register
Willie Eason:
That’s right, that’s right. The one I really believe I could have done something, I’m pretty sure I would have done something with Roosevelt.
Robert Stone:
Were you ever on any recordings where you were backing up somebody? Henry said he backed up Mahalia Jackson on one recording. Did you ever do any of that?
Willie Eason:
Only one. I think it was the Ward Singers.
Robert Stone:
The Clara Ward Singers?
Willie Eason:
Clara Ward Singers, I believe, I think I can remember that. I was in the background there just playing some of the music on there.
Robert Stone:
You don’t remember what numbers?
Willie Eason:
I don’t know what number she was singing. I don’t know what number the group was singing. They just wanted the Hawaiian in there.
Robert Stone:
Now, did you say in the East, or did you travel out West? I know like [crosstalk 00:40:49].
Willie Eason:
As far as where I traveled out through far as playing and singing, out through Texas, but I hung around Chicago. Hawaii, she the one had me over there, and I played in this big auditorium for all these different ministers. They have a certain time. The Catholic go in and have their service. You can play whatever you want and how loud ever you want to play it, but they got a whole system set up there. They can cut that guitar down and cut everything down for it to go. The amplification goes out over the audience the way they want it to go out. That’s right. That’s the first time I had seen that when I went over to Hawaii and seen that.
Robert Stone:
When were you in Hawaii?
Willie Eason:
She can tell you better because was stationed there.
Joeline Eason:
1980.
Robert Stone:
1980?
Willie Eason:
Yeah.
Robert Stone:
Did you mix it up with any of the Hawaiian guys there? Did you [crosstalk 00:41:40]?
Willie Eason:
No, I didn’t get a chance. I didn’t have my guitar over there. Yes, I did.
Joeline Eason:
You did.
Willie Eason:
I played in the auditorium. Yes, I did. I didn’t play with none of them. You threw me off when you said, “Did you play with any of them?” No, that’s when I got a chance to. See, they were playing these wooden guitars. I said, “Oh, my god.” And I know one lady, she had heard me from New Orleans. She was a Hawaiian. I said, “How could this lady?” Just like I’m talking about you, “How could this lady know me?” She said, “I seen you.” And she told me, she said, “I know I seen you.” And when she mentioned this Herman Brown, which was a promoter in New Orleans, then I knew she had been there. That’s right. Her being in Hawaii and she was a Hawaiian, “I wonder how in the world you got all the way over to New Orleans.”
Robert Stone:
How long have you been in St. Pete here?
Willie Eason:
This August coming will be seven years. This new year that’s coming will be seven years.
Robert Stone:
Do you play at church ever?
Willie Eason:
Once in a while. Once in a while I’ll play.
Robert Stone:
What church, any one in particular?
Willie Eason:
Not no particular one. Oh, only one I play in, I play in a little Pentecostal church up here on 18th Avenue. Sometimes I just play for them on Sunday, don’t have that many members or whatnot. They’re very nice, they’re open-hearted. I’ve just been there trying to help them out. I don’t play the Hawaiian guitar. I may play the organ or something like that.
Robert Stone:
You don’t play the steel when you play for them?
Willie Eason:
Once in a while. If they’ve got a special day, like on the fifth Sunday, they got a couple of other churches come in with them on fifth Sunday, then I’ll go there and I’ll play that day. But then if you was coming or something like that and you wanted to hear me play through the service, and I was going to play the guitar, well, I would let you know.
Robert Stone:
I think we’d like to do that. I might have mentioned this briefly, but as part of this project we’ve got a guy that’s got a, it’s basically a portable recording studio. It’s eight tracks, all digital, state-of-the-art. Where we can record a whole band and mix it down to where it’s just right.
Willie Eason:
Good. Well, you know what I was talking about when I was talking about how they done me. You can play loud or whatever you want to play, but they can cut you down in that room and make that sound whatever they want.
Robert Stone:
You balance it just right.
Willie Eason:
That’s right.
Robert Stone:
It’s pretty expensive, and we just have a limited budget. So we need to be careful about how we use that. We’d really like to record you with whatever you like, bass and drums, whatever, in a church. We’d love to do that. One thing good about it, the recording engineer, he’s in Dade City, which is not far from here.
Willie Eason:
No, that’s right.
Robert Stone:
We could come over, basically, whenever you want. We’d have to schedule it and see-
Willie Eason:
Well, the best time… Excuse me, I don’t mean to cut you off. I’m sorry.
Robert Stone:
Whatever is good for you.
Willie Eason:
See, what it is, they’re having that special day, and I’m going to play the Hawaiian guitar. Not only that, I’ll be a little perked-up if I’m going to play the guitar.
Robert Stone:
You get a lot of energy.
Willie Eason:
Then you’ve got the organ, somebody is going to be at the organ like that.
Mike Stapleton:
And that’s on a fifth Sunday?
Willie Eason:
Well, generally, but every fifth Sunday, it may go to Apopka, wherever they… See what I mean? These two churches may go to Apopka, the next town, and the other churches will go up to this one. They switch it around like that. I’m trying to see what other times where you could catch me in a service. That’s the time when you really catch any of us, Henry Nelson, anybody. If they’re playing for the service, they put all kinds of things in there, whatever they’re going to do. With me, I can put chirps and runs. You’re playing, you’re sliding. Maybe you hit a few notes or something you don’t want to hear.
Robert Stone:
That’s where we’ve been recording. We’ve been all live at the service, at conventions, wherever.
Willie Eason:
That’s the best way. Like now, I have to make my own background and everything, getting the right tempo, perk myself up, get myself going, what they call soul, putting my soul in it and get all in it.
Robert Stone:
You’ve got to spread yourself out.
Willie Eason:
That’s right. You understand, well, you know what it’s all about. [Tape stops]
Robert Stone:
Date of birth?
Willie Eason:
Date birth is 26 of June 1921.
Robert Stone:
And that was in Georgia. Where did you say?
Willie Eason:
That’s in La Crosse County.
Robert Stone:
La Crosse County.
Willie Eason:
La Crosse, just like you said.
Mike Stapleton:
Which part of Georgia is that in?
Willie Eason:
Ellaville, Americus, about 14 miles out, don’t forget, Plains, Georgia where Carter is, is right in that area. All of it’s right in that same area, Americus, Ellaville, Plains, Georgia.
Robert Stone:
All right.
Willie Eason:
Yeah, boy, I’m telling you, I really enjoyed that day over in Hawaii, I’m telling you. That was really beautiful.
Robert Stone:
Speaking of Hawaii, I use this to show to people. This is something that the State of Hawaii did that’s going to be similar to what I’m going to do with this gospel project. In this it’s two cassettes. Ours will be just one, but it’ll be in a package like this with a booklet. The booklet’s got photographs and text. In this case, they transcribed the Hawaiian songs into English, the words and everything. We wouldn’t be doing that, a lot of historical stuff and the people. This is the kind of thing we’re talking about. It’d be similar to this with just one cassette.
Robert Stone:
Any of the artists that make it into the final product, we’d, of course, work out the arrangements. You get paid, plus you get a number of free cassettes, plus, the rest of them are going to be available too to churches or whoever else orders in quantity at a wholesale price. So, the idea is to get this back to the people from which it came, to the artists for free and for some honorarium money, and to the churches for cost, basically. So, we’re not out to make any money on this.
Robert Stone:
I have the guy from the Smithsonian that Henry Nelson and Aubrey are going to be on the radio, up at Wolf Track by Washington, DC. After we’re done with it, they may pick it up and put it on their label and do a national distribution, in which case, there’d be even more royalties. They’re excited about the project. A lot of people are real excited about this. It’s good music. And see, as you know, this music is not that well known outside of the House of God Church.
Joeline Eason:
That’s what I was telling him.
Robert Stone:
People that are in the business that I’m in are very excited about this because it’s something that’s good stuff, it’s exciting stuff, and, also, it’s not well known.
Joeline Eason:
It’s fresh to the public.
Robert Stone:
Also the timing is right too because there are still fellas that were pioneers that are still alive and well and playing, like yourself and like Henry Nelson. Some have passed already, Bishop Harrison and Troman.
Willie Eason:
That’s right.
Robert Stone:
But there’s still some around that have that connection that goes all the way back.
Willie Eason:
That’s right. That’s their.
Robert Stone:
We’re not any too soon on this thing.
Willie Eason:
You know what I only- well, I still can do it, though. I wish I had turned on the tape recording when I was doing them couple- You know who I got to send a tape for? He wanted to put it on the radio, just use it. I played for this fund raiser, and a guy down at Lakeland want me to… I charge to come down, I don’t know what they’re putting on to be on that program. So I said, “Well, I’ve got to get my…” Because I get rusty when I don’t play too much. If you tell somebody and say, “I’m losing it,” because you’re not in practice. You’re not rehearsing, you know what I mean? It eases away. But you tell some people that, they don’t want to believe that.
Robert Stone:
That’s right.
Willie Eason:
They just- you should still be able to do everything… Uh-huh (negative).
Robert Stone:
That’s right.
Willie Eason:
But the more I play, it comes back.
Robert Stone:
Comes back fast too.
Willie Eason:
I noticed this morning even when I went to try to play a couple of numbers, they told me, they figured I was going to get hoarse quick. Now, the hoarseness don’t bother me if I’m doing it constantly. If I’m doing it constantly, then that don’t bother me too much. My real voice will come back and everything. I’m really accurate. But then like they said, then I see myself, I get hoarse. And it’s different climates. I don’t know whether you know this or not, I can sing here in Florida, but I can sing easier with the Pennsylvania air. I used to do outdoor singing. And I could fight that. I could fight Chicago. Chicago, coming off of Lake Michigan, you’ve got that air coming off of Lake Michigan. I couldn’t hardly-
Mike Stapleton:
Real humid.
Willie Eason:
It was hard fighting that. So I could tell. In Florida, if I don’t sing too constantly, I notice the change. But when I get my real good voice back, I be so glad when I get back around Philadelphia and New York. I become more clearer with my words. That’s the reason I try to make my words very distinct because, even on a recording, they want the words very distinct, whatever English you can put on there, the words, I guess so the people can understand what you’re saying.
Joeline Eason:
Did you say this is through a grant through the state?
Robert Stone:
Well, see, I work for the state. And we have enough money to kind of barely keep things going. When we do a project like this, we need additional funding. The state puts in some, and the balance of the funding, we’ve gotten this from the National Endowment for The Arts. They have a folk arts program. And the folk arts, this thing is from the other in that… Basically, I guess if you simplified it as much as you could, the folk art stuff applies to things that, basically, you don’t learn in school. And music would be the case of music that’s, largely, unwritten, sung by ear. You teach. You learn from this guy. Maybe he never even taught you, but you listened to him and then you figured it out.
Willie Eason:
That’s right. That’s it.
Robert Stone:
That kind of thing, as opposed to going and taking piano lessons-
Willie Eason:
See, I ain’t never took no music. I ain’t never took no music.
Robert Stone:
How about the piano? You never-
Willie Eason:
I ain’t never took no music. It’s just- That’s the reason I have to laugh at you because you tell me what- I picked mine up. I started playing with one finger when I was, what, five or six years old? “Nearer, My God, to Thee,” I used to play it with the pump organ where you pump your feet. That’s where I started. I thought I would never play with my left hand. The left hand is always, you just sit here and play one finger. And I’ve got people now. Of course, I never taught too much piano, but I taught some of them, and they want to [inaudible 00:53:56]. You have to have a lot of patience. You know what I mean? And if you got engagements to fulfill and different things like that, and I have other project. I’ve got a family. You know what I mean?
Robert Stone:
Sure.
Willie Eason:
You’re fulfilling all these things, something’s got to be left or something got to go undone or something ain’t going to be right trying to put all this stuff together. Now at my age now, I try to stay as active as I can. I want to live as long as I can.
Mike Stapleton:
That’s it. Name of the game.
Willie Eason:
I want to live as long as I can.
Robert Stone:
You’ve got a lot of energy.
Willie Eason:
Huh?
Robert Stone:
You’ve got a lot of energy.
Willie Eason:
Thank you. Well, I tell you, the doctors lucky they got me up on that operating table with two operations here in the last year or so, about 18 months or two years. And I had asked that doctor, the prostate, and now I found out I didn’t need the prostate because now they got a way that they can, with the laser and something else and with the system they got now you don’t even need it. Because me, I even took her with me. That’s why you see me hand her the paper and everything. Am I reading this clearly? Do I have a second opinion? And, believe it or not, I even took her over to the doctor with me. I wanted her to hear these medical terms that you was dictating to me and telling me why. I’m not painful, I don’t have no pain, no hurting. I’m still active. I get out there and I do my gardening. I don’t need no cane. I didn’t have no cane.
Willie Eason:
But here, after the operation, here I couldn’t even use the pot. I had to use the pot in the bed, and I wasn’t used to that. And here I’m finding myself, I’m in a wheelchair. I’ve got to take therapy. I wasn’t used to this. But I fought my way back. Then I’m here, I’ve got a walker. Walkin’ with a walker. I wasn’t used to this. But I didn’t want no doctor to touch me, not no cutting. I just had to be cut. She could tell you. She went with me.
Willie Eason:
I asked that doctor just time I found out that me and him went to the same school in Philadelphia. Me and him got to talking and I said, “I noticed your credentials.” I said, “Doc,” I said… What this other borough in New York? Staten Island. I remember one of his credentials read Staten Island. I said, “You went to a school in Staten Island?” He says, “Yeah.” I said, “Yeah.” I said, “Well, you up around my way.” He said, “What you call around your way?” I said, “I went to school, I went to a school in Philadelphia on Broad Street.” I said, “I went to a school on Broad Street.” I said, “You went to Central High?” I said, “Well, they renamed it.” I said, “It’s Benjamin Franklin.” I said, “We both went to the same school.” Isn’t that a coincidence?
Robert Stone:
Yeah.
Willie Eason:
But he’s in his 50s, and here I am in my 70s. So, I know we couldn’t have had the same teachers. We didn’t have the same teachers because they changed the name altogether. The same doctor. Today, I don’t have to tell you, a lot of doctors in the whole world think they’re after-
Robert Stone:
Career.
Willie Eason:
And I’ve seen so many people got operated or got cut and didn’t have to be. And I didn’t want to fall a victim of that. And my doctor, he referred me, because this was the specialist. He referred because he didn’t do that type of work. But he referred me over to this doctor. He was encouraging me. This way he encouraged me, “I’d hate for you to come back to me if something happened to you. Now I can’t help you. Now I can’t help you when I could have helped you.”
Mike Stapleton:
Put the pressure on you.
Willie Eason:
He put the pressure on me. And then-
Mike Stapleton:
Fear is a big pressure too.
Willie Eason:
And here I am feeling like I’m feeling. I’m feeling good and everything, no pain. I had examined myself. I even took my daughter down there with me to make sure. I’m reading this English. I’ve got a good understanding of wording and what not and lines and what not. I said, “Well, let me read these medical terms,” because medical, they [inaudible 00:58:23]. But now I hate I done it, but it was too late, but I’m fighting back. I’m pretty good now. I may use a cane. The only time I’ll use a wheelchair if I’ve got to go a distance or something like that. I may just get in the wheelchair and use my feet like that. If I’ve got to ride a distance to keep from putting all my weight down on my knees or legs or something like that. Then I had a blood clot. And I was just getting ready to go to Philadelphia too up there on a case. And I walked in the bank and went to put my feet down, it was giving way on me. I thought I wasn’t going to make it back to my van. And I made it back. I just did make it back to the van, and I put my flashers on and I drove. The hospital must be about five miles from here. And I come down 275, and police, ain’t nobody ever stopped me. I must have been going 70, 75. And I come in, and I went to blowing the horn. My wife come out. Then they slid me over and rushed me over to Saint Anthony hospital.
Joeline Eason:
Overall let them know you’ve never smoked or drank.
Willie Eason:
Oh, that’s true too. Well, that’s been-
Joeline Eason:
It contributed it to-
Willie Eason:
Every doctor, he said, “Did I understand you said…” I said not even wine. Only strong drink is a few sodas, and I don’t make it a habit of drinking soda because of the carbonation. Never smoked, no alcoholic drinks in my whole life. A lot of people tell that they said, “You ain’t had…” and I said, “No.” Only time I tried to smoke, I coughed to death. I was about five or six years old [inaudible 01:00:14]. It was choking me, and that made me hate it. I was about five or six years old, so other than that. I guess that contributed too to my health too. I never smoked or drank. That’s right.
Willie Eason:
But other than that, even at 55, she can tell you, I out run my son at 55 years old in Teaneck, New Jersey. But I knew I was going to do it then. I was a good athlete, even though I had weight, 192, but I was always a good athlete. I could run. I’ve out run guys was up to six feet and all like that. I out run them, they couldn’t believe it. People used to bet on me because they didn’t know, but the guys that was betting on me, they knew how fast I could run. And on the track team, I was all on the track team and everything.
Willie Eason:
My son said, “Daddy, I bet you couldn’t beat me running now.” He just kept at me. I knew I couldn’t beat him running because I’m 55 years old. Right there in Teaneck, the whole block, and I beat him running. In fact, he’s out to the flea market now. They sell this stereo equipment, all types of CDs and all down at the Wagon Wheel. I don’t know if you ever heard of the Wagon Wheel, one of the biggest flea markets here in Florida, the Wagon Wheel flea market. Thousands of people be out there, go through that market and [crosstalk 01:01:30].
Mike Stapleton:
You can get lost in that place.
Willie Eason:
It’s a big one.
Robert Stone:
Have you ever run across… There’s a guy that we’ve done a lot of work with. He’s been at our festival. Tommy Walton, he’s a Black man and sells vegetables and he sings. They call him the world’s greatest singing salesman. He lives in Saint Pete here, Tommy Walton.
Willie Eason:
There names sounds-
Robert Stone:
He’s got a voice.
Mike Stapleton:
Oh, man.
Robert Stone:
You can hear it over anything.
Willie Eason:
You know what?
Robert Stone:
You can hear him two blocks down.
Willie Eason:
That name sound familiar.
Robert Stone:
Tommy Walton. He’s probably in his 60s anyhow.
Mike Stapleton:
Oh, at least.
Robert Stone:
He’s done a lot at the ballgames, professional ballgames, selling hotdogs, “I got hot dogs, cold dogs,” and all that. He sings. I just thought you might have run across him.
Willie Eason:
No, the name sounds familiar, Walton sounds familiar. I get around a lot.
Robert Stone:
We have his address back at work. He may be at the other end of town, but I know he’s in Saint Pete and been here a long time.
Willie Eason:
I only been here, like I said, come August I will be here seven years. That’s right. Moved down from Ringwood, New Jersey. That’s where we come out. Yes, sir.
Robert Stone:
Did you play “Just A Closer Walk With Thee?” Any chance you could play that now?
Willie Eason:
“Just A Closer Walk?”
Robert Stone:
I’d love to hear it.
Willie Eason:
Okay. Well, I’ll tell you now, if you can be satisfied with it, I’ll tell where you-
Robert Stone:
Get the amp back on, he turned it off to get the humming.
Willie Eason:
Let me see. I can do it, though. I could do it. See, the way I do it, I do it the way I normally do it. See, what I do, I solo it. So I just solo a verse and a chorus, and then sing a verse and a chorus. What if I do it that way?
Robert Stone:
Whatever you want. We’d love to hear it.
Willie Eason:
Nobody didn’t tell you I played that number too, did they?
Robert Stone:
Well, yeah. They told me that you recorded it and that they used to play that on WLAC in Nashville. That’s what-
Willie Eason:
Well, Nashville was the first station that they used to get my songs on when I first recorded. How it’s going to sound, fellas, like I’m telling you, I’m doing the best I can.
Robert Stone:
I know with the Hawaiian guitar you’ve got to keep up your touch too. Very sensitive.
Willie Eason:
That is the truth. [Tape stops]. See-
Robert Stone:
And that was very late ’30s, ’39 or something like that?
Willie Eason:
Let me see.
Robert Stone:
Must have been, or 1940, maybe?
Mike Stapleton:
I had to go back into it.
Willie Eason:
I was much younger than that. I was much younger than that when I was doing that.
Mike Stapleton:
Boy, those old amps. Every now and then you’ll see one of those amps still.
Willie Eason:
That’s right.
Mike Stapleton:
Collectors buy these things now and put them on display.
Willie Eason:
To me, I can get a good sound out of this one. I can get good sounds out of this one.
Mike Stapleton:
When did you first start playing that song for the marches?
Willie Eason:
Let’s see. All I can do is try to carry my mind back. All I can do is carry it. I can give you approximate.
Mike Stapleton:
Yeah, that’s fine.
Willie Eason:
I’m talking about in about in the… It had to be in the ’40s. It was in the ’40s, in the ’40s.
Mike Stapleton:
In the ’40s?
Willie Eason:
Yeah, ’40s, late ’40s.
Mike Stapleton:
So almost 50 years ago.
Willie Eason:
Oh, yeah. It’s been 50 years. It’s been 50.
Robert Stone:
Now, how long did you play with Bishop Lockley.
Willie Eason:
See, when they said Bishop Lockley, Bishop Lockley was like the first chief couple. He was like assistant to the overseer, the senior bishop, was known Keith Dominion, like you said Jewell Dominion. But Bishop Lockley is the one I traveled with. He’s the one that always carried the musicianers with him. And Hawaiian was something new to them, and he knew it was new to the people because when we first went down there, don’t forget, my brother, the one I told you about that played under the Hawaiian teacher, he’s the first one took him down, brought him to Florida because he come to Florida every winter and hold his assemblies and then go back North to New York.
Robert Stone:
You were coming in the winter.
Willie Eason:
So then after my brother stopped, then he got ahold of me because I was picking up. And my brother used to use me on his anniversaries. He called it one string melody. He would do it. That’s what my brother called it. But he couldn’t never make out with all this pretty music that he played because he had a trio, two Hawaiian guitars. One was like a tenor. That’s right. I know the fella that played it, Plummer, that was his name. He played this tenor Hawaiian. And my brother played the one like I’m playing, the heavy one, just a regular guitar. But that tenor, you could hear the two Hawaiians together.
Robert Stone:
Was it a smaller guitar, the tenor?
Willie Eason:
Well, it was smaller. It was a little bit smaller, yeah. But then they had a Spanish guitar.
Robert Stone:
So that was the trio?
Willie Eason:
Yeah. But then later they changed from… Also they had a fourth one. He took on a fourth one later. He played accordion, the guy with the big humpback, and it was four of them. Then later that was later down the road, it was four. But what they couldn’t get over, especially the guy that played the tenor, he was a professor, and he taught. He said he couldn’t get over how in the world could I come there. I enjoy things like this. How in the world could I come to that church and play, I played “Closer Walk.” How in the world?
Willie Eason:
See, but I make the guitar sing the words, and that’s what they couldn’t understand. They’re playing all that pretty melody and everything, and they’re picking up all these here harmonics, like you pick them out. [Playing steel]. But they could play all that, then make the run, and making all the runs and then picking up the harmonics too. And they wondered, Plummer asked my brother. I remember that. I was nothing but a kid. He said, “How in the world we’re playing all this sweet music and all this pretty music. How is he getting away with this?” But I was playing the words. And that make to the people, say, “Willie, guitar talking.” That’s what they used to call me, Little Willie and the Talking Guitar when I was coming-
Robert Stone:
Little Willie and the Talking Guitar.
Willie Eason:
And the Talking Guitar, that’s right. I may even have something in my papers somewhere with that on there, Little Willie and the Talking Guitar. Sterchi Brothers in Macon, Georgia, there was a guy… He’s still living. He’s a bishop now in The House of God in that same church.
Robert Stone:
Sterchi?
Willie Eason:
Sterchi Brothers was a big store like Mays or something like that. And I think Sterchi’s is still there. The broadcasting station was owned by Sterchi’s in Macon. I forget what floor he was on. And that’s what they would call me, “Yeah, we have Little Willie and the Talking Guitar. Go ahead, Willie,” like that. See, you’re bringing all this stuff back to mind.
Willie Eason:
So, this is what they labeled me, Little Willie and the Talking Guitar. Even when I went to the Macon Auditorium, I remember I had to be about, what, 21? He said, “Yeah, he’s going to be at that Macon Auditorium making that guitar talk. Go ahead and make it talk, Willie.” This guy, he was tall, slim like you tall. He was very slim and tall, that’s right. I forget the name. He had a special name. I can’t call his name right now, but he was like the disc jockey, “Yeah, we got him right here in the studio.” That’s right.
Robert Stone:
So you played some live radio too?
Willie Eason:
Oh, yeah, oh, yeah.
Robert Stone:
You played live radio maybe before you were going to have a-
Willie Eason:
A concert.
Robert Stone:
A concert or a [crosstalk 01:10:05] or something.
Willie Eason:
They’ll make you appear. They want you to do that so the people know you’re in town too. Because a lot of times there was disappointment. People had bought tickets and the artist didn’t show, see, and all of that. See, you’re making all this stuff, like I said, come to mind now. And I’ve been through all of that.
Robert Stone:
So by playing on the radio you made it known that you were here so they felt safe buying their tickets.
Willie Eason:
That’s right. See, your last-minute tickets is the ones to go. People wait till the last minute to get the big bunch of tickets. You would sell a ticket here and there, but the big thing is at the door, that last, what you call? And more tickets usually are sold at the door. They paid a double price at the door than they would when they could have bought the ticket for half-price. This happened in all my promotions. I could tell what my program was going to be like according to my sales at the door. If I sold 300 tickets, that mean I should have a crowd of 2,000. That’s right.
Robert Stone:
Henry was telling me a little bit about Bishop Lockley. He said that you had five or six pieces in that group?
Willie Eason:
Yeah, about five.
Robert Stone:
He said one guy played a-
Willie Eason:
Spanish guitar.
Robert Stone:
Spanish guitar. Another guy played gourds.
Willie Eason:
No, the vibraharp.
Robert Stone:
The vibes?
Willie Eason:
Yeah. That’s Bishop’s Lockley’s son. He’s dead.
Robert Stone:
What was his name?
Willie Eason:
J.R. Lockley, Jr.
Robert Stone:
And then a guitar player.
Willie Eason:
Bruce Eberhardt.
Robert Stone:
Eberhardt?
Willie Eason:
Yeah. Believe it or not, I was at his bedside in Brooklyn just before he died. And he asked me, he wanted me. Even the nurse wanted to come over there and turn him, but he wouldn’t let them turn him over. That’s how close he felt to me. I went over then and lift him over. He couldn’t turn over, and I lifted him over on his side. But I didn’t know that. I knew he was pretty sick, but I didn’t know he was going to die before I got back up there. I went down to the general assembly in Nashville. When I got back they said, “Eberhardt is dead.” I said, “Oh, no.” That’s right. One of the guitars like this, he had, and I got that guitar. And that’s the one my son has got over there in Orlando now from Eberhardt.
Robert Stone:
All right.
Willie Eason:
You’re getting some history now.
Robert Stone:
Who else was in the band?
Willie Eason:
Let me see, Eberhardt. And then we had the boy, he blowed a sax. He wasn’t too good of a sax player, but he was coming on good. He would keep up with the music sometimes. Sometimes we had to cut him out because if he makes a lot of bad notes, well… Who else was there? The drummer, Moe Harper, but he was a regular drummer. He was from a small band because Bishop Lockley tried to keep him, but he couldn’t do him like he done us. We didn’t get nothing.
Robert Stone:
And his name was Moore Harper?
Willie Eason:
Moe, M-O-E, M-O-E, Moe Harper.
Robert Stone:
Moe was his first name?
Willie Eason:
Yeah, Moe.
Robert Stone:
And Harper was his last name?
Willie Eason:
That’s right. Now, he was the drummer, but he could drum.
Robert Stone:
He was from New York?
Willie Eason:
Yeah, he was out of New York, Moe Harper.
Robert Stone:
See, Henry Nelson could remember some of this stuff.
Willie Eason:
He’s telling you. He’s on track.
Robert Stone:
Did you play the bush [inaudible 01:13:20]?
Willie Eason:
The vibraharp?
Robert Stone:
No, no, did you play the bush harbors when you played out in the country when you weren’t in the church?
Willie Eason:
No, I’ve always played gospel.
Robert Stone:
Henry was telling me when Holiness and Pentecostal first started, sometimes they couldn’t get a church and they’d play out in the woods. They called it the brush harbors.
Willie Eason:
I’ll tell you-
Robert Stone:
[inaudible 01:13:44].
Willie Eason:
I’m going to tell you how I remember. The only thing, these little old wooden churches, I sang the “Little Wooden Church” for you, didn’t I? No, I didn’t sing that.
Robert Stone:
Not yet.
Willie Eason:
Anyhow, so what we’d do-
Robert Stone:
We were talking about the bush [inaudible 01:14:09].
Willie Eason:
You’re bringing another song, one of my main songs to my mind. What they done, they had the church, but they put them on what we called pillars, you know?
Robert Stone:
Right.
Willie Eason:
And I’ve seen, this ain’t no lie, you see them people get to shouting in that church, I ain’t kidding you, that’s one time the pillars came out from under a corner. And the church was leaning. They’re in there shouting in that church. I ain’t kidding you, them people there dancing till that church was on the ground on the corner. That was in Pamplico, South Carolina.
Robert Stone:
Henry told me that same story.
Willie Eason:
I was playing, I’ll never forget, and I was just making the runs because sometimes instead of just standing there trying to pick out the words, I’d just make a lot of runs. And then you repeat. And all that kind of, just running back and forth like that making your runs. You’re still playing good harmony and music and whatnot. You ain’t got to do all that trying to pick out the words and all of that there.
Robert Stone:
That was quite a time.
Willie Eason:
Oh, it was. That church come off the pillars. I’ll never forget that, Pamplico, South Carolina. That’s right. Them people shouted that church off the rock, off the pillars, that’s right.
Robert Stone:
What is that tune you were going to play for us?
Mike Stapleton:
It was one of your main tunes.
Willie Eason:
Look, I’ll do just a little bit of it.
Joeline Eason:
I don’t get the opportunity too often either, so I guess I’m going to stay.
Robert Stone:
She’s enjoying it.
Mike Stapleton:
That’s right.
Willie Eason:
One, two, one, two. Y’all doing me in today, y’all.
Joeline Eason:
You ought to make him pass it onto my son. [Tape stops].
Willie Eason:
What song did I do? Oh, I know what it was, more like a soul song. My faith looks up to thee, thy lamb of Calvary, savior divine. And believe me, I sung it until I felt it. I just felt that song. That’s the only time you really can get in to it, when you feel it. When you feel it, it’s in me now. See? You can tell it’s coming on me.
Willie Eason:
I played the piano, but there was another boy there, he was playing a little bit of the keyboard. Another little boy was beating the drum, so they gave me a beat. And I was already feeling the spirit when all of a sudden, verse to chorus, I sung another chorus, and everybody was rapping. So when I got middle of the floor, and I had my cane, I was on my way to the seat, and I ain’t kidding you, the spirit just got ahold of me. And I just spin right there and sung another verse of that song. “My Faith Looks Up to Thee,” that’s what it was, my faith looks up, thy lamb of Calvary. [lyrics].
Mike Stapleton:
That’s what happens when the energy comes flowing. You start playing and the people get into it.
Willie Eason:
That’s it.
Mike Stapleton:
It just makes a big circle.
Willie Eason:
That’s it. That’s right. And when all them people stood up with me, that made it worse. After I hit that other verse, I just went on and took my seat.
Mike Stapleton:
So that happens with us when we play. We play lots of dances. And if not many people are dancing, we can’t play very good.
Willie Eason:
No, you can’t get that momentum. You just can’t get it.
Mike Stapleton:
If you get a bunch of good dancers out there, man, it starts cranking.
Willie Eason:
Oh, yeah, it cranks.
Robert Stone:
After a while you don’t want to quit. Comes time for a break and [crosstalk 01:17:39] even more.
Willie Eason:
That’s it.
Robert Stone:
Times up, let’s play some more.
Willie Eason:
That’s it. That’s it. That’s it.
Joeline Eason:
Just like I said, if I have an ear for music and I love music and dance a lot because of my father. And so, it is kind of strange, being in the army I was going all over the world. I’ve been to Missouri. I’ve to Wisconsin. But I can dance to anything, country Western. And get to a club, and if they’re playing country Western or whatever, I can do the two-step right now. I can show you, but let him play like this, it’s a different story.
Mike Stapleton:
It’s integrated. You can’t have one without the other.
Willie Eason:
That’s right. That’s right. That’s right. That’s what’s pushing me. Well, see, by you being musicians, see, I know you could understand where I’m coming from. The people that push you, and they’re the one that give you that urge and that go. And it builds up something in you, and something you ordinarily wouldn’t have let out, it wouldn’t have come out, but they done put something in you to make it come out.
Robert Stone:
And then stand back.
Willie Eason:
That’s right. That’s right. That’s right. Yes, sir. I had no idea that I was going to do that good for you. I didn’t have it. I said, “Well, I’ll just play something.” I even told you on the phone, I said, “I’ll just do something. Whatever I could do.”
Robert Stone:
You did it.
Willie Eason:
I didn’t have no idea I was going to psych myself up like that.
Robert Stone:
That’s great. It sounded good.
Willie Eason:
Yes, sir.
Robert Stone:
Well, I guess we need to get back sooner or later.
Willie Eason:
Okay, then. All right. I wished I could have taped so my wife could have heard this session that you done, this little session here because she wanted to be here. They’re out at the flea market. That was her just called just then. I could have even put my tape recorder on. My tape recorder [inaudible 01:19:33].
Robert Stone:
This is Willie Eason and it’s January 23rd, 1996. And we’re just going to talk about anything that comes up, almost.
Willie Eason:
I want to tell you about the-
Robert Stone:
Davis family.
Willie Eason:
Yeah. The Davis family.
Robert Stone:
And then about your promotions.
Willie Eason:
Yeah.
Robert Stone:
At least.
Willie Eason:
Oh yeah, and the promotions. See, I promoted in Chicago and Philadelphia. Philadelphia and Chicago was my biggest promotions. I had a lot of influence with people and then by being on the street and everywhere-
Robert Stone:
They knew you.
Willie Eason:
Yeah. And even the type of placard that I would put up, now we had them red, big placards come from Keystone. I know you don’t see Keystone placards out of Philadelphia. He put out the best placard with rainbow color-
Robert Stone:
What we call a wrestling poster, with the rainbow colors, big heavy colors.
Willie Eason:
That’s right. That’s Keystone poster. And we all got to know each other, the Keystone, wherever you done all your artists, we all went to almost the same guy that do the throwaway and whatnot.
Robert Stone:
You don’t have any of those old posters and stuff, do you? Anywhere?
Willie Eason:
No, unless somebody, the people… The only thing I got is from that Gethsemane Baptist church. When I left from up there, I may have one or two. In fact, when they gave me this going away program on this little card. If we got one in there, if you want it, one of you could have it. It’s got on there, said… What does it have on that card? Oh yeah. “Willie Eason presents the singing school teacher as Thomasina.” I know you heard me mention out in Philadelphia.
Robert Stone:
Yeah, sure. I’d love to see that
Willie Eason:
Okay. Now, what happened there when I said the singing school teacher. I used something to grasp the audience to grab a person. “Well, I want to see this, the singing school… Why did they call it the singing school teacher?” Well, they got a chance to see why they call her the singing school teacher.
Robert Stone:
That was Thomasina?
Willie Eason:
That was Thomasina’s daughter, but Thomasina was singing with her. Thomasina come on the scene before her daughter, because her and my nephew, the one I was telling you about Leroy, they used to sing duets together and out of this world.
Robert Stone:
He’s got a smooth voice.
Willie Eason:
Well, you should hear both of them together. You got one singing alto, one singing soprano, and they had a beautiful blend. But this daughter of Thomasina, she sung this song, this song she sung, my wife would know what the name of that song, one of her special song. When she comes down, she started singing. She comes down out of pulpit and she’s smart. She got such a personality. She comes right over to… What was it called? Not God will take care of you. That’s the basis. It’s another song, something like that. And she’d be singing, and she’d be smiling. She got that smile. And she would reach over. There’s a camcorder taking her mood. And sometime when she leaned back, she goes all the way down like if she stood up in the choir with about 24 people. She goes down to the floor, but when she got a note down that she gets in, she comes back about, “Oh.” It knocks you out.
Robert Stone:
That was Thomasina you’re talking about?
Willie Eason:
That was her daughter.
Robert Stone:
Her daughter? What was Thomasina’s name? Do you recall?
Willie Eason:
Thomasina Johnson.
Robert Stone:
Johnson?
Willie Eason:
Mm-hmm (affirmative). Yeah. Maybe Jenna is trying to find something in there now, but no, we’d be glad to give you.
Robert Stone:
Any of that posters or stuff from the old days, I’d love to have them. I can copy them and get them back to you.
Willie Eason:
We used to it. Well take my wife, she got tired of keeping all that stuff packed up-
Robert Stone:
Anybody else… [Crosstalk 00:04:24]
Willie Eason:
What’s the song Thomasina’s daughter sing? It’s not God Will Take Care. That’s the- what you call them was singing- God Will Take Care.
Robert Stone:
What was her name?
Willie Eason:
What was her name? I just call her singing school teacher.
Jeannette Eason:
That’s the only thing I know.
Willie Eason:
I have some of that, don’t I? Yeah, I got one of them.
Jeannette Eason:
You have- Ada would have her name …
Willie Eason:
There’s something, I guess I get to show you that my age is creeping on. Isn’t that something? Yeah, and that’s what I used as my… One time I had both groups of the Five Blind Boys. I had The Blind Boys Mississippi and The Blind Boys Alabama, and all three of them had a hit out. Let me show you who had hits. Famous Davis, The Davis Sisters of Philadelphia, you heard of them. I knew you had to hear of Davis sisters. They were the roughest woman group out there at that time. She’s more like a… And the way she sang, she just grabs the whole audience. Sometimes when she gone out… [singing]. I’m too close to heaven. Yeah. I’m too close to turning around.
Willie Eason:
All right.
Willie Eason:
Yeah. And when she’d be singing that song- Who’s that? The Davis Sisters? Yeah, this was my gimmick on that one, on this placard. “Will the Famous David Sisters.” And the way I had it placed on the card. They were in the center, both groups of The Five Blind Boys pictures come together. This was a huge placard. And, “Will the Famous Davis Sisters of Philadelphia defeat both groups of The Five Blind Boys?” That’s right. So you got to study things like that.
Robert Stone:
Right.
Willie Eason:
And that’s what I hit. And all of them had a hit. The Davis Sisters was A Tree on Each Side of the River. That’s right. Clarence- would then give us two versions of Too Close to Having to Turn Around. The Davis Sisters made it and The Blind Boys made it.
Robert Stone:
Which Blind Boys?
Willie Eason:
Of Alabama. Now they recorded it.
Robert Stone:
What was Clarence’s name?
Willie Eason:
What was Clarence’s last name?
Jeannette Eason:
[inaudible 00:06:59]
Robert Stone:
Was it Fountain?
Willie Eason:
Fountain. Clarence Fountain. That’s it. Good. Yeah. And “Would they defeat both groups of the Five Blind Boys?” And let me tell you, that girl walked up. She got a way of… [Singing]. And the background… [Singing]. She said… [Singing]. Yeah. They were bad.
Robert Stone:
And this was in Chicago?
Willie Eason:
No, that was in Philadelphia. No. That was in Chicago, in Gary. I had an evening program and a night program.
Robert Stone:
About when was this?
Willie Eason:
I was in the… See… Jeannette, do you remember when I had The Davis Sisters and both groups or The Five Blind Boys to the DuSable High School on State Street in Chicago, what year?
Jeannette Eason:
Oh shoot.
Willie Eason:
She was my ticket girl.
Jeannette Eason:
1957.
Willie Eason:
’57?
Jeannette Eason:
March.
Willie Eason:
Tell him about the crowd to that particular time.
Robert Stone:
Was that the one where your cash box filled up?
Jeannette Eason:
Right. Yeah.
Robert Stone:
That was the one?
Willie Eason:
That’s the one. Yeah. Tell him about the…
Jeannette Eason:
Well, the crowd was all the way around.
Willie Eason:
All the way round, all the way down State Street. They came from the door, halfway that block back down and all the way back down.
Robert Stone:
How many people did you have in there, you reckon ?
Willie Eason:
Well, DuSable holds about close to 1500 auditorium, that’s sitting. But then you had them all around the walls and then they could hardly get even inside, even in the vestibule, because don’t forget you had an attraction.
Jeannette Eason:
Did you tell him the title of that?
Willie Eason:
I told him that “Will the Famous Davis Sisters defeat both of groups of The Five Blind Boys?”
Robert Stone:
Yeah. Wow.
Willie Eason:
That was it. And then that sold. I sold that.
Robert Stone:
Yeah. And you did the same thing in Gary?
Willie Eason:
Yeah. In other words, see, I had it that evening, the biggest program usually comes first and that was in Chicago DuSable on State Street. And then when we left there, we went there to Gary, Indiana that night, which is only about 30 miles away. And we had it at Gary and both places would jam, but Chicago was the biggest, because DuSable carry more people. And the people was all in the vestibule, they were trying to buy tickets, we didn’t have enough change. We had rules of quarters and whatnot, but we didn’t have enough change. I had to run up and down State Street going into different places, trying to get change. I tried. That’s right.
Robert Stone:
Nice kind of problem to have.
Willie Eason:
Oh yeah. So you see how I was affiliated with all of this, I was really into it. I could go on the street corners and I can make it in there, then I know when I got a good aggregation going. So, Davis Sisters came out with Tree on Each Side of the River. And also they had a copy of Too Close. They’ve done Too Close and Baby Sis, that’s what we called to nickname her… Baby Sis. Me and her went to school together in Philadelphia.
Robert Stone:
And what was her name?
Willie Eason:
Ruth Davis.
Robert Stone:
Ruth Davis.
Willie Eason:
That’s right. Her people came out the Pentecostal church. Yeah. Fire-Baptized Holiness Church. That’s right. On 10th street, in Philadelphia.
Robert Stone:
Willie, Let’s jump in time. Something that you mentioned, you mentioned a guy, Walter Johnson, is that right? That you heard on the radio?
Willie Eason:
Yeah. Walter Johnson. I’ve not only heard him on the radio, I’ve seen him in person.
Robert Stone:
Uh-Huh (affirmative).
Willie Eason:
Yeah.
Robert Stone:
It was Walter Johnson?
Willie Eason:
Walter Johnson. That’s what gave me the enthusiasm too of gospel, the way he would play. And I can tell you the song that he mostly enthused me with when I hear him playing on the radio, or whatnot. And he played the same guitar that you brought that guy here with the steel guitar. That’s the kind he played. Exactly like that one. And what’d he do, he would raise the frets. Remember I told you about that. Yeah. You raise all the strings and loose them, and then you put that as steel piece on there and you let them back down and you got the Hawaiian-
Robert Stone:
You got those adapters. That’s how he played it, Hawaiian.
Willie Eason:
[inaudible 00:11:59] said was Hawaiian, because he played in the Hawaiian style.
Robert Stone:
Yeah. He had a metal national guitar, chrome-plated.
Willie Eason:
That’s right. Just like that one. And the bar that he used had the fingerprint on it. His main number was and I won’t forget it, nothing between my soul and my savior keep the way clear. There’s nothing between.
Robert Stone:
Hi, how are you doing? And you heard him on the radio?
Willie Eason:
When I first heard… Yeah. He was playing at a church. I was nothing but a kid. I had to be about 14 or 15 years old, about 14 years old. He’d come over to broadcast, from Reverend F.D. Edwards, it was in Philadelphia, in South Philadelphia on Reed street, that’s where they would go. In other words, he had an old saying, you hear him on the radio that he got some kind of saying, he said, “Oh, we got the devil on the run.” That’s it. We got the devil on the run. Yeah, that was F.D. Edwards. That’s one of his main things that he’d use, that phrase and the service would be going so good and it’s way up in the air. He’d come on and He said, “We got that devil on the run here.” That’s right. And Walter Johnson with Nothing Between and There’s not a friend like the lonely Jesus. No, not one, no, not one. That’s right. Because even I started playing… I had a steel guitar once too, before I went into this electric Hawaiian stuff.
Robert Stone:
Uh-huh (affirmative).
Willie Eason:
Yeah. And that’s how-
Robert Stone:
A metal guitar?
Willie Eason:
All metal. Just like the one the guy-
Robert Stone:
Did it have one resonator or three, do you remember?
Willie Eason:
No. It just had one, just that one.
Robert Stone:
And you set it up Hawaiian style?
Willie Eason:
Yeah.
Robert Stone:
Did you have to put the thing on?
Willie Eason:
Yeah. I had to put the thing to raise the strings. That’s right. And what gave me that, because I wondered how could I play when I kept, it goes to… My brother and them, didn’t allow us to play, didn’t allow him to play his music and I would sneak in and play it.
Robert Stone:
So it was his guitar?
Willie Eason:
No this wasn’t his, this was mine. I bought this. No, but I saw the way he was playing his, but the strings was raised.
Robert Stone:
Right.
Willie Eason:
And I wouldn’t get no sound. I wondered what was wrong and what not, until I saw Walter Johnson and I got a chance to get close.
Robert Stone:
You saw him? Where did you see him?
Willie Eason:
I saw him in Philadelphia and Rev. F.D. Edwards. That’s why I used to run down-
Robert Stone:
At church?
Willie Eason:
At the church. That’s how I saw the strings raised.
Robert Stone:
So they broadcasted the live services?
Willie Eason:
Oh yeah. Live service.
Robert Stone:
And this was like 1934, I was 19 years old.
Willie Eason:
Somewhere along in there.
Robert Stone:
Yeah. ’34, ’35.
Willie Eason:
Yeah. That’s right.
Robert Stone:
You were born in ’20 or ’21?
Willie Eason:
’21.
Robert Stone:
So 1935, something like that.
Willie Eason:
Yeah. That’s all you can do. And his main… The pastor that would sing, Rev. F.D. Edwards, his main song… So you bring all of this stuff to me.
Robert Stone:
Yeah.
Willie Eason:
His main song, and I sang that a lot of times, but I do it on piano. [Lyrics] I tell it wherever I go/I was dying with only just one word to say/I speak it for Jesus and then I’ll breathe my life away/I’ll tell it wherever I go. Yeah.
Robert Stone:
How did Walter Johnson play? Did he play a similar style of what you do?
Willie Eason:
Yeah, but he played with the flat… Flat on the lap, but he-
Robert Stone:
Did he make his own rhythm? Did he play by himself?
Willie Eason:
Yeah. He played by himself.
Robert Stone:
He played and he sang?
Willie Eason:
Yes. No, no singing.
Robert Stone:
Oh, he didn’t sing it all?
Willie Eason:
No singing.
Jeannette Eason:
Almost like Ghent [inaudible 00:16:09]
Willie Eason:
Yeah, just like that guitar. In fact, I could even get on my guitar and mock him. He come on with… I could do it easy, because I can hear you play and I guarantee you, I can go back and just pick up a song. I can go back and I may not hit all your notes all at once, but I’ll hit some of them.
Robert Stone:
Right.
Willie Eason:
And that’s my way of style. I’m listening to what you say and like you said, the guitar said… [Singing].
Robert Stone:
Did he play on one string a lot like you do?
Willie Eason:
Yes. Yeah. And sometimes he just blends that other one in, because I do it a lot. I’ll blend that second one in, but you can’t do it on every fret.
Robert Stone:
Right.
Willie Eason:
You only can do it on certain frets that you get that harmony.
Robert Stone:
Right
Willie Eason:
Like you’ve got a soprano and alto, because I do it, you could do it. That’s right. Ghent do it. That’s right. Well, you got to meet with the alto and the soprano to give it a more… If you’re gonna make a run, it would be better if you hit both of those strings. You got a soprano and an alto when you make the run. So it’s better to make this one key, one string, because you don’t have the harmony, you got the harmony in two and three strings.
Robert Stone:
Right.
Willie Eason:
When you hit it, if you hit like that and it will give you a run.
Robert Stone:
So you started playing like that around the house, around home, on your acoustic steel body guitar?
Willie Eason:
That’s right. No, but before then I had an all wooden, before I went to that steel-
Robert Stone:
Was it a Hawaiian guitar. or not?
Willie Eason:
Yeah. I raised the strings on it. That’s what I started on. An all wooden guitar.
Robert Stone:
How old were you then? Even younger?
Willie Eason:
Well, I had to be around, I’d say around close to 13 and 14. That’s as far back as I can remember.
Jeannette Eason:
That was right behind your sickness.
Willie Eason:
Yeah. Behind all that sickness. I could laugh and I [inaudible 00:18:48] and everything, but I couldn’t move about.
Robert Stone:
When you had that body cast?
Willie Eason:
Yeah. Well, this was before the body cast and when I had the body cast, don’t forget, I was able to go to school and whatnot. I was able to sit down. They had it fixed where I could sit down. The cast came up on my shoulders, went down one leg. I tried it like that, but they feared once this kid have to go to the bathroom… They had the doctor in there to fix to go to the restroom. But like I said, all these things, as you talk and bring it back you have to laugh. You have to smile and think about where I come from.
Robert Stone:
You had a wooden guitar before you heard Walter Johnson.
Willie Eason:
Mm-hm (affirmative). All wooden.
Robert Stone:
And now at the same time your brother was playing Hawaiian music, right? And he was studying it.
Willie Eason:
Walter Johnson was before my brother’s time. Walter Johnson coached my brother and getting that started. I think my brother learned and heard after he heard Jack. You heard me to tell you about Jack? The guy that came over from Hawaii and stayed over here for a while.
Robert Stone:
This is the first time you said his name? The Hawaiian guy. Okay. His name was Jack. Now, was he a Hawaiian or did he just come from there?
Willie Eason:
He’s mixed, but he had some Hawaiian. He was mixed. Like I said, first time I saw him, I had to be somewhere around 12, 13 years old. They went on, like I told you, take notes, the tablature. Yeah. And they put it in numbers. So the numbers was the frets on your Hawaiian. The second string, if it had a two there and say, get down to the fifth string and it had a two there, that means you pick those two strings at the same time.
Robert Stone:
Right.
Willie Eason:
See, so on the second fret, it says number two. That’s the second fret. So that’s the way you do it. And at the-
Robert Stone:
So Jack was teaching Troman?
Willie Eason:
Yeah. Jack was, so he was taking music lessons from Jack.
Robert Stone:
Uh-huh (affirmative). So he was a regular teacher?
Willie Eason:
Jack was.
Robert Stone:
Did he come to your house or did Troman go to the music store or somewhere like that?
Willie Eason:
He went to, I believe he went to the… I don’t know where they went to. I know that they went somewhere. I don’t know where they went to, but it could have been a store or a studio or something. And so he’d write down those notes. I remember all of this. He’d write those notes down. I would sneak his guitar and start to… I would, but we can never let none of them catch you. Go back to there… Spank you.
Robert Stone:
Troman was what? 10 years older than you?
Willie Eason:
Let me see. Troman was more that 10 years older than me.
Robert Stone:
Oh, really?
Willie Eason:
Let’s see. I’m 75, So Charlie is 81. So Blondie had to be about 84, 85, If he was living.
Jeannette Eason:
Blondie?
Willie Eason:
Uh-huh (affirmative).
Jeannette Eason:
Yeah.
Willie Eason:
And after Blondie would be Ida.
Jeannette Eason:
No, Troman come in next.
Willie Eason:
No, Troman’s the oldest.
Jeannette Eason:
He’s the oldest?
Willie Eason:
Yeah.
Jeannette Eason:
Oh my God, he would have been over a hundred years old right now.
Willie Eason:
Yeah, what I been saying.
Robert Stone:
So he was 25 years older than you maybe?
Jeannette Eason:
That’s what I was thinking just now. With the time schedule between his frame, understand and this music. And this man from Hawaii, evidently Troman was learning it to go into his band to start his own trio-
Willie Eason:
Have I told you about the guy with the hump back who played the accordion?
Robert Stone:
The accordion.
Willie Eason:
..And the boy with the name Henry, I remember him. He played Spanish guitar. He could really finger a guitar. Yeah.
Jeannette Eason:
So evidently he had to be in his twenties.
Willie Eason:
Let’s see. Troman. Henry. It’s right on the tip of my tongue. The guy, he had a defected back, those big hump in his back and he wanted to play the accordion and he wondered how in the world my brother did. I learned so fast. And until, I don’t know what made him, my mother stayed behind him. “Why don’t you teach him? Why don’t you do this? Why don’t you do that?” They played all of this kind of music like, [Singing] “The sweet by and by. We shall be on that other…” Do you remember that?
Robert Stone:
Uh-huh (affirmative).
Willie Eason:
I know you do. “Father Lone” and a lot of the hillbilly numbers.
Robert Stone:
Uh-huh (affirmative). They didn’t play any Hawaiian music, did they?
Willie Eason:
It sounded like that. Plummer played the tenor guitar and that would make it sound like the Hawaiian music, like the runs and stuff. And so what made me… I was into them. I’d run down there every time I get a chance. If I got a chance I sneak and go there and I’ll pick up their picks and I’ll play.
Jeannette Eason:
If he was playing, he played in clubs, didn’t he?
Willie Eason:
They played clubs.
Jeannette Eason:
Yeah.
Robert Stone:
So Troman got to be pretty good.
Willie Eason:
Oh yeah. He could play right off the sheet, in other words, you could give him a sheet and he could play it, because he transformed it into numbers.
Jeannette Eason:
Do you know if he ever made a record?
Willie Eason:
He never made a record, neither one of them and never been on a record. I’m the only one that ever been on a record out of all of them guys. Out of Eberhardt. Remember J.R.? And none of them made no record. And that’s when they all recognized me, when I came over to Bishop Lockley’s assembly. Do you remember when they came there at that time and they couldn’t get no play, they didn’t have no influence. I remember I got Townsend’s church-
Jeannette Eason:
Even when he passed, they couldn’t find none of his music or nothing.
Willie Eason:
Yeah. Couldn’t find none of my brother’s music or nothing.
Jeannette Eason:
That was sad.
Willie Eason:
That was sad. That’s right. I meant to tell you the story about that.
Robert Stone:
He played a metal guitar, Troman?
Willie Eason:
He played something similar to mine, but it was older.
Robert Stone:
All right. So he started playing electric.
Willie Eason:
Yes he did.
Robert Stone:
Is that where you…
Willie Eason:
I would sneak and pick it up-
Robert Stone:
So that’s how you first got the idea of electric.
Willie Eason:
Yeah, that’s right.
Robert Stone:
He had electric.
Willie Eason:
That’s right.
Robert Stone:
But he started with acoustic and then got into electric.
Willie Eason:
No.
Robert Stone:
As long as you remember he was playing electric?
Willie Eason:
That’s right. But what I’d done by looking at him and kept looking at… It gave me the idea. While I was thinking about it I just couldn’t play but that one string melody, and this is what Plummer… I went over to one of their programs, anniversary program in Brooklyn, New York and Charlie Storey and all of them was there. And I played “Just a Close the Walk with Thee.” I played the one string melody. And I talked the song and played. The whole crowd. This time what enthused my brother trying. The church went up, because it sounded like… The guitar is singing what I’m singing.
Robert Stone:
Right.
Willie Eason:
And Plummer got a ton upset. He did.
Robert Stone:
He was the tenor player?
Willie Eason:
Yeah. He played the tenor Hawaiian. Yeah. And he looked at the people. It’s like, “How in the world are they going to amaze this guy. This boy I don’t know nothing about no music, no nothing.” Yeah. He did, he really got upset about it. So I saw him asking my brother Troman, this was after the program. They would… but I wouldn’t be paying him no mind, but I heard what he said. I might be the young, but I heard what he said. He said, “One string melody. He’s getting by like that, one string melody and the people.” And he’s just talking to my brother and he said, “Are you listening to this?” And so every anniversary my brother Troman, every time he’d have, I would guest on program. That’s right. That’s when Charlie Storey fell for… He said he wanted to see me so bad now, because Charlie Storey always could sing. He always could do that and he can upset a crowd. He’s a loner. He’s like five men when he get up there to sing. That’s right. He’d get up there but he… I’ve seen people, I’m not kidding. When he be singing, he got all of the people, women and just grabbing and they’re dragging him as he go he, was a big, tall…
Jeannette Eason:
They called him the mayor of-
Willie Eason:
Yeah. They called him the mayor of Brooklyn. That’s how good he is.
Jeannette Eason:
He’s still out there?
Willie Eason:
Yeah.
Jeannette Eason:
Every year they give him a big celebration there in one of the city parks.
Willie Eason:
Yeah.
Jeannette Eason:
Every year.
Robert Stone:
Charlie Storey.
Willie Eason:
This is Charlie Storey. S-T-O-R-E-Y. And in fact, they will probably be giving me some-
Jeannette Eason:
What the daughters is doing now. They just booked a church in Jersey city, for August.
Robert Stone:
Ada? Is this Ada?
Willie Eason:
Yeah.
Jeannette Eason:
Around the last of August.
Willie Eason:
And Charlie Storey, all of them are going to be there. Nathaniel Townsend.
Jeannette Eason:
That Saturday.
Willie Eason:
You want us to talk about some artists? You want to hear some, you need to hear Nathaniel Townsend, and they have brother Charlie Storey. That’s right. So you had to be pretty good long in that time. Yeah. Because these guys were rough. They put everything they got into it. And Charlie Storey go down the aisle with his tall self- I wish I could think of one of his songs. What was one of his songs? Can you think of… And he go down the aisle and he’d make a motion. He’s very emotional actor. And then he’ll say something. “And God said.” And the crowd would go crazy.
Jeannette Eason:
You probably haven’t seen Clarence Fountain perform, but-
Willie Eason:
You’d never seen Clarence Fountain or the Blind Brothers-
Jeannette Eason:
He used to have an act, when he’s singing he stood back in his leg.
Willie Eason:
Yeah. He stood back in his leg.
Jeannette Eason:
The women just went for that.
Willie Eason:
And he’d do a little Charleston. Then he’d make that step and he’s laid back in his leg.
Jeannette Eason:
What he’d do, he’d throw his hands and go up like that and catch it-
Willie Eason:
Charlie Storey does the same thing. When he’s making a note, he’ll throw his hand up there. When he comes down and he comes down with that note. Innovative performers, great performers. He would really enjoy that. That’s right.
Jeannette Eason:
They do plan on having buses out of New York, because we had close to 150 to 200 tenants in New York. And some of them today is even in wheelchairs. They wanted to make it down-
Willie Eason:
down to-
Jeannette Eason:
Down here. But then my daughter, she got booked for the Pope and that’s what messed up things-
Willie Eason:
She drives these big academy buses, just like Greyhound. [crosstalk 00:31:05]
Jeannette Eason:
And they booked her the same couple of weeks before. And she didn’t know it until she went to get the bus.
Robert Stone:
That broke her heart.
Willie Eason:
Oh yeah.
Jeannette Eason:
Same here. And then she had to take the Pope. Everywhere the Pope went on the East coast-
Willie Eason:
Her bus was in there-
Jeannette Eason:
50 buses all down through Baltimore-
New Speaker:
[Tape stops]
Willie Eason:
No, that’s Peggy.
Robert Stone:
Peggy? Okay. Did I meet her? I didn’t meet her.
Willie Eason:
No, you haven’t met Peggy.
Jeannette Eason:
Peggy was there up in White Springs.
Willie Eason:
Yeah, great big heavy woman.
Jeannette Eason:
Well, then Peggy was weighing 400-
Willie Eason:
Yeah. She lost about a hundred and something pounds. Yeah. She had to come off that weight.
Jeannette Eason:
Yeah.
Robert Stone:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Willie Eason:
Yeah. She got out before… I guess by doing this, it forced her into a promotion, she promoted a couple of nice programs.
Robert Stone:
Uh-huh (affirmative).
Willie Eason:
Yeah.
Jeannette Eason:
This is her. You probably seen her up there. And this is her now after the operation and that’s her new husband, she just got married in Vegas and I told them.
Robert Stone:
Oh my goodness.
Jeannette Eason:
She’s down now to… She still weighs 200 pounds, but it don’t look like it. Nobody could believe it when they’ve seen her. And that’s it. This April will be one year.
Willie Eason:
Yeah.
Jeannette Eason:
That she lost all that weight.
Willie Eason:
They’re the ones booking this thing up in Jersey city. We booked them at the same church, this was way back when I was living in Brooklyn. They brought a bus out of Brooklyn and one out of Philadelphia.
Jeannette Eason:
Yeah.
Willie Eason:
They brought it out of Philadelphia. That’s when they were honoring me again. That was way back.
Robert Stone:
You didn’t ever hear, there’s a guy who made a lot of records that played gospel music, he played an acoustic guitar using a bar. His name was Willie Johnson. He was blind. He was a blind man.
Willie Eason:
I’ve heard of him.
Robert Stone:
His wife sang with him.
Willie Eason:
I heard of him. Willie Johnson.
Robert Stone:
He sang a lot of times in a false base. He growled.
Willie Eason:
I’ve heard of Willie Johnson.
Robert Stone:
And what did he do?
Willie Eason:
I heard about Utah Smith. Did you hear of him?
Robert Stone:
Yeah.
Willie Eason:
Yeah. Utah Smith out of Memphis.
Robert Stone:
Yeah.
Willie Eason:
I never did get a chance to hear him in person.
Robert Stone:
Is that right?
Willie Eason:
Yeah. A lot of people used to tell us that, “You and Ellie, you talk of…” That what they used to tell me.
Robert Stone:
Did you know a guy named Anderson in Miami, that played guitar? I don’t think he played… I don’t know if he played slide or not, or steel.
Jeannette Eason:
October the 20th, ’79. Your 40th anniversary. Jersey city, there it is on the-
Willie Eason:
There it is. The mighty [inaudible 00:34:22] Charlie Storey.
Jeannette Eason:
I guess I’m trying to think, was that Gethsemane church?
Robert Stone:
Oh, that’s great. Yeah. Can I copy this?
Willie Eason:
Yeah. You can have that.
Robert Stone:
Thank you. This would be great, put it in a book or whatever. “Rev. Eason, known as Little Willie and his talking guitars, 40th anniversary celebration.” I guess Gethsemane senior choir put this on.
Willie Eason:
Yeah. They didn’t want sponsors. In fact, I was the special guests and believe it or not, the church was a little small, but they gave me $1,500. And that was a send-away… I was going away. They didn’t want me to leave now.
Robert Stone:
Now, who are The Eason Singers?
Willie Eason:
They’re out of Philadelphia. That’s my brother’s children.
Robert Stone:
What brother?
Willie Eason:
Henry.
Robert Stone:
He’s passed too?
Willie Eason:
Yeah, he passed. Yeah.
Robert Stone:
Do you have any brothers still alive?
Willie Eason:
Yeah. I Got one.
Jeannette Eason:
Charlie.
Robert Stone:
Charlie? Where’s he?
Willie Eason:
He’s in Philadelphia. Yeah. He’s around 82.
Robert Stone:
So you’re the kid. You’re the youngest one?
Willie Eason:
Living, but if my other brothers were living, it would be four under me. Benjamin, Henry, Joseph, and then me. Yeah. It would be Ben, which was the baby boy, and then it was Henry, and then Joe. You never met Joe, did you? Jeanette?
Jeannette Eason:
Yeah.
Robert Stone:
You met Joe? I didn’t know that.
Jeannette Eason:
Joe died after…
Willie Eason:
And then me. and then Winnie, she come behind me.
Robert Stone:
This is a 40th anniversary of your marriage, your marriage anniversary?
Willie Eason:
No, this was… What was that? The guitar?
Jeannette Eason:
I think it was the guitar.
Robert Stone:
Yeah. So it’d be 1979, 1939. So you heard of Willie Johnson, but back then you weren’t listening to him or anything.
Willie Eason:
That’s right.
Robert Stone:
Do you remember where you ran across his stuff or whatever?
Willie Eason:
Don’t forget. Just like Elder Utah Smith, I wanted to hear him so bad, because I heard a couple of his records and he was on the 78s.
Robert Stone:
He was… What did you… Something about wings.
Willie Eason:
Two Wings.
Robert Stone:
Yeah. And he recorded, I don’t know how many versions of that. I’ve got some of those recordings, re-issue.
Willie Eason:
What?
Robert Stone:
Yes.
Willie Eason:
Is that so? He had a big name, Elder Utah Smith did. And a lot of people tell me, “You ought to here Elder Utah Smith.” And I never even-
Robert Stone:
Because he didn’t play with a steel. He played regular.
Willie Eason:
Right.
Robert Stone:
He was hot stuff. You never got to hear him?
Willie Eason:
Yeah. I heard him on record.
Robert Stone:
Uh-huh (affirmative).
Willie Eason:
I heard them on record, but I never heard him in person. I tried to put myself in the position. I even came through Memphis all the time, but I never played in Memphis. I played in Nashville, Chattanooga, Knoxville.
Robert Stone:
You never played in Memphis?
Willie Eason:
No. I never played in Memphis. I’d come through there. I’ve been through that several times, but I never did. I would never booked there or had to play at a church, nothing like that.
Robert Stone:
How about down in Miami? Did you know a Sullivan Pugh, The Consolers?
Willie Eason:
Let’s see what my wife says. Jean. Oh, she’s trying to get you something else, trying to find something else, but I just want to hear what she says. I want you to ask her the same thing. He wants to see if you know somebody.
Robert Stone:
Do you know The Consolers?
Jeannette Eason:
Oh yes.
Willie Eason:
Tell him how well you know The Consolers.
Jeannette Eason:
We toured with The Consolers. Where did we sing at first? We came down to Albany, Georgia.
Willie Eason:
Oh really? Now who’s we?
Jeannette Eason:
My family.
Willie Eason:
Yeah. The Davis family.
Robert Stone:
And when was this?
Willie Eason:
That’s the Davis group, little Davis group. That’d be hard.
Jeannette Eason:
It has to around ’58.
Willie Eason:
Somewhere around there. Oh, but tell him-
Jeannette Eason:
It had to be anywhere from ’56 to ’58, because we moved to Philadelphia in ’59.
Willie Eason:
And the song was Give Me My Flowers.
Robert Stone:
Right. That was their big one.
Willie Eason:
Yeah. I know most of the… but here is the other part. I’m gonna give it to him. I’ve been holding it back from him. Guess What?
Robert Stone:
What?
Willie Eason:
Would you believe I had to be about 21, 22 years old. I paid down on my first house in Philadelphia, 1203 Flora Street.
Robert Stone:
1203 Flora-
Willie Eason:
Flora, F-L-O-R-A.
Robert Stone:
Uh-huh (affirmative).
Willie Eason:
And guess who was my first tenants?
Robert Stone:
Sullivan and Iola Pugh?
Willie Eason:
The Consolers. That’s right. Husband and wife. That’s right.
Robert Stone:
And they lived up there for a while?
Willie Eason:
Yes, they did. They were my first tenants.
Robert Stone:
The very first?
Willie Eason:
Very first tenants. That’s right.
Robert Stone:
So you knew them well?
Willie Eason:
That’s right.
Robert Stone:
When you were traveling, did you get down to Miami and mix it up with them at all or not?
Willie Eason:
Mostly at that time I was making so good on the streets. I’ll tell you, maybe somebody you ain’t never heard of, Brother and Sister. You ever heard of them? Might have been on Beach Florida. He never heard of them. Well, they were coming along with the Consolers. In fact, I don’t think they even got a chance to make a record. They should’ve made records, because people really went for them.
Robert Stone:
And what was their name?
Willie Eason:
The just called them Brother and Sister. The Quinces.
Robert Stone:
Quince?
Willie Eason:
That’s they name. Quince. They came out of Delray Beach, Florida. Yeah. The Consolers, all of us knew each other.
Jeannette Eason:
They were in the Pillar Ground of Truth.
Willie Eason:
They were in the same Pillar Ground of Truth I was in.
Robert Stone:
Oh, in the Keith Dominion?
Willie Eason:
Yeah.
Robert Stone:
The Quinces?
Willie Eason:
The Quinces. Yeah. They called them brother and sister-
Robert Stone:
But the Consolers weren’t, were they?
Willie Eason:
Yeah. The Consolers were there. Yeah
Robert Stone:
They were in that church?
Willie Eason:
Yeah, Pillar and Ground of the Truth.
Robert Stone:
Really?
Willie Eason:
That’s right.
Robert Stone:
I didn’t know that.
Willie Eason:
Yeah. That’s where they came out of. In fact, their people, their fathers and mothers, they all came out of that church.
Robert Stone:
I think I read where their parents, their real parents were killed in the hurricane.
Willie Eason:
I remember that their real name was Davis. In other words, I’ll tell you a movie star should be in relation, I believe a little bit to the Consolers. Ossie Davis. That’s right. That Davis family, I knew them that well, I think they’re related to Ossie Davis.
Robert Stone:
Their parents died in the hurricane and they were raised, I think, by their grandparents, over on the West Coast of Florida.
Willie Eason:
That’s right. Yeah, the West Coast. When they start singing and making the recording, they were in Miami then. It was down in Miami when they made those recordings, Give Me My flowers. Yeah. They were my first tenants.
Robert Stone:
Yeah, she’s passed. She passed away.
Willie Eason:
I didn’t know that. He said she passed, Jeanette.
Robert Stone:
Yeah, just a couple of years ago. He’s still alive… Yeah. He’s been nominated for that award.
Willie Eason:
What?
Robert Stone:
Yeah. Sherry DuPree nominated him.
Willie Eason:
Isn’t that something?
Robert Stone:
The Folk Heritage Award.
Willie Eason:
Isn’t that something?
Robert Stone:
Yeah. I’m not sure he would get it this year, because see, it would three Black gospel people in a row and they like to mix it up a little-
Willie Eason:
Right. Yeah.
Robert Stone:
He was automatically in, nominated for two years. We’ll see, but he may get it. It all depends on who all is in there, but I think they’ve got a pretty strong field this year. So it might take another year, but he’s definitely in there.
Willie Eason:
Right.
Robert Stone:
Because they did a lot.
Willie Eason:
Oh yes, they did.
Robert Stone:
The one name in Florida when you think the gospel and in Florida, you got to mention the Consolers.
Willie Eason:
Consolers. That’s right. Don’t forget, I put them on a couple of my shows.
Robert Stone:
Is that right?
Willie Eason:
Yeah.
Robert Stone:
Did you ever know Oris Mayes? He’s the guy that wrote, Don’t Let the Devil Ride and-
Willie Eason:
Don’t ring a bell.
Robert Stone:
Apparently he had a first… How about Brother Joe May, did you ever do anything with him?
Willie Eason:
I have promoted him, he and his daughter. His daughter started singing? Yeah. I promoted both of them. He asked do I know Brother Joe May.
Robert Stone:
Where was that? In Philly or Chicago?
Willie Eason:
I booked him on Pocomoke city, in Maryland. That’s on the Eastern shore of Maryland. I booked him there in Philadelphia at the Met, Broad & Poplar. And in New Orleans, he was on that program, but I didn’t book that, Herman Brown book that big program at an auditorium-
Robert Stone:
When was this, in the ’50s?
Willie Eason:
It had to be late ’50s.
Robert Stone:
Late ’50s? He was a powerhouse singer, right?
Willie Eason:
Yeah. Right now I could tell you something, [lyrics] how well do you know him?/Do you know him?/I know a man from Galilee./If you’re in sin he’ll set you free./Oh, do you know him. That’s right. He’s the son of David, seed of Abraham./Stone hued out of the mountain, he’s a meek and humble lamb./Tell me, do you know him? Yeah, that’s what he babbled. One of the skits. I trying to get his main hit when he first came out and he said… okay, I’m trying to get that, but Do you know him was his second hit behind that one. And his daughter, he was pushing his daughter when they came-
Robert Stone:
What was her name? You remember?
Willie Eason:
Jeanette? What was Joe May’s daughter’s name. She’s still looking for some of that stuff for you.
Robert Stone:
Before I forget, because this is one of the things… One mystery we got here is your Savoy records. Now, I’ll stop this… No, I don’t need to stop it. The guys at The Center for Popular Music, they’re real serious about all this research on old records and stuff. And they’ve got a lot of the old 78’s and they have their archive there. They have the matrices. The written record of who recorded and when, and that they got right from Savoy, from those companies. And so they got the session you were talking about with the Gay Sisters.
Willie Eason:
Right.
Robert Stone:
And you said you recorded the same day, you thought?
Willie Eason:
That’s what I thought I did, because that’s how I met them.
Robert Stone:
And God Will Take Care of You. See, they got that.
Willie Eason:
Yeah.
Robert Stone:
March 22nd, New York City. March 22nd, 1951.
Willie Eason:
Now, I could have the date mixed up, but I could’ve swore that we were booked. Not all that many Gay Sisters, I sure wished I had, but I don’t have they number in case you wanted to reach them.
Robert Stone:
What we haven’t been able to come up with, is your Savoy recordings. To my knowledge, nobody’s… Do you know if they got released, did you just do a session and they didn’t get released, because I know that happens. There’s always some of that.
Willie Eason:
The guy that discovered The Gay Sisters, and me too and all that, I even gave him a couple of other good talent that they recorded.
Jeannette Eason:
Was he in Chicago?
Willie Eason:
Let’s see. Where was he?
Jeannette Eason:
That’s the one with the Doberman that sitting behind the counter and he takes… But you took Edward there once. You ran across him, when you promoting and doing your plot, your handbills.
Willie Eason:
What he’d do, he’d take you, anybody… If you can discover some talent for him, he would go and listen to them and all and whatnot. And he’ll give you something out of it if you discovered that talent for him and he was a talent hunter. And I’m trying to see…, I’m just trying to think. What song did I record, because you even brought my mind back to the trumpet. I had forgotten about that. About the trumpeter that we just… So they asked for some names, that’s the name I gave them. I remember me and Leroy. If you hadn’t’ve keep on talking, I would… Don’t forget, my age is kind of catching up with me. Then that all came back to me. Standing Out on the Highway, If I Could Hear my Mother Pray Again.
Robert Stone:
Well, here’s If I could Hear my Mother Pray Again, under the-
Willie Eason:
[inaudible 0000:48:55] was there.
Jeannette Eason:
No, Mother Pray Again is under somebody else’s name singing it, isn’t it?
Robert Stone:
This is all Gay Sisters. So on that session on March 22 was “God Will Take Care of You,” “I’m Going to Walk Out in His Name,” “I’m a Soldier,” and “the Little Old Church.” Unknown organist and male vocalist, they said that organists and male vocalist is probably Herman Stevens. Okay. Then on May 30th, 1951, they had another session. They did, “It’s Real,” “That’s What I Like About Jesus,” “He Knows How Much We Can Bear.” “God Shall Wipe all Tears Away.” These are all New York city. July 6th, 1951. “Only Believe,” “God is On our side,” “We’re Going to Have a Good Time,” “Oh Lord Somebody Touch Me.”
Willie Eason:
I remember that.
Robert Stone:
And then it says, “If I Could Hear my Mother Pray Again.” That’s a region LP. Okay.
Willie Eason:
But they didn’t record that, if I can remember correctly.
Robert Stone:
Do you remember what you recorded?
Willie Eason:
Yeah, but you see, you’re the one that brought it back to my mind when you brought up the trumpeter and I kept telling you no. Then when you-
Jeannette Eason:
Did The Gay Sisters record in the same studio, when you cut a record on savoy?
Willie Eason:
That’s what I thought.
Robert Stone:
That’s what he was thinking, but we can’t find a trace of it.
Jeannette Eason:
But that’s- That’s New York?
Willie Eason:
Yeah.
Jeannette Eason:
No, it would have to be Chicago. How would it be in New York? Unless the label’s in New York.
Willie Eason:
Well, the same guy that I was telling him about who worked for the company, Savoy company, who was hunting for talent. This guy worked a lot around Jersey. Ronnie Williams knew him, all of them-
Robert Stone:
You can’t remember his name?
Willie Eason:
That’s what I’m trying to think of, his name. If I could think of his name, maybe you have heard about him.
Robert Stone:
It might help us.
Willie Eason:
This guy was… He searched for talent. He’s a go getter for talent. That’s right. I’m just trying to think of… When you mentioned it, you see how it came to me, a lot of stuff you… If you hadn’t said it like, “No Grumblers there” When you said, “No Grumblers There.” I knew I said, “well, no, he done heard one of my records then.” If you said “No Grumblers There.” “Standing on the Highway.” I knew that. And when they call down here, Alison, I remember that they told us they heard it. This guy keeps playing my record from Ashbury, Pennsylvania. They were getting it in Philadelphia. They played “No Grumblers There.”
Jeannette Eason:
Yeah.
Willie Eason:
And that’s when they announced it, they said, “Willie Eason.” You know disc jockey be going on. “Yeah. This is Willie Eason out of Philly.” And then that’s how they heard it. They called you on the telephone.
Robert Stone:
He called me. He told me from the very first time I met you told him about the Savoy stuff.
Willie Eason:
Yeah. Just like I had forgotten about this here, this other one, on that King and Queen, about this, “No Grumblers There.” I’m thinking that all this was done on Savoy. I met The Gay Sisters and I know we sung together, we were on a program together. And the guy met both of us almost at the same time and they were doing one session of them, and then doing me too. And that’s the way I can remember, but…
Robert Stone:
That may not be quite right.
Willie Eason:
Yeah, it’s alright, you know.
Robert Stone:
Yeah. Well, that’s okay. It took you a long time to remember Leroy, maybe it’ll come back.
Willie Eason:
Yeah. Well, by us keep talking, things just keep coming out and I could go back.
Jeannette Eason:
Do you know if The Gay Sisters are still living?
Willie Eason:
It’s been a long time since I heard about The Gay Sisters. Last time I heard, one of them was pretty ill. I don’t know. Was it Evelyn?
Jeannette Eason:
I thought it was Evelyn.
Willie Eason:
Evelyn is the one that had the personality.
Robert Stone:
Geraldine Gay.
Willie Eason:
Geraldine. Yeah.
Robert Stone:
Was there just two of them?
Willie Eason:
No, it was three.
Robert Stone:
Fanny.
Willie Eason:
So one played the piano.
Robert Stone:
Right. That was Geraldine who played the piano, it says here. That’s okay if you can’t think of it now.
Willie Eason:
I’ll think of it, you can rest assured-
Robert Stone:
Sure. I’m glad we got to talk some about Walter Johnson, because it’s interesting to try and catch the transition from acoustic to electric, but when you remember Troman, he was playing on electric, a lap steel.
Willie Eason:
That’s right. His was electric. I never seen him play on a straight wooden guitar like I did.
Robert Stone:
But that was 1934. That was when they were pretty new then. I think they were invented in ’32 and they didn’t really… It took a year or two for production to get up and get going. So he was in on it early.
Willie Eason:
Yeah. If you had a billiard for the Norwood affair up there, you got to see Troman’s oldest daughter, she has a doctor’s degree. She’s the principal of one of the biggest schools in Philadelphia.
Robert Stone:
Yeah. I’m sorry I missed that.
Jeannette Eason:
Did DuPree give you on of those tapes?
Robert Stone:
Yeah. She sure did. Thanks for that.
Jeannette Eason:
That was her MC in the program.
Willie Eason:
That’s her MC in the program.
Robert Stone:
And what’s her name?
Willie Eason:
Her name is Barbara. Barbara Foxworth.
Jeannette Eason:
That’s the baby girl.
Willie Eason:
That’s the baby girl.
Jeannette Eason:
And Barbara is what, in her sixties now? Yeah.
Willie Eason:
And Ella Mae is 68.
Jeannette Eason:
Yeah.
Robert Stone:
You say Troman didn’t go on to be a professional. He didn’t go on the record or anything. What did he do-
Willie Eason:
No, he didn’t do no recording.
Robert Stone:
What did he do for his life’s work?
Willie Eason:
This was a side thing with him. They had a program, well they called them gigs.
Robert Stone:
Right.
Willie Eason:
Don’t forget, they didn’t display for churches. They played like you all were playing. And then he played for Masonic lodges and different things like that. It was three, at one time it was four, but more generally there were three of them. They had a boy called Henry with the Spanish guitar. And he was good. And Troman- It sure was four at one time.
Robert Stone:
Did they have the tenor?
Willie Eason:
Yeah. The tenor Hawaiian.
Robert Stone:
Who played that?
Willie Eason:
Plummer.
Robert Stone:
Plummer?
Willie Eason:
Okay. And don’t forget the accordion and I almost could call that guy and almost did it, but I can’t call the name, but my sister Eileen, if I just wanted to get his name, I could get his name. Certain people I can get their names. If you’d asked me and say, “Well, could you get his name?” Some I can and some I can’t.
Robert Stone:
Any of these you could get would be good to have and we’ll get it all down.
Willie Eason:
Okay, let me see. Almost 70 years. Isn’t that something?
Jeannette Eason:
I know how he is, but it won’t come out.
Willie Eason:
Yeah. I can see him just playing, he got that big knot in his back.
Jeannette Eason:
You named him a while ago.
Willie Eason:
No, I ain’t name him yet.
Robert Stone:
You said Jack somebody?
Willie Eason:
No.
Jeannette Eason:
Yeah. Hump in the back. You did name him a while ago.
Willie Eason:
Yeah, but I need his name. It’s right on the tip of my tongue. You see them practically every other day. I’ve seen him every other day. It comes there, but it won’t come out. Plummer, Henry.
Robert Stone:
Plummer played the tenor Hawaiian?
Willie Eason:
The hump back guy played the accordion and Henry played the Spanish guitar. Plummer played the tenor Hawaiian. My brother played the regular lead. It was four of them. And then finally something happened to one of them. I don’t know if they passed or what, but then they came into the three.
Robert Stone:
Jack was the Hawaiian guy that taught him?
Willie Eason:
Yeah. Jack. That’s who he was taking the lessons from. I remember that.
Robert Stone:
And there wasn’t any of that Wahoo stuff? That was a big company that taught… Had all these Hawaiian teachers and inexpensive instrument… Wahoo-
Willie Eason:
Well, most of them played with the wooden guitar, didn’t they?
Robert Stone:
Yeah. A lot of them.
Willie Eason:
Because I know when I went to Hawaii, tell them, you couldn’t find one on the island, only one guy that had one. On Honolulu.
Robert Stone:
A wooden guitar?
Willie Eason:
That’s, all they played, wooden guitars.
Robert Stone:
You couldn’t find electric?
Willie Eason:
Like I said, only one guy over the island-
Jeannette Eason:
He was around 78, 79 years old.
Willie Eason:
The rest of them had wooden guitars and I was surprised.
Robert Stone:
Yeah. It’s kind of gone out of style. Willie, I got to get going.
Willie Eason:
Okay.
Robert Stone:
I wanted to take a picture of that sign.
Willie Eason:
Yeah. Let me run over there-
Robert Stone:
Can we run over there?
Willie Eason:
Yeah.
Robert Stone:
Okay. Great. That’d be good. Okay. We’re going to sign off now.
4/18/96
Willie Eason:
They go up to you. They say, “I sing gospel songs and got a lot of guitar. Let me hook up to your electricity, whatever you charge me,” whether it’s two dollars, three dollars. And a lot of times when I get to playing, people don’t charge me nothing. A lot of them don’t even charge me nothing, that’s right. That’s right.
Robert Stone:
Tell me, you were just talking about where you’ve played. You’ve played all the way from Homestead?
Willie Eason:
From Homestead, yeah on back up that line to…
Robert Stone:
All the towns on the east coast.
Willie Eason:
That’s right. One or two I missed, I heard you all make it. I never did get a chance in there. Those are… I may have played in Perrine. I don’t know.
Jeannette Eason:
What is that, 27 or 17 that go all the way down the coast?
Willie Eason:
That’s one.
Robert Stone:
No, that’s US-1.
Willie Eason:
US-1?
Jeannette Eason:
US-1?
Robert Stone:
US-1.
Willie Eason:
Oh. And then… Let me see.
Robert Stone:
Oh, you must have stopped there if you went to Homestead.
Willie Eason:
Yeah, that’s true.
Robert Stone:
Now this was just after you quit with Bishop Lockley?
Willie Eason:
Lockley, yeah. And I was on my own.
Robert Stone:
So you were in your early twenties?
Willie Eason:
Yes, yes, yes. On that book, you see me in my early twenties. You’ve seen that book with the song and the tape in it, the one that you all sent me?
Robert Stone:
Yeah.
Willie Eason:
With tape in it?
Robert Stone:
Yeah.
Willie Eason:
Yeah, that’s me when I was in my early twenties.
Robert Stone:
Oh no, you were older than that.
Willie Eason:
I’m older than that?
Robert Stone:
Yeah, because that’s about 1950 or something.
Willie Eason:
Well.
Robert Stone:
Yeah, and you were born in ’20 so you were about 30 years old there.
Willie Eason:
Yeah, but me and you weren’t married. We would’ve been married.
Jeannette Eason:
You was 31 in ’53. Oh, back up, back up.
Robert Stone:
He was born in ’21 right?
Willie Eason:
That’s right.
Jeannette Eason:
Yeah.
Robert Stone:
But anyhow-
Jeannette Eason:
About 31.
Robert Stone:
But this was after you broke off with the bishop, you were on your own. Were you traveling alone or were you with your…
Willie Eason:
No, I-
Robert Stone:
Your other wife?
Jeannette Eason:
Yeah, 31. He was around 31.
Robert Stone:
Your first wife?
Willie Eason:
No, she didn’t travel. When I was out traveling, I travel alone.
Robert Stone:
And she was back up in…
Willie Eason:
She was back in Florida, Ocala.
Robert Stone:
She was in Ocala.
Willie Eason:
That’s right.
Robert Stone:
Okay.
Jeannette Eason:
Well didn’t she move to Philadelphia when you first got married?
Willie Eason:
After we got married, we went there. We lived a few months in Tennessee, Chattanooga, because remember I was out at the Keith Bible Institute out of Summit, Tennessee, 15 miles out of Chattanooga. And that’s how I know about this place right around Cleveland, Tennessee, and this other place you mention in Tennessee, small town. Not Summit, it was another one not too far from Chattanooga. Boy, boy, boy I mentioned it today. I don’t know why I mentioned it.
Jeannette Eason:
Where, at a school?
Willie Eason:
KBI, Keith Bible Institute.
Jeannette Eason:
You did mention it back there at the restaurant.
Willie Eason:
Yeah, it was… Yeah. Well the Keith Bible Institute was in Summit. That’s 15 miles out of Chattanooga.
Jeannette Eason:
Yeah.
Willie Eason:
Yeah.
Robert Stone:
And you’d go off… Alyce, it was Alyce, right? She…
Willie Eason:
She…
Robert Stone:
She would stay in Ocala?
Willie Eason:
Yeah, well she came to… We got married in Dalton, Georgia. That’s down just below Chattanooga there in Georgia. Chattanooga’s on the Georgia line. See, that’s on the line.
Robert Stone:
Yeah, right.
Willie Eason:
Dalton, Summit, Cleveland, Tennessee. So Cleveland’s like 30 miles out of Chattanooga. Summit splits the two of them in half. It’s 15 miles from Chattanooga to Summit and from Summit to Cleveland, Tennessee is 15 miles. That little country… The school sits right there out in the country, some of KBI Institute.
Robert Stone:
Is it still there?
Jeannette Eason:
You naming all these places, you still ain’t…
Willie Eason:
I’m trying to make my mind… That’s what I’m trying to do. I’m trying to make my mind go back to it.
Robert Stone:
Right. How long were you there at that…?
Willie Eason:
KBI?
Robert Stone:
Yeah.
Willie Eason:
Well I would come and go because by the time I was around Tennessee, Bishop Keith, she was the overseer of the whole entire diocese. She actually was a bishop over all the bishops and everything, all the bishops of that diocese.
Jeannette Eason:
I’ll see if I got my glasses.
Willie Eason:
A lot of times, she would pick me up. I would chauffeur her and I would play for the assemblies. That would mean we would talk about some of the people… You know how some of the people sing in all them different keys? We’d go to the assemblies I played for a lot of assemblies. In all of that, she paid for chauffeuring her. One time, I was there where Aubrey was, his grandfather. Ghent, Reverend Ghent.
Robert Stone:
In Mount Canaan, yeah.
Willie Eason:
No…
Robert Stone:
Oh no, no, no, before that-
Willie Eason:
No, at the… Reverend Ghent, yeah Fort Pierce.
Robert Stone:
Right.
Willie Eason:
Yeah. And I had to be down in Fort Pierce at the time. And this was before Ghent was born, Aubrey was born. I was downtown playing like I usually do: come into town and I’d catch some people outside when they’re drinking and all and yell, “Play my request!” You know, one of them, “Play my request.” That’s when I’d sing, “If I Can Hear My Mother Pray Again,” I could really remember that because they want to hear something about their mother. They’re tipsy top, they want to hear something about their mother. Then I’d play them “Sleep On, Mother, Sleep On.” As I talk, these songs come to me and I play these songs, everything I can think about, because this is what they want to hear and they’d start throwing you the money. That’s right.
Robert Stone:
Now when you were going down, traveling down, to South Florida, is this the same time you would buy the sugarcane and then resell it? Was it the same trip?
Willie Eason:
Yeah, yeah. Yeah, that’s because I may be around Fort Pierce… If I be around Fort Pierce for a while, I’ll stay in that area from there to Palm Beach, round in that area, up to Melbourne and back in there. When I’d go down to Miami, I went more or less from Pompano to Miami. Then you’re picking up Dania and all of them and Perrine and…
Jeannette Eason:
You’re still up.
Robert Stone:
Yeah, we just got back.
Willie Eason:
You’re picking up all these small towns that you was naming. I would go back but Pompano was my main source. That’s where I stayed with Mother Pearl. This is the lady I told you about who was with me when I went over to Bishop Jewell at that time and I did sound there. Oh yeah, so that’s when I’d be selling the… I would be stationed, I lived in Pompano with Mother Pearl but what I’d do, I’d go down, I’d take a load of them women fishing. I take them down to Lake Okeechobee. While they’re fishing, I go down to the cane where they got sugarcane at.
Robert Stone:
Right.
Willie Eason:
And I’ll get a guy $15 and he let him put as much sugarcane on there as I can put on there. I go in the field and I cut the cane. Only thing I was scared of, I had to watch out for a snake around me. And I cut that cane, cut them long…
Robert Stone:
Right.
Willie Eason:
You know how big, thick that cane was. I cut that cane and lowered it down and when I lowered it down, some cane beat the nest. The stalk be so long sometime, they be still dragging the ground. If I had took four of them women down there, I head back there to the bridge at Pahokee and around Lake Okeechobee and pick those women up and I head back to Pompano, that’s right. And then the next one, after I take them and got them all, then I go on home, go there the next morning, I’m up and I’m out through the court selling sugarcane. See, I was always a hustler.
Robert Stone:
Yeah.
Willie Eason:
Yeah. Didn’t I tell you? See, when you get to talking, that’s when you think of it and they start talking one thing and then two, they’d be saying something like you’ve been saying something, then you bring my mind back to it.
Robert Stone:
Right.
Willie Eason:
Then I can go back, I can relate to that.
Robert Stone:
Well look, I got to start packing.
Willie Eason:
Go ahead.
Robert Stone:
I haven’t packed so I’m going to pack. Okay, now can you talk about Atlanta?
Willie Eason:
Yes, Atlanta.
Robert Stone:
Where did you stay?
Willie Eason:
At the Auburn.
Robert Stone:
The Auburn Hotel.
Willie Eason:
A-U-B-U-R-N. Auburn Hotel. That was owned by two promoters. One, he promoted gospel singers. The other promoter, B.B. Beaman, promoted all the dancers and blues singers.
Robert Stone:
And who was the gospel promoter?
Willie Eason:
Herman Nash. I got a chance to meet them. And I had to be standing downstairs in front of the Auburn one day and Fats Domino comes down. The first time I ever met him.
Robert Stone:
And when was this, in the ’50s?
Willie Eason:
Oh yeah, that’s way back then. But that’s when I was really popular with “Tell Me Why You Like Roosevelt” and “Bombed Pearl Harbor.” Those were the two songs. And since the first one was so long, I cut them short because I saw what verses… But I keep singing it. I saw what verses they went for.
Robert Stone:
Right.
Willie Eason:
And then I can tell what the most important verses in all of that. They like to hear that verse about Elizabeth Shoumatoff painting a picture of Roosevelt just before he got stricken with the cerebral hemorrhage. Made about 335 [inaudible 00:11:30] songs I cried about Roosevelt. Although he wasn’t no kin, lord, God almighty, he was a poor man’s friend, yeah. [Lyrics]. And they loved to hear… They loved to hear “Pearl Harbor”… [Lyrics]. Those two songs, that was it. That was it there. In other words, I had to do these other songs in between the rest. I’ll be getting a rest when I be doing that because spitting out those verses… But I enjoyed doing it. I enjoyed doing it because it was [inaudible 00:12:16].
Robert Stone:
Right.
Willie Eason:
What they call rapping now.
Robert Stone:
Right.
Willie Eason:
Or like a lot of people tell me, they say, “Well you was rapping way back then before the rapping come out.”
Robert Stone:
So you made a lot of money in Atlanta?
Willie Eason:
Oh yes, I did.
Robert Stone:
Where did you work?
Willie Eason:
I worked the streets there.
Robert Stone:
Yeah, but I mean, where? Any place in particular?
Willie Eason:
Davis… Well that’s one of your main streets there. Davis now is like a four to six lane highway nowadays. When you’re coming to one part of the town, you come right down Davis. That’s right. And across Auburn Avenue, I sung on Auburn Avenue right across from the Auburn Hotel. Right there on that open lot, I would sing there. I know it’s not an open lot there now. People would be waiting for me. They’d do the same thing in Long Island, in Jamaica. People would be waiting on me to come there. And one time in… That’s where Henry Nelson’s wife and wife’s people met and they got a chance to see them, got a flatbed truck, put them on… That was in Jamaica, Long Island.
Robert Stone:
Jamaica. Jamaica, Long Island.
Willie Eason:
And then put me up on this truck because the crowd was big. That’s where the police would come and… He filmed me and he said, “Do you have a permit?” And I said, “No, I don’t have the permit from the city to do this.” And I said, “I’m only singing gospel songs.” He said, “Yeah, but all these people standing in the street and what not.” Well I said, “Officer, tell you what I’ll do. I’ll hail them to come in.” And so they came in. They got on the curb and what not to keep from blocking the street. I was on a flatbed truck and of course Henry Nelson can tell you about all of that because he’s seen a lot of it. He’s a witness. Good when you got witnesses who have seen all of this. I just had a good time with the people. You’ve seen me, I love people because they’re the ones that have to make my program. Those days come back and I get to be around somebody like yourself to help me bring it back, bring back my…
Robert Stone:
Memory working.
Willie Eason:
Yeah, different things that happened in my career. And sometimes I get to thinking about it. I have to laugh at myself for some of the things that happened. I guess you heard me tell it. I think I told you that when you were at my house about how a man came up and showed me how to make money. But a lot of things they were telling me to do and I couldn’t do it, not as a minister, not as a real person.
Robert Stone:
Right. Are you talking about the guy with the water?
Willie Eason:
No, with the oil.
Robert Stone:
Oil?
Willie Eason:
Yeah, the olive oil. He shoved it in a little round… You ever seen a little round perfume bottle? It’s made round just like my finger but it’s thin and it’s long like that. And they put a cork stop in it. Well he put olive oil in the bottle and he would sell them. He would show them and then he had a kit, he was showing me, he was scratching it but I didn’t know what he was doing. He was shaking his head. I guess he said, “Now this is what I need.” He told me, he said, “Man, you missing it. You’re missing it.” He was showing me how much money that I really could make but I felt satisfied at what I was making because if I made $50, $50 to $75 on a corner, and I see the crowd weakening, I go to another corner. I knew all of my main corners like in Chicago: 47 and Prairie, 47 and Langley. These are main corners. 35 and Prairie, that’s where I stood… I was singing there and the police got tired of keeping the people out of the street. He said, “Look, hey fellow, you don’t make enough on this corner. Go to another one.” Come on. Yeah, Bud Billiken Parade every year.
Robert Stone:
What?
Willie Eason:
Bud Billiken Parade. That’s what they had every year. That’s what they called it, Bud Billiken Parade. That’s in Chicago every year. It still goes on.
Robert Stone:
All right, were you ever on Maxwell Street in Chicago?
Willie Eason:
Maxwell, that’s in Jew town.
Robert Stone:
Yeah, that’s what I’ve heard…
Willie Eason:
Yeah, yeah.
Robert Stone:
Have you ever…?
Willie Eason:
Yeah, we used to go down and get the Polish sausage, right Jeanette?
Jeannette Eason:
Yeah.
Willie Eason:
That was before I married her.
Robert Stone:
Sounds like there was a lot of street musicians around there, wasn’t there?
Willie Eason:
Oh yeah, they’d be down on corners and things, playing the blues and all that. Yeah, yeah. In New Orleans, they’ve done the same thing. They play the blues all over the… You had some of your recording on it, play there on the streets in New Orleans.
Robert Stone:
Yeah.
Willie Eason:
Yeah, I played with a lot of those people.
Jeannette Eason:
That’s where you find all the phony blind people.
Willie Eason:
Yeah, you find a lot of phony blind people there too.
Robert Stone:
Phony blind.
Willie Eason:
They be playing blind, yeah. Well in New York, they do the same thing. They’ll be right there by the subway in New York playing blind.
Jeannette Eason:
[inaudible 00:17:54]
Robert Stone:
Did you ever know Gary Davis, the New York Reverend Gary Davis who played… He was blind and he played a guitar.
Willie Eason:
The name sounds familiar but…
Robert Stone:
Finger picker and his way… You might remember, he played acoustic. When he held his guitar, it went almost straight up the neck. He didn’t hold it out to the side. He’d hold it at an angle where it was almost straight up.
Willie Eason:
The name sounds-
Robert Stone:
He was in New York.
Willie Eason:
The name sounds familiar.
Robert Stone:
He had come, I think, from North Carolina and wound up to New York. He would’ve been… He’s probably 20 years older than you. He’s been dead a while. Gary Davis, he was real good. You’d…
Willie Eason:
Jean, what was the name of this boy that I taught? Remember he’d come to be a minister. He’s slim and tall.
Jeannette Eason:
Cunningham.
Willie Eason:
What’s his name?
Jeannette Eason:
Cunningham.
Willie Eason:
The one that played the Hawaiian guitar.
Jeannette Eason:
Yeah, was it Cunningham?
Willie Eason:
I think that’s his name. He played real good. He made a good name for himself.
Jeannette Eason:
Is there a picture of him?
Willie Eason:
Yeah. He used to go, “Willie, Willie,” didn’t he? I kind of miss him.
Robert Stone:
Cunningham.
Willie Eason:
Wait a minute, wait a minute. It’s something like Cunningham or is it Cunningham? It’s something… Whittenham.
Jeannette Eason:
Whittenham.
Willie Eason:
That’s what it was.
Robert Stone:
Whittenham?
Willie Eason:
That’s right. Whittenham, that’s right.
Robert Stone:
What did he… He kind of imitated your thing?
Willie Eason:
Yeah, yeah, yeah. That’s what it was, Whittenham. Yeah. I tell you when my mind go to rotating, see I can go right down the line how different ones started. I’d play for these different organizations, what not, in all these Pentecostal churches… If you ask one of them, they got to know me. If they don’t know me, they know the name just like the guy told me from Detroit. He’s the one that when I was at Bishop Fletcher’s funeral, that’s the one I told you. Bishop Fletcher came out of Valdosta. And I went to his funeral in Philadelphia. They had him… Keith Dominion, he was in the Keith Dominion. They kept his body there. Me and Earline, my sister Earline, we went there.
Willie Eason:
After the funeral, Henry Nelson was telling all these boys to play the Hawaiian guitar. They didn’t know that I was Willie Eason until Henry Nelson told them who I was. And they said… They had one boy that followed me downstairs in the dining room where they cook at and all. He kept following up and he shook me and said, “You Willie Eason?” And he said… Every time I turn around, he was following me. They had me back upstairs in a church auditorium and he said, “Hey yeah, excuse me.” He said, “But do you know you’re a legend?” And I said, “What do you mean, am I a legend?” And he said, “You just a legend. That’s Willie Eason.” Willie Eason. Yeah, I remember that boy. Henry Nelson introduced me. So they took me back in the auditorium and Henry told me to play a couple of songs for him. And I remember one of the songs real good. They liked the way I played the words of the song.
Robert Stone:
Right.
Willie Eason:
And you could tell exactly what I was playing, “Peace in the Valley.”
Robert Stone:
“Peace in the Valley.”
Willie Eason:
Yeah, and guess what they done? There was about six of them and they took up a donation for me.
Robert Stone:
That’s great.
Willie Eason:
Yeah, yes they did. Yeah, and every time I would see the boy… I stayed out there for a while because I didn’t go to the burial. And he said, “Man, you just a legend.” I said, “Legend?” Imagine me talking about a legend.
Robert Stone:
Did you ever run across Thomas Dorsey? Did you ever meet him?
Willie Eason:
Not in person, no.
Robert Stone:
Reverend Dorsey?
Willie Eason:
No, I didn’t meet… I met Kenneth, the one that wrote the- What’s his name, Kenneth? Kenneth on 43rd Street, 43rd and Indiana. That’s where Roberta Martin, all of the gospel, that one that composed all that music? Roberta Martin, Robert Anderson… Thomas Dorsey, but I didn’t ever get a chance to meet him personally. I’ve never seen him personally. But Mahalia, I was on a program with her… That’s the funny thing, after she leave Chicago, she was a big star…
Robert Stone:
Right.
Willie Eason:
But just right there in Chicago, they would go to everyday churches like we go.
Robert Stone:
Sure.
Willie Eason:
And when they sing, they sing… They don’t want to get no money from the singing, not in Chicago in their own hometown.
Robert Stone:
Right, right.
Willie Eason:
That’s rare. They’d probably get a collection or something like that. Sometimes on a program where they get so much and then they just give you some of the offering or something like that.
Robert Stone:
Right, right.
Willie Eason:
They done me like that a long time until I went on the street corner. And I went on the street corners and… Even the Dixie Hummingbirds used to tell me and said, “Hey Eason,” and said… They used to stand up on the corner, even the Soul Stirrers, Harris and Medlock, those were the two main leaders. That was before Sam Cooke.
Robert Stone:
Rebert Harris and…
Willie Eason:
Yeah, and so he said, God. Just look at the people throwing all that money at me and he said, “God, you make more money than we make.” He said… [inaudible 00:24:11] said, “We don’t make no kind of money like that.”
Robert Stone:
And they got to split it four ways.
Willie Eason:
That’s what they tell me, yeah. And they look at my box where my guitar was with maroon velvet inside and all that money be down there where the people be throwing it. That’s right. I told about the time that a guy went to reach down, going to pick up a 10 dollar bill and put down a dollar.
Robert Stone:
Yeah.
Willie Eason:
And the police… Because the detectives were standing there. That Black detective grabbed them boy, yes he did. That was 47th and Langley, 47 and Langley.
Robert Stone:
Was that in Chicago?
Willie Eason:
Yeah, but the crowd didn’t like that. They put his hand on his gun like that, that crowd went back like that, yes sir. Bob, I got to tell you, so many things happened in my life. There’s a lot of things that happened in my life, but not only that, I was able to take care of my family from the street corners.
Robert Stone:
It’s incredible. It’s incredible.
Willie Eason:
Just like my wife told you, mobile home, brand new cars. I started from a Chevy, a ’41 Chevy. Went all the way to a brand new Cadillac. When I married her… Ask her what did I do when I went back to Chicago and left, what did I do? I left a brand new Cadillac with her, with a spare tire slipped down in the bumper, the one with the round bumper.
Robert Stone:
Right, there’s…
Willie Eason:
Hollywood bumper, the stripped down, yeah.
Robert Stone:
Continental… Right, right, right.
Willie Eason:
Yeah, yeah. Somebody was like, “You going to leave a brand new Cadillac?” I was like… She had me falling, I was falling.
Jeannette Eason:
Yeah, but I wasn’t car crazy. I didn’t move it all the time you was gone.
Robert Stone:
And then you’d go on the road and work some more and go up on trips.
Willie Eason:
Well when I left that time, I was back in Chicago. I flew back there because don’t forget, I had about four buildings there. After she and I got married, I took her back, they got a [inaudible 00:26:14], that’s how I booked them with the Soul Stirrers at DuSable High School. That’s right, the little Davis family, I made a group out of them, yeah. And no one else, the 8-year-old wasn’t singing but he got a heavy voice and I gave him the second lead. The other one sounds so much like Sam Cooke, the young one, the ten-year-old. And then when I took them to Detroit to the seven youngest groups in the country, and they won the trophy.
Robert Stone:
Really?
Willie Eason:
Yeah, they won the trophy.
Robert Stone:
And when was that?
Willie Eason:
What year was that, Jeanette?
Jeannette Eason:
’59.
Robert Stone:
’59. And they were called the Singing Davis Family?
Willie Eason:
The Davis Family. That’s what they were, The Davis Family. And the only one that got a picture of them is who? Somebody got a picture of them.
Jeannette Eason:
[inaudible 00:27:08]
Willie Eason:
Connie…
Jeannette Eason:
Maurice got one.
Willie Eason:
Maurice got one.
Robert Stone:
And what was the names of the kids?
Willie Eason:
Herman, Paul: those were the two leaders. Sometimes I’d use the other sister to rest them up.
Robert Stone:
And what was her name?
Willie Eason:
Suzy, yeah.
Robert Stone:
Suzy. And you sang?
Willie Eason:
She played the piano for me when I met her. But they switched over to me because I was a better organizer and what not. And then all of that, Bobby’s booking all these groups, her father all got it through so… I took the group and made… They sung with all your major groups now. You can ask anybody in the caravan, they would know, and the groups that I booked like the Soul Stirrers, the Ward Singers, Brother Joe May, all these singers. That’s right. A lot of them, they didn’t believe when I told them that… In New Orleans, that’s where Herman Brown was the promoter, and he was a big promoter. And I told them I was taking them there to be on his show, and so he had The Gospel Harmonettes, the Pilgrim Travelers, you ever heard of them?
Robert Stone:
Sure.
Willie Eason:
He had all of them groups there and they had never heard the Davis family. But that’s what Herman Brown was telling them… And it was hard to believe what he was saying. He said, “How many ambulances would be outside and the people be falling out” and everything. They would be taking them away in the ambulance to the hospital and they got a chance to see that. We all got a chance. I had never seen that.
Robert Stone:
That was in New Orleans?
Willie Eason:
That was in New Orleans, that’s right.
Jeannette Eason:
At the coliseum?
Willie Eason:
Yeah, at the coliseum. That’s where it was at.
Robert Stone:
Yeah, I’ve heard of that. I’ve read about that.
Willie Eason:
Yeah, yes sir. And some [inaudible 00:29:09] things happened, Bob, because some of them groups of those kids, they had the jealousy and they had records, and they didn’t have no records out. The thing is, they all want to be placed at a certain place on that program because they’re trying to get to the public.
Robert Stone:
Right.
Willie Eason:
You know, to the audience. And they’d play at a certain spot over there especially if you come after three or four groups and you can fire yourself up…
Robert Stone:
Right.
Willie Eason:
You know what I mean? Then you make a big hit on that program.
Robert Stone:
Right.
Willie Eason:
And they figured their records would sell too. And they forget that Herman Brown and… I know you’re going to put these songs on there. They do all that shit.
Robert Stone:
Oh sure, yeah. So how many was in the Davis family singing?
Willie Eason:
How many? Herman, Paul, Suzy, Charles, Edward. That’s five, and her.
Jeannette Eason:
That’s six.
Robert Stone:
Six. Herman, Paul, Suzy, Charles, Edward…
Willie Eason:
That’s right.
Robert Stone:
And Jeanette.
Willie Eason:
And Jeanette.
Robert Stone:
And you played the piano.
Willie Eason:
Yeah. Like I said, I’m talking but so much happened. I booked them everywhere I took them. And when the Soul Stirrers heard them, Harris couldn’t believe it. I took them to DuSable High School and they were on his program. They turned it out, they turned it out. Come on, singing “Somewhere to Lay my Head.” And the little boy was so young and he was so small, I had him singing a song… We went to Detroit. Three songs… The Womacks, you’ve heard the Womacks? Yeah, well they were small then, and the Womacks were the hottest thing going. They tore the Womacks apart, that’s right. And Brother Womack, their father, well me and him was close friends. And he wondered, Eason, “Where did you get these kids?”
Robert Stone:
How old were the Davis family?
Willie Eason:
Well the youngest one, the one that’s named Paul, was eight years old. Herman had to be around 10.
Robert Stone:
How old was the oldest one?
Willie Eason:
The oldest one would be Charles, wouldn’t he?
Jeannette Eason:
Yeah.
Willie Eason:
Yeah, Charles was the older one.
Jeannette Eason:
He was about 22.
Robert Stone:
Oh, okay.
Jeannette Eason:
Suzy’s like 16. I don’t think Charles was 22.
Willie Eason:
No, Charles wasn’t 22.
Jeannette Eason:
No.
Willie Eason:
But all the groups knew them and they recognized them any place they went after they heard them. So everybody recognized them. Bob, if you only could have seen it, I only just wished I had a tape or something that…
Robert Stone:
Yeah, yeah.
Willie Eason:
You talking about… You see them kids like that? I’ve seen them taking people out. I’ve seen at the Coliseum where this lady, you know the one that grabbed Herman? They had the ushers lock hands to keep… You know, the people getting happy, they’d lock hands to keep anybody from… They’d come off the stage and go down the aisle singing. When they come off that stage, they had a boy down here and he told them… That was Lindon, wasn’t it? He said, “Look, you people are hurting them kids.” He go to make them noise like… And the boy could gravel his voice just like Sam Cooke. Sam Cooke, even bet on him that he would win the prize when there’s seven groups with Detroit, the Womacks and all, and he wanted them to win the prize. They won it. That’s right, they won it. They carried it away.
Robert Stone:
Sam bet on them.
Willie Eason:
Yeah, Sam Cooke sure did.
Robert Stone:
This high school, DuSable?
Willie Eason:
DuSable.
Robert Stone:
How do you spell that, do you know?
Willie Eason:
Yeah, that’s D-U-S-A-B-L-E.
Robert Stone:
Okay.
Willie Eason:
DuSable.
Robert Stone:
DuSable, yeah. French word.
Willie Eason:
D-U-S-A-B-L-E, that’s right. DuSable High School. And it’s still on State Street right there in Chicago. The famous Clay Evans, I know you heard of him, the guy recorded out there, all over, right down the street on State Street. He’s one of the ministers that heard me on the street corners, that’s right.
Robert Stone:
And you say you knew C.L. Franklin too?
Willie Eason:
Oh, C.L. Franklin, yeah. I’m the first one that ever booked C.L. Franklin.
Robert Stone:
That’s right.
Willie Eason:
See what happened was…
Robert Stone:
Where’d you book him?
Willie Eason:
He’d come to Atlanta. That’s why I start the promotion for him. But don’t forget, Atlanta already had these two big promoters there. The reason he didn’t book C.L. was because it was change of price, what he was going to pay him. I thought it was four hundred or five, but I gave C.L. six.
Robert Stone:
Yeah, yeah.
Willie Eason:
I had Edna Gallmon Cooke. You ever heard of her?
Robert Stone:
No.
Willie Eason:
Edna Gallmon Cooke. She was one of your main singers. She was a soloist. Edna Gallmon Cooke, The Gay Sisters, “God Will Take Care of You,” out of Chicago. You remember them three girls, The Gay Sisters, we both recorded on the label. That’s the label you couldn’t find. Remember I told you I was on the Savoy label…
Robert Stone:
Right, Savoy.
Willie Eason:
Yeah. But you were never able to find it. I don’t know what happened.
Robert Stone:
I remember that, yeah.
Willie Eason:
I don’t know what happened there, why that didn’t show up. He should’ve showed up. If the King and Queen showed up, Savoy should’ve showed up. I don’t know what happened. They was singing and they sung the song… This is what I had them sing on that show on the one end of Detroit. They’d do that song about… “Somewhere to Lay my Head.” They had this arraignment of “When the Saints Go Marching In.” “Oh when the saints…marching in.” You know, like that. “Marching on in, marching in. When the saints, marching in, Lord I want to, I want to be, I want to be…” [Singing].
Robert Stone:
Right.
Willie Eason:
They took that tempo and they sang it just like the Blind Boys. Let me tell you, pocketbooks was flying, seats was back, going all over the floor. And the Womacks, they were so cute, honest to God. They was all dressed alike. And everybody knew that the Womacks were going to take that show. When the Womacks heard them… And they would have them at the broadcasting station so people would know they in town. At this station, the Davis family did nothing. I’ll be like this, I’ve been like this so many times. I just can’t get it right.
Robert Stone:
Right.
Willie Eason:
It was like, you just can’t get the people with you.
Robert Stone:
Right.
Willie Eason:
So this is what happened to them at the radio station. So that made the Womacks, they were satisfied. They thought, oh man we got that lick. But when they got there, it was a different story. They’d done, “I Want Somewhere To Lay My Head” and he done all this [inaudible 00:37:24] like Sam Cooke… [Singing]. You know, all that pretty stuff? And oh my goodness, people went wild. Then he’d come back, then I let him done that rock with “The Saints Go Marching In.” And after they done that one, they tore it down. They tore the house down. The people, they were so happy they were throwing their pocketbooks and everything. I let them done this song about… It was the nightingale song. What was it, Jeanette?
Jeannette Eason:
“The Vacant Room?”
Willie Eason:
Yeah, “The Vacant Room in Gloria,” “Who Will Be The One?” That’s right, and they tore that place apart. Usually when they tear it apart like that where they don’t just bought the place out, this is what you call a teaser. I had them do a little bit of… He said, “I want to be”… And he jumped up and hit the mic and he grabbed it and went down to the floor with it. He said, “I want to be a good Christian in my, my little heart.” [Singing]. You know, like that? And he went teasing the public like that. And when he’d done that, we couldn’t do nothing.
Robert Stone:
And who was this?
Willie Eason:
I think this was Herman.
Jeannette Eason:
Herman.
Robert Stone:
Herman.
Willie Eason:
Herman’s the one that had the pretty voice. He was more like Sam Cooke style. He had all that pretty stuff. He could just do his voice all kind of… And oh my God. Paul would come in there too.
Jeannette Eason:
Oh, Paul was a heavy man.
Willie Eason:
Yeah, he’s heavy with a heavy voice. Little kid’s about seven years old. He said, “Hey, yeah, yeah.” Then Herman hit it with the pretty stuff and then Paul would go at it again. “What did you say, brother?” He didn’t like it. Now can you hear me, when I told you I had my fun, I had it. I had it, that’s right. And these kids loved me, they loved me.
Robert Stone:
That must have been a great time.
Willie Eason:
I’m telling you. You can go and ask any major group, those that’s living. They can tell you about it. Like the Dixie Hummingbirds, the Pilgrim Travelers, the Soul Stirrers, any of the old singers, just say the little Davis family. That’s all you have to say.
Robert Stone:
They never made any recordings?
Willie Eason:
My wife would have to tell you that story, why. I had them there, the man wanted to record them and everything.
Jeannette Eason:
They made a recording but they never were able to release it.
Robert Stone:
They never…
Jeannette Eason:
Paul refused to sign the contract. Don’t forget that he’s underage.
Robert Stone:
And who was it that they recorded for?
Willie Eason:
They never…
Jeannette Eason:
It was somewhere in Texas. We you went to Texas.
Willie Eason:
It was in Texas.
Jeannette Eason:
It was in Texas.
Willie Eason:
I forget the label. I don’t know.
Jeannette Eason:
We even put a couple of songs out and it was playing here and…
Willie Eason:
But they didn’t release it. They didn’t release it because he didn’t sign it, because her father didn’t sign it. There was some kind of controls anyone us you get married. It’s like he didn’t want me and her to get married.
Jeannette Eason:
He thought that Willie was taking his family.
Willie Eason:
Like I was taking his children, taking his family away from him.
Jeannette Eason:
And he couldn’t do what Willie could.
Willie Eason:
He didn’t have that kind of pull.
Robert Stone:
Right.
Willie Eason:
And knew the ropes and things like I did. He didn’t know what he had himself. He didn’t know he had that… He had a group, they were just singing but it wasn’t doing nothing. But I saw the talent when I saw it.
Robert Stone:
That’s where Harris came form, isn’t it? Rebert Harris, Texas?
Willie Eason:
Yeah, that’s where he originally was from.
Robert Stone:
What were you doing out there?
Willie Eason:
What were you doing out there?
Robert Stone:
Oh no, I met them in Chicago.
Willie Eason:
But she just said you went out to Texas.
Jeannette Eason:
No, he took us to Texas for that program.
Willie Eason:
And what about him?
Jeannette Eason:
In Texas.
Willie Eason:
Oh yeah, but that was a different promoter. I done it through the promoter out of Texas. I can’t recall that guy’s name.
Jeannette Eason:
[inaudible 00:41:44] engagements after singing.
Willie Eason:
Oh no, we had engagements and I took them to Texas.
Robert Stone:
Then it was family.
Willie Eason:
This guy that was promoting in Texas, he had done Maceo Woods. They heard the group. Look what Maceo Woods done in Chicago once I took them there. Remember he didn’t want to let them sing? I spoke to somebody there and they let them done one number and they just took the whole program.
Jeannette Eason:
And the Davis Sisters was the one that let them come before them.
Willie Eason:
And the Davis Sisters of Philadelphia were on that program.
Jeannette Eason:
The Davis Sisters [crosstalk 00:42:22] and she said, “I’ll let them sing just before you sing.” That was Chicago, the Davis Sisters’ town.
Willie Eason:
Yeah, the Davis Sisters’ town. Yeah, I said, “Just let them do one number.” They done one number, they couldn’t just do one number. Man, they tore that place… And that’s when Herman Brown from New Orleans, he was there from New Orleans.
Robert Stone:
I’m glad he heard them.
Willie Eason:
And also there was a couple record companies there. They all ran from the back. Everybody got excited, everything got excited. That little group tore that house down.
Jeannette Eason:
And your famous Davis Sisters said we was their first cousins.
Willie Eason:
Yeah, they would say Eason, “You’re our first cousins, remember that.” That was the Davis Sisters Phila-
Robert Stone:
They were?
Willie Eason:
Yeah.
Jeannette Eason:
We wasn’t no kin.
Willie Eason:
They wasn’t no real-
Robert Stone:
Oh, is that right?
Willie Eason:
They weren’t really from birth no kin. They weren’t no kin. But when they tore that house down, the Davis Sisters’ went up and said-
Jeannette Eason:
I guess if the guy didn’t mess up, we wouldn’t have been ever known.
Willie Eason:
Nobody would have never known.
Jeannette Eason:
No, they wouldn’t have-
Willie Eason:
Because a lot of people was hollering because they were running late with the others groups coming on. People was carrying on about it. But when that little group got up and sung, that was it. That was it. “Well, where did you get them, Eason? Where did you get them?” I told you if you start me talking… A lot happened in my lifetime. A lot happened. I tell you, that gospel and that singing feeling.
Willie Eason:
Let me tell you, my money was made on them streets, on the street corner. That’s right. That’s how I was able to buy those cars, the mobile home, get into real estate and buy buildings and all that stuff, buy abandoned buildings, restore them and all that. It’s incredible, yes sir. I guess if somebody did really… If they sat down and I gave them some stuff that really happened during my span… I heard a couple who said, “Man so you need a book.” He said, “All that could be put in a book or something.” “Yeah, but what do I know about a book? I’m only telling you what happened.” They say, “Yeah, but man, that ought to be in a book.” A lot of them would tell me, but what do I know about books?
Robert Stone:
Well that’s what I’m working on.
Willie Eason:
And all this is truth. The way I can verify it, you go and ask them… I don’t care what time it is, you go ask them. You go ask them. Ask them about the little Davis family and I’ll bet you they can remember some of the song that they used to bring the house down.
Robert Stone:
Any of them still alive?
Willie Eason:
Paul and Herman.
Jeannette Eason:
Yeah.
Willie Eason:
Yeah, both Paul-
Robert Stone:
Where are they?
Jeannette Eason:
Herman’s in Chicago now.
Willie Eason:
And Paul?
Jeannette Eason:
He and Paul is out in Chicago. Edward is in Detroit.
Willie Eason:
He was down here for the…
Jeannette Eason:
Yeah, Suzy’s in Detroit.
Willie Eason:
Edward was. He was down here for this thing I had in October. Edward was here.
Robert Stone:
Edward, Edward [crosstalk 00:45:50].
Willie Eason:
Edward was here, yeah. He lives in Detroit.
Jeannette Eason:
Yeah, Charles is in Chicago.
Willie Eason:
Charles is in Chicago. Suzy, she’s in where? In Detroit?
Jeannette Eason:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Willie Eason:
Yes sir.
Robert Stone:
I’m going to change this tape. [Tape stops].
Robert Stone:
You were telling me about the first time you ever played the steel in public, you know at a program or something, it was Troman’s anniversary.
Willie Eason:
In New York.
Robert Stone:
Was it his wedding anniversary, or anniversary with the church?
Willie Eason:
No, no, no, no, no, no. Gospel- see, all of them have like a anniversary. Every year. Once a year. You get all these different groups. Famous groups. If you-
Robert Stone:
So anniversary of what?
Willie Eason:
Just of singing.
Robert Stone:
Okay.
Willie Eason:
This my fifth year. This is my tenth year.
Robert Stone:
Okay, of singing.
Willie Eason:
Next year will be my eleventh year. That’s what most of the groups… they still do it today. If they sung on their anniversary, they’ll come to their anniversary.
Robert Stone:
Right.
Willie Eason:
You know, if I come to you on your anniversary, you’ll come to me on my anniversary. And don’t forget, each one of these groups, if you’re a famous group or you’re a recording artist, then quite natural, if you going after the recording artist, you go after the theater people that will draw. They will draw. So that’s what they call the… if you come to mine, I’ll come to yours. And that’s the way they work.
Robert Stone:
So was Troman a singer?
Willie Eason:
No, it was three of them. It was Plummer. He played the tenor Hawaiian. I think I told you this.
Robert Stone:
Right.
Willie Eason:
Yeah he played that tenor Hawaiian. My brother played the lead Hawaiian.
Robert Stone:
Jack played the Spanish guitar. Jack, right?
Willie Eason:
Henry. His name was Henry. His name was Henry.
Willie Eason:
He played the Spanish guitar. Another fellow played the accordion.
Robert Stone:
The accordion, right.
Willie Eason:
Yeah.
Robert Stone:
Sorry. Jack was the teacher- the guy who he took lessons from right?
Willie Eason:
Yeah, that’s right. That’s right.
Robert Stone:
And now they play church music?
Willie Eason:
All church music. No wait a minute. Not only church music, but… what you want to call this?
Robert Stone:
Pop music.
Willie Eason:
It’s not. Let me give you an idea what they call this. They got a name for it. It’ll come to me. But these are songs like [singing]. Now you remember that?
Robert Stone:
Uh-huh.
Willie Eason:
Huh?
Robert Stone:
Uh-huh.
Willie Eason:
Play a song like that. They played “Blue Hawaii.” Well they had to play some Hawaii stuff because that’s what Jack played mostly. He played Hawaii. He played Hawaii, but he played a “Sweet By and By.”
Robert Stone:
So he would play-
Willie Eason:
“Will the Circle be Unbroken?”
Robert Stone:
So he’d play sacred music as well as popular music?
Willie Eason:
Yeah.
Robert Stone:
Uh-huh.
Robert Stone:
So did he play at church?
Willie Eason:
Yeah. Most of the old churches, if they played to some banquet or something like that, they had their little tuxedos on all of this. I’m trying to think of this guy name that played the accordion. His name come to me the other day. Can’t think of it, but it will come to me because he was one of the… I knew him for years when I was a real small kid, when Troman and them start to playing. Right on the tip of my tongue. Anyhow, they played this “Sweet By and By,” “Will the Circle be Unbroken”… mostly songs out of the hymn book anyhow. They sound good. Yeah he played the… you’d have to hear that together, that sounded real pretty with the Spanish guitar backing up this here tenor guitar. It’s tuned, and I don’t know the way he had to tune that, but then my brother-
Robert Stone:
Now the tenor was electric also?
Willie Eason:
Yeah.
Robert Stone:
Well that’s unusual.
Willie Eason:
Yeah.
Robert Stone:
Yeah.
Willie Eason:
Yeah. He’d play the… you should hear the trio. That trio was something. They had beautiful sound. Like this guy you had on trying to show me. Yeah, yesterday, this guy playing all that stuff with twisting his bar and all that stuff.
Robert Stone:
Jerry Byrd.
Willie Eason:
Yeah.
Robert Stone:
Troman did that stuff?
Willie Eason:
Yeah Troman could do… he wouldn’t do it as great as that guy, but he could do a lot of that stuff. Crossing his bar and making these funny harmonics. He could pluck it and the tone ring.
Robert Stone:
Right.
Willie Eason:
Because I even hit one or two of them now.
Robert Stone:
Right-
Willie Eason:
While it’s ringing. See you could make the run while it’s ringing.
Robert Stone:
Right.
Willie Eason:
Yeah.
Robert Stone:
And he did a lot of that, huh?
Willie Eason:
Yeah.
Robert Stone:
So he was pretty accomplished, huh?
Willie Eason:
Oh yeah. Yeah, but see don’t get that… I didn’t play this… Troman could do solo but they usually play together.=, mostly when they went out. The three of them. Then later, Henry come in there. It was Henry, and accordion, and the two Hawaiian guitar. There was four of them at one time. It was three and then it was four of them.
Robert Stone:
And they played in churches. They also played in some clubs, like you said the Elks Club or whatever.
Willie Eason:
… yeah that’s right. That’s the way they did. Yeah. Banquets. Stuff like that.
Robert Stone:
They have a name for the group? They must.
Willie Eason:
Yeah they had a name for it. Only one that can help me think of… trying to think of the name would be my sister Earline. I just talked to her a couple days ago.
Robert Stone:
Well next time you talk to her, see if she can…
Willie Eason:
Yeah, they would all know. Even the one who saw doing the MC. Doing the master of ceremony.
Robert Stone:
Uh-huh.
Willie Eason:
That was her father. Troman was.
Robert Stone:
Uh-huh.
Willie Eason:
Yeah. You know the one stood up to- and I told you she was 68 years. You said, ain’t nobody said, [inaudible 00:06:38] 68.
Robert Stone:
Right.
Willie Eason:
Yeah.
Willie Eason:
68 years old.
Robert Stone:
So how did you play in that A tuning? Why did you pick that tuning? Is that what Troman used?
Willie Eason:
Yeah because see don’t forget… you called it A tuning, but you can tune the guitar in G in that same tuning, but it will be in G. So I have to call… if I tune it like that in G, then you going to have to say it’s G because that’s the chord of G that I tuned it in. But I can play another chord, any other chord, but it’s [inaudible 00:07:28] more.
Robert Stone:
Right.
Willie Eason:
See what I mean… If I’m so used to using those frets, see that means I got to change frets…
Robert Stone:
Right.
Willie Eason:
If I tune it in another one.
Robert Stone:
Right.
Willie Eason:
Do you follow me?
Robert Stone:
Yeah.
Willie Eason:
So, I’ll tune it in G because I can pick up the chords better from that G. If I got to pick up a Bb or something like that, I can either pick it, but I can usually play the Hawaiian in either one of those keys. But the one better for me… the one that I sing in, is better for me on that guitar, I run to that fret.
Robert Stone:
Right.
Willie Eason:
So the G chord come out of that thread. According to the tuning, it come out of that thread. And it makes it easier, but you may put it too close for me up here, so I tune it. I may tune it all the way up here. That means I got to play from up here. You follow me now?
Robert Stone:
Oh yeah. But that tuning, did you learn… how did you arrive at that tuning? Did you get there from Troman or?
Willie Eason:
Troman, yeah.
Robert Stone:
Uh-huh. So that’s the tuning he played in?
Willie Eason:
Yeah.
Robert Stone:
Did he play in any other tunings, do you know?
Willie Eason:
E7.
Robert Stone:
E7.
Willie Eason:
E7.
Robert Stone:
And you played in that for a while, huh?
Willie Eason:
Yeah. See, in other words, the reason I learned a little bit of it is because I saw a couple of guys doing this double guitar. This double length thing. You know, the double length. And I just wanted to see what it was, and so in my later years of playing then I found out what it was and I got a chance to buy it, mess with it. I found out that you play the song here and make my runs up on the other six strings. I can play the double neck like that. Played a song and plus chord it on the E7.
Robert Stone:
Uh-huh.
Willie Eason:
If I had to do it, I could do it now. But I never practiced it. Just straight…
Robert Stone:
Right. You tried that other night, but then you settled back to this-
Willie Eason:
Yeah, yeah-
Robert Stone:
… first tuning you- the A tuning, the G tuning, or whatever you want to call it.
Willie Eason:
Right.
Willie Eason:
I found out… see, don’t forget you sitting there and you playing and you seeing what your audience go for. You seeing what your audience go… and then it lets you know what you’re best in.
Robert Stone:
Yeah.
Willie Eason:
Yeah. You find out what’s better and what’s more easier for you. The audience is reacting to…they’ll let you know, all you do is look at them. They telling you.
Robert Stone:
Well that tuning like you use, that’s a real good one I think. It’s very, very practical. Very useful. It puts you in a nice place in the guitar. You can go either direction.
Willie Eason:
And see, I could get the words real plain, you know exactly what I’m playing.
Robert Stone:
Right.
Willie Eason:
When I keep hearing the people say, “Oh gosh that thing is singing a song,” don’t forget I’m listening to what the people said. “Oh that thing talking,” see, I said, this, they going for this, you know?
Robert Stone:
Uh-huh.
Willie Eason:
It shifts you. Well you wasn’t thinking about it, but you know you hit something there. You hit a note there.
Robert Stone:
Right. Oh lord.
Willie Eason:
And that’s starting to get that audience out there. To go for… those the people out there, those the one you got trying to make…
Robert Stone:
You remember what kind of guitar Troman played?
Willie Eason:
Electar.
Robert Stone:
It was a Epiphone Electar. So that’s why you got one?
Willie Eason:
Yeah.
Willie Eason:
He had two others, too. Rickenbacker, but he didn’t stick with nothing like that. Rickenbacker, and we had a Gibson.
Robert Stone:
Uh-huh.
Willie Eason:
Yeah.
Willie Eason:
I think I messed with them more than he did. But for some reason, just like the sound in that Epiphone… Epiphone came out, they used to make the guitar right there in New York City. Just for some reason, the wording… when they start coming out, they say, “oh it’s saying the word, it’s talking,” but then that made me go more for that key or that tune. You know that way I’m tuning them in. And then made me go to try to play the words that much plainer. Put it right on that key and make it say that. “What did you say?” [Singing]. And they got a thrill out of it, said oh.
Robert Stone:
Back in those days you probably had, I bet your first, guitar. You know where you put the chord in? Where you plug the chord in?
Willie Eason:
Yes, yeah.
Robert Stone:
The first one, did you have to screw it on? Those old ones.
Willie Eason:
No mine was always a push in.
Robert Stone:
Is that right?
Willie Eason:
Yeah, just push it in.
Willie Eason:
It had the jack. A push in jack.
Robert Stone:
Really? That far back?
Willie Eason:
Yeah.
Willie Eason:
Learned how to solder on jacks and all of that.
Robert Stone:
Yeah, you got to.
Willie Eason:
Had my little soldering iron.
Willie Eason:
Really it doesn’t… Bob you don’t owe me nothing. You know my bad investments hurt me. Money I’ve made, I just made a couple of bad investments. It really hurt me.
Willie Eason:
I help two of my children. My oldest daughter and my niece, and that’s something I should have never done. I got hurt. I mean I got hurt for life on those two deals.
Robert Stone:
Uh-huh. Oh well.
Willie Eason:
Financially.
Robert Stone:
That’s life.
Willie Eason:
Really got hurt-
Robert Stone:
It’s still pretty incredible that you made all that money playing on the streets.
Willie Eason:
Yeah well that’s it. People just… they just get all the believing. Like when we was telling everybody, I said Bob… when they were talking about me in at this last affair, she said that even, what you call them, she had some of the history. She had somebody shared with her [inaudible 00:14:51]. She was reading it off, about things that I’d done and whatnot, but she had found out. I was shocked because somebody… I knew she had to be talking to my daughters and family. She got a lot of it. She got a lot of it, that’s right. My niece, what was doing emcee, the mistress of ceremonies. She said, “Yeah this man, she said Willie Eason, Rev. Eason, Willie Claude Eason,” she just went on. She said, “The history behind this man.” She went on, went on, went on… said, “You don’t know but we know.” Told about the nursing homes, I went in and…
Robert Stone:
You played in nursing homes?
Willie Eason:
Oh yes. Carter right here, Plains, Georgia. But Carter owned all that property there. That’s where Carter’s at. Plains. He done that and I didn’t know if you got a chance to hear him, his brothers and them, his nephews and all, told me I should stop there one of those Sundays when I was there to hear him teach Sunday school. Say he’s a dynamic Sunday school teacher.
Robert Stone:
Carter?
Willie Eason:
Yeah. I never did get a chance to hear him. All of them was real friendly.
Robert Stone:
Did you ever meet Jimmy?
Willie Eason:
Never met him in person. That was back in… I met a lot of his kinfolk. Lot of his kinfolk.
Robert Stone:
Have you ever been back to… you don’t remember anything about living in Georgia, right? You were just a infant when you left? You were only one year old. Less than a year old.
Willie Eason:
No, I was just a baby in arms.
Robert Stone:
You say your family moved to Philadelphia?
Willie Eason:
Yes, that’s right.
Robert Stone:
What did your dad do up there? What kind of work did he do?
Willie Eason:
Let’s see now. What kind of factory was that?
Robert Stone:
His name was Henry. Is that right?
Willie Eason:
That’s right. He-
Robert Stone:
He worked at a factory?
Willie Eason:
Yeah, the highest salary he made was $13 a week. Sometimes he’d come home with $11. A week.
Robert Stone:
Back in those days, yeah.
Willie Eason:
Yeah. But my oldest sister Earline would know what kind of work he’d done. She’s about three years older. He had about four of them. Three to four years older than she was. I was asking her something the other day. Because she the one who was telling me but I never did believe it until I find it out. I was the baby in arms that was born by midwife. I was born in Schley County.
Robert Stone:
Right.
Willie Eason:
Spelt S-C-H-L-E-Y.
Robert Stone:
Schley. Schley County. Yeah my buddy Brent is the one who figured that out. When you told him La Crosse.
Willie Eason:
Right.
Robert Stone:
He looked it up.
Willie Eason:
Yeah.
Robert Stone:
Found out it’s in Schley County.
Willie Eason:
Yeah, yeah. That’s right.
Robert Stone:
There’s probably people back there that remember your family.
Willie Eason:
Yep. Yep.
Robert Stone:
What about Rosette Tharpe, didn’t you…
Willie Eason:
Yeah, I played with her, but I tell you, I felt so little because she was so famous.
Robert Stone:
Yeah.
Willie Eason:
I felt so little. But know who made me play on the program with her, was Charlie Storey out of Brooklyn, New York. They call him the Brooklyn Mayor. They call him the Mayor. They do, yeah.
Robert Stone:
Rifght, Storey.
Willie Eason:
Yeah, yeah. My wife, she’d tell you. Call him the Mayor of Brooklyn.
Robert Stone:
When was that?
Willie Eason:
Oh. He was one at the program for, they used to get great gospel singers there, I mean when I said, he can raise a house. Brother. He can raise a house. He had women jumping all up on their seats. Had them jumping everywhere. That’s right. That’s right. That one man. He’s was that powerful. His father was a pastor. That’s right, for the Pentecostal church. That’s right. Charlie Storey is something else. He was on my anniversary in Jersey City. That’s right. He was on my program in Jersey City. Oh boy. That man is something. In fact, he’s supposed to be… they giving me something up there… what you call that program? What you call that program?
Robert Stone:
Tribute?
Willie Eason:
Tribute. Yeah. They’re giving me a tribute near Labor Day there. Charlie Storey will be there. Even… what’s the name of the…? This other boy. I can’t get it. Pastor’s father died. Townsend. Townsend. That’s another great singer, and now that a tighter choir, director, and singer…
Robert Stone:
What’s his first name?
Willie Eason:
Nathaniel.
Robert Stone:
Nathaniel-
Willie Eason:
Townsend, yeah. Townsend. Yeah. Boy’s bad. I had him on a program where I booked, they call her the singing school teacher out of Philadelphia. That was my line up, my program. You always have something to pull, a crowd draw. I had The Davis Sisters on my program. I had both groups of the Blind Boys, and I said will the famous Davis Sisters of Philadelphia defeat both groups of the Five Blind Boys. That was a draw right there. All three of them had good top recordings out. Davis Sisters’ had “Too Close.” Archie [Brownlee] had “Save a Seat for Me.” Clarence was singing something about a mother. Something like that. All three of them had hot recordings. I had them just start burning those records.
Robert Stone:
What about Rosetta Tharpe?
Willie Eason:
Oh yeah, come back to Rosetta, good you brought me back. Because of Charlie Storey I got a chance to get that close to her. I played on the street there, Charlie Storey and them, they would just stand and listen in and they was glad I was on their program. It had this big show in Philadelphia. Turner’s Hall. Broad and Jefferson. I don’t know how I got in there on that program, and I come in there off the street… no real fancy clothes or nothing, and Charlier Storey- and they was dying to see this, and they were dying to hear this. I know the song. The song will come to me.
Willie Eason:
Sometimes Rosetta and her mother, they would have it out or [inaudible 00:22:14], like they’d be in a little argument or whatever. She’s getting at Rosetta because Rosetta wasn’t singing or doing what she wanted to do. Wasn’t doing it right or something. I was on that program. Her mother was glad that I was on the program because I’m the one that got her to play. Because she wasn’t doing what she’s supposed to do. I played a song and Rosetta went forward because she had never heard a guitar… like you play it and make it like it’s singing the words. Me, I’m trembling. I ain’t kidding. My feet was hitting the floor like that. I kid you not, Bob.
Robert Stone:
Cause you were playing with-
Willie Eason:
I was so nervous.
Robert Stone:
A big star.
Willie Eason:
Yeah. I was so nervous. After that, I played this number and her mother grabbed me and Rosetta grabbed me. She grabbed me. We played a song… this one of her main numbers. “99 1/2 Won’t Do,” you got to make 100.
Robert Stone:
Uh-huh.
Willie Eason:
Yeah. That’s kind of a fast number. She wanted [singing]. You heard her play [singing]. I was just playing the words of it. She was just going. She got up over my head, all in my hair. The crowd just went crazy. Yeah, all behind my head. That’s how I got. The next time I was with Rosetta, I was with The Swanee Quintet down in Augusta, Georgia. We went back and we was on the boat ride in Philadelphia. They had a lot of boat rides there.
Robert Stone:
Uh-huh.
Willie Eason:
That’s right. I was with her then. In fact, I promoted that boat ride.
Robert Stone:
When was that first time you were with her? Do you remember about what year, more or less?
PART 1 OF 4 ENDS [00:24:04]
Willie Eason:
Remember me and Sister Rosetta Tharpe playing that-
Jeannette Eason:
Not Toby. They’re out on the Delaware-
Willie Eason:
On the Delaware.
Jeannette Eason:
… It had to be around …
Willie Eason:
Yeah, we was married, yeah.
Jeannette Eason:
It had to be around ’60.
Robert Stone:
1960?
Jeannette Eason:
’59-’60.
Willie Eason:
I tell them ’bout how Sister Rosetta Tharpe took guitar and was all over my ear and all. She played it. She was playing it.
Jeannette Eason:
All around.
Willie Eason:
Yeah, yeah. [Inaudible 00:24:39] and her mother was glad, her mother even glad she-
Jeannette Eason:
She got on one knee.
Willie Eason:
Yeah, she got down on one knee.
Jeannette Eason:
She get right at Willie like this, one knee and she’d be picking that guitar.
Willie Eason:
[Singing] But I was tickled to death just to play with them. I was tickled to death. I ain’t kidding you. I thought I was something.
Robert Stone:
Oh, yeah? Well, she was a big deal.
Willie Eason:
Oh, what are you talking about, she played with Benny Goodman, you know that, don’t you?
Robert Stone:
Yeah.
Willie Eason:
Yeah, she played with Benny Goodman, man. She really made it. She made it. Yeah.
Jeannette Eason:
She put her [inaudible 00:25:30] in a book.
Willie Eason:
Gosh, yeah. She [inaudible 00:25:30] book with her.
Jeannette Eason:
Well, Peggy found the book.
Willie Eason:
My daughter, Peggy, found it.
Jeannette Eason:
A friend of ours in New York, there was a game between them.
Willie Eason:
My daughter, Peggy, I couldn’t believe it. I couldn’t believe it until I seen it.
Robert Stone:
Oh, you’re talking about the …
Jeannette Eason:
About Rosetta.
Robert Stone:
Yeah, right, and she mentions Willie and she also mentions Utah Smith, right?
Willie Eason:
Yeah, Utah. Yeah that’s Utah Smith.
Robert Stone:
Utah, yeah I know the book. I can’t remember it. The guy’s Tony … Heilbut or something like that. It’s a book about gospel music, right?
Willie Eason:
Yeah, I didn’t believe it until I seen it. I told him, I said, “How could I? Rosetta just met me.” She didn’t know that much about me, but she liked the way I was playing and I played with her and she played with me. I felt big.
Robert Stone:
Well, apparently she knew that you’d been out there. I think she said something like, “You’ve been out there doing it for a long time,” she wasn’t the only one playing the guitar. I think that’s what she said.
Willie Eason:
I was telling you about Charlie Storey, how he had me up in Turner’s Hall. Remember, she didn’t want to play on her mother’s cabin, some kind of conflict or something, and when they heard me, both them, they just hugged me.
Robert Stone:
Now, where’s Turner’s Hall?
Willie Eason:
That’s in Philadelphia. Broad and what? Broad and Columbia. Turner’s Hall. It’s upstairs on the second floor, yeah. It’s Broad and Columbia in Philadelphia.
Jeannette Eason:
[inaudible 00:27:06]
Willie Eason:
No, it may not be there no more, not now because last time I was there, the entrance to the subway they go just right by the building. It’s still there, that entrance is. Then Turner’s Hall you go in from the Broad Street side. Oh, that was a bad sister. That was a bad sister. Oh, my goodness. And she be doing it, and she’d have me laughing, doing it so good. She’d have me laughing and pointing, that’s right. People really got a kick out of that woman. Ha. I knew. You got a kick out of that woman, boy. She’s acting her own everything, you see. A thing or something, her arms is in it, her head is in it. And when she was playing with me on the boat, she told me she got all down there all in my ears and the people just had a fit. And the group I had on me, on the boat ride, was The Dixie Hummingbirds.
Robert Stone:
Wow. Can’t beat them.
Willie Eason:
No, they, oh they something else. Tucker’s something else. Tucker’s something else. He used to stood at my sister’s restaurant. That’s where them all of them knew to hang out when they in Philadelphia.
Robert Stone:
Is that right?
Willie Eason:
Yeah. Ida’s.
Robert Stone:
Ida’s, was that the name of the place.
Willie Eason:
Yeah, Ida’s.
Robert Stone:
And where was that?
Willie Eason:
And practically you could ask any of your singers on the road traveling if they had been to Philadelphia, they’ve been major groups, ask them, “Have you ever ate at Ida’s?” Ida’s Restaurant, that’s all you have to say, the entertainer and …
Robert Stone:
And where was that?
Willie Eason:
It was at Columbia. No, they changed the name of the street. It was Columbia Avenue, but it’s Cecil B. Moore Now, named after one of the big lawyers there, but Cecil B. Moore and 19th, 19th and Cecil B. Moore. It was 19th and Columbia Avenue, but they changed Columbia Avenue just like they changed Martin Luther King.
Robert Stone:
Right, right.
Willie Eason:
Yeah, so that’s where they got that. Cecil B. Moore.
Robert Stone:
Is the restaurant still there?
Willie Eason:
Hmm?
Robert Stone:
Do you know if the restaurant’s still there?
Willie Eason:
It’s still there. Tell him the story.
Jeannette Eason:
[inaudible 00:29:30] Violet remodeled it. Of course, Temple is doing a lot of that now.
Willie Eason:
Yeah, so Temple University, they buy all that property. Yes, sir. [Silence]
Robert Stone:
Well, I’m ready to be there.
Willie Eason:
Ready to be there?
Robert Stone:
At Murfreesboro. I’m ready. I’m ready to get out of this van. [Tape stops]. … on the radio in Macon?
Willie Eason:
Yeah, Macon. Yeah, they call Little Willie and the Talking Guitar, that’s where they give me that name at. Little Willie and the Talking Guitar, “Just a Closer Walk with Thee.”
Robert Stone:
Oh. And that was … Who was it, Stuckeys?
Willie Eason:
Sterchi’s
Robert Stone:
Sterchi’s?
Willie Eason:
S-T-E-R-C-H-I’S, you got it now?
Robert Stone:
Uh-huh (affirmative), the furniture store and they had a broadcast video above the seventh floor or something?
Willie Eason:
Don’t forget, he was all in the vicinity of Macon, he’d be heard so far.
Robert Stone:
Who was it? Who was the DJ?
Willie Eason:
They would know, DuPree would know. She would know. All you do is mention Sterchi’s.
Robert Stone:
And you played live on the radio?
Willie Eason:
Yes.
Robert Stone:
Uh-huh (affirmative). When was that?
Willie Eason:
Oh, boy.
Robert Stone:
It’s always the hard question. [Tape stops]. So it was in Macon, Georgia on the radio they gave you that name Little Willie and the Talking Guitar?
Willie Eason:
That’s right. That’s where it come from. Because I was really young at the time, I had to be around well, 18-19-years-old, something like that.
Robert Stone:
Ah, real young.
Willie Eason:
Yeah.
Robert Stone:
You really got around, didn’t you?
Willie Eason:
Oh, yeah. Yeah. After that Bishop Lockley thing, they would- just took me and I would just- they was just using me and I ain’t nothing but a kid. I didn’t know nothing about no talent. I didn’t know nothing about that. People come up to you, “Oh, you got a talent,” and this and that. “I ain’t know nothing about that.” I was an elevator indicating to that, that level.
Willie Eason:
But I knew when Bishop Lockley paid me some attention and when I went to one of his assemblies and brought him to New Jersey, that when he took me back in his arms. But he got a little mad angry because I quit and I went out for myself and I would only start going on this corners and things. But then after he found out, everybody went to tell him, I guess, and he found out some kind of way, about how I would go in these corners and whatnot and what I was doing in the crowds I was carrying.
Willie Eason:
So I went over to his assembly in Burlington, New Jersey, and done this … What song I say I done there? Oh, I know what I done. That was “Never Heard a Man Speak like This Man.” That’s when I was talking with the guitar. That’s when the people went up so the Bishop Lockley fell back in love with me again. He had the old Philadelphia stuff all, that’s right. And he made up with me again. That’s right.
Robert Stone:
But you didn’t go on the road with him again?
Willie Eason:
No, I didn’t go on the road with him, but his son, even at the assembly, they wanted to join it with me and play with me, but I had a different style. And even his father told me, that’s something he never would have done. He never would have done because the old man backed the son up. He played the vibraharp and everything. He always stick by the son, but his son got a little angry because he told me, he said, “Everybody have their own style.” I was shocked when I heard that. Said, “So, he had his own style of playing.”
Willie Eason:
I did because I cut out and I said, “What did you say?” Because I had learned these little techniques with the audience and I had to cater to the audience even to get myself over. And so, he told him that his son got a little peeved it. But later, I think he understood and know what his father meant, just everybody have his own style.
Willie Eason:
Because before a while I was used to playing with two or three pieces in the background, here I haven’t gotten used to playing by myself on the street corner, I’m only by myself and I’m just strumming and then I reach in and hit one or two notes, but I got to strum. See? I had to learn a new style because I had to have some kind of background and that was all my background was the strumming. Playing my own background.
Robert Stone:
Well, one thing about it, it makes it easy to divide the money up when there’s just one person.
Willie Eason:
That’s right. [crosstalk 00:35:07] Well, they knew how I was making all that money, though. They knew how I was making it. They knew I was going on the corners and all that. Had a lot and the church about me said, “Yeah, he done stop. He done left God and he playing the-” Yeah, they this mess going in the church, so I had to leave it alone because I had a family to take care at that time, I had a family.
Willie Eason:
And so, I couldn’t cater that way no more. I had to go the way that I could help my family. I only worked on in for one job in my life and that was for six months. That was Sears and Roebuck on the Boulevard in Philadelphia, that’s right. And when I even told the guy that was opening, what do they call them? Not the boss. What do you call the boss?
Robert Stone:
Foreman?
Willie Eason:
Foreman. Over me, yeah. Well, I told him I said, “I’m going quit,” and they just made fun of me when I said I was going to quit. [inaudible 00:36:10]. They didn’t believe. And one day, guess what happened? This was a coincident. This was a coincident. There’s a main corner in Philadelphia, this was one of them that I played. I was telling my foreman what I do and I told him I go down on the corner, and this is the type of guy, “Man, ain’t nobody want to hear that. But you’re making money. Somebody going to give you money? [inaudible 00:36:48]. You blinking?” And kind of made me feel a little bad and I was telling him, “You’re going to quit your job,” and they just made fun of me. But I watched how God fixed it, let me tell you, this is what happened one day: Sitting on the corner of 22nd and Reed Avenue, so three-way corner. It’s a whole street that comes in there that makes a three-way corner. It’s Bridge Avenue runs … You’ll see the street run diagonally, it don’t run straight. Bridge Avenue is like that and this little street is right by all three of them running together, and 22nd Street when they cross Bridge Avenue. I’m on the back of the school street, I forget the name … Redmond Street. And I said, “Man,” and this crowd was there and my foreman and my three guys from the job came up and they couldn’t even get up to me. They couldn’t get up. They kept onto their work, they wait till me. Guess what I was singing? “Oh, What a Time.” [inaudible 00:37:54]. When he come up-
Robert Stone:
With a case full of money-
Willie Eason:
… he do this. Yeah, it wasn’t quite full then, but they made it full. He told the other fellows that were with him, he said, “Man, look who it is. Man, dig it look who it is.” Each one of them gave me a dollar. That’s right. They just couldn’t believe it. They just couldn’t believe it, but it made me feel good inside because I knew what he had done, he had given me a hard time and told you all that stuff. He come up and they had a chance to hear me. That’s right. That’s right. And they stood there and he just shook his head and-
Robert Stone:
You made more than they made all week.
Willie Eason:
That’s right, that’s right. But they all gave me a dollar, he did. He started it off. He said, “Look at this, man. Look at that.” The crowd was so thick, it was all out in the street, that’s right. But I always tried to contain the crowd, to keep telling them, make them come in. And I try to get to a corner where it won’t mess the traffic. I’ll stay away from the police. If you don’t, they’ll make you move.
Robert Stone:
Yeah.
Willie Eason:
Yeah. Because some places you go they have certain city ordinances.
Robert Stone:
Against it, yeah. But you see where that’s been contested recently and the musicians have won out. They stopped them from playing in St. Augustine and they took them to court and they won.
Willie Eason:
Isn’t that something?
Robert Stone:
They said it’s like freedom of speech and everything, can’t stop them.
Willie Eason:
Well, I tell you what happened to me in Chicago. You’ve heard of this, man. I know you have. He’s historical and he is in the history book, Oscar De Priest.
Robert Stone:
Oscar De Priest?
Willie Eason:
Oscar De Priest. Oscar De Priest or Oscar De Priest. All I know he was in the Congress or something there politically, in Chicago. Because I didn’t know if- cause I heard the name and I knew everybody on the street knew it. Big as Chicago is, if you know somebody like that, I know it was God. One day I was singing at 47th and Langley, and these policeman in Chicago, they want you to grease their palm. They’re bad about it. Real bad.
Willie Eason:
And I ain’t been bothering no police, so this policeman come up and he always got an angry face, but this time he going to bother me, tell me that I have to move it. Well, he had something on a couple of other corners, so he caught me on this corner, 47th and Langley, he told me I had to wrap it up and move, so he annoyed the crowd. What did he do that for? Almost didn’t survive. It got real bad.
Willie Eason:
So there was an arrest. So I had went down with them to the precinct, and I don’t know who it was in the crowd, they got in touch with Oscar De Priest. That’s right. And they explained to Oscar, that he called the precinct, spoke to the captain and told him, “Who you have down there?” And they released me, but the captain wouldn’t tell me anything, “Oh, no. We’ve just been asked to release you, that’s all.” That’s right.
Willie Eason:
And I went right on back on that same corner where the guy was that played. The guy was shocked. He was shocked.
Robert Stone:
I’ll bet he was.
Willie Eason:
Yeah, he was shocked. That’s right. He was shocked. Went on back on that corner and went to playing. That’s right. I had something similar happen in Brooklyn where I tell you when I met Henry Nelson wife and his people-
Robert Stone:
Right, on the flatbed?
Willie Eason:
… on the flatbed. But it wasn’t … I had changed spots and went back into another spot four or five blocks from there. And back in there, whatnot, I don’t know if it was some jealousy or what was happening. So some policeman come in and told me I’m going to have to move, so I told them, “But I’ll only sing gospel songs,” and I said, “That’s all I’m doing,” so he tried to talk to another police and they, some of them looked like they wanted to go along with it.
Willie Eason:
But some captain or somebody, he had to be something over these other policeman. He come up and he come over there, he talked to me, while I was talking to the crowd. He said, “Look, what you do. You talk to this crowd, make them come in, don’t let them interfere with that street, just pull them in and whatnot and I think you’ll be all right. How long you going to be here?” I said, “Well, maybe another half hour or so.” He said, “Okay, well just tell them over your microphone, ‘Wait till after we leave,’ or just tell them over the microphone, ‘Pull them in.'”
Willie Eason:
I’ve had several things like that that happened and not come back, it’s just that one came back and Oscar De Priest. But Oscar De Priest is somebody political because I’ve heard that name so much mention in Chicago at that time.
Robert Stone:
How about- did you ever have anybody try and rob you, rip you off?
Willie Eason:
Only one incident whereby … And I think I told you this. Maybe I didn’t, I thought I did. I know I-
Robert Stone:
Is this where the guy took a ten and wanted to put in a one?
Willie Eason:
Yeah.
Robert Stone:
That one.
Willie Eason:
Yeah. Yeah, he stooped down, but you all know who’s standing in that crowd. I didn’t even know it. It shocked my stuffings out of me. The guy, grabbed him that fast.
Robert Stone:
The detective.
Willie Eason:
Yeah. Black detective. Yeah. He’s standing up there in the crowd with, I think it was his wife with him or somebody, there was somebody with him. But you never would have knew he was a detective unless he was off-duty. He could have been off-duty. I was singing “Roosevelt.” If I make no mistake. I remember it so well.
Willie Eason:
Remember, any time you got in a crowd that I had like that, I had to be singing a song something like that. So, he reached down and go do it real fast and put that down, that guy done it. He took his knee and done something to him. I don’t know what he did, in the stomach or leg or what, and grabbed him by the collar, whatnot, spin around. That’s right. That’s when he flashed his badge.
Willie Eason:
Well, it was done so fast, the crowd just dispersed, they went back, everybody fell back, it was done so fast. That’s right. And he said it made the officer angry because he said, “Man out here making a decent living or something or something. You got a nerve to …” Some kind of [crosstalk 00:45:53]-
Robert Stone:
Yeah.
Willie Eason:
Yeah, sure did. That was at 47th and Langley, South Chicago. South Chicago. Yup.
Robert Stone:
So did you ever run across any of those blues singers down there on Maxwell street, anybody like John Lee Hooker or-
Willie Eason:
John Lee Hooker, I did meet him. I was trying to think of his name. John Lee Hooker, yeah.
Robert Stone:
Yeah, did you get to know him?
Willie Eason:
Yeah, I got to know him. Let’s see. Also, like me if I made make on mistake, it was him, there’s another blues singers got a famous name. It was either Hooker … I even promoted, I booked Hooker once.
Robert Stone:
Is that right?
Willie Eason:
Yeah, I booked him once. There’s another one. Got a name something like John Lee Hooker, but it’s not John Lee Hooker. As soon as I called his name, you’d know who. But he was in the studio recording the same time I recorded Roosevelt. He was in on the same label.
Robert Stone:
On Queen or Aladdin?
Willie Eason:
Actually, he was in the studio and he was recording … That was this guy, but I know you would know him. He’s a blues singer and he had made a lot of records.
Robert Stone:
Not Muddy Waters?
Willie Eason:
No, it wasn’t Muddy Waters.
Robert Stone:
Was it in Chicago?
Willie Eason:
It was in Chicago. In Chicago and go down and get The Soul Stirrers was there with me, all of us was there at the same time. This blues singer, I forget his name. Can’t recall his name. It will probably come to just like them other things did.
Robert Stone:
Like Jimmy Reed.
Willie Eason:
No, it wasn’t Jimmy Reed.
Robert Stone:
You know who he was?
Willie Eason:
Yeah, I know Jimmy Reed, yeah.
Robert Stone:
Because he was out of Chicago when you were out of Chicago.
Willie Eason:
Yup. But John Lee Hooker, they sung them old lazy blues. I call the lazy blues.
Robert Stone:
Well, he’s about your age. You’re about the same age. Yeah, he’s still recording.
PART 2 OF 4 ENDS [00:48:04]
Willie Eason:
Yeah? Ain’t that something?
Robert Stone:
Yeah.
Willie Eason:
But I had a lot of guys tell me something. But I guess they was right. It just wasn’t my feel. They kept telling me, they said, “Man, you ought to do what …” One of these recording guys from King and Queen, he told me all I had to do was sing the same song. Take out the words like if I put Lord or Jesus or my God or anything in it, they’d show me the word they was going to put in darling, sweetheart or my baby. They’d show me what words to put in there and just put those words in there. But I was stupid young. I didn’t know no better, so I was scared. I was too close to the savior, although but that’s the way I was brought up.
Willie Eason:
I was brought up very strong and religiously in a church. I was scared. I was scared God was going to punish me if I done it. Even Sam Cooke, when he told me, he was at a Chesterfield Hotel. I called him up when he done this here record about You Send Me Baby, You Send Me. I told him, I said, “Man. I’ve just stuck you on this record.” Now baby, he said, “Now, look Willie, I’m still a church member. I belong to the church. But this is just a business.” He explained it to me. That’s what he said, “To me, this is just a business.”
Willie Eason:
He was explaining to me, he said, “I make appearances and whatnot,” and so far he’s told me on some quota that he made, how much he made and whatnot. He said, “Don’t forget. I ain’t but just one. It ain’t just me.” He explained all that to me. You got the Chesterfield in Philly, that’s when I called him and that’s what he explained to me, told me. He said, “I ain’t no devil. I ain’t sold out to no devil.” That’s what he told me, that’s what he said, “I’m the same Sam Cooke. I go to church and everything, but it’s just a living.” That’s what he told me. That’s what he told me.
Robert Stone:
Yeah, he died young.
Willie Eason:
Huh? Yes, he did. Yeah.
Robert Stone:
They don’t know exactly what happened, do they?
Willie Eason:
No, really it was a more or less … This woman was running like a whorehouse and one of these women that she hired out, she had the moves and everything. And Sam got hisself messed up by going with one of them and whatnot, so they played some little game, some little trick he got caught up in.
Robert Stone:
Yeah. [inaudible 00:51:02]
Willie Eason:
Yeah.
Robert Stone:
[inaudible 00:51:08] Jeannette.
Willie Eason:
One of them girls said, when he seen her, this girl was allowed to make a fast dollar, and the woman that had these girls … We’re talking about Sam Cooke, cause he asked me about Sam Cooke, this thing how he got killed and all. That’s the closest story that we ever got is how this woman was mixed up in it. She took his wallet and done something. Anyhow, he got messed up in it, but it was one of them type of houses. You know what kind of house I’m talking about where women go to bed with you. So, that’s how he got messed up.
Willie Eason:
And that wasn’t too long even after I talked with him at the hotel when he made this record and it was hot. “You Send Me, Baby, You Send Me.” That record was hot. It was at the Chesterfield Hotel. And I called him and he talked to me real good, told me he was still a church member, he go to church and it would not interfere with his religion. He told me all of that.
Robert Stone:
How are you doing, Jeanette?
Jeannette Eason:
Good.
Robert Stone:
You get a good nap?
Jeannette Eason:
Yeah.
Willie Eason:
I was trying to give Bob some particulars about Willie Eason. Do you know him? [Laughter]. Some of the dilemmas I fell into. [Tape stops]. That was one of them.
Robert Stone:
Right, “I can See Everybody’s Mother”-
Willie Eason:
“But I can’t see mine,” yeah. You know what it’s like around the Mother’s Day you’re singing, that when this song would get real popular, around Mother’s Day. It’s like, people’s mothers standing up there and just start singing that song. It’s like, “I can see everybody’s mother, but I can’t see mine. Will you let me get to her?” I said. I ain’t kidding you. The money just start to come in. That’s right. That’s right.
Robert Stone:
You said you had some songbooks made up?
Willie Eason:
Yes.
Robert Stone:
Were they songs that you wrote or picks?
Willie Eason:
Half of them, half of the book- The book had various things. Half of the songs I made up is mine, own original, and some of them is like old regular gospel hymns that you don’t know where they come from. Some of them you get the word, you add to it and sometimes you sing it the way you want it, you can sing it sometime. But a lot of them come out of old hymn books, like you hear Pentecostal people they get up and start singing a song with you, can I give you an idea? [Singing and clapping]. “I want to live so God can use me, anywhere, or anytime….”
Robert Stone:
Right, you recorded that one.
Willie Eason:
Yeah, okay. See, you have to forget about the clear blue sky. [Singing]. “God had been good to me. Just pick yourself up…” You know, just pick up something and put a tune to it. And then let the guitar sing the same thing you singing, then you got something going.
Robert Stone:
So you made these books and you sold them on the street?
Willie Eason:
Yes.
Robert Stone:
Uh-huh (affirmative). Sell a lot of them?
Willie Eason:
I had Roosevelt, Pearl Harbor in it. That automatically sold them. That sold it just like that.
Robert Stone:
What did it sell for?
Willie Eason:
What did I sell those books for, Jeanette?
Jeannette Eason:
$2, $1 or something.
Willie Eason:
Could have been $2 or something like that.
Robert Stone:
You don’t have any of them left, huh?
Willie Eason:
I had one, I wished I could find it.
Robert Stone:
I’d love to see one.
Willie Eason:
I’d love to find … I tell you who give me that one, and my picture’s on the front. Laureen out of Burlington, New Jersey.
Jeannette Eason:
She’s the one that had your records.
Willie Eason:
She’s the one that had my records and I know it was her. She the one gave me that book.
Robert Stone:
Maureen?
Willie Eason:
Laureen.
Robert Stone:
Laureen.
Willie Eason:
Yeah.
Robert Stone:
And is she family or a friend?
Willie Eason:
No, she was in the family.
Robert Stone:
One of your sisters?
Willie Eason:
My brother married a girl from West Palm Beach and her son married this girl, Dolores. We call her Laureen, but it’s Dolores.
Robert Stone:
Dolores, in Burlington, New Jersey?
Willie Eason:
Yes. And she gave me that book, but I showed-
Jeannette Eason:
She’s back in Philadelphia now.
Willie Eason:
… but you know, you wouldn’t think Connie would have had that book, would you? Somebody took that book. Somebody took that book because can never find it no more. That’s got all my old songs that I would sing on the street is in that book, all my lyrics is in there.
Robert Stone:
Who printed it up for you?
Willie Eason:
Who?
Robert Stone:
Who printed it up for you, do you remember?
Willie Eason:
I had it done in Philadelphia, wasn’t it, didn’t I?
Jeannette Eason:
Yeah.
Willie Eason:
Yeah, had it done in Philadelphia. The printer, let’s look for the printer. I would have to think a little bit. It wasn’t Keystone. It wasn’t Keystone, was it?
Jeannette Eason:
No.
Willie Eason:
It wasn’t Keystone. Keystone done my placards and stuff for promotion, all my hand bills, throw aways.
Robert Stone:
Your posters, yeah.
Willie Eason:
They’re Keystone.
Robert Stone:
Yeah. I mean, you say the book was a quarter-inch thick or something?
Willie Eason:
Something like that, yeah.
Robert Stone:
Like a magazine?
Willie Eason:
Yeah. It didn’t have all that many pages.
Robert Stone:
It wasn’t big?
Willie Eason:
No, it wasn’t big. About right there. About like that. Like that.
Robert Stone:
Six by eight inches.
Jeannette Eason:
Real thin-
Willie Eason:
About, yeah.
Robert Stone:
And it had your picture on the front. Was there a name of it?
Willie Eason:
There was no special name on the book, no. Just Willie Eason and his Gospel Songs, or something like that, that’s all. And if you sing a song out of it and the people go for it, that book go like hotcake. It went like hotcakes.
Robert Stone:
And the picture that was on the front, was it a picture of you and your guitar or do you remember?
Willie Eason:
It was a picture- the picture on the front did I have my guitar? Do you remember?
Jeannette Eason:
I can’t recall, no.
Willie Eason:
Huh?
Jeannette Eason:
I can’t recall it now.
Willie Eason:
I can’t either.
Jeannette Eason:
I don’t think the guitar was on it.
Willie Eason:
I don’t think so either. I think it’s just a picture of me.
Robert Stone:
Well, maybe we can make one turn up somehow.
Willie Eason:
You might. You might. This girl wouldn’t give that book up for nothing. I had a lot of influence with her and she gave me that book.
Jeannette Eason:
You got the [inaudible 00:59:37] from Sharon contact, I bet she didn’t even ask Sister Baldwin.
Willie Eason:
Right I just got to telling him about Baldwin, just got to telling him. She might have one.
Robert Stone:
Sister who?
Willie Eason:
Baldwin, Rebecca Baldwin, friend of Sherry DuPree.
Robert Stone:
Okay. She might-
Willie Eason:
She might have one.
Robert Stone:
Uh-huh (affirmative)?
Willie Eason:
Yeah. She might have one. I hadn’t even thought about that. They may have one. And if she got it and she don’t want to turn it loose, maybe she’ll trust me with it, and probably I know she would, to make one from it. She just may give it to me. Because I sure had them when I was traveling down through there, around Macon, Forsyth, played Forsyth all of them towns around Macon there. Milledgeville, Georgia.
Robert Stone:
Milledgeville, yeah, I’ve been there.
Willie Eason:
And there’s a lot of little towns around Macon that they took me- played some of the different churches at. That’s when I was known as Little Willie and his Talking Guitar.
Robert Stone:
Uh-huh (affirmative). Well, electric guitar in general was a pretty new thing.
Willie Eason:
It was. It was.
Robert Stone:
Along with the Hawaiian guitar.
Willie Eason:
That’s right. And then when the Hawaiian come along with that sound to it, you making them runs and hitting it and making a set of words, that’s was a new thing. That was a new thing. But all you had to do to make the thing sound like you saying the word, “Ooh he’s talking!” That’s what they do, “Hey, did you hear that?” I don’t have to tell you no more, you know. That’s just the way it is. Monroe County, look at that.
Robert Stone:
That’s the same county that the Florida Keys are in, Monroe County.
Willie Eason:
Oh, yeah? I didn’t know that. I didn’t know that. I never did make it down to the Keys, out of that. Every time I’ve come down from a motor home I wanted to go down to the Keys, my wife wanted to go down there. That’s right. I don’t know why we never may to the Key. Always wanted to go down to the Keys and never made it. That was one way to go instead of just going to a trailer park.
Robert Stone:
So you remember playing in Homestead?
Willie Eason:
Yes, I played at Homestead. I was young, but I remember playing there. I played there for, let’s see, I forget who was the bishop, but I went down there … [tape stops] … trying to figure the guys name out. Don’t know whether he’s still living or not. He said, “Because I thought sure…” When they done this song “Jesus is a Way Maker” That was The Gay Sisters.
Robert Stone:
Well, maybe we’ll figure that out sometime, that’s the important thing. But when you were down in Homestead, you say you think you played for Bishop Nelson down there?
Willie Eason:
Yes.
Robert Stone:
That was when you were young in your 20s?
Willie Eason:
Had to be-
Robert Stone:
When you first left Bishop Lockley.
Willie Eason:
Yeah.
Robert Stone:
So you were first out on your own?
Willie Eason:
Yes, that’s right. Yeah.
Robert Stone:
So you used to play for Bishop Nelson’s assemblies and stuff?
Willie Eason:
Oh, yeah. Don’t forget, him and Nelson couldn’t play, he couldn’t play at all.
Robert Stone:
Well, he was only 10-years-old or something.
Willie Eason:
Yeah. But if I taught him, he was able to play for his father’s assemblies, father start taking him with him.
Robert Stone:
Uh-huh (affirmative).
Willie Eason:
Yeah.
Robert Stone:
Where else in South Florida? You used to say you played in Homestead. Did you play in Perrine?
Willie Eason:
Delray Beach.
Robert Stone:
Was there a church in Perrine?
Willie Eason:
Delray beach. They had a church in Perrine, never played in Perrine. Delray Beach. Played a lot in West Palm Beach, but that was Bishop Lockley’s territory, it wasn’t Bishop Nelson’s. Played at Bishop Keith, she the overseer, the one that’s over all of them, I played in her- she had a diocese too in Georgia, as I acquainted with Macon, Atlanta and all these other places in Georgia. As far as the church was concerned was through I played for Bishop Keith assemblies. Though sometime if I chauffer her, if she had- one time she had New York she had took from another bishop and so it’s the time that I told you I was down in Fort Pierce and she called and they told her I was here in Fort Pierce. I went to the phone and I left my car there, caught the train, went up and picked up a car, just when she had her Packard. Do you remember that car?
Robert Stone:
Oh, yeah.
Willie Eason:
I picked up that car, took it to New York, played for the assembly too while I was there, plus chauffeured her there. She paid me for the chauffeuring and plus I got plenty from playing for the assembly.
Robert Stone:
Uh-huh (affirmative). That was Bishop Keith. What was her first name?
Willie Eason:
Bishop Keith, first name.
Robert Stone:
Was she the only Bishop Keith?
Willie Eason:
Yeah.
Robert Stone:
Okay, so she was the one that the Dominion got named after.
Willie Eason:
Keith Dominion, that’s right.
Robert Stone:
Yeah.
Willie Eason:
I got initials, Bishop M.F.L. Keith.
Robert Stone:
Uh-huh (affirmative).
Willie Eason:
M.F.L. Keith. I make no mistake, the F was for Frankie.
Robert Stone:
And was the L, Lewis?
Willie Eason:
Lewis, that’s right L-E-W-I-S.
Robert Stone:
Right. Lewis Dominion.
Willie Eason:
Yeah, that’s the name. But the Lewis you’re talking about, they’re Dominion, that’s F.E. Lewis. That was big mother Tate’s son.
Robert Stone:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Willie Eason:
Yeah.
Jeannette Eason:
Mother Tate was the founder.
Willie Eason:
Yeah, she was the founder- I think he already know that, mother Tate was the founder.
Robert Stone:
Right. No, when she died, they couldn’t …
Willie Eason:
Oh they had a mess. It happened here in Nashville, right here in Nashville and they had a mess. The judge sometime he going one way and them lawyers battling it out. That’s right. And for years that stayed like that till what the judge finally did, he wrapped it up one year and that’s when he made it, he said, “Each one, they got a dominion,” that’s how he divide it up, to stop all this feuding. That’s why the judge done it. So the lawyers, all that argument, over a religious, you know- The judge was smarter than all the lawyer, everybody else was. That’s right. He said, “So is this going to go on every year, year after year?” That’s what he done.
Robert Stone:
So he broke it up?
Willie Eason:
Yeah, he just told them, “You preside over your Dominion,” but the thing what was in question was the big building they got there, 1915 [inaudible 01:07:48] Street, see-
Robert Stone:
In Nashville?
Willie Eason:
Yeah, because they had it so bad, all of them was coming there, three Dominions was coming there. F.E. Lewis, Bishop Keith and the Jewells, and each one wanted to own it. So, one fellow did, “Jewell Dominion, get up and then start singing.” Wanted to keep the meeting, pick it up and sing over that one. And that stuff just went on and on. That’s right. Then they get up, arguments and everything. That’s right. And it just went on, and on and on. Every year you had to go up there and go and confront this.
Willie Eason:
So then, they wind up downtown in court. Court, court, court, court. And the judge finally got sick of it and whatnot, so that’s what he ruled on. He ruled on it that each one would have their own Dominion, each one of them would- but Jewell, he give them privilege to set the time that each Dominion will come in at a certain time and like that, each one would have-
Robert Stone:
They don’t use that church any more. Old Lady Keith Dominion uses that church.
Willie Eason:
Really, I don’t know how they got it fixed now.
Robert Stone:
Seems that way to me. That’s what I thought.
Willie Eason:
Well, maybe they do.
Robert Stone:
It’s just the Keith Dominion now. It’s in Nashville. But you know that the-
Willie Eason:
But don’t forget that Bishop Jewell died.
Robert Stone:
… yeah, and the Jewell Dominion’s out of Indianapolis now.
Willie Eason:
Oh, yeah? I didn’t know that.
Robert Stone:
Yeah. Yeah, what’s-her-name? What’s her name? Manning. Naomi Manning, I met her.
Willie Eason:
When I first went into the assembly, my brother, Troman, was the first went in there with the music. That’s when there wasn’t none of these Hawaiian guitars, nothing around. My brother, Troman, went in first and when they start singing and they got out of control, all they’d do it is pull the string, they’d pull that volume down and quiet them down like this, nobody could turn up. That’s what they done.
Robert Stone:
They pulled the cord, you mean?
Willie Eason:
No, they pulled the strings. No, no, with the loud volume, loud, yeah and that’s how bad they had it in. And so, the next year, here come Bishop Jewell, she got- they got strings, but nobody can play them, see what I mean? So, I mean, Troman and myself was the only ones and I couldn’t play as good as Troman, you know what I mean? But I was the second one to come on behind Troman, see, and everybody just went crazy when you come out with the Hawaiian guitar and played during the services and everything.
Willie Eason:
The people were shouting and-
Robert Stone:
This was in Nashville?
Willie Eason:
This was Nashville, about 1959. That’s where the big brick building is there. But this court give them all privilege, but the judge divided up into Dominion. Since you can’t come together as one Dominion and have your services together, then the jury divided.
Robert Stone:
That’s right.
Willie Eason:
They wasn’t looking for the judge to come up with that, so each one fighting for their individual selves, but the judge came up with that.
Willie Eason:
F.E. Lewis, mother takes son. He was like a comedian.
Robert Stone:
Is that right?
PART 3 OF 4 ENDS [01:12:04]
Willie Eason:
Yeah. Get away and pull some crazy stunt, and he have all the rest of them under his command. He’d get up and do something to stop the services. It was a mess. It was a mess. That lasted quite a few years and he figured he should have it because he was Mother Tate’s son.
Robert Stone:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Willie Eason:
Anyways, he had property.
Robert Stone:
Right.
Willie Eason:
But it wasn’t like that. Not in the Decree. The Decree ran differently.
Robert Stone:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Willie Eason:
Had to be through an anointing, everybody had to come together through fasting and prayer.
Robert Stone:
Uhh-huh (affirmative).
Jeannette Eason:
What?
Willie Eason:
Huh?
Jeannette Eason:
Had to be an anointing?
Willie Eason:
Come through an anointing.
Jeannette Eason:
Yeah, say that again.
Willie Eason:
Anointing. And they had to go on a fast, and then they had to go in… What you call it?
Robert Stone:
Seclusion?
Willie Eason:
Yeah. And you had it where they would fast and they would pray. But that would be hard for them to do, and they had all the control of it. You know what I mean?
Jeannette Eason:
That’s what I was getting around, that’s I’m leading up to. Fasting and praying for [inaudible 01:13:36].
Willie Eason:
And then when they went and-
Jeannette Eason:
He had God on his side, I don’t know.
Willie Eason:
… And then the Keith Dominion went in to… They use the same name, Church of the Living God Pillar and Ground of the Truth, but then they come in with this addition. It’s in the Bible where it say ‘Without Controversy’. Those two words. They had to change it. All of them couldn’t wear that same name, so you know how it is when you’re starting a corporation, you can’t wear the same name. Yeah, so that’s what they done. They added ‘Without Controversy’. Yeah, so then the other one, I think F. E. Lewis, I forget what he- he had to add a couple of words to his too.
Robert Stone:
Right. But they all had Church of the Living God in there?
Willie Eason:
And Pillar- that’s right. [Tape stops].
Robert Stone:
This is Sunday the 21st, right?
Jeannette Eason:
Uhh-huh (affirmative).
Robert Stone:
Of April, 1996. All right. And we’re heading out of Murfreesboro, Willie is going to tell me about the medicine shows, and all that. Okay? Tell me about Rattlesnake- Go ahead about Strongman. Where was that?
Willie Eason:
Where did we pick him up at that day?
Jeannette Eason:
In Lawnside.
Willie Eason:
Lawnside.
Robert Stone:
Lawnside, where?
Willie Eason:
New Jersey.
Robert Stone:
And about when was this, do you remember?
Jeannette Eason:
’60, ’61.
Willie Eason:
Mm-hmm (affirmative), somewhere along there.
Jeannette Eason:
And we brought him ’62.
Robert Stone:
And what was in Lawnside, how did that go?
Willie Eason:
Well, everybody had those little stands.
Jeannette Eason:
More like a mini resort.
Willie Eason:
Little resort like. And we sold sausage, frankfurters, and hamburgers from the stand, and drink.
Jeannette Eason:
Hot sauce.
Willie Eason:
Hot sauce. Yeah, we was famous for our good hot sauce. Strongman, what it was, I used to play my guitar sitting outside of the stand to draw the crowd up to the stand. Their favorite song was “Tell Me Why You Like Roosevelt,” “Bombed Pearl Harbor.” It was a new thing at that time. They just loved to hear that, and they had you singing it over and over, so I had to cut the verses short. I couldn’t sing all the long way. Well, I could, but the thing about it is only way, I don’t know if want to say strenuous or, but it takes so long to get all them verses out, so I found out the verses that they liked to hear, and that’s what I started singing.
Willie Eason:
And Strongman happened to be one in the crowd. He came up, and he liked us from the first-
Robert Stone:
And you say he was seven feet tall?
Willie Eason:
Oh, yes. He was seven feet. Definitely seven feet. And he was muscle-bound. And what he’d done, he come up and asked me could he put on his little show, it would draw my crowd right on. Cause then it’s a rest up for me. I let him come away, show me what he could do. He’ll take a glass and chop it up fine, and chop it up, and eat the glass.
Robert Stone:
Really?
Willie Eason:
Yeah, eat the glass. If he didn’t, you don’t know where it went, you know what I mean?
Robert Stone:
Did he bend iron, and that sort of thing?
Willie Eason:
Yeah.
Jeannette Eason:
With his teeth.
Willie Eason:
Yeah, with his teeth.
Robert Stone:
He could bend iron with his teeth?
Willie Eason:
Yeah, it was iron, but I don’t know how strong that iron was or what, but one of his greatest acts was he had a special act. He would wait until on a Sunday, like advertise it for a couple of Sundays. And everybody, you’ve got the crowd hollering, yeah well, especially the women and girls, they like that big macho man, and they go wild over him. What did he do to that… Do you remember the girl that [inaudible 01:18:18]
Jeannette Eason:
…tell him that story… [Inaudible 01:18:21].
Willie Eason:
Yeah, okay. I won’t tell him that then.
Jeannette Eason:
He would pick up 500 pounds.
Willie Eason:
He would pick up 500 pounds with his teeth.
Jeannette Eason:
You and your brother… [Inaudible 01:18:38].
Willie Eason:
Oh, yeah, that’s how he proved it. I weighed 270 pounds, around 260 or 280, close to. My brother weighed something similar to that.
Robert Stone:
And what brother was that?
Willie Eason:
That’s Henry.
Robert Stone:
Henry?
Willie Eason:
Yeah. Yeah. He passed. What he do, he’d take a rod in his mouth, and let us hold the- step over the rod, and then he’d get right between the two, he’d keep moving it until he get in the center. He made sure.
Robert Stone:
Right, for the balance?
Willie Eason:
Yeah, balance, that’s right. Before he do it. And then he’d lift both of us off the ground.
Jeannette Eason:
And walk ten feet.
Willie Eason:
And walk ten feet, yeah. That was one of his acts. Jean you got to think because you know what he’d done. I know he ate the glass.
Jeannette Eason:
He could take a 20-penny nail and run it through a-
Willie Eason:
A 2×4 board.
Jeannette Eason:
A 2×4 board, with his hand.
Robert Stone:
With his fist?
Willie Eason:
Yeah well he did it with his fist. He could just take it… But he gripped himself, you know, he’d get himself together before he do that. That’s right. Man, everybody… The crowd would be in suspense, that’s right. But when he hit that board, that nail go through.
Jeannette Eason:
He let the people in the audience come and try to pull it out.
Willie Eason:
Yeah, he’d let you, anybody, come and try to pull it out. You can’t move it.
Robert Stone:
No, I’m sure. How far would it go in?
Jeannette Eason:
All the way [inaudible 01:20:07].
Willie Eason:
Yeah, at least three quarters of an inch.
Robert Stone:
It would be sticking out.
Willie Eason:
It would be sticking out the other side, at least three quarters. Sometime he’d do it maybe a half inch, but three quarters generally, almost to the inch.
Robert Stone:
So, he’d charge people for the show? He’d make [crosstalk 01:20:27]?
Willie Eason:
What he’d do, he’d get an offering.
Robert Stone:
Get a donation, yeah.
Willie Eason:
Yeah, he’d get a donation. Something like what I was getting.
Jeannette Eason:
He originated out of Chicago.
Willie Eason:
Yeah. And he found me.
Jeannette Eason:
He used to listen to Bill singing [inaudible 01:20:41].
Willie Eason:
Used to stand on the corner, and listen to me sing.
Robert Stone:
Was he a black man?
Willie Eason:
Yeah.
Robert Stone:
What was his real name, do you know?
Jeannette Eason:
[inaudible 01:20:51].
Willie Eason:
Well, we just called him Strongman.
Robert Stone:
I guess so.
Jeannette Eason:
That’s all he said, was his name was Strongman.
Willie Eason:
He told me his name, but I don’t know when it was, I couldn’t remember that man’s name. Ain’t no way in the world I could, even if you asked me, even if I laid down, I might have to dream it. If it come to me, then I could say it, but I knew his name but-
Robert Stone:
Was he about your age, or older, or younger?
Willie Eason:
What would you say?
Jeannette Eason:
He was younger.
Willie Eason:
He was younger, he was a young man. Not only that, when he talked, he can hold his crowd in suspense. Then, with what he do, that means he’d have hold of them.
Jeannette Eason:
Highly educated.
Willie Eason:
Yeah, he was educated good. He had a good education.
Robert Stone:
Did he do stuff like lift cars?
Willie Eason:
Yeah, that’s what I was going to tell you about. That’s what I was going to tell you. One show- did he do that out in Lawnside, pulling two cars?
Jeannette Eason:
Yeah.
Willie Eason:
Yeah, that’s what he’d done.
Jeannette Eason:
He let-
Willie Eason:
He let put a rope or something on that end, and then he used his feet for the bumper. I think he used his feet for the bumper, and then he had to brace himself. But he got to get somebody that he could trust, so they won’t hurt him, you know, like snatch off. The cars has got to ease.
Jeannette Eason:
Roll them in.
Willie Eason:
Yeah. And what he do, when that first-
Jeannette Eason:
In between them.
Willie Eason:
In other words, he’d take off the brake, on level ground, he pulls that weight of the other car. That’s right. Even if it’s going up a hill slight, that’s okay. But to show you that it’s not that simple, he’d let you see that he is pulling that weight. And he’s pulling that weight, his body is like a chain pulling the other car.
Jeannette Eason:
And he let a tractor trailer run over his chest.
Robert Stone:
What?
Willie Eason:
This man was out of the ordinary. You’d think it’s trickery, but there ain’t no trickery. He’d let everybody examine it. Let everybody examine it.
Jeannette Eason:
[inaudible 01:23:02].
Robert Stone:
He let a tractor trailer run over his chest?
Jeannette Eason:
Yeah. And he went as far as to even hold the two tractor trailers [crosstalk 01:23:06].
Willie Eason:
Yeah, he’d hold them, make their wheels spin.
Robert Stone:
Is that right?
Willie Eason:
Yeah, but he set himself up for that, and then the people, they’d be waiting for him to do that. He’d make them go into arguments and everything, build it up, like that. Yeah, they’d go into arguments, “Ain’t no way this guy can do that. Ain’t no way.” They’d go into all kind of arguments, and then they’d stop-
Jeannette Eason:
I was selling corn on the cob, and the woman in the kitchen would cook my corn in big pots. And, one day, he was standing there, and she said, “Jean your corn is ready.” He said, “I’ll go get it.” But I know my mother used to do that. He went in and got this big pot, it was boiling five gallon or 10 gallons a pot.
Willie Eason:
One of the big pots with the 12 on it.
Jeannette Eason:
[crosstalk 01:24:02] he walked out with it in the palm of his hand, right off the stove.
Willie Eason:
A hot pot.
Jeannette Eason:
You see, it’s a slight to that, my mother used to do that with a coffee pot. You can take it up off the stove, put it in your hand. Anytime the top is open, the steam goes up. You don’t feel that heat until you sit it back down. So, that, I understood that one. All that glass, and stuff like that, uh-huh (negative).
Willie Eason:
But, before he do anything, he’d let you examine it, he’d give you all the privilege you want. I really feel them love me cause I really made the money on the street corners in Chicago doing Roosevelt. That’s where I made that money at.
Willie Eason:
Because, what I’d do, had an undertaker. Don’t know which one of y’all I told this to. I know somebody come here with writing, I don’t know which of them. What I’d done, undertaker used to come, and he have like, I don’t know how much money he got in his pocket, but anytime I get to that verse in Roosevelt, I’d have to go over Roosevelt to find out which verse it is. Every time he’d like to hear me say that, he’d put $5 in there, every time.
Jeannette Eason:
I know you’re going to talk about [inaudible 01:25:26].
Willie Eason:
And then I cut down on the song. That’s what made me cut down on the song, so I don’t have to sing all them verses, I know what he like, and I sing the most important verses. And he like to hear me when I riffing. People say today, they call me, say, “Man, you didn’t know you were rapping, you was rapping back in [inaudible 01:25:44].” They say, “You was rapping. It’s a shame that you couldn’t have come have come up with a rap- you know, doing your rap routine.” [Singing]. “He advocated the fair employment practice of late/to let the poor man know he was all emancipated/Made madam buffoon first lady of the land/they made…” They just like to hear me riff, just riffing off. And a certain part of that song about the WPA, when I get to that point, the NRA, the WPA, now that part, he liked that. Wasn’t it a part of “Pearl Harbor” that he liked the tune?
Jeannette Eason:
Yeah.
Willie Eason:
It was a part of “They Bombed Pearl Harbor.” Something that I sang, a verse, a certain verse in there. I get to that verse, and he go-
Jeannette Eason:
You got to tell him about rattlesnake Bill.
Willie Eason:
[Laughter].
Robert Stone:
Rattlesnake Bill?
Willie Eason:
Yeah, Rattlesnake Bill. What he’d do, he’d make his body jump, don’t he?
Jeannette Eason:
He was a real Indian, number one, and he would do what they call medicine shows.
Willie Eason:
Yeah, he’d do medicine shows.
Robert Stone:
Medicine shows, yeah.
Jeannette Eason:
And he would have his rattlesnake liniment. And he would be telling people how good it is, what it will make you do. He says, “Man, you’re not doing nothing, no wonder your wives is [inaudible 01:27:08].”
Willie Eason:
And all these guys out there want to just start challenging him.
Jeannette Eason:
“All you do is rub a little bit of this on the back of your back.” And some way, Bob, this guy was big and tall too. He’d hold his stomach in, and his pants-
Willie Eason:
He was real Indian, he was a real Indian.
Jeannette Eason:
… His pants would drop like down on his hip. Not off his hip. But, when you see the pants drop, the crowd would say…
Willie Eason:
They said they going to drop all the way down. But his weight, I believe his muscles be holding his pants, and he do something to his muscles to make his pants like they going to drop all the way down. And then they would start the women hollering and all the [inaudible 01:27:44] ready to go. Make his belly do the serpent, you know.
Jeannette Eason:
All the snakes, the rattlesnakes that he had, we found out that they had-
Willie Eason:
What they’d done to the head, done took the fangs out.
Jeannette Eason:
The fangs.
Willie Eason:
Yeah. He ain’t going to just take no rattle, not no rattle that’s got his venom in him and whatnot. I examine him, I made sure I was looking at him good.
Jeannette Eason:
Yeah. He handles a lot of snakes. It was like teaching the kids and things that would come up to the show about the [inaudible 01:28:20] of snakes, and what they could do, and what they wouldn’t do. And then he would go on doing the [inaudible 01:28:27] the show when he got everybody laughing and all, and women standing around. He would pull something out like this thing you used to see the kids play with all spring.
Robert Stone:
A slinky?
Jeannette Eason:
It would look like a snake.
Robert Stone:
A slinky?
Jeannette Eason:
Yeah. And he said, “This box right here is what you need.” And he’d open it like that, and this thing fly out into the crowd. And people would be running in circles.
Willie Eason:
He’d keep his crowd in suspension like Strongman. They got their little tricks of their trade, and they got it down good. And they can hold a crowd in suspense.
Jeannette Eason:
But I was telling the women that in the bathroom, it’s not really- what do you mean by the medicine show? It’s like it was days out in the Western word. They had it right here.
Willie Eason:
In the Western world. Here, we’re seeing it with our own eyes.
Robert Stone:
And where’d you hook up with him?
Willie Eason:
In Chicago. And he come across there to the Eastern show to Pennsylvania, where I was. So, I lived in Philly.
Jeannette Eason:
Rattlesnake Bill used be on down in-
Willie Eason:
Then I would train out of Philly to Lawnside. That’s where I was staying was Lawnside, about 18 miles.
Jeannette Eason:
He would come over, and he’d come all the way down to Fort Lauderdale, Miami-
Willie Eason:
Yeah, when it get warm, he’d come to Florida.
Jeannette Eason:
All those little towns, was there the migrant workers was working at. The guy made a good living at it.
Robert Stone:
And when was this?
Jeannette Eason:
I gosh it started, well- My father knew him for years. I remember him myself, 1943.
Robert Stone:
1943 or so?
Jeannette Eason:
1943.
Robert Stone:
Did you guys travel with him or work a show with him?
Willie Eason:
No.
Jeannette Eason:
He was traveling, and he came North. Because Florida season, once the tourists leave, it’s like a dead thing unless you got a job or something.
Willie Eason:
Especially round the farming belt. They have migrant quarters.
Jeannette Eason:
He would leave and then follow the migrants.
Willie Eason:
Because, don’t forget, what I do, I come to Florida, and I’d sing on the weekend, and I go into Miami from in Pompano, cause we usually hung around Pompano, because we had people that we know that we could get cheap rent, you know, and everything. And on the weekend, Friday, Saturday, when people get paid, that’s when I’m in, I’m down in Miami on the corner. Because Miami is a big thing now, a big city, where people are working. Then I hit the farm section Friday and Saturday. Then, through the weekend, when the people come out into the field, I know which camps that’s got money, went out there and made that money, because they had to pick up so many baskets and all of that. And you keep up with that stuff. That’s how I was making my living.
Robert Stone:
So, you hit a lot of the migrant camps, the labor camps?
Willie Eason:
Yeah. Those were my two main songs, “They Bombed Pearl Harbor,” and “Oh What a Time?” You sing a little bit of that. So, that was my thing. Because they like to hear those verses. So, that was my thing. They take the snake, pull the car with his teeth and all that, they had something going.
Robert Stone:
So, you ran across Rattlesnake Bill when you were working the labor camps?
Willie Eason:
That’s right.
Robert Stone:
But you guys never worked together?
Willie Eason:
No, we never worked. The only thing, he just come up, and I give him permission… Because the crowd, they follow those stands. And where they at, you going to pull the crowd. So, even to buy my stuff, my hamburgers, and hot dogs, and stuff, all I do was pull Bill up there or pull the big man up there. You see what I mean, and draw the crowd. And they steadily drinking your soda, buying your hot dogs and hot sausage. And we had a thing for hot sausage.
Robert Stone:
So, when you went down to South Florida in those labor camps and all, were you selling food too?
Willie Eason:
No, no.
Robert Stone:
Not down there. This is up at Lawnside?
Willie Eason:
Yeah.
Robert Stone:
Okay.
Willie Eason:
Lawnside, yeah. Lawnside, New Jersey.
Willie Eason:
You got to have something to give the public. You got to have something to enthuse them, make them want to give, that’s what you have to do. Because you got gas expense and everything, you moving about like that. You got to stay somewhere. It’s about time I’d get in with the people, they like my playing and whatnot, I’ve got free rent. They just come on in and work. Down through Carolina. They let me come in free, sleeping, “Yeah, stay another night, stay one more night.” And all that kind of stuff. I run into all that. I was on the road traveling. Of course, I didn’t meet them traveling. I met her. They came into Ocala, had a little group singing.
Robert Stone:
The Davis family.
Willie Eason:
Yeah. They were singing then. But then, I saw what potential, what they had, with those two little boys. But I didn’t know about the other little boy, the Paul, but the one they had sound like Sam Cooke was Herman. He the one had that-
PART 4 OF 4 ENDS [01:33:59]
Willie Eason:
Just like I was telling you about this thing about Otis Jackson. But they had a dislike for each other. They worked against each other.
Robert Stone:
Who’s that?
Willie Eason:
These promoters and things.
Robert Stone:
Oh yeah, I’ll bet.
Willie Eason:
Yeah, they had to carry a lot of malice, see. To me, God just fixed me in a way that I was a little different. I stuck with religion, see? And that was in my favor. I just stayed with that gospel thing, and with gospel songs.
Jeannette Eason:
Not only, that but if you hadn’t feelings for human beings, you wouldn’t be here. You wouldn’t have-
Willie Eason:
Yeah, that’s what it is, too. I had feelings.
Jeannette Eason:
Yes, you did.
Willie Eason:
See, a lot of them people, they don’t have a feeling for… they had people all lined up, but they don’t have no feeling. But see, I was brought up religiously, and my mother and father was very strict. My mother, very strict, very strict. In my family, I don’t know whether I got… I don’t believe we had over… my mother and father mothered 18 children. And don’t forget, I doubt if you had over two smokers in the whole what you call it. They were very strict. We were brought up under Pentecostal faith, see. And my mother done believe in fasting. I had an aunt, the one that died at 106 years old, up in Georgia. She’d fast 30 and 35 days. 32 days. That’s right. She said until the Lord tell her to [inaudible 00:01:36]. Until she figure she done reached the power of God that way. That’s right. And she had that talent, the gift of healing. She actually had that. Like everybody, you have a certain talent, nobody can take it away from you. That’s your thing, and that’s where she was. That’s right. Lay a hand on you, you could feel the difference. That’s right. That’s right. She died at 106. And here Jean, my wife, she got a chance to hear [inaudible 00:02:07], at Dalton, Georgia talk about the first cars, and all, and everything. She had you laughing. That’s right.
Jeannette Eason:
Talked to to your kids and all.
Willie Eason:
Talked to my kids and all, told them about the first car. What did it sound like, what it went like, and-
Jeannette Eason:
And Ada too, they had to amputate one of her one of her legs. Her prayer was, “God, please take me.” She just asked-
Willie Eason:
She just begged. She begged God to take her. Just kept begging, begging God.
Jeannette Eason:
Her words were-
Willie Eason:
Every time you heard it, she was ready to go home.
Jeannette Eason:
My words to her was, “No, Aunt Lovey, he’s not ready for you. There’s a lot you have to do.”
Willie Eason:
He said he just ain’t ready for you.
Jeannette Eason:
And, sure enough, when she got to the nursing home, she lightened that place up like everything. Every nurse and everything. The minute you call up there, “Oh yes, she’s doing fine. She’s in there talking now, living life.”
Willie Eason:
Oh yeah, they took… she got special attention. All of that getting to know her, from Biblically and also with her power. You get a thrill just listening to her, the way she portrayed about it, and give it to you. That’s right, it’s so plain. It’s just like she’s there with God. That’s right. Just like she’s there with Him. She know Him. She know Him. That’s right, and you can feel it. It’s not something phony, you know, “This guy must be something.” She’s not phony. That’s right. When she’s on a fast, no drinking, no water, no nothing. That’s right. And not only have we got this testimony, ask Henry Nelson, ask somebody else. Ask other people. I can tell you, down through that whole entire House of God, under the Keith Dominion.
Robert Stone:
And what was her name?
Willie Eason:
Lovey Stakely.
Robert Stone:
Lovey Stakely. Okay, Willie, there was 18 kids in your family?
Willie Eason:
Yeah, in the family.
Robert Stone:
And where were in there? Were you…?
Willie Eason:
I know from… about the 13-
Jeannette Eason:
No, it was 10. It was on the birth certificate.
Willie Eason:
No, I said I know about 13 of us.
Jeannette Eason:
Oh.
Willie Eason:
Of us children. Outside of myself, I know 12, you see what I mean. I can remember back, like when I got hurt on that laundry truck. Boy, don’t forget, my sister Mamie was living, that was the old… she was older than Ida. She was older than Ida.
Jeannette Eason:
Yeah.
Willie Eason:
And that was the [inaudible 00:04:43], she was the [inaudible 0:00:04:43].
Robert Stone:
So you were number 10?
Willie Eason:
Let me see.
Robert Stone:
You were the tenth?
Willie Eason:
Had to be, if you count back. Yeah.
Jeannette Eason:
That’s what [inaudible 00:04:54].
Robert Stone:
So you were the tenth, and there was… so what was there, 18 or 16?
Willie Eason:
Well, partly, see some of these babies, in the 18… my mother, they put them between… like my aunt what died, she was able to put them in place, and don’t forget they had my birthday all mixed up. Cause even right now, in my credit report, don’t forget they got me, I’m an alias. I had to use that in two different trials. You know, the alias. But my lawyer, I spellbound him. I spellbound him. I said, so, I don’t know how they picked it up. And this case, they said, “Well are you Henry Eason?” “I’m Willie Eason,” I said. My alias. Look, my lawyer’s reading the paper. look at him. He’s reading the paper.
Robert Stone:
What do you mean?
Willie Eason:
When I said I’m an alias, look, he stopped reading it. Like he froze. And then I explained it, and you all see it. It was like he was even [crosstalk 00:05:59].
Robert Stone:
Well, I don’t understand.
Willie Eason:
I had a case about that property, about the motel and all.
Robert Stone:
But you were using another name?
Willie Eason:
Yeah, I was using two names.
Jeannette Eason:
Yeah. [inaudible 00:06:09].
Willie Eason:
When I was born in ’21, the birth certificate showed it, but I didn’t know all this after all these years. My birth certificate, I’m writing trying to get a birth certificate. Don’t forget, I had to get a birth certificate in order to draw my social security, see.
Robert Stone:
Right.
Jeannette Eason:
Trying to get it in Henry and Willie, either one of the names.
Willie Eason:
Either one of the names.
Jeannette Eason:
His father was Henry.
Willie Eason:
My father was Henry Eason.
Jeannette Eason:
And he would call Henry and [inaudible 00:06:44]-
Willie Eason:
But they said my name is Willie Eason.
Jeannette Eason:
…Your business in Henry.
Willie Eason:
…And Henry Eason.
Robert Stone:
They had your business in the name of Henry Eason.
Willie Eason:
Yes.
Jeannette Eason:
Yeah, your gospel was all to Willie.
Willie Eason:
Willie Eason.
Jeannette Eason:
Then when we really got the birth certificate, because there was no record of it. His name or year.
Willie Eason:
And guess what it showed, and I have proof. I had to do- [inaudible 00:07:07] not long ago for my son to get his credit started, you know, I had to sign for him. And on the birth certificate, this is how I first knew how I was born. I said no wonder when I started school, you know, when I was five years old at Ludlow School in Philadelphia. So they said I was born of this midwife in Schley County. They dug all that out. I didn’t know. And it said I was born of a midwife, I was never named. I wasn’t named. That’s what it is.
Robert Stone:
Oh.
Jeannette Eason:
On his birth certificate, “Name unknown.”
Willie Eason:
Yeah, at that time.
Willie Eason:
But I still used the same social security number.
Robert Stone:
Right, right. Well, that’s interesting.
Robert Stone:
And Troman, was he the oldest or?
Willie Eason:
He was the oldest.
Robert Stone:
He was the oldest.
Willie Eason:
He was the oldest of all them. Yeah, he was the oldest of all of them.
Robert Stone:
And was there 18 or 16 or 13?
Willie Eason:
It could have been stillborn because I know with my first wife, it was two stillborns, you see. So I don’t know what they meant. I don’t know what stillborn was, you know. It’s just a dead baby. It comes dead, it becomes full maturity, but when it’s born, it’s the full baby. So the stillborn, we put… I know we did, we must have done both of them like that. I know, you know, got a casket, put them, you know, had a regular funeral. So I understand what they meant by stillborn, but that’s what they had on that birth certificate, and that’s how I covered myself twice. I was brought into, in one time, in Newark. I won that case… you remember that?
Jeannette Eason:
But the kids had to be before you because behind you was Ben, Charlie, [inaudible 00:09:23].
Willie Eason:
You’re going back the other way.
Jeannette Eason:
[inaudible 00:09:27] the way I remember the names. It was Joe.
Willie Eason:
Joe, Henry.
Jeannette Eason:
There was a Ben, Henry.
Willie Eason:
Yeah, Henry, and then Ben.
Jeannette Eason:
Addie.
Willie Eason:
Yeah, Addie. Addie was the baby girl. She’s still living.
Jeannette Eason:
That was five.
Willie Eason:
Yeah, it’ll come to me.
Jeannette Eason:
You baby six then there was Ulie.
Willie Eason:
No, Winnie.
Jeannette Eason:
Winnie, yeah.
Willie Eason:
Then Earline.
Jeannette Eason:
Earline. Ulie.
Willie Eason:
Ulie.
Jeannette Eason:
Charlie.
Willie Eason:
Charlie.
Jeannette Eason:
Blondie.
Willie Eason:
Blondie.
Jeannette Eason:
Mamie.
Willie Eason:
The man who was older, she was way behind Ida, and-
Jeannette Eason:
Well, I’m just naming names.
Willie Eason:
Yeah.
Jeannette Eason:
Ida.
Willie Eason:
But there was babies that I didn’t know nothing about. All I can do is ask them, like my mother or Ida or the older one that was living when they were born. Don’t forget, I was a baby when all them, you know, the first baby, you see. There was babies in between, like in between Earline and Ulie, that was one of them. Like there’s one between Blondie and Charlie. Like that. These ones, I didn’t know nothing about, you see. So I’m curious, I want to know, you know, when you guys get up [inaudible 00:10:46], want to know where’s 18? Where’s all of them at?
Robert Stone:
Right.
Willie Eason:
Yeah. So I was curious too. But I had to get somebody like my aunt Lovey, you know, she’s the one that told me, you know, she could carry her mind back. As old as she was, tell him how keen she was?
Jeannette Eason:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Willie Eason:
But that woman was so keen. I could never do nothing like that. I couldn’t carry my mind back like that, not at her age.
Robert Stone:
I want to get some ice.
Willie Eason:
Yeah. Bob, knowing you, you’d have to just shake your head, listening to her talk.
Robert Stone:
Oh, it’s always- Because I can’t remember anything.
Willie Eason:
I am telling you. Well, maybe now I’m glad you said that, me and my wife never can understand, a lot of times, when they be trying to make me understand and tell me stuff. I go as far as I can, and I tell you, but I said… you know, something I can’t think of right now. Like, you’re talking to me, you’ll bring things about.
Robert Stone:
Right.
Willie Eason:
And then you’ll bring my memory together.
Robert Stone:
Right.
Willie Eason:
But some things I just can’t remember, just like that. You just can’t do that. What I be telling you be the truth. [Tape stops].
Robert Stone:
What I mean, did you know the Blue family? Down the-
Willie Eason:
Oh, the Blues? Yes.
Robert Stone:
The woman’s with Darryl, and who’s the father?
Willie Eason:
Oh, wait a minute. One of the fathers was Johnson Blue. What was the other one? I’m trying to think of the oldest Blue. Johnson Blue was the one that had the barber shop, he had quite a few kids, and this is the other one. His wife was Bertha Blue. She was a pastor down there, and in the Keith Dominion. Yeah, in the Keith Dominion. Pompano, Pompano, Florida. That’s where the Blues at.
Robert Stone:
There’s some Miami now.
Willie Eason:
Yeah, down there, yeah.
Willie Eason:
Yeah.
Robert Stone:
Frank.
Willie Eason:
Yeah.
Robert Stone:
Frank Blue, is that right?
Willie Eason:
Yeah, I remember that one. See, some of the Blues I don’t remember and I played with them the most, the older ones, and a lot of their children. I remember a lot of them.
Robert Stone:
Well, I think there’s Darryl and Frank, and Frank is the father, Blue, and they both play steel.
Willie Eason:
Well, I figured they all was going to play, you know. Because it was just handed down one to other one, and one, you know, been around Atlanta. Little bit of strumming. They’d go from there, for the strumming, because… you know, in the Holiness church, they got this. Keep it going with the strumming.
Robert Stone:
Right.
Willie Eason:
See. But picking out those words, that comes a little difficult. You know, picking out those words to those songs, and knowing where to put your mixed pick at. Pick out those words.
Robert Stone:
Well, they’re supposed to be pretty good players. I think at least Darryl and Frank, anyhow. He’s an older guy. Frank is probably in 60s or something.
Willie Eason:
Oh, okay. That sounds like Johnson Blue’s brother. That’s what it sounds like. Sounds like the Blues brothers, that’s what we sound like, if he’s in that age bracket. That was a lovely family. Close family. The Blues. I started to ask you if had heard about the Blues. Today.
Robert Stone:
Have you heard Bishop Elliott’s son play, Denard?
Willie Eason:
Who that?
Robert Stone:
Denard, I think his name is. Elliott. Bishop Elliott’s son.
Willie Eason:
Oh yeah, oh yeah.
Robert Stone:
He play right. I understand he’s quite good.
Willie Eason:
Yeah. He played at my aunt’s funeral up in Georgia.
Robert Stone:
Is that right?
Willie Eason:
Yeah. I played two covers requested. I played, you know.
Robert Stone:
I understand he’s pretty good.
Willie Eason:
Oh yes, he is. Yeah, he’s good.
Robert Stone:
Young fellow, what, 18 or 20?
Willie Eason:
Something like that, yeah.
Robert Stone:
Yeah.
Willie Eason:
Because I was playing… his father me invited over to Newton in Sarasota, and Elliott got a little vexed at him because he told… Elliott had invited me over and he wanted him to hear me play, because like, “You may learn something. You may hear something from Willie.” They knew I was the first one. And of course Elliott would know my brother. Because Troman he had went down with Bishop Lockley before I ever latched up with Bishop Lockley.
Robert Stone:
So Troman played with Lockley also?
Willie Eason:
Yes. He went down with them… Bishop Lockley got him and paid him to go down with him to his assembly once. He played in-
Robert Stone:
And where?
Willie Eason:
Let me see. It had to be in Tampa, either Sarasota. It’s either one of those two. But I think it was Tampa.
Robert Stone:
But how-
Willie Eason:
I don’t know, Bishop Lockley stayed at sister [inaudible 00:15:58]. Stayed in her house.
Robert Stone:
When Troman played with… like if he played with Bishop Lockley or at some other assembly or something, but he played in the Hawaiian style, did he? In other words, he didn’t play like you would.
Willie Eason:
In other words, let’s see how can I say this. He played something like what you hear me play, but he’d be playing in the service, and he’d be strumming, but the only thing about, and different with him and a lot of these players you hear playing, he can do like me. Like you have never heard me in the service. I pick out the words of the song. I sit there and I play. And then every once in a while, I hit and make a run, you know what I mean. I don’t sit there and try to pick out the words. Because I do pick out the word for word, but then I turn around and make a few slides, and you know, hit a few harmonics, make runs, like that.
Robert Stone:
How would he play? How would Troman play?
Willie Eason:
Troman would play similar to that. He could sit there and pick out the words. That’s how I got the idea of picking out the words of the song while you sing, because I play by ear and I listen to what you said. Well, (singing). See the way I picked out those words, (singing). I can pick that right out. It’s not like I have to keep playing with it because I know where those notes already are.
Robert Stone:
So what would be the biggest difference between the way Troman played and the way you played in Church?
Willie Eason:
Troman could make more harmonics and do more with the Hawaiian, you know, fiddling.
Robert Stone:
Right.
Willie Eason:
With that crossed bar- See, he crosses bar similar to what you showed me, this guy.
Robert Stone:
All that string [crosstalk 00:17:54].
Willie Eason:
Similar to that, yeah, yeah.
Robert Stone:
Right. Whereas you would play more on one string?
Willie Eason:
Yeah, that’s right.
Robert Stone:
And strumming.
Willie Eason:
Yeah. But what Troman could hit two or three strings, see what I mean? And if you want to put it like this, where if I’m playing one string melody, he can do two string melody, see? And see where hitting two string in the front, you hear him, like rattling those two strings. Like that.
Robert Stone:
Right.
Willie Eason:
And when he’d rattle them, then, in the center he may chirp them and then run.
Robert Stone:
Right.
Willie Eason:
See. He’d be doing, you know, making runs. And then sometimes, and make the run, he’d hit the run and it’d run, and then he’d make it a chance to drag it back, if the sound lasts long enough. You got it? I know you do, because you’ve been practicing, you know what I’m talking about.
Robert Stone:
Yeah. What it seems like is the way you play is more suitable to the music they needed in the church and how it works. He had to play it a little straighter.
Willie Eason:
Right.
Robert Stone:
And you can jazz up a little more.
Willie Eason:
Right, right, right. Right.
Robert Stone:
Because your style, because your way of playing, wasn’t so precise as him, it freed you up. I don’t want to put words in your mouth, but was that what was going on?
Willie Eason:
Yeah. When I listen to the words of the song, all right. It’s like, you heard me play… didn’t I play “I Came to the Garden Alone?”
Robert Stone:
Yeah.
Willie Eason:
All right. See, I was picking those words out. See, not only that with just that one song, but I can do that with most songs. Even when you start off a song, [singing], I may start strumming and running, but at the same time, while they’re still singing, they’re going to go singing for about at least 5 to 10 minutes. Before they get through halfway singing it, I’m already playing it, or picking the words out. Maybe if I can slip a run in there, I’ll slip it in there. That’s right. If I can touch it and get that harmonic and sound, then I can hit touch it and make the run. Just to mix it up. Not, you know, try to keep playing one straight thing.
Robert Stone:
So Troman played some in church, but apparently he didn’t last too long at it, huh?
Willie Eason:
Not in church. Because don’t forget, he played for banquets. Don’t forget, it was at least three of them. It was four of them at one time.
Robert Stone:
When he played, he liked to play with his group.
Willie Eason:
Yeah. They could really play.
Robert Stone:
When he first played with Bishop Lockley, when he went to Florida, did he bring his group with him or was it just him?
Willie Eason:
No, no, no.
Robert Stone:
Just him.
Willie Eason:
Just him.
Robert Stone:
But he played with Lockley’s band?
Willie Eason:
Well it was mostly with his son, Bishop Lockley’s son, JR.
Robert Stone:
JR?
Willie Eason:
Junior.
Robert Stone:
Junior.
Willie Eason:
It was Lockley Jr., yeah. He’s the one what played the vibraharp. He played the vibraharp and the piano. Then later on, he learned how to play the Hawaiian a little bit in the E7, and he would try to play for service. But he liked the A7, E7, tuning
Robert Stone:
All right. [Tape stops].
Willie Eason:
So funny, once I keep sitting there, you know like, Pentecostal music and songs and sound, you keep sitting there and you’re already getting acquainted with that instrument. You can play that song, just about. You can almost play the words of that song.
Robert Stone:
How come you wound up going on the road with Lockley and Troman didn’t?
Willie Eason:
No, no, no. Troman was the first one.
Robert Stone:
Yeah, but he didn’t stick with it.
Willie Eason:
No, no. Troman went with him a couple of times, a couple of his assemblies. But other than that, Bishop… from what I gather, Bishop Lockley didn’t keep his word with him. See what I mean? He agreed to his offerings and whatnot, but a lot of time, in the Pentecostal Church, and they’re still having that trouble today. They don’t like to give… even when it comes down to taking up offering, he was there taking up an offering. But they don’t like to pay nobody or pick up the offering, see.
Robert Stone:
Right. So did he have a family or anything?
Willie Eason:
Who did, Troman?
Robert Stone:
Troman, yeah.
Willie Eason:
Yeah, yeah. Haven’t I showed him two of his daughters on the picture?
Robert Stone:
He was 35 years old or something at that time.
Willie Eason:
Yeah, he had a family. Three of them was living, let me see. Barbara, the principal. Ella Mae went for an OCI, and then there was Dolores. She’s under Ella Mae. The one that look like she 6’5″. Well, Dolores was under her. And then there’s Vivian. Before Vivian, Leroy. The one that you heard singing with me on the record.
Jeannette Eason:
There’s five of them.
Willie Eason:
Yeah, there’s five of them.
Robert Stone:
So Leroy was actually your nephew.
Willie Eason:
That’s right.
Robert Stone:
Not your cousin. Your nephew.
Willie Eason:
Nephew.
Robert Stone:
Nephew. Okay. You told me before he was your cousin, but he’s your nephew.
Willie Eason:
He’s my nephew.
Robert Stone:
Troman’s son.
Willie Eason:
He’s Troman’s son, that’s right.
Robert Stone:
You know, I’m just trying to get a feel for Troman. Troman was before you.
Willie Eason:
That’s right.
Robert Stone:
And he played some for Bishop Lockley.
Willie Eason:
That’s right.
Robert Stone:
And played some in church, but you’re the one who really got into it.
Willie Eason:
That’s right.
Robert Stone:
He didn’t stay in it too long?
Willie Eason:
Mm-mmm (negative).
Robert Stone:
What did Troman do for a living?
Willie Eason:
One time, he worked… before trying to go out on the road, but he had to come back to a job mostly. And do his gigs, what you call gigs, with their little group, they done that on the-
Robert Stone:
Right. So they just had some kind of a day job, doing whatever.
Willie Eason:
Yeah. He had a… I know one time he was working for a laundry, and… There was somebody else, too, that he worked for, but the only two jobs that I know that he worked on. You know, and then he played that music on the side, with the little gigs.
Robert Stone:
Yeah. So he couldn’t make a living playing music.
Willie Eason:
That’s right.
Robert Stone:
Right.
Willie Eason:
I was the only one who-
Robert Stone:
Very few people can.
Willie Eason:
That’s right. You know, not just pinning flowers or bragging on myself, but even if you had to go search and for people that know me, like Henry, they can tell you. Say, “Well, Willie’s going to street.” They would all be trying to guess at what I made, but they can tell you that I made a living and what kind of money. But they stood up to see people just throwing money at me. Like Henry Nelson and people have been around me, and you’ve got a lot to get top players around. One boy I taught up at New York, well, he’s dead now. He passed. Oh I could go and tell, God bless the day. So many things…
Robert Stone:
So anyhow, it took, for whatever reasons, it took for you to play in the Pentecostal Church and then on those street corners and stuff. Now, when you were doing street corners, first you were married to Alyce.
Willie Eason:
That’s right.
Robert Stone:
And then you were married to Jeannette, later, after you got married to Jeannette, you still did street corner stuff.
Willie Eason:
I still, oh yeah.
Robert Stone:
But what did you do about a home? I mean, you had kids then?
Willie Eason:
I had kids.
Robert Stone:
Did you go off on trips for a while?
Willie Eason:
If I had to go off on trips. But I didn’t need to go on trips. The money I make on the corner.
Robert Stone:
You could stay right in your home town?
Willie Eason:
That’s right, that’s right.
Robert Stone:
[crosstalk 00:26:21] Philly.
Willie Eason:
So I started living in Philadelphia. I made plenty around. Philadelphia is a big city.
Robert Stone:
Yeah.
Willie Eason:
I made plenty around, but then forget there’s big New York right there. It’s only 88 miles away.
Robert Stone:
Close by, yeah.
Willie Eason:
Yeah. Then you got all them towns in between there. You got Newark. You got Trenton. You see what I’m talking about?
Robert Stone:
Oh, yeah.
Willie Eason:
Then, you know, if I’m going to Chicago, look at all them big towns I got. I got Pittsburgh. I got, when I get out there, what you got? You got Pittsburgh, you got Cleveland on the way out there.
Robert Stone:
But did you go out to Chicago when you were living in Philly?
Willie Eason:
Oh, yes. Oh, yes.
Robert Stone:
So you’d go off, or would you leave your family or they’d come with you?
Willie Eason:
No, I’d leave my family.
Robert Stone:
Go off for a while and then come back.
Willie Eason:
That’s right. If I’m going off for the weekend, I’d prepare to be out there Friday because that’s payday. Then I’d go for Friday, Saturday, Sunday. Now if I deem it necessary for me to stay the whole week, I’ll stay the whole week. But my wife already knows that I’m staying the whole week, and that way I’ll wire her money, you see.
Robert Stone:
Wire, send telegrams, whatever, right.
Willie Eason:
That’s right, that’s right.
Robert Stone:
By then, I would assume, later, you know, as time went on, you went way south less.
Willie Eason:
That’s right. That’s right. Less and less.
Robert Stone:
You did that when you were a young man, you would go way south.
Willie Eason:
That’s right, don’t forget, to make that kind of money I was making on the street, you have to hit places like Chicago, New York, Baltimore, Philadelphia. I just go hit five corners, and if I take on just on the average of $35 a corner, and on a Friday, ain’t going to take under $50.
Robert Stone:
So you might make $200, $300, $400, $500 on a weekend?
Willie Eason:
That’s right. I took up to $500 on a weekend.
Robert Stone:
A weekend. This was back in the ’40s and ’50s.
Willie Eason:
That’s right.
Robert Stone:
That’s a lot of money.
Willie Eason:
That’s right.
Robert Stone:
I know my dad-
Willie Eason:
I’m telling you how the people, it’s either they respond, like I said. I was going into the-
Robert Stone:
I mean, back then, people were making $50 a week, working.
Willie Eason:
That’s right.
Robert Stone:
You’d make $500 on a weekend.
Willie Eason:
And seeing what happened, I’m serious. Put it like it’s from $250 to $500, you know when you’re going to do that.
Robert Stone:
Right.
Willie Eason:
You don’t know when you’re going to do that. So don’t forget, you have to gauge yourself. You don’t know what you’re going to do on a corner. You don’t know who will give and who ain’t going to give. But then you got to play the song, you got to know how to handle the public, and play what they like. So if you hit what they like, that’s when they respond. You hear the songs they like. And they’re going to give you request numbers. And back then, “If I Could Hear My Mother Pray Again,” that was the main number. “Standing On the Highway,” that was another one. You know, these numbers were popular, you know. “Precious Memories.” [inaudible 00:29:30].
Willie Eason:
Like I said, we’re talking and things just… the more you talk, the more it gets unraveled. That’s the way I lived. I got used to the public. I know how to deal with them. I know what they like. You experience all of this while you’re out there. They give you the experience. The public does it. They give you the experience. That’s right. All you got to do is follow them. They’re the one that got the money, they got the change. That’s right. “A Closer Walk with Thee,” no telling how much you’re going to make on that. Everybody just like to hear the guitar, suggest “A Closer Walk with Thee.” They like that.
Robert Stone:
Comes across well, yeah.
Willie Eason:
Yeah. They like that. And I used to even play, like, if they wanted something fast, I used to try to play, “When the Saints-” going fast. “When the Saints Go Marching In.” [singing] you know, [singing]. [Tape stops]. You’re finding out that a lot of Pentecostal Churches, they don’t like to pay you. They like to put it in your head that the Lord’s going to bless you. The Lord’s going to bless you. That’s what they put in their head. And a lot of these people, the youngsters, they’re going to take that the way I took it. I took it, and accepted it, you know, because they told me I was going to hell. See, all right, and I got scared.
Robert Stone:
And then when you got a family, you had a necessity. You had come up with some money.
Willie Eason:
That’s right. That’s right. A lot of them wised up. I heard a couple of them said, I said, “Oh, yeah, you done wise up.” And they just said, “Well, I go to the Baptist Church.” Why you like to go to the Baptist Church and play? Well, they’re going to take you up an offering and they’re going to do this. And I know they’ll be telling the truth because I’ve played for all of them and I know. I played for the Gethsemane Baptist Church in West New York, New Jersey, and the pastors down here now. And he can tell you, well, he had me on the payroll. You know, they used to give me a check.
Willie Eason:
Because I played two Sundays out of the month, they paid $75, and don’t forget they had a program. The program is only about an hour and 15, hour and 20 minutes. The speaker, the pastor, or whoever’s speaking, he only speaks for… not even, speaks for less than a half hour. You take his topic and you relate it to his topic, and he’d pray. That’s it. The sermon. Not only that, you’ve got about four numbers. You’ve got about four numbers altogether that’s on that program. You know what numbers they are, you done rehearse with the choir, and that’s it. That’s the program. Every Sunday morning, you got the pamphlet, you know what you’re going to play.
Willie Eason:
But the Pentecostal’s not set up like that. That’s why it’s so hard to play for Pentecostal because you want to start a song over here, [singing]. And then you got to pick up the key over here. That’s hard playing for the Pentecostal. See, but here, you can pick your own keys and everything. You know, that’s what I like about those churches what got the program. You can play in your own key, the one you’re best in. It sounds good. It makes it so easy for you.
Robert Stone:
Let me ask you, after you quit going with Bishop Lockley, did you get married right at… you know, when did you marry Alyce, as far as how did that fit in with Bishop Lockley? Did you marry her and then quit, or had you quit him and then got married?
Willie Eason:
No, no, no. I was still married. I was still married.
Robert Stone:
And working for him?
Willie Eason:
Yeah.
Robert Stone:
Okay.
Robert Stone:
But what was going on? He was feeding the family? In other words, you were married, was she traveling with you?
Willie Eason:
No. This is what happened. You know, I had a tragedy where the car fell on me. You remember?
Robert Stone:
Yeah, right.
Willie Eason:
I had the family trouble.
Robert Stone:
You were married to her already then?
Willie Eason:
I was married to Nelson, Nelson, yeah.
Robert Stone:
All right. When the car fell on you, that was in Ocala?
Willie Eason:
That’s right. I had this problem.
Robert Stone:
And you were still involved with Bishop Lockley at that point?
Willie Eason:
Yeah, I was still involved with-
Robert Stone:
And it was just after that, you told me that story about your car and all that.
Willie Eason:
Yeah, okay.
Robert Stone:
Okay. All right, I got it. But then after that, you still don’t went down to… you told me you’d go down to Florida and you’d play at the labor camps and stuff like that.
Willie Eason:
Yeah, I would do that on my own. So I would get out of the way… I had done left Bishop Lockley then.
Robert Stone:
So that was after you left. You still played in Florida a bunch for a while?
Willie Eason:
Yeah, back in Florida. I’d go up north and I’d play up there. When it got cold-
Robert Stone:
You’d come to Florida.
Willie Eason:
I’d come to Florida.
Robert Stone:
Did you bring her with you?
Willie Eason:
Yes. I was married to her then, when I’d come to Florida.
Robert Stone:
To Jeannette?
Willie Eason:
Yeah.
Robert Stone:
Okay, so that was a little later. That was-
Willie Eason:
Yeah, that was later, yeah.
Robert Stone:
That was 10 years later.
Willie Eason:
Yeah.
Robert Stone:
Okay, all right. Now we’re getting somewhere.
Robert Stone:
So that was like 1950.
Willie Eason:
Yeah. Well, in the ’50s, you get around, yeah.
Robert Stone:
Okay. So that’s later than I thought it was. Okay. Yeah, there was still all that agriculture going on.
Willie Eason:
Yeah.
Robert Stone:
Still is a lot of it, but there was a whole lot back then.
Willie Eason:
Yeah, see, you know the beet pickers.
Robert Stone:
And tomatoes and all.
Willie Eason:
Yeah. See, and where we really hung out at, you know, I know you heard my wife mention about Mother Pearl. We went down, way on the East Coast, close to Miami. Remember I’d tell you I’d go into Miami? But we’re staying in Pompano. Don’t forget, Pompano is only 38 miles from Miami.
Robert Stone:
So with Mother Pearl.
Willie Eason:
Yeah, with Mother Pearl.
Robert Stone:
In Pompano.
Willie Eason:
See, don’t forget, Mother Pearl let us stay there and we didn’t have to pay no rent or nothing like that because a lot of the time I would go out to her mission, to help her out.
Robert Stone:
Right. And serve for free.
Willie Eason:
Yeah, for free.
Robert Stone:
To help her out. What was her name?
Willie Eason:
Mother Pearl, Pearl, Pearl. She would have to tell you her last name. But it may come to me while I’m talking to you.
Willie Eason:
Pearl, Pearl, Pearl.
Robert Stone:
And that was the Keith Church?
Willie Eason:
Huh?
Robert Stone:
That was the Keith Dominion Church?
Willie Eason:
No, she never was under Bishop Keith.
Robert Stone:
She just had her own mission?
Willie Eason:
Yeah. She was more like a, to me, spiritualist. She was like a spiritualist. Something like that. Not like a fortune teller, but she something. Spiritualism and a fortune teller, it’s different.
Robert Stone:
Right.
Willie Eason:
You know, fortune teller come on a psychic, telling a person what is going to happen and all that.
Robert Stone:
But where was her mission?
Willie Eason:
It was right there in Pompano. Mother Pearl. It was right there. And I remember-
Robert Stone:
You remember where in Pompano?
Willie Eason:
No, Jeannette could tell that better than I can. But I know before she had the mission, she would operate out of those projects, out of her little apartment. She’d operate there. She would pray for people. And anoint them with olive oil, pray for them, you know. Like that. So we’d all become friends. She even went with me when the time when I told, if you can carry your mind back, that Mother Pearl went with me up to Deerfield when I played that time, when Lorenzo asked me, said I was his idol, and he may have asked Bishop Jewell to let me play a number for him.
Robert Stone:
In Deerfield?
Willie Eason:
In Deerfield. At Bishop Jewell was holding assembly in Deerfield, and I was on the street playing, and they asked me when I’d come by. But Lorenzo, we was close. Me and his brothers, H.L. And one out of Miami, was all close. But all of them was on the Keith, but Lorenzo wasn’t. Lorenzo went under Bishop Jewell. But the Harrisons are the two brothers. I call them [inaudible 00:38:31] because they were good spokesman. They was good on the Bible and everything. And they very nice guys. Very nice. Very intelligent. I would stay, like, if I went to Knoxville, I stayed at their house. This is how Lorenzo heard. I taught Lorenzo how to play right from Knoxville, out of his brother’s house.
Robert Stone:
H.L.’s house?
Willie Eason:
Yes, in Knoxville. H.L. House.
Robert Stone:
Now Lorenzo was younger than you?
Willie Eason:
Oh, yes. Yes.
Robert Stone:
How much?
Willie Eason:
Oh, a lot younger than me.
Robert Stone:
10 years?
Willie Eason:
Oh, yes, yes. Yes. Maybe even a few years more. Yeah, few years more than that. Yeah.
Robert Stone:
But he finally settled on an eight string guitar, right?
Willie Eason:
Yeah. Oh, he went to a double neck.
Robert Stone:
Yeah, right.
Willie Eason:
Yeah, he went to a double neck. Because they tried to get me. I told you about that time, how fun it was, that they tried to get me to play the double neck. I told them, I said, “Bishop Jewell wanted me to do it, but I said no, I’m not going to let them make me mess up in this audience.” And Bishop Jewell, the [inaudible 00:39:45] all the way to the back, so I told, I said, “Lorenzo, the only way I played.” And guess what I was playing? I had an old amplifier and I had a bullhorn. Did I ever tell you about that?
Robert Stone:
Right, right.
Willie Eason:
And so this is what I was playing on. I used it on the street, this bullhorn.
Robert Stone:
For your voice.
Willie Eason:
Yeah. And so then when I played the guitar over it too, they was hooked to the amplifier. You understand me? They was going to the amp. And the amp was fixed where I could plug into it. See, I know where you could see the… I tell you how old that amp were, it had 6 L6s and a 5Z3. Now you know that amplifier? It had a 5Z3. It had the big tubes in it.
Robert Stone:
What brand was it? Do you remember? Was it a Fender?
Willie Eason:
Mm-mm (negative).
Robert Stone:
No, it was before them.
Willie Eason:
Yeah.
Willie Eason:
That’s around, before Rickenbacker, that’s way back in there. Yeah. I even used the same thing. If I wanted to go in the street, I could throw up two bullhorns up on my car and go through the street to advertise because I was doing promotion, don’t forget. See, I’m trying to carry your mind over there. You’ll see.
Robert Stone:
So you’d put the bullhorns on the roof of your car?
Willie Eason:
Yeah, so I’d just take one of the bullhorns if I’m going to the church. I take the bullhorn and hook up the bullhorn, and play it right there on the program. That’s right. I’d had a mod and speakers and amplifier.
Robert Stone:
Right. They don’t sound real good, those bullhorns.
Willie Eason:
No, no. But the way I would do it, if you heard the way I’d do it and the way I had it sounding, you’d agree. You’d like it. The way I had it rigged up.
Robert Stone:
Now, this bullhorn, you’d talk right into it? Or you would-
Willie Eason:
Well, you see me got the mic set up like you see me on the stage? I got the same setup.
Robert Stone:
Same setup.
Willie Eason:
The only thing I got, for my sound to come out, I got a bullhorn. And all I do is stick the two wires in the two finger tunnel, tighten them, and run that for another while with the jack, right in my amplifier.
Robert Stone:
Okay, yeah, yeah.
Robert Stone:
So what that did, it gave you a bigger speaker than your amplifier has?
Willie Eason:
Yeah, and it gives a driving sound. But what I’d done to keep the sound… like, if I turned it out that way, yeah, it’s going to go a long way. The sound drives. You can hear it for blocks. So what I’d do, if I didn’t want to go so far, I’d take the speaker and turn it… the more I turned it back toward me, I could keep cutting down. See. The sound will only go so far. Because a lot of the time, see, what I used to do, the police used to make me turn it down. It’s got that driving sound.
Robert Stone:
Right. Hear that thing all over the neighborhood.
Willie Eason:
That’s right, that’s right.
Robert Stone:
You can draw more people in that way, who will want to see who it was.
Willie Eason:
That’s right. A lot of them following the music. A lot of them follow that sound. That’s right. They’d be blocks away and follow that sound. That’s right.
Robert Stone:
I’d love to see some more pictures of you in those old days, you know.
Willie Eason:
Only thing I really… one of the thing, [inaudible 00:43:01] devil, that boy, I sure believe. My wife believes it too, because she’s the one hooked a lot of our old pictures, even of the Davis family group. We didn’t have nothing. And come to find out who had been taking our pictures. Her sister in Ocala, been stealing our pictures. Old pictures. That’s right.
Robert Stone:
Think she’s got still them?
Willie Eason:
She ain’t, we don’t know what she got now. We don’t really know what she got now. My wife took a lot of them from her. She got a lot of them. That’s right.
Robert Stone:
And what’s her name? What’s her sister’s name?
Willie Eason:
Her name’s Connie.
Robert Stone:
Still Davis?
Willie Eason:
Well, no, she’s married. But her and her husband are not together. She met a fellow older than me, and she was much younger. She was much younger than my wife, at least six years. Five, six years. Six years at least. But they’re not together. They been separated. All that family, they liked me. See, all of them made… and even when they’ve got a problem to solve or something, I’d be one of the first ones they’d call. “Bill, can you help us out?” Or things like, “Show me how to do this.” Like one day, she’d come all the way to buy them a little house in Ocala, still paying on it, and she told me she had a plumbing problem. I told you I used to do abandoned buildings, you know that?
Robert Stone:
No.
Willie Eason:
Restore abandoned buildings. And so she had this plumbing problem and I took her… and she didn’t know what to do, and I took her and I took a piece of copper pipe, and made a plumber out of her right away. I made her cut the copper pipe. Showed her how to put flux on it, rub it down, put the flux on it, showed her how to split it. Don’t let no water be in that pipe. Not no water. And I’d done it before, and I made her do it before me. She went on. She told me how much the man was going to charge her, close to $200. Around $175. She’d done it herself. That’s right. Saved herself. And I don’t think it cost her no more than about $7, $6 or $7. That’s right. She’s still living to tell you about it. Well, she was up there when I was doing all that, you know, working in Brooklyn. Yeah. And I don’t know, see, I’ve helped that Davis family out and also the Nelson family, that’s why all of them still love me. That’s right. That’s right.
Robert Stone:
Do you remember by any chance what kind of guitar Troman had?
Willie Eason:
Yeah, Electar.
Robert Stone:
It was also a-
Willie Eason:
Electar. If I make no mistake-
Robert Stone:
Was it-
Willie Eason:
At one time, he had… but he didn’t keep them guitars long, like a Gibson and a Rickenbacker, but his most… when he got to a Electar, he stayed with Epiphone. Epiphone is the one that makes, they have-
Robert Stone:
You know, if he started playing in the early ’30s, he must have started on a Rickenbacker too.
Willie Eason:
Had to. See because I-
Robert Stone:
That’s all there was. Or, you know, there wasn’t too much more than that. They were-
Willie Eason:
See, that’s how I can recall these names.
Robert Stone:
Let me ask you, did he ever have one of those frying pan? What they call it? It’s a round… it’s aluminum. Cast aluminum guitar, round, about that big around, with a long neck? Looked like a banjo made out of aluminum. Did he ever have one like that?
Willie Eason:
He started on the same thing I started on. Wood one, where you would raise the string.
Robert Stone:
Yeah, but I mean, I’m talking about his electric guitars.
Willie Eason:
Oh, electric. Well, the electric ones would have to be the Rickenbacker and the Gibson.
Robert Stone:
Yeah, well I was talking about the Rickenbacker. They made the one called the frying pan. It looks something like a banjo, but it was a guitar. Did he ever have any of those made out of Bakelite? You know, that heavy black plastic? Remember that?
Willie Eason:
I can’t remember that.
Robert Stone:
Yeah.
Willie Eason:
I can’t remember that.
Robert Stone:
Maybe some time I’ll show you some pictures of these old guitars in books, and see if you might recognize some of them.
Willie Eason:
Oh okay.
Robert Stone:
I’m just curious.
Willie Eason:
Yeah.
Robert Stone:
But once he got into the Epiphone Electar, that’s what he stuck with?
Willie Eason:
He stayed with it, yeah. He stayed with that. And I stayed with it because I got the sound that I wanted.
Robert Stone:
Did he get one before you?
Willie Eason:
Oh, yes.
Robert Stone:
Yeah, so you kind of saw what he had and you knew it must be a good one.
Willie Eason:
Yeah. I patterned myself.
Robert Stone:
Right, yeah.
Willie Eason:
Because, don’t forget, you get certain sounds. It’s like you’re talking about Rickenbacker, you’re talking about Gibson, Fender, but there’s certain sounds you can’t describe. You’re getting the sound from your E string that you’re not getting, but only you, maybe only you or maybe somebody that play guitar regular can discern what you’re talking about if this happened to them. They’re getting a certain sound that they like, and it appeals to them, and this is what happens to me. I get a certain sound. I’m glad you spoke about those guitar strings, because right away when you told me that, I knew… I said, just, well maybe he got the sound that I’ve heard. And maybe it was the sound that, you know, I’m going to like. But if I can get that sound, you know what I mean, out of that string, then I can do something else. You know, just to play maybe something that I want to play in the way I want to play it.
Robert Stone:
I think I can help you out there.
Willie Eason:
Yes. I had to cater to that sound. If you can make that thing… see, when you look at them people, except for this one, I say. Jeannette. Heard a man. [Singing]. What did you say? Then stop it. And then you said, [singing]. What did you say? [singing] Then I hit it. [singing] You know, like that. But like we both… the guitar is singing, and I’m singing. Like it’s my partner. Once I get it to going like that, then I’m okay- I can look at the public and tell when I got it right.
Robert Stone:
Right, sure.
Robert Stone:
Did Troman ever sit down and show you anything on the guitar?
Willie Eason:
Not Plummer.
Robert Stone:
Troman.
Willie Eason:
Troman, yeah. See he’s the one that showed me about those notes and those numbers. Those numbers.
Robert Stone:
He did or he didn’t?
Willie Eason:
He did.
Robert Stone:
That’s what he wanted to show you.
Willie Eason:
Yeah. And that’s why I could pick it out, you know, because he was slow but- My mother got at him and whatnot, and it looked like he just was reluctant. And either he was just too busy or he always made some excuse. And my mother, all we’d get is that she got him, by my brother Henry, the one I taught, under me. Henry. The one that died. And he was singing all the songs. He even had two songs. Like one song he had, well, we both would use it, but he was the one, I have to give him credit, thought about it, but we both knew the song. A lot of people liked to hear you play that. It’s more like a comedian thing, because the people would get a laugh out of it. [Singing]. You know, things like that.
Robert Stone:
Where did that song come from?
Willie Eason:
Well, we used to do that back… that’s an old song. That’s way back. Back when my grandma… when around I first started playing. So people liked that. They liked the little jolly things like that. You sing one or two of them, before you come on, you got them already jolly. So now you can go with your program, you see. The main thing is to get that congregation, if they’re on your side, you know. But if they there slugging, you know, and you’re just lost down, man. It’s like they’re pulling. It’s like they’re pulling you back. That’s right. But if you can ease that, that’s right, you can tell when they’re free. When they’re free, and they’re going your way, that’s right. You’re going to do what you’re going to do. That’s right. But when they stop pulling, and they drag you, gosh.
Robert Stone:
Did you listen to a lot of records?
Willie Eason:
I listened to quite a few. Quite a few records.
Robert Stone:
Did you have any favorite artists?
Willie Eason:
Favorite artists.
Robert Stone:
Like gospel artists that you’d listen to?
Willie Eason:
More quartets like the Soul Stirrers. The Nightingales. The old groups like Fairfield Four. Golden Gate. Jubalaires. Pilgrim Travelers. Especially Pilgrim Travelers. I used to do a lot of their numbers, like “Mother Bowed and Prayed for Me.” A lot of their numbers they used to do, I used to do.
Robert Stone:
Did your brother, did Troman, listen to any Hawaiian records? Did he have any? Like guys like Sol Hoʻopiʻi or?
Willie Eason:
Well most stuff he listened to, the Hawaiian stuff are, Jack played a lot of Hawaiian stuff because he was terrific on that. I remember see one of the ones, I can really remember that, Blue Hawaii. That’s one. You know, I’ve got a sound of that in my ear that I can play some of it right now if I had to play it. A little bit of Blue Hawaii. But you know, you’ve got to put them harmonics in there and everything. I can’t put all of them harmonics and stuff in there. I can get a couple in there.
Robert Stone:
What else do you remember about Jack? You don’t remember his last name.
Willie Eason:
No.
Robert Stone:
Did he say-
Willie Eason:
Only one person- I’m trying to see who could- that’s living that… living. You know, Plummer can still be living, but I wouldn’t know how to reach Plummer. You know, Plummer lived in around Philly, but.
Robert Stone:
You never happened to remember that accordion player’s name, with the humpback?
Willie Eason:
You know what, I done sit here and thought of the name several times, but it goes and comes.
Robert Stone:
Next time it comes, give me a call or write it down.
Willie Eason:
I’m trying to… you know, as you talk now, I’m still trying to… Loveland.
Robert Stone:
Loveland?
Willie Eason:
Loveland. L-O-V-E-L-A-N-D.
Robert Stone:
Loveland.
Willie Eason:
Loveland. Now you remember that.
Robert Stone:
Can you remember his first name or anything?
Willie Eason:
I’ll probably get his first name, just like I got that one. His name is Loveland, met my sister Earline. She’s a little older than me. I just talked to her about four or a couple of days ago. Now she’d probably remember Loveland. All of us knew each other. So she may know Loveland’s, or what you call him. But I know the Spanish guitar player was Henry, but I can’t figure his last name. I can’t figure his last name. But he could really play a Spanish guitar. Eberhardt, he back around me. He used to be with Bishop Lockley, but he took a liking to me. He went on street with me sometimes.
Robert Stone:
He was the bass player?
Willie Eason:
No, no. He played Spanish guitar. S guitar.
Robert Stone:
Okay.
Willie Eason:
Give me a second. He got that background. Boy, you can really work. I can work, but I can’t work without, you know. I can get by. That’s all I’d be doing, is getting by, but I can work… our sound together, altogether different with that background.
Robert Stone:
Yeah.
Willie Eason:
Sometimes when I get a chance-
Robert Stone:
You see all the rubber alligators on this truck?
Willie Eason:
What’s that?
Robert Stone:
He’s got those rubber alligators on this truck.
Willie Eason:
Oh, oh, oh. Sometimes, if I do have, because I don’t know if I’m going to do it, I got a keyboard at the house and I’m going to get something like a- I got the tape on that. I’ve got an organ with a tape on it and whatnot, and I’ll show you the difference, and I’ll play a couple of songs and show you the difference of how I sound with a background, and you’ll get the chance, of how I play with Bishop Lockley and those other musicians. And if I figure out I can send it, I’ll send it to you.
Robert Stone:
Yeah. All right.
Willie Eason:
I just wish Eberhardt was living.
Robert Stone:
What was Eberhardt first name?
Willie Eason:
Roosevelt.
Robert Stone:
Roosevelt Eberhardt. He was in Philly?
Willie Eason:
Well, he lived in New York. He lived in Brooklyn. I was living in Brooklyn at the time.
Willie Eason:
Because I moved out to New Jersey and I commuted back and forth from Jersey. Because Jersey and New York is right there together.
Robert Stone:
Right.
Willie Eason:
I commuted out of Jersey, back and forth. Plus, we had that barbecue place there, in Brooklyn. [Tape stops].
Robert Stone:
You were 22 years old when you… [Tape stops] …Is that right?
Willie Eason:
Wait a minute. A guy right there, the guy right there in the… last night. He lived in north Philly. I think that’s the same guy that spoke, the one we’re talking about was eating the meatball. It’s one of them guys standing there.
Robert Stone:
Archie Green?
Willie Eason:
One of them guys told us that he lived in north, he even told me the street and all. That’s right. And I told him, he said, “We’re living in Philly and another guy, he lived that way, in Germantown.” That’s right. Sure did. Last night. Sure did.
Robert Stone:
At the university?
Willie Eason:
Yeah. Sure did.
Willie Eason:
But my wife was standing when he told us. Said, “You Philadelphia?” Then he went to name the street and see was I familiar, then I named it back to him. I said, “Around Gerard Avenue, Flora Street and the next street,” said, “I know where that is.” That’s right.
Robert Stone:
How quick did you pay that house off?
Willie Eason:
I think I kept it for about close to eight years, seven years.
Robert Stone:
Did you get it paid off?
Willie Eason:
Oh, yes. Oh, yeah. I built my credit from the streets.
Robert Stone:
That’s incredible.
Willie Eason:
When I found out that the money was out there, see, you can get paid for your time. You know, and here I am playing for Bishop Lockley. Sometimes he may ask us, he’ll say, pull up to a filling station, fill up. “You want a soda?” Because here he was going to give me a soda. I get this sounds so fictitious. That sounds like almost a lot of lies.
Robert Stone:
Yeah, no, but I can see it.
Willie Eason:
Sound like a lie, but it’s the truth. Yeah.
Robert Stone:
Pretty close to slavery, isn’t it?
Willie Eason:
That’s what it was, that’s right. Everything I said, I wish the best for all these young musicians that’s coming along, but a lot of them woke up. They done woke up. A lot of them woke up. That’s right. I said, you’re going to be able to do all that, and I noticed the church is not prospering, so they need that music. A lot of the churches are not prospering like they used to. They used to fool you like that, you know, like the devil’s going to get you and you’re not living right. You know, you’re going to hell. They used to just scare you and frighten you, but they can’t do that to me now. Once I found that secret, I said, “No, no, no.” I have to be able to take care of my family, build a halfway decent. And so.
Robert Stone:
And you just parleyed all your money into these other department buildings.
Willie Eason:
That’s right.
Willie Eason:
I got a chance to help my family in Georgia, take the mobile homes and go- I started to buy… what you call that thing… A van. Not a van. I bought a couple of vans, but this was a… they call it the motor home. And that way, you know, we can travel, go to the trailer parks, most of them. They got fishing areas. They got bowling and all of this, you know. Had a lot of them, and some of them you could even fish at them. When I enjoy something- If I ate lobster, they ate lobster, that’s the way it was. You know, if I ate- But any kind of a delicacy, if I stayed in the Hilton, they stayed in the Hilton. That’s the way it was-
Robert Stone:
They, your family, you mean.
Willie Eason:
That’s right.
Robert Stone:
Well, we’re getting close to Valdosta.
Willie Eason:
Yeah.
Willie Eason:
Sometimes I can sit and shake my head and smile, look back over those times.