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COPYRIGHT 2003 Center For Black Music Research
in a jook joint on no map but the map of memory the private possession of a few and one of them ... sometimes asks where was that? somewhere back in the woods ...--davenport (1991, 26)
In Los Angeles, in 1982, I was invited to hear a white women's jazz band. I was reticent about going mainly because of my musical background. That is, I grew up in northeast Georgia at a time and in an environment where serious music and dancing were valued, daily activities. Before I was ten years old, I had heard (on vinyl) Eddie Harris, Dave Brubeck, Ketty Lester, Mahalia Jackson, Roy Hamilton, Jimmy Reed, and others. However, trusting my friends Jean and Bella, I went, reluctantly, and heard the band Alive! The group was excellent; the singer, Rhiannon, was incredibly powerful, and I had (to understate) a most wonderful experience. Rhiannon's performance of "Wild Women Don't Get the Blues" was so compelling that I went to hear the group a second time.
The next night, I was totally thrilled when Rhiannon sang, pointing at me, "Wild Women ... like doris--are the only ones / who will learn how to fly!" As soon as possible, I got their album and learned that Ida Cox wrote "Wild Women," but it was twenty years before I learned that my "theme song" was written, performed, and recorded by Ida Cox in 1924, that Ida Prather Cox (1896-1967) was from Toccoa, Georgia, sixteen miles north of Cornelia, my hometown, that Cox and I are working-class "Affrilachians," (1) and that Cox and I are both poets.
Ida Cox was a major songwriter, a song stylist, and an important creator during the black women's blues era (the 1920-30s). (2) She recorded at least eighty-seven songs for Paramount between 1923 and 1929 and another eleven for Vocalion and Okeh in 1939 and 1940, and she was titled, in Paramount's publicity, the "Uncrowned Queen of the Blues" (Santelli 1993, 105). Each of the classic era blues singers has some justifiable claim to fame and blues royalty, but Ida Cox is unique in that she wrote "almost 100 songs in her lifetime" (Reitz 1981). (3) That, alone, is an impressive achievement. As a contemporary of Sippie Wallace, Ma Rainey, Bessie Smith, and others, Cox is mentioned in several blues studies, (4) but I found no major book or articles solely dedicated to her life and work. (5) I do have a collection of five compact discs of songs recorded by Ida Cox between 1923 and 1940 with liner notes and lyrics to most of the songs (Cowley 1999). Also, in my vinyl archives, I discovered a reissued Ida Cox album,f' Lacking secondary sources, I immersed myself in these "primary" materials, the sound and textures of Ida Cox's voice, the inventiveness of her lyrics.
Listening to the first disc, I was initially overwhelmed. The songs were redundant, predictable variations on heterosexual relationships, on loving well or poorly; being treated well or badly; leaving or staying; good luck, bad luck; two-timing men and back-stabbing women; death, retaliation (including death); moving on, staying, coming back--and all of it all over again and again. I was appalled--what could I say about any of this? Plus, since my ears (and sensitivities) are tuned to the smooth sound of contemporary recordings, I had trouble even paying attention. I was at first completely bored. Then, suddenly, I was totally attentive, and the same elements that I thought redundant became intriguing. Enlightenment, revelation, enjoyment, and engagement followed. Each time I replayed a song, I heard something delightful and pleasing and found something else to say about Ida Cox's music.
This article's purpose is to celebrate, acknowledge, honor, and I hope, illuminate the artistry of Ida P. Cox. The title, "a candle," refers to my ritual of lighting votive candles to honor people and events (Jimi Hendrix, Nina Simone, full moon, winter solstice, payday). This article is a "candle" of appreciation, analysis, and description of Cox as a singer-lyricist-poet. When possible, I have concentrated on songs that Cox wrote. When that is not possible (or clearly discernible), my focus is her styling--her choice and presentation of the songs.
On Document's five-compact disc collection, most of the songs are rerecorded, but not "digitally remastered" (volumes 1-4), so the sound is tinny, with audible, distracting scratches and other imperfections. Despite this, the music still sounds good. On most of the songs recorded between 1923 and 1927,...
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