Jimmie Lee Robinson <Fax# 773-778-1478> Date: Mon, 28 Apr 1997
Amina Records, Jimmie Lee Robinson Music; P.O. Box 368139; Chicago, Il 60636
Inspired by the Million Man March, Jimmie Lee Robinson (also known as The Lonely Traveller) wrote and produced a blues CD, Guns, Gangs and Drugs which is available from Amina Records (see above). That CD contains Maxwell Street Memories #1 and #2 which are songs containing the names of many of Maxwell Street's important, but not-so-famous, musicians.
Dear Chancellor Broski:
I was born and raised in Jewtown which is Maxwell Street. It was a shopping center and an amusement center. It was a religious center, Moorish Americans, Garveyites, and Christians and the Reds also rallied there. I saw a guy with no arms who picked up money with his feet, and do other things there with. Also glass eaters, all kinds of people, doing so many things. One of the most important men on Maxwell Street was the Chickenman who danced with a chicken and the chicken was trained to do many things. And I will never forget old Isity the Prophet, Deroy Turner; he had a storefront there on Maxwell Street.
Also, there was a theater on Halsted near Maxwell Street named the Earvin Theater, next door was Levett, and on the corner was the famous hot dog stand. When I was a kid the cost of a hot dog was 5 and 10 cent. We had the horse stable, the pickle co. on Washburn in the 1000 block and the horse stable on 13 Street, also in the 1000 block. We also had a broom factory there, and don't forget South Water Market and the 12 Street Store on Roosevelt & Halsted, southeast corner.
In the 1930s I seen musicians not like these of today - a tub with a rope and a broom stick for a bass, also a brown jug for a bass; also they played flutes and banjos, washboards, mandolins. Far as I can remember, Daddy Stove Pipe was there, walking and playing through the west side communities in the thirties.
Maxwell Street should not be totally destroyed but a memory of the past. Surely we can learn from the past.
The new guys that played in the 1940's, Moody Jones, Fats the banjo picker, one leg Sam my uncle, Ed Newman, Floyd Jones. Later came Snookie Pryor, John Henry, Little Walter, Uncle Johnny Williams, Johnny Young, Earl Hooker - we call him Zabbie Lee in those days - the names I can remember of the Stove Pipe band: Stove Pipe, Washboard Sam from the old days, Tommie the Trumpet player, also he had violin player - some time Ed Newman would play with them. Ed Newman was one of the greatest of the bass players in those days. We build the road for the blues in Chicago before they came, Muddy Water, Howling Wolf and all the rest. Those of us who are yet left are from yesterday to today and into tomorrow. We are of the past. I was around with them all, and played with most of them all, and was master in my day. Yas they came when the time was ripe. And many of those before have become the lost American bluesmen.
They started from the middle and went to the top, and tumble down. They have taken the blues to total chance. What was yesterday is no more. Not by might nor by power - but by my spirit said the Lord of Host. For might and power is only selfishness, and cannot win.
We pray that you preserve Maxwell Street. Hopefully that there will arise a new Maxwell Street. These were the pioneers of the blues. They never got credit for what they created. Please save Maxwell Street so their story can be told - so they can be remembered.
Sincerely,
The Legend, Jimmie Lee Robinson
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