Table of contents:

❂ A Memory That Doesn't Want To Hold Anything Captive: An Interview With Johnny Coley

❂ Five Questions With The Sweet Whisper Band

❂ Events in New York, Portland, and beyond…

Hi everyone,

Today, in our tradition of celebrating our overlooked elders, we check in with 74-year-old Birmingham, Alabama icon Johnny Coley. His improvised poems - funny, wild, surreal visions from the depths of the American psyche - form the centerpiece of his Mississippi Records debut, Mr. Sweet Whisper. It comes out November 15, and you can hear some of it here.

A drawling, gravely voice, bitter humor, an outsider’s refusal to bullshit. A queer artist who contends with his own family’s complicit history with slavery, Johnny lives on the periphery while impossibly and bitterly tied to the center. Personal, specific, nuanced, self-deprecating, and real, it’s a refreshing voice right now, as the most vulgar, amnesiac, and dangerous parts of American mass culture run amuck.

On the subject of musical elders who keep our spirits high in the worst times - the greatest of them are on the road right now. Check out Michael Hurley at the Brooklyn Folk Festival, where Thomas Feng will also present his beautiful interpretations of the piano of Emahoy Tsege Mariam Gebru. In Portland, you can catch the Sun Ra Arkestra, Ural Thomas, and Toody Cole in short succession. Finally, label founder and elder-even-when-he-was-a-kid Eric Isaacson is on the road with a sprawling new lecture / presentation called A PEOPLES’ HISTORY OF AMERICAN MUSIC. NOT TO BE MISSED!! Check the events section at the bottom of this email for all the dates and tickets. 

Ural Thomas plays his 85th Birthday show in Portland December 21.

We’re cranking out tapes and revamping our CSR (community supported records club), so we’ll have a bunch of new stuff for the next newsletter and holiday gifts. For the time being, thanks for your love and support.

Don’t let the bastards get you down. 

Cyrus + Mississippi Records 

PS. Our Johnny Coley project would not be possible without our co-release label and friends at SWEET WREATH, an inspiring group of prolific youngsters from Birmingham who mine Sun Ra’s birthplace for all its weirdness, and who have been uplifting Johnny’s voice for years. You can meet some of them in an interview with our own Maria Barrios, below…

PPS. We’re hosting a listening party for the record on Bandcamp on Nov 13 and 12pm EST. Listen to the whole record and chat with Johnny and the band about their work. RSVP HERE.

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Johnny Coley - Mister Sweet Whisper
LISTEN/PRE ORDER

María Barrios: Johnny, I wanted to ask if you were born and raised in Alabama and if you can tell us about growing up there.

Johnny Coley: I was born in Alexander City, Alabama, which was then a town of about 20,000 people. My great-grandfather had a big cotton farm worked by enslaved African Americans. Because of the Civil War, he was kind of wiped out, but because he was a ferocious capitalist, he made another large amount of money.

My great-grandfather had set it up where my grandfather would have a drugstore and his brother would be a doctor. So what happened was the brother who was supposed to be a doctor, left Alabama, and so my grandfather did not end up in such a profitable situation. Then his wife and his four children died from the flu. So his wife and children died and the drugstore burned down, and so there he was, no family, no drugstore. He remarried, and he rebuilt his drugstore. I know this is a whole lot of detail, but it seems important to me somehow.

So my father, who was born in 1914, came into being in a situation that was kind of affected by chance, and I would not be here—in the same way, at least—if there hadn't been the flu and if there hadn't been the fire, you know?  So I am from Alabama. How many letters are there in Alabama? Seven letters—four of those letters should be Black people. You know what I mean? Alabama is something that happens coming out of white supremacy, this whole situation between Black and white people, which was not chosen by Black people.

MB: In previous conversations, you mentioned going to school abroad for some time…

JC: Yes. I went to school in France for a year in 1968 which you know, was the year to be there. I was sitting on the steps of the house of the French family I lived with, and the students marched by chanting, and I just kind of got up and joined. I was marching along because I was opposed to the war in Vietnam. But when we got to the university, they had occupied these buildings, and I stayed there for a while—except I couldn't understand what they were saying. It was that kind of Marxist special language, and my French was terrible. One thing I did was I bought a huge amount of paperbacks of French classics and mailed them back here. So for years, I had all these French classic paperbacks lining my walls.

MB: Were you already writing at that time?

JC: I think it was around then that I was interested in writing. One reason I went to that school in France was because I felt very isolated. We moved from Nashville to Birmingham, and I started in a new school in the 10th grade. I did not adapt well. I hated it. I felt isolated, and so as soon as I could, I got out by going to France. I went there to escape this high school.

MB: You said that your grandfather, or your family, had very traditional ideas of who their sons were supposed to be. Did they have that line of thinking for you too?

JC: Well, my father was a professor and then head of the Humanities Department at the University of Alabama in Birmingham. He was very academic and very embedded in academia, and he, I'm sure, thought “I have a smart son, and he could be an academic,” but I didn’t do that. I didn’t do anything. I didn’t want to do anything and at a certain point, I was hospitalized for depression in a clinic in Birmingham and given electroshock therapy. That was a hugely shaping experience for me. To this day, I'm afraid of doctors. I have what I call medical trauma.

From that, the only job I had that kind of worked out for me was mowing lawns. I did that for the father of a friend of mine, a young guy—younger than me—who I was in love with. He was not in love with me, but he was unbothered by me being in love with him. Are you familiar with that kind of situation?

MB: Yes.

JC: So I mowed lawns and worked for that little company for several years. I just never had, in my whole life, a normal, secure, economic being. I had never known where my next meal was coming from, except that I was the child of the bourgeoisie. My parents would get me a meal, but in terms of being able to produce myself, I never had that.

Then, I lived in Tuscaloosa, which is a small town in Alabama. There, I started working at the Department of Pensions and Securities, the welfare department. I was a home health worker, and I would go to the houses of recipients of government aid and clean them up, clean the place up, and go and get groceries for them. I did that for 10 years, and it was very good for me—to lose that bourgeoise place.

After that, I came back to Birmingham from Tuscaloosa. I'm trying to think… I don't have a great memory. I never did, but now that I'm 74 it's even, what would you call it? It's a memory that doesn't want to hold anything captive. It wants everything to go free. So I don't remember when exactly, but I ended up working part-time at the library here. That was my last job before not being physically able to work anymore.

MB: Are there any poetry books that shaped your practice or that you kept close through the years?

JC: One of the first poetry books I bought was Some Trees by John Ashbery. I also love this French poet, Paul Éluard, who was a surrealist and involved with André Breton in Dada stuff.

Even after other writers left, Éluard remained a serious functioning member of the French Communist Party until 1956. I would say he's probably my favorite poet, and he was very important in the resistance to the Nazis in Paris. He took messages from one resistance group to another, and to do that, he rode public transportation.

I think I'm a little bit… I might start to cry. I'm moved by what I'm talking about. But almost everything we've talked about kind of makes me cry, so don't pay any attention to that. I'm actually cold as steel.

But those poems by Éluard, I like them because they're very straightforward, and he really seems to be doing what he says he wants to do, which is talking about people as very strong and able to create a world that supports human life. It doesn't divide it up and sell it like capitalism does, and so he's my favorite poet.

MB: I think your voice in Mister Sweet Whisper feels very free-flowing—it just sort of takes you. I find a parallel in what you said, about your memory not wanting to hold anything captive. I notice that in your songs, too. How do you get there?

JC: I guess I've always felt that good writing just kind of carries you along, and that it doesn't necessarily tell you to sit in seat 43 A and look to your right and see Philadelphia. It just kind of carries you along. You can be in your own little boat,  and it just kind of carries you along.

I was also very influenced by people who got together in Tuscaloosa and considered themselves, at a certain point, surrealist. And they did events. I remember once going to a house that some of them lived in in Tuscaloosa. It was just full of people making noise, just hitting on the wall… That was a very influential thing to me. I’ll tell you something that means a lot to me. There’s an Italian writer. Giorgio…

MB: …Agamben.

JC: Giorgio Agamben. Oh God. I love him, I absolutely love him. If he was anywhere nearby, I would hug him. He would hate that… You could just kind of see him go “You're American.”

One thing he says is that poetry is language displayed simply as language. In other words, it's language that you could look at. You don't have to worry and go, is this a sentence? It's not like that. It's like listening to a saxophone… That's my feeling now about poetry, and it comes from this small Italian man who, if he gets wind of the fact that I want to hug him, he's going to hide.

MB: You mentioned political activism and friends who were in political groups, and you said you sort of rode along. What made you not participate more actively? What did and didn’t you enjoy from being around those people?

JC: I just came across people who seem to me to be extraordinary people who were full-on political people in a way that I wasn't. I think that one thing that held me back was this sort of genteel sense of how you behave.

I'll never forget I was involved with a guy named Steve Whitman, who's dead now, who to me, was an amazing person. At his memorial, his stepdaughter said, “My dad was a communist revolutionary who knew how to get things done in this world.” I think he was actually like that. I don't know how I became friends with him, but he was from Brooklyn and he was in Alabama teaching at the University of Alabama in Birmingham. He saw anti-racism, and anti-white supremacy, as being the most important thing white people could do politically. In terms of anti-white supremacy, and anti-racism, he saw prison work as being the most important thing. A lot of people see that now, but this was a long time ago. Not everybody saw things like that, and he did.

So one of the biggest prisons in Alabama was in Atmore, Alabama, which is very far to the south. Very, very, very far, down to the bottom of Alabama. Steve had an old Volkswagen, and he would go down there a lot, and I would ride with him. Well, this was not anything for him to have company on this six-hour ride through Alabama as someone from Brooklyn, you know?

I never minded something like being part of a picket line or anything like that. I just did not want to be involved in day-to-day organizing and meetings. I think I had probably an exaggeratedly negative picture of meetings.

MB: We talked about, politics, writing, and poets. When does music intersect, or what music do you appreciate?

JC: I remember in the 70s, the president of France said that music was an anesthetic for people now. I think that's kind of true. If you just had a little bit too much you put on, say, Bach, and there's this beautiful thing in the air, and it's it helps you, it refreshes and protects your mind to a certain degree.

It's funny, Jasper [Lee, who plays in The Sweet Whisper Band] and people like him, they can just pick up any instrument and just make sense with it. Well, I didn't have that feeling, because I grew up in a world where you took piano lessons, or you took cello and you learned how to play that instrument, and I could never play any instrument. 

I think playing a musical instrument is a very sophisticated mind-body thing. And my mind-body thing is, my mind is this person who's in a car driving into Chicago, and my body is in Baton Rouge, and the connection may be totally lost. 

I had forgotten about him, but I love Otis Redding. I can remember hearing “Try A Little Tenderness” on the radio in my bed, going to sleep at night, when I was a child. I don't know if you're familiar with that song, but it's so beautiful. Then The Tams, they were a band made up of men who sang in bars near Charleston, South Carolina. I found out about them because they had an album called Presenting The Tams, which I just loved. You should listen to it online. It's just wonderful.

MB: I probably took this from another music writer but, to close the interview, I want to ask what makes you happy.

JC: I think pot makes me happy. Or pot makes me available to happiness. You know what I mean? If I smoke pot, then I'm in the room where the ice cream of happiness is being served.

I would say landscape makes me happy. Rural, farm, field, trees landscape makes me happy. Finding out about some kind of left-wing victory makes me happy, and being with my family makes me happy, and my old friends a lot—it just so happens that a lot of the people I was closest to are dead, so being with the people I can still be with makes me happy.

I've enjoyed talking to you all. I don't know if I would say it's just made me ecstatic, but I have enjoyed it, and I feel like you guys like me and find me funny, and that kind of makes me happy. So thank you. 

Mister Sweet Whisper is available to pre-order via the Mississippi website and our Bandcamp page. To celebrate the album’s release, Johnny will be online for a Bandcamp listening party on Wednesday, November 13th, at noon EST. RSVP here.

(All artwork courtesy of the artist)

(Johnny Coley & The Sweet Whisper Band)


Maria Barrios: What brought you all together for Mister Sweet Whisper?

Joel Nelson [guitar]: [We] started as a drawing board for musical ideas back in 2018. It was kind of a house band for [record label] Sweet Wreath that could go in any direction. We have tried ideas that range from asking the question “What kind of music would the characters from Harmony Korine’s Trash Humpers make” to taking influences from the Bay Area grindcore scene and mixing that with what we have coined “Nightmare Jazz”. The Mister Sweet Whisper record came about on a single fall day in October. We recorded the music at Sweet Wreath headquarters and then recorded Johnny’s spoken word at his apartment. 

MB: What do you like about working with Johnny?

JN: The best thing about Johnny is that he is really listening. When we start playing he always waits and takes in what the band is playing before saying a word. It is inspiring to hear Johnny translate our sounds into his language. He has a way of bringing you into a world and pushing the music into new and unexpected places. 

James Elliot [drums]: I just love hearing him speak. His unique Southern accent, the cadence of his delivery. His voice is so captivating and hypnotic…it’s really like another instrument in the ensemble.

Jacquie Cotillard [saxophone]: Johnny has an indelible talent for deep listening. He waits, he can lurk in words while staying in place. It’s the kind of waiting chronic pain brings, a creative spring that bubbles from underground. It’s a sardonic empathy that is so piercing and warm, totally surprising, and just as you find it. In a local record store, I flipped to random pages of his new novel Huron, and every word was unmistakably Johnny’s. It’s not style. Like deep writers, he sees.

MB: Can you tell me about your experiences playing shows with Johnny?

JN: My experience playing with Johnny live is like a frenzied call and response. We constantly inform each other about how the moment will take shape. The music informs the lyrics and the lyrics in turn inform the music as the improvisation grows into something beyond what I intended. It's like falling into a dream that you can have influence over but it constantly shifts, forcing you to adapt.

Jasper Lee [vibraphone]: I think people respond quickly to Johnny’s sense of humor and feel drawn in and comfortable enough to laugh or say things back to him during the show. It’s a conversational type of atmosphere like being at a house party, regardless of where the show is taking place. But then he’ll describe something so simple and beautiful that people start to cry… it’s a very honest and humble way of speaking he has. That’s the gift of playing music with someone who’s older and has such a deeply tuned awareness and perspective.

JC: He has an effect somewhere between character actor and archetype. That voice speaks to something moving in a surreptitious lived history, something that has long been here. I like the emphasis by Jasper and Joel and Johnny on the “Southern” aspect of the work. Some folks get expectations about a voice like his, and they are all parried by the turns he takes, and who he is as a person. Spellbinding.

MB: Do you have any anecdotes from the Mister Sweet Whisper recording session you’d like to share with us?

JL: [The track] “That Knock On The Door.” When we were recording the words for this in Johnny’s apartment, I asked Johnny to start whispering toward the ending. Johnny got very focused and started speaking in the lowest, most mysterious way I’d ever heard him before—emotionally vulnerable but somehow also vaguely threatening. It was just after dusk, and everything getting darker and so completely still. Earlier in the track Johnny had said something about “that knock on the door”, and now we were toward the end of the music…he was still speaking and the anticipation in the air was just palpable. And then I swear to god, the most terrifying thing happened. Right in the middle of Johnny whispering these spooky, erotic, interior thoughts, someone knocks loudly on the door! And opens it and walks in! I shook, I was so startled by the knock on the door. It was his cousin, James, walking in smiling and saying “Hello!” I couldn’t believe the psychic force of the whole experience…Johnny predicting a knock which happened just moments later. It was really funny too….his cousin walking in on this incredibly weird thing of Johnny whispering to himself, and both he and I just sitting there with our eyes closed. Totally shaken out of our trance and looking confused while James is smiling as if to say “What the hell is going on y’all?!”

Mister Sweet Whisper is out on November 15th, 2024. The album’s release celebration, presented by Mississippi Records and Sweet Wreath, will take place on Sunday, December 22, 2024, at Saturn (200 41st St S, Birmingham, AL 35222). Doors 7 pm, music starts at 8 pm. The show will feature performances by Johnny Coley, Worst Spills, Mother Harmony, and Flusnoix. The LP will be available for purchase at the show.

MICHAEL HURLEY
HEADLINES THE BROOKLYN FOLK FESTIVAL

Sunday, November 10th, Main Stage
St. Ann's Church
157 Montague Street
TICKETS

Our dear friends at the Brooklyn Folk Festival have done the east coast a favor by bringing out Michael Hurley to wrap up the event. He’ll perform on Sunday, November 10, at the gorgeous St. Ann's Church.

That’s not the only Mississippi-related news at the BK Folk Fest. Mississippi Records shop owner and former label boss Eric Isaacson will be presenting his latest kaleidoscopic slideshow / lecture, one several years in the works. Check him out on his mini-tour, below. Not to be missed!!!

THOMAS FENG
AT THE BROOKLYN FOLK FESTIVAL

Sunday, November 10, 2024
9:00 PM 10:00 PM
St. Ann and the Holy Trinity Church (map)

Pianist and composer Thomas Feng will be playing music by Emahoy Tsege-Mariam Gebru on the closing night of the Brooklyn Folk Festival. Full schedule here; tickets here.

A PEOPLE’S HISTORY OF AMERICAN MUSIC
Watch a mini trailer here

A new lecture/film/slideshow that attempts to tell the entire history of North American music in ninety minutes! Mississippi Records label and store founder Eric Isaacson will guide you through this whirlwind presentation of archival film, sound clips, and images.

Subjects include:
- Examples of industrialization devolving the human race to become dumber while other animals are getting smarter.
- The insane early American Puritan's visions of a utopian musicless society.
- How The Church Of Scientology saved the record industry.
- A brief history of Mississippi Records and details about the many chips on their shoulders.
- The dystopian world of Spotify and AI music.
- Hopeful messages about the future.

Overall, it's the story of how the powers that be try to control music and people throughout history finding ways to work outside puritans, corporations, and tech lords' systems despite these social engineers' best efforts. Don't worry, it's a fun telling of this tale with lots of great music, images, and wild stories.

TICKETS AND SCHEDULE BELOW:

11/4 - Richman, Virginia - https://www.studiotwothree.org/event-tickets/p/a-peoples-history-of-american-music
11/6 - Philadelphia, PA - Brickbat Books - https://brickbatbooks.blogspot.com/
11/7 - Baltimore, MD - True Vine (TBA)
11/10 - Brooklyn, NY - Brooklyn FolkFestival - https://www.viewcy.com/o/thebrooklynfolkfe
11/13 - Portland, ME - Washington Baths  https://washingtonbaths.com/
11/14 - Providence. RI - Lost Bag -https://www.instagram.com/lostbagspace
11/15 - New London, CT - Telegraph Autonomous Zone (TBA)
11/16 - Keene, NH - Nova Arts -https://www.novaarts.org/events/peopleshistory
12/5 - Eugene, OR - Wandering Goat - https://wanderinggoat.com/
12/6 - Sacramento, CA - Beers Books - https://bookshop.org/shop/beersbooks
12/7 - Joshua Tree, CA - Yucca Valley Materials Center - https://www.yuccavalleymaterial.org/
12/8 - Los Angeles, CA - Zebulon - https://link.dice.fm/Peoples-History-of-North-American-Music-Dec-8
12/ 10 - Santa Cruz, CA - Indexical - https://www.indexical.org/
12 /11 - Oakland, CA - Grand Opening
12/12 - San Francisco, CA - 4 Star Theatre - https://www.4-star-movies.com/calendar
12/13 - Bolinas, CA - Bolinas Hardware - https://www.bolinashardware.com/
12/14 - Fort Bragg, CA - Larry Springs Museum - https://larryspringmuseum.org/

MISSISSIPPI RECORDS LIVE SET AT EAST VILLAGE RADIO
WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 20TH
2 - 4 PM

Tune in to the glorious East Village Radio to hear a live set of weird 7”s we’ve found, unreleased music, and gems from the Mississippi catalog. To listen, click here.

THE SUN RA ARKESTRA
November 19th, 20th and 21st
Hollywood Theatre (Portland, OR)
TICKETS NOW AVAILABLE

A very special three nights that should not be missed at any cost!

Night #1 - Slumming it on Park Avenue

Night #2 - Fate In a Pleasant Mood

Night #3 - We Travel The Spaceways.

I know we at Mississippi Records tend towards the hyperbole when trying to encourage you to come out for a show, but it's out of a place of love for you. I know it's easier to stay home. I know moneys tight—but this is The Sun Ra Arkestra! A band that's been honing its craft for 70 years. Real master musicians playing the real stuff. I just don't know what else to tell you at this point about the Arkestra to convince you that this is important. Trust me. Please. You won't regret it. And - they're doing three distinct sets of music over the course of three nights. Is it a lot? Yes. Should you go all three nights? Yes. That's my opinion, and it's true. 

20 YEARS IN THE CRYPT
EMBEDDED ON TOUR WITH DEAD MOON
November 25th, Hollywood Theatre (Portland, OR)

WORLD PREMIERE OF A NEW DEAD MOON PERFORMANCE DOC!

FILMMAKER JASON AXEL SUMMERS AND TOODY COLE IN ATTENDANCE!

In 2001 filmmakers Jason Axel Summers and Kate Fix teamed up with Dead Moon to film the documentary Unknown Passage - The Dead Moon Story. The filmmakers were welcomed into the world of the band as if members of their family.  Jason and Kate shot 180 hours of film and all of it except what was used for the Unknown Passage documentary remained in the can....until now!

This new film revisits the performances that Jason & Kate captured on tour with Dead Moon, most of it never presented to the world. We'll also see fun and interesting footage of a less formal nature, just hanging out and traveling with the band. This film is meant to be a window back in time for fans of Dead Moon, new and old.

Don't miss this chance to see Dead Moon footage on the big screen with great sound. Toody Cole and director of the film Jason Axel Summers will be doing a Q&A afterward! Ticket sales will be announced soon.

URAL THOMAS 85TH BIRTHDAY CELEBRATION 

December 21st

Revolution Hall

TICKETS HERE

An argument could be made that Ural Thomas is the coolest person ever to make Portland his home. He's been playing DIY music here for 71 years. He invented the tearaway outfit, the backwards outfit and the human hair outfit. He's been nothing but kind and generous to everyone he comes into contact with. This is THE MAN. 

It's Ural's 85th Birthday on December 21st, so a major show is in order. He and his band the Pain will be playing, along with others. Surprises will happen and good vibrations will be spread. Come celebrate the birthday of a living Soul music legend.