Let’s be transparent because Andrew McClelland, known as Li’l Andy, is. Hezekiah Fortescue Procter never existed, it was Li’l Andy who invented him, who tells his story and embodies him. It is Li’l Andy and his band who interpret and play his songs, almost all written and composed by Li’l Andy himself, in the style of the times. That said, if Li’l Andy had wanted to do it to us, we would have every reason to believe that a great pioneer of American popular music was miraculously extricated from limbo.
“I thought about it,” smiles Li’l Andy at home. Go after a hoax ? It would no doubt have held up, at a time when truth and falsehood are just a click away on the Internet. No one would have suspected such research work — I spent almost 10 years on it! — with the footnotes and a whole absolutely truthful context, no more than the recordings made with the technology of the time. But it seemed to me more interesting to clearly display my approach. It becomes a commentary on the era, that of today and that of then, we measure what is credible in relation to what is verifiable.
Hezekiah Procter in turmoil
Everything is true in the Li’l Andy novel that accompanies the album, including the incredible story of the 1929 workers’ uprising at the Loray Mills mill in Gastonia, North Carolina, the one and only specifically communist strike, suppressed in the blood. Li’l Andy brings the Procter family into it. “Let a Hezekiah take on the role of engaged troubadour, after having sung the Roebuck catalog and the virtues of the automobile [Get Behind the Wheel of an Auto-Mobile !] nothing extraordinary. Even a diehard Woody Guthrie trumpeted for the government the great progress that the Hoover Dam represented. You had to earn a living.
Contrary to the impression one has when looking Jazz WhereCountry, Ken Burns’ documentaries on American music, not everything has been said, shown, heard. There is no definitive story. There are common threads in many stories, that’s all.
In truth, Hezekiah have existed everywhere. There are many musicians who have carried around their little happiness and gone through many misfortunes, with a few fashionable songs and some of their own as baggage, a guitar, a banjo, a violin, an accordion slung over their shoulders, in the ” medicine shows and other forms of popular amenity across America in the 1910s-1920s. Some even had the opportunity, such as Procter, to immortalize a handful of tunes, refrains, hymns, even blues, ragtime: this was done at the discretion of itinerant gleaners of new talents, sent by the industry newcomer to the record with their makeshift equipment, starting with the ” wire recorder “, small device whose prospectus praised the” electronic memory “.
composite portrait
Thus we get The Complete Recordings of Hezekiah Procter (1925-1930)), or all of the “rediscovered” recordings of this great forgotten artist: 18 titles on steel wire. A bit of everything: religious and secular, joyful and protesting, melancholy and… advertising. The 128 pages of the documentary novel are as exciting as those, official and celebrated, devoted in other works to Jimmie Rodgers, Robert Johnson or Hank Williams. And no less true, we see. “Contrary to the impression one has when looking Jazz WhereCountry, Ken Burns’ documentaries on American music, not everything has been said, shown, heard. There is no definitive story. There are common threads in many stories, that’s all. »
His Hezekiah is in this an archetype, or better, a crossroads of destinies. “In all these stories, there are collections of 78s that resurface and reveal recordings and artists that we didn’t know existed. There is almost always a disease in the narrative thread, which justifies the fact that a poor musician makes songs because he cannot do anything else. There is almost always a passage through the church. There is invariably the moment when a certain success leads to the exploitation of the artist by the recording industry and by the promoters. There is almost always a tragic ending, or a moment when you lose track of the artist. It’s the investigative side that comes back. So there are only four “photos” of Procter, almost as rare as the three of Robert Johnson. Photographer Paul Elter has created real ” tintypes », unique photos on metal, to transform Li’l Andy into Hezekiah.
To all forgotten musicians…
None of this would interest us for long if the songs weren’t so perfectly done: we want to learn more because the tunes really seem to spring from the past. The box set also provides analogue versions, on magnetic tape, in stereo. We can compare, for fun, and then go on the road with “beautiful” sound. ” The wire recordings aren’t made for the ride…” readily agrees Li’l Andy. “I did all of this to get out of myself, and it also allowed me to experience the pandemic without realizing it too much: I was Hezekiah Procter, I was elsewhere. To realize that the fate of the artist has not changed so much. This is why the novel is dedicated “to all the forgotten musicians, of yesterday and tomorrow”. Him included.