HAYES McMULLAN

               

This track is from Hayes McMullan's album 'Everyday Seem Like Murder Here' by Hayes McMullan, reissued by Light In The Attic Records and available here: http://bit.ly/2gbSkH5. 

Bluesman. Sharecropper. Church deacon. Civil Rights activist. Hayes McMullan should be a name on every Blues aficionados’ short-list and thanks to the preservation fieldwork carried out by one of the genre’s greatest researchers some 50 years ago – it might soon be.

Born in 1902, Hayes McMullan was discovered by the renowned American roots scholar, collector and documentarian Gayle Dean Wardlow. Wardlow, author of the seminal blues anthology Chasin’ That Devil Music – Searching for the Blues, may be most famous for uncovering Robert Johnson’s death certificate in 1968, finally revealing clues to the bluesman’s mysterious and much disputed demise. Moreover, in his tireless and committed mission to preserve the Blues for future generations, he captured McMullan’s raw talent on tape and on paper. Wardlow recorded these sessions, transcribed the songs and now, writes the sleeve-notes for this landmark release.

Wardlow and McMullan met by chance on one of the former’s record-hunting trips, in Tallahatchie County, Mississippi, in 1967. Having introduced himself to McMullan on a hunch, it turned out this unassuming elderly man had not only heard of Wardlow’s idol, Charley Patton, but had played alongside him in the 1920s, as part of a brief musical journey that took him from the plantation to the open roads and juke joints of the Depression-era South. Striking up a friendship that was deemed unorthodox in 1960’s Mississippi, Wardlow traveled to McMullan’s sharecropper’s shack and convinced him to play guitar for the first time since he quit the Blues for the Church in the 30’s. “Hayes was playing like no one I had ever heard,” Wardlow writes with amazement.

Wardlow visited McMullan on a handful of occasions, always taking his recorder, a guitar and some whiskey with him. It was during these visits that Wardlow captured – with surprising clarity – the songs that make up Everyday Seem Like Murder Here.

Hayes McMullan passed away at the age of 84 in 1986, his talent and legacy largely unknown. “Reflecting now on our brief time together, I marvel at the small glimpse of something much larger I was lucky to have captured,” writes Wardlow. “The few old snapshots I took, the handful of tunes we recorded, and his brilliant performance of “Hurry Sundown” captured on film are all that’s left of the musical legacy of Hayes McMullan, sharecropper, deacon, and—unbeknownst to so many for so long—reluctant bluesman.”

RELEASE NOTES

PRE-ORDER EDITION:

Classic gold wax limited to 200 copies. Limit two per customer.

All tracks previously unreleased (except track #3)

Remastered from original tapes

2xLP housed in a deluxe gatefo
ld Stoughton tip-on jacket

Liner notes by blues historians Gayle Dean Wardlow & John Miller

Unseen photos

Made By LIGHT IN THE ATTIC RECORDS 

Hayes McMullan (January 29, 1902 – May 1986) was an American Delta blues singer, guitarist and songwriter. He also was variously employed as a sharecropper, deacon and was a civil rights activist.

McMullan's first major recorded work was released in February 2017, over 30 years after his death, and was based on recordings he made in 1967 and 1968 in Tallahatchie County, Mississippi.

McMullan was born in either New Hope or Murphreesboro, Tallahatchie County, Mississippi, United States. His musical talents were unearthed following a chance encounter in 1967 between McMullan and the American roots scholar, music collector and documentarian, Gayle Dean Wardlow.Wardlow discovered, when striking up a conversation with him, that McMullan had not only known of Wardlow's idol, Charley Patton, but had played alongside him in the 1920s. This was at a time when McMullan had drifted from his Mississippi Delta homeland to perform the blues in juke joints across the Deep South. Wardlow also found McMullan had left playing the blues behind when he joined the church in the 1930s. Explaining why he had given up the opportunity to record with Patton, McMullan stated, "They only offered me $5 a song, and you know they could make thousands off just one song."Wardlow's unlikely friendship with McMullan, led the former to visit McMullan's sharecropper shack in Tallahatchie County, Mississippi, on a number of occasions in the late–1960s and recorded his talent both on tape recorder and in a written format. Wardlow wrote at the time that "Hayes was playing like no one I had ever heard."

McMullan died in May 1986, aged 84.

Wardlow subsequently wrote "The few old snapshots I took, the handful of tunes we recorded, and his brilliant performance of "Hurry Sundown" captured on film are all that’s left of the musical legacy of Hayes McMullan, sharecropper, deacon, and — unbeknownst to so many for so long — reluctant bluesman.- Wardlow also transcribed the songs and penned the sleevenotes for the 2017 CD release of McMullan's Everyday Seem Like Murder Here. About "Hurry Sundown", another journalist noted that the lyrics stated, "I said, hurry sundown, let tomorrow come. Says, she may bring sunshine, may bring drops of rain." A further early song included on the album was entitled "Smoke Like L"

        

       

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