♪ Well, when I was a little boy ♪
♪ Sittin' on my momma's knee ♪
♪ She said "Son, let me tell you ♪
♪ About that Bad Stagger Lee." ♪
Going to Mississippi in '64
you knew you could be arrested,
you knew you could be killed,
you knew you could be injured.
And so it's not something that you did lightly,
not something you did because it was going to be fun,
because it was definitely,
it was definitely not going to be fun.
But there was this feeling inside of me
that it was just something I had to do.
♪ With a blue steel .44 ♪
Before I went to Mississippi I was living in New York.
I was teaching guitar and banjo.
At that time in my life I was, you know, I was a folk singer,
and I had been involved in the movement
singing at rallies and hootenannies
and fundraising events in New York for SNCC.
You know, I wasn't big for going on demonstrations
or getting thrown in jail and this, that and the other,
but music was something,
was a gift that I had, that I had to offer.
♪ Billy Lyons told Stagger Lee ♪
♪ Said please don't... ♪
I grew up in the black church.
My father was a Methodist minister
and was a very good preacher.
I loved to hear my father preach
because of his use of language
and especially the rhythm
and the music of the language.
I understood the black church
and the culture of the black church
so that when I went to Mississippi
and would lead singing at mass meetings and church
it was a very, very familiar environment.
My job was to get people to start singing
and to create that sense of community
through people joined together in song.
That block in there is all freedom songs.
Those are songs that I would have sung in Mississippi in '64.
The most vivid memory that I have
from that summer and singing
was a night in Gulfport, Mississippi.
It's hot in Mississippi,
especially hot and humid on the Gulf.
And we weren't in a church that night,
I don't know where we were,
I don't remember where we were,
but the place was full and so it was even hotter
than it would have been normally.
And I remember starting off on "Wade in the Water."
♪ Wade in the water ♪
♪ Wade in the water, children ♪
♪ Wade in the water ♪
♪ God's gonna trouble the water. ♪
And of course back in those days
I played guitar and my voice was--
that was 50 years ago--
my voice was a lot better than it is now.
But it was a kind of song where I would sing, "Wade,"
and the whole congregation would come in on,
"In the water."
And there was just this immediate electricity.
And one of the things that came through
in the singing that night
was how much pain there was in the singing.
And it was as if, you know, the centuries of pain
going back to slavery, they all released that night.
Near the end I would start singing songs
about the possibility of death.
♪ One kind favor I'll ask of you ♪
♪ Please see that my grave is kept clean. ♪
I mean that's a stark song,
but that was the reality in Mississippi in 1964.
You know you'd lead singing for 30 minutes, an hour,
depending on the situation you were in or what have you,
but at a certain point the people were present,
they were there, they were ready.
Then at that point the organizers got up
and began to talk.
"Tomorrow, how many want to go to vote?
"We gonna march to the courthouse,
or we gonna do this, or this, that and the other."
But that's when the organizing would start.
But the music, the music produced the energy,
the music created the community,
and the music fought the fear.
♪ Wade in the water ♪
♪ Wade in the water, children, now... ♪
I basically traveled around the state
wherever we were... it was thought we were needed.
♪ God's gonna trouble the water. ♪
Go into a town and, you know, you don't know
where you're going to stay that night,
and so somebody will put you up,
or if not I certainly spent nights
sleeping on the back seat of the car.
For those looking back, it seems romantic.
It was not romantic at all.
There was nothing romantic about it.
It was difficult.
♪ God's gonna trouble the water. ♪
There was a rule that summer, which I broke often.
The rule was you were not supposed to drive at night.
And we did.
And so when you're driving along Highway 61
or Highway 51 in Mississippi at night
and suddenly there are car lights behind you,
and then when that car pulls alongside you,
you don't know whether or not there's going to be
a shotgun barrel sticking out of the window or what.
Wasn't a song in the world
made any difference in that moment.
♪ God's gonna trouble the water. ♪
Having, you know, the experiences that I had in '64,
you know, in Mississippi, has certainly given me
the ability to affirm my values
even when my life is threatened.
That if somebody can threaten your life
and you give up your values,
then they own you, they own your soul.
And you can't let somebody own your soul.
♪ Now, wade, wade, wade in the water ♪
♪ God's gonna trouble the water ♪
♪ I said wade in the water ♪
♪ Wade in the water, children, now ♪
♪ Wade in the water... ♪