Written by Linda Sickler
Originally published on Savannahnow.com
Robert Lee Coleman learned to play guitar in spite of his stepfather.
“He wouldn’t show me nothing, but I watched,” the Macon bluesman says. “He played guitar and I sat down and watched him.
“I saw it in the church when I was real young,” he says. “I’ve played guitar for over 60 years now.”
During his career, Coleman has played with the legends.
“In 1964, I went with Percy Sledge for six years,” he says. “Then I played with James Brown until about 1972.
“Percy, he was real cool. A real good dude.
“James Brown was real strict,” Coleman says. “But he got the job done and that’s how he got the job done.”
Thanks to an organization called the Music Maker Relief Foundation, Coleman is headlining his own shows these days. He’ll appear at the Mars Theatre in Springfield on June 21.
This is the second show of six that the foundation is bringing to Springfield. The first was a concert by Beverly “Guitar” Watkins and coming up in July is Drink Small.
Coleman grew up during a time when the Macon area was a hotbed of blues, rhythm and blues and early rock ‘n’ roll. He played with some of Macon’s greats, including Calvin Arline, Newtown Collier, Eddie Kirkland and Percy Welch.
While performing with Percy Sledge, Coleman toured throughout North and South America, the Caribbean and Africa. While working with Brown, Coleman played on three of Brown’s albums: “Hot Pants,” “Revolution of the Mind” and “Make It Funky.”
After leaving Brown’s band, Coleman returned to Macon, where he rejoined and played with the musicians of his early days.
Tim Duffy, who founded the Music Maker Relief Foundation, says Coleman is just the type of musician his nonprofit organization wants to help — true pioneers of Southern folk music in the American South.
“If you follow any popular music back to its roots, you’ll find yourself standing squarely in the South,” Duffy says. “In the beginning, the music of gospel, jazz, blues, bluegrass and country was invented by the Southern working class, mostly poor people who worked Monday through Saturday.
“At the Music Maker Relief Foundation, we think this is our greatest export to the world,” he says. “The culture that created it is not all famous like B.B. King, Hank Williams or Muddy Waters.
“They were more likely to be mule skinners or moms who played in the kitchen,” Duffy says. “We find these artists.”
To qualify for the program, musicians must be 55 or older and rooted in a musical tradition. Their income must be lower than $18,000 per year.
“It’s sad to realize most of these musicians have an income of just $7,000 to $10,000 a year,” Duffy says. “Think of making music with a splitting headache because you can’t afford blood pressure medicine and you only have a week’s worth of food.”
With the Music Makers Relief Foundation, musicians are given monthly grants of $100 for medicine or food. But even better, they are given the chance to work for pay.
“We’ve developed a program where they can make a CD or make a repertoire to put on the website,” Duffy says. “We make them available to perform.
“That’s the cultural access, getting the music out there,” he says. “It’s a new model.”
Duffy holds a master’s degree in folklore and he often worked with blues musicians while earning it.
“When I graduated, it seemed as if all the musicians I’d worked with were in poverty and behind social and class lines invisible to others,” he says. “I wanted a new model to directly engage in partnership with these people.
“It’s not a mass aid organization, like Social Security. We have to find musicians whose music is extremely vital and important to society, and who want to work with us and get their music out.”
One of the organization’s earliest success stories involved a musician named Ironing Board Sam.
“He was a pioneering rhythm and blues musician on the first black TV show out of Nashville called ‘Night Train,’” Duffy says. “Jimi Hendrix was his backup player.
“We found him retired and ready to pass away. We brought him to Hillsboro, got him an apartment, a car, dentures, clothes, a new keyboard and we got him to a doctor.
“Within a year, he was playing the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival, then played Australia, Europe, Switzerland, and he’s in Vegas next week,” Duffy says. “For every dollar we put into him, he’s probably made $10 and he’s living the life he wants.”
Blues guitarist Boo Hanks’ family were tobacco workers all their lives.
“He just played at church and fish fries,” Duffy says.
“Now he’s enjoyed tours to Europe and he’s played the Lincoln Center, and made an appearance with the Carolina Chocolate Drops.
“He’s put out CDs. He had a trailer with no electricity or running water. Now he has a new trailer on a lot that is free for life.”
Duffy is on a mission to help these musicians change their lives.
“Mother Teresa said you can’t do a lot of things, but you can do a lot of small things with love,” he says. “We try to change one artist at a time.
“We have a short amount of time to get them out making a living because of their age, but Etta Baker started at 82 and lived to 90. Cootie Stark, a blind street singer, did some great touring.
“If they can’t perform any more, we step in and help them hook up with social services,” Duffy says. “It’s a lifelong commitment when we take somebody on.”
Music Makers Relief Foundation is celebrating its 20th anniversary with a book called “We are the Music Makers” coming out in September and museum exhibitions that will travel for a number of years.
Duffy was just a poor college student when he befriended blues legend Guitar Gabriel in Winston-Salem, N.C.
“He was a true blues great,” Duffy says. “We made a little cassette and suddenly people like Eric Clapton wanted to know who he was.”
Through Gabriel, Duffy met 10 more musicians.
“We thought there would be no more than that,” he says. “Then we found out that the public wanted more, so we spread out. It’s a passion, really.”
At first, Duffy was met with suspicion as he explained his mission. Twenty years later, the musicians sometimes approach him.
“Early on, I would have to go talk my way in because so many were suspicious,” he says. “Now after 20 years, the word on the street is we’re a trustworthy organization. ”
Macon was one of the most powerful musical centers in the United States, Duffy says.
“It produced Little Richard, Otis Redding and the Chitlin’ Circuit performers,” he says. “It was the backbone of rhythm and blues.
“There was never much money in playing these gigs. The leader of the band was fronting seven or eight people and paid what he could.
“These guys would go on the road for three years and come back to Macon and not even have rent for a boarding house,” Duffy says. “They didn’t share in the take; they didn’t share in anything.”
Coleman was on all the shows, but it didn’t help him make money, Duffy says.
“When disco came into favor, even the bosses fell out of favor; they fell on hard times,” he says. “To me, these are people who, if we don’t document and record them, will just disappear.”
All the performers scheduled to play the Mars Theatre are top-notch, Duffy says.
“You don’t have to go to the Chicago Blues Festival; you don’t have go to New Orleans,” he says. “We think of Mississippi as the birthplace of the blues, but American music came from the whole South.
“So many jazz musicians came from Georgia, with the great powerful traditions of the sea islands of Georgia,” Duffy says. “All these people can be proud.”
The Music Maker Relief Foundation was founded to preserve the musical traditions of the South by directly supporting the musicians who make it, ensuring their voices will not be silenced by poverty and time. Coleman has been involved for seven years.
“I never stopped making music,” he says. “At the Mars, I’ll come up and do some songs. I just appreciate Music Maker.”
Originally published June 19, 2014
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