Gladys Bentley

"Jelly Jelly Jellyroll": Lesbian Sexuality and
Identity in Women's Blues

Johnson, Maria V . Women & Music ; Lincoln Tomo 7, (Dec 31, 2003): 31.
Enlace de documentos de ProQuest
RESUMEN (ABSTRACT)

"Prove It on Me" was not the only song dealing explicitly with lesbian identity to be recorded in the 1920s and
1930s. Bessie Jackson (a.k.a. Lucille Bogan) recorded a song about working-class black lesbians in 1935 entitled
"B.D. Woman's Blues" in which "B.D." stood for "bull dykers/dikers" or "bulldaggers." Jackson recorded many
strong-women songs such as "Struttin' My Stuff," as well as songs dealing with the experience of marginalized
women, for example, prostitutes in "They Ain't Walkin' No More" (1930). While evoking stereotypes of black
lesbians as hard drinking, rough acting, and physically tough, "B.D. Woman's Blues" expresses a clear admiration
for and envy of their strength and independence. Lesbians are enviable because of their independence from
mistreating men. They work hard, make money, and know how to spend it. They are smart, smooth talking, desired
by women, and confident in pursuing their needs and desires. In the words of the song, "they lay their jive" and
"strut their stuff." At the same time that she evokes lesbian stereotypes and the homophobic responses of a
straight world that "just can't understand gays," the shifts of and ambiguities in address in Jackson's lyrics
suggest a critique of these constricting images:
A presumably related song, "Boy in the Boat (B.D.'s Dream)," was recorded by the vocalist and boogie-woogie
pianist Georgia White in 1936 but was never issued. According to the biographers of the stride pianist [Thomas
Dorsey] "Fats" Waller, "Boy in the Boat" was "one of the most frequently heard songs in the rent party repertoire"
and "a broadly sexual song with many verses composed over the years by many singers.... Tom Waller came to use
its melody as a specialty" (quoted in Oliver 1970, 203). According to another stride pianist, Willie "The Lion" Smith,
"The Bull Diker's Dream," also known as "The Dream," was "a tune dedicated to lesbians" written by the pianist Jess
Pickett and adopted by other pianists such as John "Jack the Bear" Wilson ([Bessie Smith] 1964, 56). It was
variously known as "The Bowdiger's Dream," "Ladies' Dream," and "Digah's Dream," and Fats Waller recorded an
instrumental version under the title "Digah's Stomp" (Smith 1964, 56; [Paul Oliver] 1970, 204).
One of Gaye Adegbalola's boldest and most uppity original songs, "Silver Beaver" was written for a lesbian electric
band called the Sisterhood. In an interview she explained: "I really wanted the lesbian women to be empowered by
the blues and the message that the blues brings. I wanted to bring some humor to that community" (2001b). When
the Sisterhood disbanded after losing their lead guitar player, [Gaye] brought the song to Saffire. "Silver Beaver"
appropriates the boasting stance, sexual animal imagery, and driving beat of men's urban blues songs, responding
in particular to Willie Dixon's "Little Red Rooster," John Lee Hooker's "Crawlin' King Snake," and Big Joe Turner's
"Flip, Flop, and Fly," among others. In "Silver Beaver" Adegbalola introduces a new image that celebrates female,
and in particular older women's sexuality while talking back to men's blues.(5) In her introduction to the song on
Saffire's Live and Uppity album, Gaye says: "We thought it was time for the blues world to have a new animal in its
menagerie" (Saffire 1998). When asked about the song in an interview, she cites Howlin' Wolf's "Little Red Rooster"
and Sonny Boy Williamson's "Fattening Frogs for Snakes," explaining: "The blues has this double and triple
entendre a lot of the time [and] I was just extending that play" (2001b).
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TEXTO COMPLETO

Mama she told me, my jellyroll wasn't right
Well I can jelly'n'jelly jelly, jelly makes my life
Well upside down, right side up,
Give it to me baby till I've had enough
jelly'n'jelly'n'jelly'n'jelly, jelly jelly jellyroll
-- Faith Nolan "Jellyroll" (1989)
FROM THE 1920S, WHEN VAUDEVILLE BLUES women stood in the public limelight en masse for the first time, the
blues has been a vehicle for African American women to articulate their experiences and express their feelings.
Through their powerful voices, engaging delivery, and bold self-presentation, vaudeville blues women empowered
themselves and their audiences. "Telling it like it is," they challenged the status quo -- talking back to stereotypes,
commanding sexual respect, and demanding an end to mistreatment -- while giving voice to the diversity of their
experiences. Drawing upon the aesthetics of black performance style, blues women affirmed their humanity as
their ancestors had done, through total involvement (giving 100 percent, engaging their audience), signifying
(talking back, repeating with a difference), and personalization (remaking the tradition in their own image) (Burnim
1985; Gates 1988; Murray 1976).
Blues women today continue to utilize and creatively remake traditional means and materials to resonate their
experiences and those of their audiences. Like their blues foremothers, contemporary blues women assert their
identity by personalizing traditional material, giving, in Sherley Anne Williams's words, "a traditional statement
about a traditional situation a new response" (1975, 37). Borrowing from Henry Louis Gates Jr., they signify on or
"repeat with a difference" traditional material (1988, xxvii, xxii-xxiii). In using the traditional signifying processes of
the blues to repeat and revise the tradition, contemporary African American women musicians create continuity
and continuance in the tradition. The work of blues women past and present is a critical piece in the dialogue and
process of reclaiming and affirming black female sexuality. As vaudeville blues singers before them, contemporary
African American women musicians use the blues -- its processes, language and structures, along with the image
the female blues singer projects -- to affirm their identity and reclaim their sexuality. Like the vaudeville blues
singers, contemporary African American women musicians reclaim their sexuality both by speaking out about and
against a history of sexual abuse and stereotyping, and by presenting self-defined images of themselves.
This article explores continuities and changes in women's expressions of lesbian sexuality and identity in the blues
by examining relationships between performers and performances past and present. While the work of
contemporary female hip-hop artists, including Queen Latifah and Salt-N-Pepa, and many other contemporary
African American pop artists, such as Erykah Badu and Macy Gray, also demonstrate important continuities with
women's blues traditions, the examples here are drawn from the blues repertoire of women who identify
themselves as blues artists. By looking at how contemporary blues women are personalizing, talking back to, and
remaking traditional materials, I attempt to illuminate one piece of a "conversation" in process, a tapestry of "call
and response," a community among women in the blues. I am especially interested how the blues has been and
continues to be a vehicle for African American women's self-expression and empowerment, and more specifically,
how the blues has provided a space for articulations of female pleasure and lesbian sexuality.

After briefly establishing a context for understanding sexuality, identity, and empowerment in vaudeville blues, I
will discuss examples of lesbian blues from the 1920S and 1930s, along with contemporary renditions of these
tunes. I will then compare new lesbian revisions of "Need a Little Sugar in My Bowl" with classic recordings by
Bessie Smith and Nina Simone, and examine three original blues by contemporary black lesbian performer-
songwriters. My contemporary examples are drawn from the recorded work of Gaye Adegbalola, Gwen Avery, and
Faith Nolan, with whom I have been in e-mail contact. I have also talked at length with Gaye Adegbalola in person
and over the phone about her songs and her interpretations of older blues songs.(1)
Background
The blues has been an important vehicle for African American women to affirm their existence and assert their
humanity in a society that has used and abused them for its own purposes while erasing them from its history. It is
in the context of this history of invisibility and distorted imaging that the contributions of blues women must be
understood. The 1920s and 1930s saw the emergence of a tradition -- a tradition that continues today -- of African
American blues women who, through their visual imaging, their songs, and their musical performances, challenged
the prevailing stereotypes at the same time that they presented new self-defined images of black female sexuality
(Carby 1986; Davis 1998; Harrison 1988; Lieb 1981). While their entrée to the stage came via the minstrel tradition,
one of the most notorious perpetuators of mammy and "loose" black women stereotypes, blues women were
seminal in transforming minstrel images of black women. As Hazel Carby has noted, blues women reclaimed black
women's bodies from male objectification and celebrated black women's sexuality through song (1986, 20).
Through the presentation of self-defined images, blues women transformed the black woman from sexual object to
sexual subject. Unlike the one-dimensional mammy and "loose" woman stereotypes, these new and more complex
images combined maternal compassion with sexual desirability, as can be seen in the name Ma Rainey, where
"Ma" stood for both mother and lover. And unlike the stereotypes, these images reflected a broad spectrum of
African American female conceptions of beauty. Dubbed queens and empresses, vaudeville blues women were
extravagant, outrageous, wild, and highly imaginative in both dress and demeanor. As blues royalty, these women
wielded authority and asserted command. While Bessie Smith, Ma Rainey, and others dazzled with furs, sequined
gowns, beads and rhinestones, others such as Gladys Bentley and Jackie "Moms" Mabley handsomely sported
suits and ties.
Although they presented themselves as royalty, vaudeville blues women spoke to and for working-class African
American women. At the same time that they were the heroines of many everyday black folk, blues women were
shunned by many churchgoing middle-class blacks. In Angela Davis's words: "Women's blues provided a cultural
space for community building among working-class black women, as well as a space devoid of bourgeois notions
of sexual purity and `true womanhood'" (1998, 140d).
In contrast to the stereotypes that preceded them, the images blues women presented humanized black women,
revealing their contradictions and vulnerabilities, triumphs and tribulations. Blues women sang with directness and
honesty about their own experiences and those of their audience members. Many blues are about women
suffering the pain of mistreatment (infidelity, abuse) because the pleasures of the relationship (usually good
lovemaking) call them back again and again. And yet, while they articulate an array of contradictory love-hate
feelings and responses to abusive relationships, blues women rarely play the victim and almost always retain or
regain the upper hand one way or another. In Angela Davis's words:
Even in their most despairing moods, the female characters memorialized in women's blues songs do not fit the

mold of the typical victim of abuse.... While acknowledging the physical mistreatment they have received at the
hands of their male lovers, they do not perceive or define themselves as powerless in the face of such violence.
Indeed, they fight back passionately. (1998, 34)
Even when blues women sing about staying with or coming back to men who beat them, they take responsibility
for their actions.(2)
In the 1920s the blues became the first really public forum for African American female self-expression, and it
remains a foundation that continues to inform and inspire African American women's creative expression today.
Blues women gave black women back their own voices and reclaimed what the black lesbian writer-warrior Audre
Lorde called their erotic power: "When I speak of the erotic, I speak of it as an assertion of the life force of women;
of creative energy empowered...the erotic is a resource within each of us that lies in a deeply female and spiritual
plane" (1984, 53, 55). For Lorde, the erotic is the power that comes from women expressing themselves fully --
feeling deeply, sharing with others the depth of their feelings, and not suppressing their desires. At their most
empowering, the blues women were assertive, independent, commanding, and demanding. As sexual subjects,
they named their abuse and demanded just treatment and respect; using the blues mode, they critiqued and
challenged sexual stereotypes, articulated their own desires, needs, and limits, and demanded sexual satisfaction
in no uncertain terms; in addition, they exposed the reality behind male sexual boasting while doing a good deal of
sexual boasting themselves.
Even though many aspects of the recording of blues were controlled by men, most of them white, blues women
operated within the African American tradition to make the songs they sang and the images they projected their
own in performance. Even when they did not write the songs they sang, they personalized them, using traditional
African American techniques to assert their identity. Given that so many vaudeville blues women, including Alberta
Hunter, Gertrude "Ma" Rainey, Ethel Waters, Gladys Bentley, and Bessie Smith, were known to have had sexual
relationships with women, it is not surprising that occasionally these identifications made it onto recordings.
"Prove It on Me Blues"
The boldest declaration of lesbian identity was Ma Rainey's 1928 recording "Prove It on Me Blues," in which the
female speaker directly expresses her preference for and involvement with women ("Went out last night with a
crowd of my friends; they must've been women `cause I don't like no men"). In the face of community disapproval
("folks said I'm crooked"), she declares her intent to "say it loud and say it proud" ("I want the whole world to
know"), and provocatively dares the listener to try and prove that she's a lesbian ("They said I do it, ain't nobody
caught me, sure got to prove it on me"). The song invokes playfully, it seems to me, the stereotype of a man-hating,
"butch" woman who acts like a man ("Wear my clothes just like a fan, talk to the gals like any old man"). There's a
braggadocio and hyperbole here common in the blues. Rainey is playing a part, is putting on a show. Surely, neither
she nor her "fellow" blues women hated men. Many of them were involved with men. The song uses exaggeration
and bragging to celebrate women loving women, and women's potential independence from men.
In this song, the female speaker asserts control over her private sphere. The song seems to point cleverly to the
invisibility of black women and gays, which virtually guarantees that the black working-class lesbian will not be
seen nor her sexuality imaged. In "Prove It on Me" the persona reclaims her personal power by turning the fact of
her own powerlessness in the society on its head. Reframing her invisibility as an asset, the song suggests a
certain safety and boasts a certain freedom that the black lesbian's triple marginalization affords. (She who is not
seen cannot be caught.) Musically, the playful braggadocio of the lyrics is underscored by the slapstick jug band
accompaniment, while the multiplicity of the lyrics is dramatized in the wonderful double-time section in the

instrumental solo.
It is not surprising that this bold song would be taken up by "out" lesbians of subsequent generations. The San
Francisco Bay Area musicians Teresa Trull and Mary Watkins recorded it on Lesbian Concentrate (1977), Olivia
Records' outspoken response to the homophobic rhetoric of Anita Bryant. The African-Canadian artist Faith Nolan
recorded it along with other classic protest songs, including "Strange Fruit" and "Black, Brown, White Blues," and
forthright originals such as "I Black Woman" and "Freedom to Love" on her Redwood debut album, Freedom to Love
(1989). And most recently, Gaye Adegbalola (of Saffire: The Uppity Blues Women) included the song on her 1999
solo debut, Bittersweet Blues, on which she "came out" as a lesbian and also as an incest survivor. In the
Trull/Walkins and Nolan versions, the line Rainey sings "Watch the wind blow all the while" becomes "I like to
watch the women pass me by," which is the lyric given on the original lead sheet (Lieb 1981, 124, 207). In these
versions, the idea that the speaker knows people are talking about her but doesn't care is replaced with a more
direct statement of lesbian desire and desirability. Adegbalola changes the line "They musta been women `cause I
don't like no men" to "They musta been women `cause there sure were no men" because she does like men and
wouldn't be comfortable singing the original line (Adegbalola 2001a).
"B.D. Woman's Blues"
"Prove It on Me" was not the only song dealing explicitly with lesbian identity to be recorded in the 1920s and
1930s. Bessie Jackson (a.k.a. Lucille Bogan) recorded a song about working-class black lesbians in 1935 entitled
"B.D. Woman's Blues" in which "B.D." stood for "bull dykers/dikers" or "bulldaggers." Jackson recorded many
strong-women songs such as "Struttin' My Stuff," as well as songs dealing with the experience of marginalized
women, for example, prostitutes in "They Ain't Walkin' No More" (1930). While evoking stereotypes of black
lesbians as hard drinking, rough acting, and physically tough, "B.D. Woman's Blues" expresses a clear admiration
for and envy of their strength and independence. Lesbians are enviable because of their independence from
mistreating men. They work hard, make money, and know how to spend it. They are smart, smooth talking, desired
by women, and confident in pursuing their needs and desires. In the words of the song, "they lay their jive" and
"strut their stuff." At the same time that she evokes lesbian stereotypes and the homophobic responses of a
straight world that "just can't understand gays," the shifts of and ambiguities in address in Jackson's lyrics
suggest a critique of these constricting images:
A: Comin' a time, BD women they going (to) need no men [2x]
B: Ah the way they treat us, it's a low-down and dirty sin
In the first verse, for example, while the pronoun "they" in the A line clearly refers to BD women, in the B line, "they"
could refer to either BD women or men. The first time I heard the song, I thought it was echoing the sentiments of
the religious right in saying that the behavior of lesbians is a low-down and dirty sin. On closer examination, I
realized that, in keeping with one of the most pervasive themes in women's blues, it is the mistreatment of women
by men that the song suggests is low-down and sinful. While men are mistreatin', low-down, and sinful, BD women
are enviable because of their independence from men. The ambiguity (or shift) in the use of the pronoun "they" in
the first verse effectively challenges the homophobic belief that lesbians are low-down and sinful. In addition, in its
juxtaposition with the first line, the persona's use of "us" in the second line suggests an identification with lesbians
as women.
A: BD women you sure can't understand [2x]

B: They got a head like a Swiss engine and they walk just like a nat'chal man
In the second stanza, the disapproval and lack of comprehension expressed in the A line -- "BD women, you sure
can't understand" -- stands in direct opposition to the "understanding" of and identification with BD women
expressed in the first verse. The lack of comprehension of the "you" voice in the A line of the second verse, which
clearly embodies the community's disapproval of lesbians, also contrasts with the persona's obvious envy of the
astuteness and assuredness of BD women (the "they" voice) in the B line: "They got a head like a Swiss engine and
they walk just like a nat'chal man." Significantly, the speaker uses the impersonal "you" pronoun instead of "I" in
line 1, as if to suggest that "you may not understand BD women, but I sure can." In contrast to the triflin' mistreatin'
no-good men described in many women's blues, in this song BD women protect and provide for their women: "they
lay their jive" (v. 3), "strut their stuff" (v. 4), and "work and make their dough" (v. 5).
Faith Nolan included a version of "B.D. Women" on her recent album Faith Nolan Live (2002), in which she varies
and recombines lines from the Jackson original while borrowing and substituting images from other vaudeville
blues songs. Nolan extends the original song's ambiguities in address through her A line variations, and she
fortifies the speaker's identification with lesbians by shifting from third-person to first-person address in the
middle of the song. Nolan also underscores the multiple voices of the original with dramatic shifts in her vocal
timbre.
BD women, BD women sure is rough [2x]
She can lay that jive just like a nat'chal man
Nolan sings this first verse in a low register with an exaggeratedly rough, growling timbre, in contrast to the second
verse, which she gives an exaggeratedly high, light, and airy delivery:
A: BD women sure can understand
A': Oh, BD women sure you understand
B: When she gets ready to spend it, she gives ya everything she can
In verse 2 Nolan's variations in the A line play upon the ambiguity of address found in Jackson's second stanza,
augmenting the original message: "BD women are smart -- they understand, and if you're smart you can
understand what they have to offer." Nolan saves the B line of Jackson's second stanza for her third verse,
introducing a new A line, which celebrates the BD woman's good looks:
A: BD women sure can look so fine, yeah!
A': BD women sure we look so fine
B: We got a head like a sweet angel, yet we walk like a natural man
In verse 3 Nolan's variation on the A line also introduces a direct identification of the speaker with BD women
("we") that plays upon the indirect identification of the speaker with lesbians found in Bogan's first verse. Borrowed
from Bessie Jackson's "Black Angel Blues" (1930), Nolan's substitution of "sweet angel" for "Swiss engine"
underscores the BD woman's sex appeal, while her return to the rough, growling timbre of the first verse on the last

phrase highlights the multiplicity of that appeal. She is good looking and strong, and in charge of her own image --
in Carby's terms, a sexual subject rather than object.
Borrowing from the third verse of Bessie Smith's "Empty Bed Blues, Part 1" (lyrics by J. C. Johnson; see Davis 1998,
277), in her final verse Nolan moves the speaker into a lesbian subject position:
I want a deep sea diving woman that got a
stroke that can't go wrong, woo!!
I want a deep sea diving woman got a stroke
that can't go wrong
Yeah, touch that bottom, gal, hold it all night
long
In this verse Nolan celebrates lesbian desire and sexual prowess through a lesbian speaker who names her desire
and encourages her lesbian lover to "strut her stuff."
Other Lesbian Blues of the 1920s and '30s
Monette Moore recorded a song in 1936 called "Two Old Maids in a Folding Bed," which, while playfully poking fun
at the idea of women together, also seems to me to convey some of that sense of envy and admiration for lesbians
found in "B.D. Woman's Blues," especially in the first and last verses:
Two old maids sweet and tender
Two old maids go on a bender
Two old maids and a solid sender
Talkin' `bout the maids in the bed
Two old maids over forty
Two old maids hot and sporty
They got the nerve to be hinkty and haughty
Talkin' `bout the maids in the bed
When women let loose together ("go on a bender"), they can be counted on to deliver the goods ("solid senders").
Even in middle age, these women dress like they are desirable and special, and they go out together proud and
confident.

Other songs recorded in the 1920s and 1930s also dealt explicitly with lesbian themes. Bessie Smith recorded
"Foolish Man Blues" (1927), a song about deceitful and foolish men in which she feigns a lack of understanding of
"a mannish actin' woman and a skippin', twistin', woman actin' man" (quoted in Davis 1998, 180). Far more
interesting from the standpoint of her own experience was Bessie Smith's "Jailhouse Blues" (1923), written with
Clarence Williams, which opens with the spoken line: "Lord, this house is gonna get raided, yes sir!" followed by the
stanza:
Thirty days in jail with my back turned to the
wall, turned to the wall...
Look here, Mr. Jail Keeper, put another gal in
my stall
(quoted in Davis 1998, 302)
With its reference to an illicit party and a woman in jail calling for another woman to share her bed, the song
evokes the milieu in which musicians such as Smith lived and worked. Bessie Smith was known to attend parties
with the women from her show at buffet flats that catered to gay people. Smith's niece, Ruby, described to the
biographer Chris Albertson one such occasion:
In Detroit...Bessie had a party up there at this woman's house.... It was right near the jailhouse.... That's where the
faggots used to dress like women and it wasn't against the law.... That was a real open house for everybody there
in that town.... A buffet flat nothing but faggots and bulldaggers...open house.... Buffet means everything goes on
there.... They had a faggot there was so great that people used to come to watch him make love to another man....
He'd give him a tongue bath and by the time he got to the front of that guy he was shakin' like a leaf.... I wanted to
get in with that cat but he said it wasn't fish day, so I was out....(R. Smith 1996)
Bessie Smith and Ma Rainey were also known for their slumber parties with the girls from their show that often got
intimate and sometimes wild. Chris Albertson describes one such party thrown by Ma Rainey where they were
making so much noise that the police were called and arrived to find Ma and her girls naked. Rainey got thrown in
jail for running an indecent party, but Smith bailed her out the next morning (Albertson 1972, 104).
Bessie Smith's "Jailhouse Blues" "triggered some other images" for a contemporary blues woman, Gaye
Adegbalola, "after visiting a woman's prison," and she "[attempted] to restate Bessie's `commanding plea' in a
contemporary setting" on her solo album, Bittersweet Blues (1999, liner notes). In addition to reinforcing the song's
lesbian theme by repeating the opening stanza at the end of the piece, Adegbalola revises the song to include a
critique of racism and sexism in the prison system:
So many mothers in this jail now for to fight
[2x]
Somebody on the outside got to keep the kids
alive

Too many black sisters all doin' time [zx]
Color of your skin just makes it a double crime
Adegbalola's raw and intense a cappella work song -- style group vocal delivery, punctuated with the sounds of
work (pounding on the downbeats), dramatically underscores her new message.
Faith Nolan also incorporates variations on lines from the first two stanzas of Jailhouse Blues" in the final stanzas
of her revision of Ma Rainey's "Cell Bound Blues" (1924) included on Faith Nolan Live CD (2002).
[v. 4] The judge said listen Faith, see what you
done done
The judge said listen, see what you done done
You done had to kill that woman's son
Mmmmmm...
Mmmmmm...
I said listen here jail keeper, put some
good-looking woman in my stall
I don't mind being in jail but every woman I
had has gone...
"Cell Bound Blues" is about a woman who killed a man in self-defense. In Rainey's original, he is her lover; in
Nolan's revision ("Cellbound Blues"), he is an intruder in her home. Like Adegbalola's revision of "Jailhouse Blues,"
Nolan's revision of "Cell Bound Blues" protests an unjust and oppressive penal system that condones violence
against women.
One of the most provocative odes to lesbian sexuality in the recorded blues from the 1920s and 1930s is "Boy in
the Boat" (1931), a song written and performed by the gay male singer George Hannah. The central image -- the boy
in the boat -- is a euphemism for and personification of the clitoris (Faderman 1991, 64).(3) In the first verse, the
image is extended to conjure oral sex, as the boy "loved to dive and also to fish" and "went roaming in that shallow
boat with his head hardly risin'." The second verse speaks of "women walkin' hand in hand" and going to "those
parties where [only] women can go," and identifies a lesbian by name -- Tack Ann, who "took many a broad from
many a man." Moreover, in the last verse, the speaker suggests that while men were off fighting in World War I, the
women were home experimenting with cunnilingus (ibid).
Lot of these dames had nothin' to do

Uncle Sam thought he'd give 'em a fightin'
chance
Packed up all the men and sent 'em on to
France
Sent 'em over there the Germans to hunt
Left the women at home to try out all their
new stunts
His face is all wrinkled and his breath smells
like soap
I'm talkin' `bout that boy in the boat
A presumably related song, "Boy in the Boat (B.D.'s Dream)," was recorded by the vocalist and boogie-woogie
pianist Georgia White in 1936 but was never issued. According to the biographers of the stride pianist Thomas
"Fats" Waller, "Boy in the Boat" was "one of the most frequently heard songs in the rent party repertoire" and "a
broadly sexual song with many verses composed over the years by many singers.... Tom Waller came to use its
melody as a specialty" (quoted in Oliver 1970, 203). According to another stride pianist, Willie "The Lion" Smith,
"The Bull Diker's Dream," also known as "The Dream," was "a tune dedicated to lesbians" written by the pianist Jess
Pickett and adopted by other pianists such as John "Jack the Bear" Wilson (Smith 1964, 56). It was variously
known as "The Bowdiger's Dream," "Ladies' Dream," and "Digah's Dream," and Fats Waller recorded an instrumental
version under the title "Digah's Stomp" (Smith 1964, 56; Oliver 1970, 204).
Given that so many vaudeville blues women had sexual and emotional involvements with women, it seems likely
that there were other songs sung that did not make it onto records, and that traditional material would have been
adapted and given additional nuances depending on the performance context. Gladys Bentley, for example, an
"out" black lesbian who sported a tuxedo, top hat, and slicked-back hair and publicly married a woman in Harlem in
the 1920s, was known for her scandalous revisions of classic blues, ballads, and show tunes in which her
audiences would be encouraged to participate (Garber 1988, 55). In Bentley's hands, for example, "Sweet Georgia
Brown" and "Alice Blue Gown" were turned into "odes to the joy of anal intercourse":
And he said, "Dearie, please turn around"
And he shoved that big thing up my brown.
He tore it. I bored it. Lord, how I adored it.
My sweet little Alice Blue Gown.
(quoted in Chauncey 1994, 252)

In the 1920s Bentley not only publicly cultivated the male command of wine, women, song, and pants but also
managed often to eclipse the need for sidemen and accompanists altogether by playing her own foot-stomping
piano and by providing her own scatlike trumpet fills. Unfortunately, she made but a handful of records, none of
which included any of her notorious parodies nor any songs with explicit lesbian content (Garber 1988, 58-59).
Nevertheless, her recordings "How Much Can I Stand?" and "Worried Blues" are strong statements against male
mistreatment and abuse, and "Worried Blues" (1928) has always struck me as provocatively suggestive in its shifts
and ambiguities in address, especially coming from an "out" black lesbian.
Worried Blues
"Worried Blues" can be divided into two basic parts, with the middle (fourth) stanza swinging both ways. The last
verse can also be seen as returning to the theme of the first verse, which is to say, it too swings both ways. The
first three stanzas tell of the mistreatment of women by men, and of a woman's holding her own and demanding
respect in response. In the first verse the female persona confronts men as a group directly for their mistreatment
of women and declares her distaste for men who are financially dependent on women ("I don't want no man that I
got to give my money to"). In the second verse she confronts a mistreatin' man and demands respect ("man I ain't
no billy goat"). In this context, the term billy goat has multiple implications. Literally a male goat, billy goats are
known to eat just about anything (Adegbalola 2002b). Goat is a slang term for a scapegoat -- one who takes the
blame for others, while billy goat is also a slang term for a lecherous man (Lighter 1994, 158). The female persona
seems to be declaring that she will not be used or disrespected, nor will she take the blame for this man's behavior
or for what happened between them.(4) While continuing the theme introduced in verse 1 about a woman's
supporting her man financially, the third verse voices the woman's frustration with his continually taking and her
continually giving ("Next thing I'm gonna give him is six feet in the cold cold ground").
In verse 4, while continuing the theme of deceitful men, the female persona shifts to address women explicitly
("Keep your eyes open girls `cause he'll put that thing on you"). The female address continues throughout the
remainder of the song (explicitly in verse 6 and implicitly in verses 5 and 7).
`Cause you haven't got a papa ain't no signal
you can't be had [2x]
If I put this thing on you baby, gonna be just
too doggone bad
Plenty hard for you women to keep a real good
man nowadays [2x]
These little young chippy gals got so many
doggone different ways
[I know I] Did more for you than the good

Lord ever done [2x]
Put clothes on your back, you know darn well
you wasn't born with none
While there is definite ambiguity in terms of who is talking to whom in the last three stanzas, a careful examination
of these verses in the context of the whole suggests to me a clear lesbian interpretation of verse 5, and the
provocative potential for a lesbian interpretation of verses 6 and 7. In verse 5 the speaker brags to women about
her prowess as a lover of women -- she can get a woman that no man can (presumably because the woman is a
lesbian, and also because the speaker is irresistible).
In another context, verse 6 would probably be interpreted as saying that it's hard for a woman (married/committed,
mature) to keep a good man because young "things" ("chippy gals") are luring the men away. But in the context of
the lesbian braggadocio of verse 5, might not it be young skillful lesbian women who are making it hard for women
to keep a good man? That is, because of their ability to provide for a woman and their irresistible range of skills
("so many doggone different ways"), these lesbians have taken many a woman from "a real good man." Or perhaps
the speaker is warning the listener to watch out for the "old old men" (verse 4), the "little young chippy gals," and
"the real good men," since you'll lose them to the chippy gals; you might as well give yourself over to the
bulldagger, who will provide for you and whom you can't resist anyway. In this context, the title also seems
provocative, begging the question -- who is worried and what is he or she worried about? The speaker certainly
does not seem worried!
In this context, the last verse can be taken to continue the lesbian speaker's assertion of her ability to provide for a
woman. At the same time, the last verse can be viewed as a return to the opening theme. If the last verse followed
verse 3, it would be seen to continue the theme of the speaker providing for her male lover (the "you" would be
assumed to be male). The last verse is the only verse without any gender specificity. All the other verses have an
explicit male reference, and also a female reference (implicit in verses 2, 3, and 5), which helps to keep the
gender/sexual ambiguity in the foreground.
Although vaudeville blues lyrics tended to be more thematic than early country blues lyrics, blues lyrics in general
are non-narrative in character, creating much ambiguity and allowing for multiple interpretations. Rather than
arguing a definitive interpretation for any given stanza or song, then, it is important to consider alternative
interpretations and to celebrate the provocative possibilities blues performance provided for affirming a range of
gender and sexual identities.
I am convinced that other songs and versions of songs in the 1920s and 1930s affirmed lesbian sexuality.
Unfortunately, we may never know about some of them. Written accounts and film footage of performances of
blues women in the 1920s and 1930s are extremely limited. Watching with my students the wonderful
performance footage of Alberta Hunter in her late eighties in Jazz at the Smithsonian (1982), I have often
contemplated how a woman like Alberta Hunter, who spent much of her life in a committed relationship with a
woman (and her entire life in the closet), affirmed herself while singing songs about relationships with men. When
blues women such as Alberta Hunter sing of men they don't desire, their performance carries an aspect of
disempowerment; but at the same time, their singing about female independence possesses a certain privilege
that comes precisely because they are not sexually, emotionally, or financially dependent on men. It is this
privilege that the female persona in "B.D. Woman's Blues" recognizes and covets.

To gain insight into how blues women of the past might have personalized popular songs in performance to reflect
their own experiences, I will now examine remakes by contemporary blues women of the blues-jazz classic "Need a
Little Sugar in My Bowl."
"Need a Little Sugar in My Bowl"
"Need a Little Sugar in My Bowl" was written by Clarence Williams, D. Small, and T. Brymn and first recorded by
Bessie Smith in 1931. It became a signature song for Nina Simone in the 1960s and since then has become a kind
of "classic." I had never been very interested in the song because of images such as "I need a little hot dog
between my roll," which I felt lacked the rich multiplicity of the best sexual blues. The blatant heterosexual thrust,
so to speak, no doubt also turned me off. However, when two of my "sheroes," both "out" black lesbians -- Gaye
Adegbalola and Gwen Avery -- recorded the song in 1999 and 2000 respectively, I decided it was time to take a
closer look.
Musically, it is not difficult to understand the song's appeal. It makes use of a smooth-moving, jazzy chord
progression that alternates chromatic with falling-fifth motion. The melody is also attractive as it alternates
disjunct and chromatic motion, ascending and descending movement, and expressively employs the "blue" or
variable third and seventh degrees. In addition, the song's structure, with its repetition and variation of melodic and
lyric motives both within the verse and from verse to verse, is conducive to a dramatic rendering. The song
consists of an introduction followed by two verses that share several lines. (Lines 1, 2, 5, and 6 are similar in both
verses, while lines 3, 4, 7, and 8 are different.)
Upon closer listening I also began to appreciate the range of feelings suggested in the lyrics and embodied in the
original Bessie Smith performance. The song opens with the speaker sick of being miserable, as she has been
since her lover left (ex. 1a). Longing for love, affection, and sex, she decides to see if she can remedy the situation.
Ultimately, she commands a potential lover to please her, and directs him in making love to her. Smith underscores
the song's sentiments by delaying and then provocatively drawing out key words with extended slides. The
intensity of her need to be made love to is evoked in her moaning embellishments on "sugar" and "bowl" (ex. 1b),
on the command "move your finger," which is set into relief by a break in the piano accompaniment (ex. 1c), on
"steam" in both verses (ex. 1d), and on "between my rolls" in the second verse (ex. 1e). Smith's performance
reaches a peak with the spontaneous-sounding command, "Get off your knees, I can't see what you're driving at!
It's dark down there, looks like a snake," which is spoken over variations of a two-bar chord sequence. Filling in the
musical space, this spoken ad lib "ups the expressive ante," leading into the final sung phrases: "in my bowl, stop
your foolin' and drop something in my bowl."
A Nina Simone recording of this song led Gaye Adegbalola to Bessie Smith. Adegbalola's recording is modeled
after Smith's original, which for her has a commanding feel, in contrast to Simone's intensely pleading quality
(Adegbalola 2001a). Remaking the song musically and sexually in her own image, Adegbalola replaces the male
lover identifiers -- "man," "daddy," and "hot dog" -- with the gender-neutral "somebody," "baby," and "jelly." I consider
"jelly" to be gender-neutral because it is used in the blues by both women and men to connote lovemaking and
sexual prowess.
The scholar Paul Oliver suggests that the term jellyroll arises "simply from the motions of sexual intercourse"
(1970, 109). However, many examples, including those cited by Oliver himself, suggest that the image can evoke
other sexual activities as well. Like other sexual food metaphors in the blues, the image can easily conjure oral sex.
In "New Jelly Roll Blues" (1927), for example, Peg Leg Howell sings:

Jellyroll jellyroll ain't so hard to find
Ain't a baker shop in town bake 'em brown
like mine
I got a sweet jelly, a lovin' jellyroll
If you taste my jelly it'll satisfy your worried
soul
(quoted in Oliver 1990, 109).
As a noun, however, "jellyroll" is most often associated with the female sexual anatomy. In "Feather Bed" (1935), for
example, Bumble Bee Slim distinguishes between "rollin jelly" (stimulating a woman's outer genital area) and
"grindin' deep" (penetration): "And they call me `jelly' `cause I rolls all in my sleep / I will roll your jelly and also grind
you deep" (quoted in Oliver 1990, 116). "Jelly(roll)" is also used in describing gay male sexuality in the blues. In
"Sissy Blues" (1926), written by Thomas Dorsey and recorded by Ma Rainey, for example, "sissies got good jelly
roll," and a drag queen named "Miss Kate shook that thing like jelly on a plate" (quoted in Davis 1998, 243). There
are many examples in women's blues of the use of jelly(roll) imagery to boast the desirability of a woman and her
lovemaking abilities (Edwards 1927; Pierce 1959; Smith 1923).
In Adegbalola's version of "Need a Little Sugar in My Bowl" the "jelly" image is suggestive, if not specifically of
lesbian sexual activities, at least of sexual activities that don't involve the penis. This is reinforced by Adegbalola's
remaking of the climactic finish in which Smith's half-spoken command "Get off your knees, I can't see what you're
drivin' at. It's dark down there, looks like a snake" is replaced with "I want you to get down on your knees. It's dark
down there; I want you to see what you're driving at!" Also, in Adegbalola's version the a cappella line, "Move your
finger, drop something in my bowl" becomes "Move your finger drop it in my bowl." While the female persona in
Bessie Smith's recording has little patience, it seems, with the "different" activities her male lover attempts with his
finger and on his knees, in Adegbalola's revision, these body parts (not to mention those involved in extracting
sugar from a bowl) have everything to do with the kind of loving she has in mind. In Gaye's hands, so to speak,
"Need a Little Sugar in My Bowl" becomes a celebration of lesbian lovemaking.
While her melody is for the most part similar to Smith's, though less embellished and syncopated, Adegbalola's
pitch changes and slightly faster tempo (from 76 to 84beats per minute), along with her judiciously placed
embellishments and growls and extended preaching-style ad lib, give her version a more intensely dramatic build.
On the line "I'm feeling so funny, I'm feeling so sad," Adegbalola introduces an arching low-to-high melodic contour
with a disjunct downward turn on "funny" that, with its eerie timbre, relaxed and almost slurred articulation, and
pause after "funny," evokes both the female persona's mounting desire along with her gay ("funny" meaning
"queer") orientation (Adegbalola 2001) On the dramatic "move your finger" line, Adegbalola introduces a new
melody with minimal embellishment, which stands out for the contrast between its opening upward leap and
disjunct motion and its closing chromatic descent (compare ex. 2b with ex. 1c). Adegbalola also builds her
performance by varying and intensifying her timbres as the piece progresses, by jumping up to a higher register
sooner than Smith in the cadence at the ends of verses, and through the use of a dynamic crescendo from the
beginning of the second verse to the end of the piece (ex. 2c). In addition, Gaye adds eight bars to Smith's version,
finishing out the second verse (cadence and tag) before starting the spoken ad lib, and extending her ad lib using

text repetition and hyperbole, ("I don't want one lump; I don't want two lumps; I don't want three lumps; I want a
five-pound bag of sugar"). These elements combine to give her performance a powerful dramatic shape and
climax.
Gwen Avery's version of "Sugar in My Bowl," in contrast, is modeled on a Nina Simone recording (Simone 1967)
that does not include either the introductory verse or the hot dog image from the original Bessie Smith recording.
Like Simone, Avery also adds a saxophone solo between verses and updates the "steam heat on my floor" image to
become "steam on my clothes." Simone's and Avery's versions are more syncopated and embellished, using many
melismas as well as numerous slides, along with more variations in timbre and contrasts in register.
Like Simone, Avery has her own brand of embellishments, the most striking of which is an abrupt leap to a low note
followed by a quick jump to a high note and a new timbre intensified with her unique style of vibrato. A good
example of the way Avery intensifies emotion using dramatic shifts in register and timbre coupled with "slippery"
embellishments occurs near the end of the first verse. On "so they'll go" Avery leaps down a major sixth to the
lowest note of the piece and back up, finishing the line with a descending slide. At the beginning of the next line,
she leaps up a minor seventh to the highest note of the piece on "what's," which is accented by an almost hornlike
squawk. This is contrasted later in the line with a descending melismatic spiral on "come on save my soul," also
underscored by an expressive, almost yodel-like timbre (ex. 3a).
While taking the song at a much faster tempo (92 bpm) than Simone's (66 bpm), Avery swings intensely, "working"
the hot and steamy element from Simone's performance. Avery changes "daddy" to the gender-neutral "baby," like
Adegbalola, and provocatively varies the phrase "I want that steam on my clothes" in the second verse to become
"I want that steam under my clothes." In addition, in Avery's version the sax solo is expanded and the ending
prolonged with ad-lib variations of the title line that personalize her request from a commanding "drop that sugar
all over my bowl" to a pleading "I want the sugar all night long" to a scared "don't you dare do me wrong." Avery's
delivery is sex-filled and intoxicating, loaded with syncopations, breathy vibrations, slippery slides, and melismas.
As these distinctive and personalized versions suggest, "Need a Little Sugar in My Bowl" has been and continues
to be a potent vehicle for celebrating female sexualities and expressing the range of women's sexual desires. The
song also provides an inspiring medium for showing off the wonderfully diverse voices and personalities of these
singers. Moreover, for Simone and especially for Adegbalola and Avery, performing and recording the song is a
means for connecting with and paying homage to their musical "sheroes."
In addition to revising classics, contemporary blues women celebrate their sexuality by creating original songs that
respond to the tradition, revising old themes and using traditional imagery in new ways. While many artists and
examples illustrate this (Nedra Johnson 1998; Toshi Reagon 1997; Washington Sisters 1991), I will focus the
remainder of this essay on three original songs -- Faith Nolan's "Jellyroll" (1989), Gwen Avery's "Sugar Mama"
(1994), and Gaye Adegbalola's "Silver Beaver" (1998).
"Jellyroll"
As we have seen, the term jellyroll is a common blues image that has been used by both women and men to
connote sex and boast about one's sexual abilities. Gaye Adegbalola is not the only contemporary blues woman to
use it in celebrating lesbian sex. Faith Nolan's "Jellyroll," from her 1989 album Freedom to Love, celebrates female
sexuality in general and lesbian sexuality in particular, in the face of family and community prohibitions against
women enjoying sex and women loving women:

Well if the world's all right, must be wrong
Well if the world's all right I know I got it
wrong
Cause I could jelly'n'jelly jelly, jellyroll all day
long
(Well) mama she told me, my jelly(roll) wasn't
right [2x]
Well I can jelly'n'jelly jelly, jelly makes my life
[harmonica] Jelly'n'jelly'n'jelly,
jelly'n'jelly'n'jelly'n'jelly
jelly'n'jelly'n'jelly'n'jelly, jelly'n'jelly jelly
well'n jelly'n'jelly'n'jelly, jelly has suit my
soul
Well upside down, right side up,
give it to me baby till I've had enough
Well if it feels good do it, do it all the way
home
[Well] mornin', evenin', afternoon delight [2x]
Well jelly'n'jelly jelly, jelly has made my life
Well jelly'n'jelly'n'jelly [harmonica],
Jelly'n'jelly'n'jelly [harmonica]
Jelly jelly jelly [harmonica], jelly jelly jelly

[harmonica]
Jelly'n'jelly'n'jelly, jelly has suit my life
Mornin' [harmonica], evenin' [harmonica], oh
afternoon delight [harmonica]
Jelly'n'jelly jelly, jellyroll my life
In the first stanza, the speaker looks out at the world around her and discovers that she is different, and that who
she is goes against the grain (she recognizes her marginalized status as a black lesbian). In the second stanza,
she tells us that her sense of difference was reinforced in her family by her mother, who told her that her "jelly
wasn't right." On the one hand, Nolan's song acknowledges that the repression of black women's sexuality has
been part of a long history of sexual abuse and distorted imaging. On the other hand, "Jellyroll" also speaks to the
society's and family members' disapproval of lesbian sexuality. In the fourth verse, the speaker affirms her
sexuality and celebrates her sexual pleasure in the face of parental and community prescriptions and disapproval.
She commands her lover to please her, take her time, and use a variety of techniques and positions until she is
thoroughly satisfied. In "Jellyroll" Nolan celebrates a woman's desire and appetite for sex while affirming her own
lesbian sexual identity.
Moreover, Faith Nolan performs the song with a celebratory glee and abandon. Like Gladys Bentley on "Worried
Blues," Nolan is the band. Doing away with the need for accompanists altogether, she plays her own guitar,
harmonica (in a holder), and tambourine (with her foot). Her walking guitar lines and repeated rhythms give the
song a driving energy and momentum, while the repeated vocal riff, "jelly'n'jelly'n'jelly'n," provides a propelling
triplet rhythm.
Sugar Mama
First released on the Olivia Records compilation Lesbian Concentrate (1977), Gwen Avery's "Sugar Mama" next
appeared on her live solo cassette, Live at IMA (1993), and then again as "Sugar Mama 2K" on her studio debut CD,
Sugar Mama (2000). My analysis is based on the live version, a great demonstration of how Avery works in
performance to empower her largely female and lesbian audience. Avery's theme song, "Sugar Mama" uses
imagery and musical techniques drawn from the blues to express her desire for women, to assert her prowess as a
lover of women, and to celebrate the sexual connections between women. Whereas "Jellyroll" focuses on how the
speaker wants to be loved, "Sugar Mama" concentrates on what the speaker is going to do for her lover: "Gonna fix
you chocolate cookies, bring `era to your bed," "Gonna love you up and down and all over," "Gonna rock you left and
right," "Gonna do it do it do it do it." The producer June Millington describes Gwen singing "Sugar Mama": "like slow
molasses, clinging like good love, salty like the sea, [filled with] languid sassiness" (Avery 1993, liner notes).
Performed by Gwen Avery on vocals and piano, the song consists of three sections: a slow introduction, followed
by the main body of the song, which is uptempo, and ending with an ad-lib call-and-response section between
Avery and the audience. In the third section, the rhythmic refrain ("sugar sugar, be your sugar mama") is passed to
the audience, becoming a repeated response over which Avery improvises new "calls," drawing textual material
from the main body of the song. This is a powerful example of how Avery works to stimulate an erotic connection
with her audience as a means of building the musical expressiveness of a performance. By working to fully engage

and involve the audience, she empowers them as sexual subjects. We see this most clearly in the a cappella
reprise of the third section, which follows the original ending of the song. After the song ends, Avery gently
criticizes her audience for being self-conscious and for holding back, and tries again to get them to sing:
Now tell me somethin', was it harder to say "sugar sugar, be your sugar mama" than "Sail away"? "Sail away" had a
lot more gusto -- did you notice? And it seemed like you were a lot more comfortable saying "Sail away" than [sings]
"Sugar sugar, be your (oh yeah yeah), sugar sugar, be your (who's lookin' at me?), sugar sugar..."
She starts singing again and tries to get the audience to sing and be the part of the sugar mama. She coaches
them to get strong in this role and to stimulate her like she did them, so that she can, in turn, respond to and "jam"
more intensely with and against them. As she coaches them to sing her song, to be her sugar mama, to love her, to
seduce her, her stance shifts to that of "Jellyroll." Avery is working to stimulate an erotic connection with her
audience that is both musical and sexual, and that teaches and models the power of both. She stimulates her
audience to feel their erotic power by getting them involved -- getting them to move their bodies, to clap their
hands, to stomp their feet, to dance, as part of their singing of the song. Her vocal solo models the process of
letting go and being oneself fully. It peaks with a nontexted, timbrally and rhythmically intense sequence -- an
unmistakable musical orgasm:
Put your hands together
(sugar sugar, be your sugar mama)
Tell me how you gon' be
Be that sugar mama
Love me up and down
Shake it all around
Let your thang go
Love your body so
Sugar in the mornin'

Sugar in the evenin'
Pat your feet
Clap your hands
Tell me you wanta
really understand
Ah ahah ah uhoo ee ow, ut ut ae ut
(sugar sugar...)
a-ut hut ut but ut aeor er, ut ut aeout
(sugar sugar...)
ut ut ut ut ut ut aeor aeow, ut ut aeow uh
(sugar sugar...)
oo ah oo ah; a-ow, a-ow, a-ow
(sugar, sugar...)
woo----- oo oo oo oo oo oo oo oo oo oo oo oo oo
Silver Beaver
One of Gaye Adegbalola's boldest and most uppity original songs, "Silver Beaver" was written for a lesbian electric
band called the Sisterhood. In an interview she explained: "I really wanted the lesbian women to be empowered by
the blues and the message that the blues brings. I wanted to bring some humor to that community" (2001b). When
the Sisterhood disbanded after losing their lead guitar player, Gaye brought the song to Saffire. "Silver Beaver"

appropriates the boasting stance, sexual animal imagery, and driving beat of men's urban blues songs, responding
in particular to Willie Dixon's "Little Red Rooster," John Lee Hooker's "Crawlin' King Snake," and Big Joe Turner's
"Flip, Flop, and Fly," among others. In "Silver Beaver" Adegbalola introduces a new image that celebrates female,
and in particular older women's sexuality while talking back to men's blues.(5) In her introduction to the song on
Saffire's Live and Uppity album, Gaye says: "We thought it was time for the blues world to have a new animal in its
menagerie" (Saffire 1998). When asked about the song in an interview, she cites Howlin' Wolf's "Little Red Rooster"
and Sonny Boy Williamson's "Fattening Frogs for Snakes," explaining: "The blues has this double and triple
entendre a lot of the time [and] I was just extending that play" (2001b).
I don't want a little red rooster, tryin' to crow
'fore day
Don't want no great big king snake tryin' to
crawl his life away
I got a silver beaver, oh Lord you know it's
true
It's a pretty little silver beaver and it's lookin'
right at you
Oh it's an eager beaver, it don't beat around
the bush
It's a pretty little silver beaver, yeah, grant your
every wish
I don't want no black rat, come eatin' up all
my bread
Don't need a widow spider leavin' cobwebs
'round my bed
I got a silver beaver, yeah, you know it's true
It's a pretty little silver beaver and it's grinnin'
right at you

Oh it's an eager beaver it don't beat around
the bush
It's a pretty little silver beaver, grant your every
wish
[Bridge:]
My beaver don't play possum, my beaver don't
play shrew
My beaver don't really give a damn if you
don't or do
My beaver gonna be your gopher, my beaver
gonna be your pet
My beaver gonna thump her great big tail and
get you good and wet!
Don't need a Mississippi bullfrog sittin' on a
hollow stump
Don't [want/need] no funky monkey don't
know which way to jump
I got a silver beaver, yeah, Lord you know it's
true
It's a pretty little silver beaver and it's smilin'
right at you
Oh it's an eager beaver it don't beat around
the bush
It's a pretty little silver beaver, grant your every

wish
("Silver Beaver," Saffire 1998)
"Silver Beaver" is structured such that each verse begins with two images conjuring all that the speaker does not
want or need in a sexual relationship (primarily a rejection of the sexual images offered in men's blues). This is
followed and countered by a direct statement of what the speaker has to offer. While the opening images vary from
verse to verse, the bold counterstatement is a repeated refrain that affirms the potency of older women's sexuality.
Adegbalola playfully speaks from the perspective of an older woman eager for sex and eager to please. Her
message is a humorous counter to the way older women tend to be desexualized in the society. The rich double
entendre imagery celebrates as it personifies the potential power of an older woman in touch with her sexual
desires and uninhibited in expressing them.(6) Gaye says: "It's just another play of the lyrics to say there's this little
silver beaver over here. It's making something good and something fun out of old age. It's just truly extending the
blues metaphor" (2001b).
"Silver Beaver" opens with an evocation of Willie Dixon's "Little Red Rooster." Dixon's song begins "I have a little red
rooster, too lazy to crow for day / Keep everything in the barnyard upset in every way." As Adegbalola notes, "That
song is really about impotence" (2001b). So when Gaye sings: "I don't want a little red rooster tryin' to crow `fore
day," blues lovers know that she is playfully talking back to Dixon (what Henry Louis Gates Jr. has termed
signifyin(g)), personalizing and enriching the image, and expanding its meaning. Her message -- "I don't want a
man that can't satisfy me" -- continues a common theme of vaudeville blues.
Adegbalola's first verse continues with a nod to John Lee Hooker's "Crawlin' King Snake." Hooker's song begins
with the refrain: "You know I'm a crawlin' king snake babe, and I rules my den / Don't you hang around my mate,
wanna use her for myself." Hooker's verses describe the constant stalker-like crawling of the king snake around his
lover's window, door, and floor, in his words, "until the day I die." When Gaye sings, "Don't want no great big king
snake tryin' to crawl his life away," she evokes Hooker's image of a dominating, predatory man and rejects
involvement with men who use and control women.
The second verse begins with a reference to "Black Rat Swing," an influential song written by Memphis Minnie's
husband and musical partner, Little Son Joe (Ernest Lawlars), that was subsequently recorded by many male and
female blues singers including Lightnin' Hopkins, Big Mama Thornton (Garon 1992, 48), and most recently,
Precious Bryant (2002). In the original recording, sung by Son Joe, the address shifts from a direct first-person
address in the opening chorus, "You is one black rat, some day I'll find your trail," to a third-person address in the
second verse, "He sneak in my kitchen, eat up all my bread / Soon as I left home he start cuttin' up in my bed." The
implication in the original lyric is that the black rat is a male rival stealing the male persona's food and sleeping
with his woman when he is away. In Thornton's version, which uses only the lyrics of the chorus and first verse and
maintains a first-person address throughout, the black rat becomes a no-good lover. Combining images from the
Lawlars original, Adegbalola sings: "I don't want no black rat, come eatin' up all my bread"; the image suggests a
rejection of men who use women for sex, food, or money. "Silver Beaver" goes on to reject celibacy and sexless
relationships, using an image that conjures the empty bed blues in the nest building of a potentially deadly insect:
"Don't need a widow spider, leavin' cobwebs `round my bed."(7)
Adegbalola's third verse opens with a clever revision of Big Joe Turner's "Flip, Flop, and Fly." Turner sings: "Like a
Mississippi bullfrog sittin' on a hollow stump / I got so many women I don't know which way to jump." Gaye sings:

"Don't need a Mississippi bullfrog sittin' on a hollow stump / Don't want no funky monkey don't know which way to
jump." In black English usage, funky means worthless, rotten, stinky, objectionable. Monkey in slang usage can
refer to either male or female genitalia, or disparagingly to a shady male or female character (Lighter 1994, 576-78,
847; Adegbalola 2003a). In Gaye's hands, then, a man bragging about how many women he's got is transformed
into a woman rejecting two-timing and incompetent lovers, both male and female.(8)
In the bridge Adegbalola employs a similarly balanced structure as in the verses, continuing to articulate a new
female sexuality, first by evoking and rejecting male-defined images and then by extending her new image. The
speaker refuses to stifle her desires and refuses to play the traditional role of submissive woman ("My beaver don't
play possum"). At the same time, she rejects the stereotype of the nagging, scolding, manipulating woman ("my
beaver don't play shrew"). Mining the English language for "beaverisms" and double entendres involving animal
imagery, Gaye creates a new self-defined image that personifies female sexual pleasure ("My beaver don't really
give a [dam/n] if you don't or do / My beaver gonna be your [gopher/go for], my beaver gonna be your pet [as
noun/as verb] / My beaver gonna thump her great big tail and get you good and wet!"). In "Silver Beaver"
Adegbalola unabashedly celebrates female pleasures and sexual desires not dependent on men or on male
pleasure/desire. "Silver Beaver" is a bold declaration of female sexual independence and self-sufficiency.
Underscoring the lyric progression, the song builds musically, starting in the first verse with the vocal melody in
low register and volume and moving progressively higher and louder. The addition of an intensified growled vocal
timbre on "It's a pretty little silver beaver," vocal harmony on "It's an eager beaver, it don't beat around the bush,"
and the insistent instrumental accents on "grant your ev'ry wish" also up the expressive ante. Musical energy
continues to build through the second verse, with the melody staying in the upper register and maintaining an
intensified dynamic level throughout. An expressive climax occurs on the punch line at the end of the bridge: "my
beaver gonna thump her great big tail and get you good and wet," which is set into relief by the sparse stoptime
accompaniment.
The song ends with an interactive vamp in which Adegbalola gets her bandmates and the audience to repeat a riff
borrowed from the popular I95OS television show (originally a radio show) The Lone Ranger, by way of Big Joe
Turner's "Honey Hush" ("Hi yo, hi yo silver"). Layered over this riff, in a call-and-response texture, Gaye improvises
encouragements that direct the silver beaver to strut her stuff. Through this humorous ad lib, Adegbalola
empowers women in her audience to come out into the open with their sexuality and express themselves:
Ah take it on down the road little beaver...Oh work your magic now little beaver...Aw you ain't gonna give a damn,
naw...Aw take it down around the corner beaver...Aw, wag that great big silver tail, yeah...Aw, big ol' tail just goin'
"thump thump, thumpity thump" now, "thump thumpity thump" yeah yeah yeah, "thump thumpity thump" yeah yeah
yeah, "thump thumpity thump"...Aw take it down around the corner beaver...yeah yeah, Just leave it to
beaver...yeah!"
With a final ironic allusion to the television show that probably best exemplifies conventional white middle-class
family values of the 1950s (Leave It to Beaver), Adegbalola leaves us with the Cleaver family image on its head and
her little beaver thumping off into the sunset.
I have tried to show how the blues has been and continues to be a powerful vehicle for women to express their
identity and sexuality, and have attempted to illuminate, in particular, black lesbian expressions of sexuality and
identity. I have also worked to shed some light on one piece of the creative conversation or call and response of
women's blues, and to exemplify the potentially empowering process of the blues. I am certainly not trying to
suggest that all women's blues is or has been sexually empowering or that this is the only important theme of

women's blues. Blues tells it like it is, often focusing on love and relationships, and blues women have been
susceptible to destructive and dysfunctional relationships probably no more or less than other women. And they've
sung about them too. Nevertheless, the fact remains that through their communal performances, blues women
have and continue to reclaim and celebrate women's erotic power, including erotic connections between women.
Music and sex are two manifestations of humankind's passionate engagement with self, other, and the world.
Giving your all, being yourself fully, opening to life -- these are at once the aesthetic requirements of traditional
black performance style and the defining characteristics of the erotic power that writers such as Audre Lorde and
musicians from Ma Rainey and Gladys Bentley to Faith Nolan, Gaye Adegbalola, and Gwen Avery inspire us to
reclaim.
Works Cited
Print and Interview Sources
Adegbalola, Gaye. 2001a. Telephone interview with the author, 12 September.
-----. 2001b. "Wild Women Don't Get the Blues: An Interview by Nicole Blizzard." Techno-Dyke Headquarters.
<http://www.technodyke.com/ features/061101_gaye.asp?>.
-----. 2002a. Telephone interview with the author, January 23.
-----. 2002b. Telephone interview with the author, January 28.
-----. 2002c. E-mail correspondence with the author, December 23.
-----. 2003a. E-mail correspondence with the author, January 2.
-----. 2003b. E-mail corresondence with the author, February 18.
Albertson, Chris. 1972. Bessie. New York: Stein &Day.
Burnim, Mellonee V. 1985. "The Black Gospel Music Tradition: A Complex of Ideology, Aesthetic, and Behavior." In
More Than Dancing, edited by Irene Jackson, 147-67. Westport CT: Greenwood Press.
Carby, Hazel V. 186. "`It Jus Be's Dat Way Sometime': The Sexual Politics of Women's Blues." Radical America 20,
no. 4: 9-22.
Chauncey, George. 1994. Gay New York: Gender, Urban Culture, and the Making of the Gay Male World, 1890-1940.
New York: Basic Books.
Davis, Angela Y. 1998. Blues Legacies and Black Feminism. New York: Pantheon.
Faderman, Lillian. 1991. Odd Girls and Twilight Lovers: A History of Lesbian Life in Twentieth-Century America.
New York: Penguin.
Garber, Eric. 1988. "Gladys Bentley: The Bulldagger Who Sang the Blues." Out/Look (spring): 52-61.

Garon, Paul, and Beth Garon. 1992. Woman with Guitar: Memphis Minnie's Blues. New York: Da Capo Press.
Gates, Henry Louis, Jr. 1988. The Signifying Monkey: A Theory of Afro-American Literary Criticism. Oxford: Oxford
University Press.
Harrison, Daphne Duval. 1988. Black Pearls: Blues Queens of the 1920s. Rutgers University Press.
Lieb, Sandra. 1981. Mother of the Blues: A Study of Ma Rainey. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press.
Lighter, J. E., ed. 1994. Historical Dictionary of American Slang. Vol. 1. New York: Random House.
Lorde, Audre. 1984. "Uses Of The Erotic: The Erotic as Power." In Sister Outsider, 53-59. Trumansburg NV: Crossing
Press.
Murray, Albert. 1976. Stomping the Blues. New York: Vintage Books.
Oliver, Paul. 1970. Aspects of the Blues Tradition. New York: Oak.
-----. 1990. Blues Fell This Morning: Meaning in the Blues. 2d ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Smith, Willie the Lion. 1964. Music on My Mind. New York: Doubleday.
Turner, Big Joe. 1992. "Cherry Red." In The Definitive Blues Collection. New York: MCA Music/Hal Leonard, 48-49.
Williams, Sherley Anne. 1975. The Peacock Poems. Middletown CT: Wesleyan University Press.
Recordings
Adegbalola, Gaye. 1999. Bittersweet Blues. Alligator ALCD 4870.
Avery, Gwen. 1977. "Sugar Mama." Lesbian Concentrate: A Lesbianthology of Songs and Poems. Olivia LF 915.
-----. 1993. Live at IMA. Fabulous Records.
-----. 2000. Sugar Mama. Sugar Mama Music ATGASMI.
Bentley, Gladys. 1995. Complete Recorded Works in Chronological Order, 1928/1929. Document DOCD-5349.
Bryant, Precious. 2002. "Black Rat Swing." Fool Me Good. Terminus 0201-2.
Edwards, Susie. 1927. "Jelly Roll Queen." Super Sisters: Independent Women's Blues, vol. 3. Rosetta Records RR
1308, 1982.
Hannah, George. 1931. "The Boy in the Boat." Sissy Man Blues. Mojo CD-MOJO-304, 1996.
Hooker, John Lee. 1959. "Crawlin' King Snake." Blues All Ways. Drive Archive DE2-41045, 1994. [Orig. recorded in
1949.]

Hunter, Alberta. 1982. Jazz at the Smithsonian. Videocassette. Kultur/Adler Enterprises 1270.
Jackson, Bessie (a.k.a. Lucille Bogan). 1930. "Black Angel Blues." Lucille Bogan: Complete Recorded Works in
Chronological Order, vol. 2. Document Records BDCD-6037.
-----. 1935. "BD Woman's Blues." AC-DC Blues/Gay Jazz Reissues. Stash ST-106, 1977. [Also on Sissy Man Blues.
Mojo CD-MOJO-304, 1996.]
Johnson, Nedra. 1998. "Primary Lover Blues." Testify. Big Mouth/GoldenRod G7270.
Memphis Minnie and Little Son Joe Lawlar. 1939. "Black Widow Stinger." Memphis Minnie: Complete Recorded
Works, 1935-1941, vol. 4. RST Records BDCD-6011.
-----. 1941. "Black Rat Swing." Memphis Minnie: Complete Recorded Works, 1935-1941, vol. 5. RST Records BDCD-
6012.
Moore, Monette. 1936. "Two Old Maids in a Folding Bed." Sissy Man Blues. Mojo CD-MOJO-304, 1996.
Nolan, Faith. 1989. Freedom to Love. Redwood Records RR 8903.
-----. 2002. Faith Nolan Live. Faith n Faith.
Pierce, Billie. 1959. "Jelly Roll." Piano Singer's Blues. Rosetta RR 1303, 1982.
Rainey, Gertrude "Ma." 1924. "Cell Bound Blues." Complete Recorded Works in Chronological Order, vol. 2.
Document DOCD-5582, 1997.
-----. 1929. "Prove It on Me Blues." AC-DCBlues/Gay Jazz Reissues. Stash ST-106. 1977.
Reagon, Toshi. 1997. "Mr. Conductor Man." Kindness. Smithsonian Folkways SF CD 40095.
Saffire: The Uppity Blues Women. 1994. Old, New, Borrowed, and Blue. Alligator ALCD 4826.
-----. 1998. Live and Uppity. Alligator ALCD 4856.
-----. 2001. Ain't Gonna Hush! Alligator ALCD 4880.
Simone, Nina. 1967. "I Want A Little Sugar in My Bowl." The Blues. BMG 3101--2-N, 1991.
Smith, Bessie. 1923. "Jailhouse Blues." The Complete Recordings, vol. 1. Columbia/Legacy C2K 47091, 1991.
-----. 1923. "Nobody in Town Can Bake a Sweet Jelly Roll Like Mine." The Complete Recordings, vol. 1.
Columbia/Legacy C2K 47091, 1991.
-----. 1927. "Foolish Man Blues." The Complete Recordings, vol. 3. Columbia/Legacy C2K 47474, 1992.

-----. 1928. "Empty Bed Blues (Part 1)." The Complete Recordings, vol. 4. Columbia/Legacy C2K 52838, 1993.
-----. 1931. "Need a Little Sugar in My Bowl." The Complete Recordings, vol. 5. Columbia/Legacy C2K 57546, 1996.
Smith, Ruby. 1996. "Ruby Smith Dialogue/An Interview with Chris Albertson." Bessie Smith: The Complete
Recordings, vol. 5, The Final Chapter. Columbia/Legacy C2K 47474.
Thornton, Willie Mae "Big Mama." 1966. "Black Rat." Ball n' Chain. Arhoolie CD-305.
Trull, Teresa, and Mary Watkins. 1977. "Prove It on Me." Lesbian Concentrate. Olivia LF915.
-----. 1997. "Honey Hush" and "Flip Flop and Fly." Shake, Rattle, and Roll and Other Hits. Flashback R2 72707.
[Originally recorded in the 1950s.]
Washington Sisters. 1991. Take Two. SHSAWA Music. SHSA 222cS.
Wolf, Howlin'. 1961. "Little Red Rooster." Living the Blues: Blues Classics, 1960-1964. Time-Life, 1996.
(1). I met Gaye Adegbalola in the summer of 2001 at Bluesweek in Elkins, West Virginia, which I attended to study
blues piano with Ann Rabson. After this, Gaye and I corresponded via e-mail and exchanged materials on women's
blues. I interviewed her informally for this project on the phone once in the fall of 2001 and a couple of times in
January 2002. E-mail exchanges continued in the spring of 2002, after I began in earnest a book project on Saffire:
The Uppity Blues Women. In summer 2001 I studied blues vocals with Gaye during Bluesweek at Elkins, at which
time I also interviewed her for the book project.
(2). This is not to suggest that these (or all) blues are empowering. Ma Rainey's "Sweet Rough Man" (lyrics by J.
Sammy Randall), for example, juxtaposes graphic and disturbing images of violence with sexual desire. "He keeps
my lips split, my eyes as black as jet / But the way he love me, makes me soon forget" (Lieb 1981, 119). Bessie
Smith's "Tain't Nobody's Bizness If I do" (written by Porter Grainger and Everett Robbins) also ends with a
disturbing verse: "I'd rather my man would hit me than to jump right up and quit me...I swear I won't call no copper
if I'm beat up by my papa" (Davis 1998, 343). And yet contemporary blues women such as Jeannie Cheatham and
Saffire: The Uppity Blues Women continue to perform and record "Taint Nobody's Bizness," omitting the
problematic verses and sometimes adding their own verses, because the song empowers women to be themselves
in the face of community disapproval and criticism.
(3). Gaye Adegbalola told me that the "little boy in the boat" is a euphemism among black folks that goes way
back. The clitoris is called a "little boy" for its likeness to the penis, and "the boat" refers to the labia that surrounds
the "little boy" (Adegbalola 2003b).
(4). In the context of this song and singer, the use of the term billy goat might also be seen as a subtle
commentary on the positioning of black lesbians as the society's scapegoats.
(5). The beaver is a furry animal with a big wide tail that it slaps on the water when a potential threat approaches. It
is also a common euphemism for a woman's outer genital area, in which the animal's fur coat is likened to a
woman's pubic hair.
(6). Like "beaver," "bush" is another euphemism for a woman's pubic hair. One who "beats around the bush"

communicates indirectly, unlike the woman in the song, who boldly and directly expresses her sexual desires.
(7). The black widow spider image figures differently in an earlier blues by Memphis Minnie called "Black Widow
Stinger" (1939). In Minnie's recording, the spider won't stop crawling in her door, stinging her so many times with
"so much poison in his tail" that she "got lookin' thin and frail."
(8). Gaye Adegbalola has written a song called "I Got Your Monkey" ("it was running all over town...I petted that lil'
monkey, now it settled down"), which was inspired by another song, "Monkey Man Blues" (Adegbalola 2002c).
Article copyright the International Alliance for Women in Music
Illustration (Musical transcription of "Sugar")
DETALLES
Materia: Blues music; Gays &lesbians; Human relations; Interpersonal communication; Music;
Personal relationships
Título: "Jelly Jelly Jellyroll": Lesbian Sexuality and Identity in Women's Blues
Autor: Johnson, Maria V
Título de publicación: Women &Music; Lincoln
Tomo: 7
Páginas: 31
Número de páginas: 0
Año de publicación: 2003
Fecha de publicación: Dec 31, 2003
Editorial: University of Nebraska Press
Lugar de publicación: Lincoln
País de publicación: United States, Lincoln
Materia de publicación: Music
ISSN: 10907505
Tipo de fuente: Scholar ly Journals
Idioma de la publicación: English

Tipo de documento: Feature
Características del Illustration

documento:
Número de acceso: SFLNSWMMC1203WMSB679000003
ID del documento de 223656756

ProQuest:
URL del documento: https://search.proquest.com/docview/223656756?accountid=14598
Copyright: Copyright University of Nebraska Press Dec 31, 2003
Última actualización: 2017-11-09
Base de datos: GenderWatch
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"Jelly Jelly Jellyroll": Lesbian Sexuality and

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PDF GENERADO POR SEARCH.PROQUEST.COM Page 1 of 29

Well I can jelly'n'jelly jelly, jelly makes my life

Well upside down, right side up,

Give it to me baby till I've had enough

jelly'n'jelly'n'jelly'n'jelly, jelly jelly jellyroll

-- Faith Nolan "Jellyroll" (1989)

PDF GENERADO POR SEARCH.PROQUEST.COM Page 2 of 29

PDF GENERADO POR SEARCH.PROQUEST.COM Page 3 of 29

PDF GENERADO POR SEARCH.PROQUEST.COM Page 4 of 29

"B.D. Woman's Blues"

A: Comin' a time, BD women they going (to) need no men [2x]

A: BD women you sure can't understand [2x]

PDF GENERADO POR SEARCH.PROQUEST.COM Page 5 of 29

BD women, BD women sure is rough [2x]

She can lay that jive just like a nat'chal man

A: BD women sure can understand

A': Oh, BD women sure you understand

A: BD women sure can look so fine, yeah!

A': BD women sure we look so fine

PDF GENERADO POR SEARCH.PROQUEST.COM Page 6 of 29

I want a deep sea diving woman that got a

stroke that can't go wrong, woo!!

I want a deep sea diving woman got a stroke

that can't go wrong

Yeah, touch that bottom, gal, hold it all night

Other Lesbian Blues of the 1920s and '30s

Two old maids sweet and tender

Two old maids go on a bender

Two old maids and a solid sender

Talkin' `bout the maids in the bed

Two old maids over forty

Two old maids hot and sporty

They got the nerve to be hinkty and haughty

Talkin' `bout the maids in the bed

PDF GENERADO POR SEARCH.PROQUEST.COM Page 7 of 29

Thirty days in jail with my back turned to the

wall, turned to the wall...

Look here, Mr. Jail Keeper, put another gal in

(quoted in Davis 1998, 302)

So many mothers in this jail now for to fight

Somebody on the outside got to keep the kids

PDF GENERADO POR SEARCH.PROQUEST.COM Page 8 of 29

Color of your skin just makes it a double crime

[v. 4] The judge said listen Faith, see what you

The judge said listen, see what you done done

You done had to kill that woman's son

I said listen here jail keeper, put some

good-looking woman in my stall

I don't mind being in jail but every woman I

had has gone...

Lot of these dames had nothin' to do

PDF GENERADO POR SEARCH.PROQUEST.COM Page 9 of 29

Packed up all the men and sent 'em on to

Sent 'em over there the Germans to hunt

Left the women at home to try out all their

His face is all wrinkled and his breath smells

I'm talkin' `bout that boy in the boat

And he said, "Dearie, please turn around"

And he shoved that big thing up my brown.

He tore it. I bored it. Lord, how I adored it.

My sweet little Alice Blue Gown.