Abner Jay: the strange case of the “most unusual talent in the world”
On the back of Abner Jay’s curiously titled album, I Don’t Have Time to Lie to You, is a handwritten message that proclaims: “Abner Jay is the most unusual talent in the world. A true Southerner from South G.A. He was raised layin on his belly, drinkin water from the ol Swaunee River. Jay claims the secret for his good health and being the father of sixteen young’uns, and gonna git some more, layin on his belly drinkin water from that ol Swaunee. Abner still go to the Swaunee River every Sunday, and lay down on his belly. Abner is twenty five years older than you think”.
What is the secret? Is it merely layin’ on your belly and drinking water from that ol’ Swaunee-like human seal? How old does he think that I think he is? It is all very confusing stuff. Why is the opening song on such an upbeat seeming album titled ‘I’m So Depressed’? And who the hell even is Abner Jay, for that matter? What is it that makes this smiling beer swiller the self-professed “most unusual talent in the world”?
Well, to call Abner Jay a one-man band is to underplay his talent. He’s more of a one-man entertainer. And he seems so effuse with talent that it all gets confused; it bewilders a single entity subsumed by creativity. ‘I’m So Depressed’ starts with about a minute of incongruous stand-up material. While I’d love to say that this welcome to such a downbeat title is some sort of meta-comment on the human comedy appraising the irony that we’re all sad clowns at heart? But, in truth, it seems like Jay just has a few new jokes to share before rattling off a blues epic.
Alas, epic truly is the pertinent term here: ‘I’m So Depressed’ really can rival anything put out by B.B. King in band mode. And it isn’t a one-off. Throughout his wavering career, he has howled through eternities, pounding a kick-drum and intricately weaving blues riffs around soul-extolling tunes that paint the picture of a troubled soul yearning to sustain the content that flutters all too fragile throughout his back catalogue.
From the 1930s right up until his passing in 1993, aged 72 (or perhaps 25 years older than that), Jay remained a truly independent artist in every sense. He travelled around the country in his converted trailer/stage on wheels, collating his view of the scissored USA, performing his wailing brand of folk-come-blues at swap meets and fairs.
But perhaps more peculiar than the biography I can apply is how he defined himself: “The last working Southern black minstrel”. Far from dated provocation by a misguided ‘outsider artist’, in some ways, this was true, and he stood by the political undertone of his statement, highlighting the subjugation he faced throughout life. As early as five years old, he began playing for white plantation owners. He then joined the Rabbit Foot Minstrels in his youth before joining the African American-owned and-run touring variety show Silas Green from New Orleans.
From this lowly standpoint, he gathered stock of his place in the world and sought to encapsulate that while finding exultation from it. This meant his roots were always blended with stark individualism. As Eric Isaacson of the magnificent Mississippi Records explains: “He had this whole image of himself as this ancient troubadour who was playing this forgotten kind of music, even though in reality most of the songs and styles were very unique to just him.” In fact, he even claimed his banjo was made in 1748.
Nevertheless, he was not delusional on this front. After rising through the circuit of various travelling shows, he set out to secure his own independence in the industry. He became the manager of various trailblazers like Sister Rosetta Tharpe and the booking agent for Little Richard. Meanwhile, major fame almost seemed to wilfully evade him, happy to skirt the more humble circuits where he could truly be independent and release records on his own label, Brandie Records.
As the flyer he handed out at his shows suggests, he was always more adept at the music side of the industry than the management. The self-penned flyer described him as: “World’s Champion Cotton Picker and Pea Picker, World’s Fastest Tobacco Crapper, World’s Greatest Jaw Bone Player, World’s Fastest Mule Skinner… THE WORLD’S WORSE BUSINESS MAN” This bittersweet humour was all part of Jay’s charm.
He laughed in the face of hardship and put it on record, creating a sound that somehow both giggles and haunts. All the while, an illuminating cognisance shines through as he sings on ‘The Reason Young People Use Drugs’: “They are hungry, tired and fed-up. Not just the youth, the poor, the rich, the black and the well done do”/
Abner Jay was an American master, an artist who perhaps typified the nation a little too much to ever truly be accepted as such.
