A week after
Diamond Teeth Mary died, I found myself at Sunset Beach, staring lazily
out to a stormy sea. It was late afternoon on the rustic back patio
of the Seabreeze. The jukebox was playing, and the bartender was complaining,
but I couldnt fathom the sounds.
I was robbed of rational thought save musings
of Mary Smith McClain. I can see her standing before Miamis South
Beach, resplendent in long scarlet gown, shoulders wrapped in fox
fur. It is red sky at 6 in the morning Christmas Day 1983. We have
just finished an all-night Tobacco Road blues show downtown and have
stopped to stare east before bed.
Her costume jewelry jangles as she raises one
hand to the heavens. At the moment the sun takes flight, she crushes
the hanky which hides her catfish cut-off thumb, squints her eyes
shut and exclaims: Like a new born baby born, thank you, Jesus. Like
a new born baby born.
Thank you, Jesus. Now she is preaching on a
crowded barroom stage. The Stuffed Pepper in St. Pete. Mid-80s. The
music is way down and Blind Willie James is tinkling the keys like
it was Sunday for the preacher. Be kind to your mother, Mary extols,
gripped with sincerity, fist to her chest and shaking. Praise the
Lord thank you, Jesus.
Kevin Hogan bangs a single rim shot at that.
Diamond Teeth pauses in mid-prayer and glares one-eyed at the prodigal
drummer. He tugs on his Harley shirt, cricks his neck at the Cyclops
diva and shakes it off. We never knew what she was going to do next,
Hogan remembers, 15 years later.
Thick and noisy, the crowd all shuts up but
the cash register when Diamond Teeth begins to shriek and shake her
religion. She had a certain wisdom. And she wasnt afraid to let people
in the bars know what she believed, testifies harmonica wizard T.C.
Carr.
Turn the house lights on, she orders. Turn
the house lights on, she screams and screams, over and over again,
while nervous patrons feel the walls for switches in the dark. Cigarette
lighters flame up, begging Mary for butane absolution.
Turn the houselights on, she bellows. The proprietor
is waving his arms Philadelphia-born Johnny Morgan speaks in British
when stressed. He curses in Cockney at Little Juke the guitar player,
who leans into Mary and whispers: Theres no house lights in this place,
Mary.
All strength leaves her body. She drops arm,
sinks chin, shakes head and sighs. But Mary dont like no dead house.
She one-eyes Juke and lets loose: Im a big fat woman, the meat is
shakin on my bones, and every time I shake it, a skinny gal will lose
her home.
Lighters leap like lizards. Mary prances like
an Egyptian, yowling like a cat. The Phillie returns to Johnnys voice
and the whole damn bar orders a beer. A flashlight aims square at
the silvery Juicy Fruit gumfoil on her teeth, and the sparkles bounce
off bottles and mirrors and the eyes of the crowd.
Thank you, Jesus for the flashlights and lighters.
I feel the cool air, on a blanket in the back of the crowd. Tall longleaf
pines frame an amphitheater near the Suwannee River. The 1997 Florida
Folk Festival. Someone hits a pole and the power in White Springs
suddenly goes out. Mary is in a wheelchair now, 96 years old, singing
the Walkin Blues.
Piano queen Liz Pennock and guitarist Dr. Blues
are Marys whole band this night. They are stunned when Mary keeps
singing. They keep playing in the dark, wondering what the hell shes
going to do.
Suddenly there were lighters and flashlights
all over the place, hundreds of em, remembers Liz. They shined em
all on stage so people could see her. The whole hillside got quiet
to hear her. We played real lightly. They could hear Mary. And you
could hear a pin drop.
Twenty minutes she sang with no power. I dont
know too many musicians of any age who would or could do that, attests
Rock Bottom, the bluesman who cared for Mary her last decade.
The house lights come back on, Mary roars through
her finale, When The Saints Go Marching In. Three times. Doc wheels
her backstage from a standing ovation her failing eyes cant see. She
is quiet and meek now, withdrawn behind rouge and knickknacks and
rhinestone-decked fingernails.
Blues legend Johnny Copeland has an arm around
her at the Big Apple, 40th and Central: Mother Mary is why I became
a musician, Johnny explains. I remember peeking under the tent when
the medicine show came through town. She was the big star and I was
the little boy who said I want to be on that stage, too.
John Lee Hooker remembers Marys tent show so
well he wouldnt let her open his show at Las Fontanas. Im not gonna
follow Mother Mary, he drawls in that gravely asphalt voice. Shed
take the house down!
Her husband, Clifford, crooked from sugar,
skin and bones in tattered coat and tie, smiles from the hell out
of her way. He holds Marys beloved little pooch Precious. First time
we took Clifford to see Mary perform, he was stunned. I never knew
I had such a wife, he said over and over.
Diamond Teeth Mary outlived all her husbands,
including the last one Billy 40 years her junior. The first one Daniels
just took off, Mary claimed, after she bopped him with a cooking pan
for carryin on.
When my phone rings in May of 1982 and I'm
asked to give an old Bradenton gospel singer a ride to White Springs
for the folk festival, I figure the experience would be closer to
Precious Lord than Stormy Monday.
My 9-year-old daughter, eyes wide, holds a
tape recorder close to Marys mouth as we tool up I-75 in my old red
van.
Darling, they used to call me Diamond Teeth
Mary, she says to little Marlena. I used to be biiiiiiig and fat.
She places one finger to her big red lips: But dont tell nobody, hon.
I dont want nobody to know.
She begins to sing: If I should take a no-shun,
and jump right in the o-shun, aint no-oh-bodys business if I do. If
I should go cray-zy, take a shot-gun and shoot my bay-by, aint no-oh-obodys
business if I do.
She tells us her two favorite stories: her
half-sister, blueswoman Bessie Smith, lying in a hospital waiting
room, arm hangin by a thread and bleedin in a pan, dying while the
white doctors stood by. And the one about Big Mama Thornton, who wrote
Elvis Hound Dog and Janis Ball and Chain": Ooooo Lord, I took
Willie Mae off the back of a garbage truck. She looked just like a
boy. But she could sing. I put her into show business.
Big Mama. Now, I see Mary walking through the
front door of Gerdes Folk City in the Village. Photos of Dylan stare
at us as we walk past the stage. Big Mama Thornton is wheelchair bound,
skinny and mean, hair like a wig. Her harmonica goes dead STOP and
the room is ice when her eyes meet Marys. Big Mama begins to cry.
Mary hands her the catfish hanky.
Big Mamas words are slurred but genuine: Ladeez
and gentlemens, this is Walkin Mary Smith. Shes my mother. She took
me off the back of a garbage truck in Montgomery, Alabama. I was dressed
like a boy and she put ribbons in my hair! The folksinger Odetta is
in the audience. All three women sing the impromptu blues, fighting
for verses and attention. Mary wrestles the ending note from the others
and moans it forth with hollers that have us all holding breath and
standing. Big Mama is coughing. Odetta walks away.
Stubborn. Headstrong, Mary rages, outside.
That Willie Mae hasnt changed a bit! Mary wishes she would have left
the girl on the garbage truck. Willie Mae Big Mama Thornton would
be dead in less than a year.
Mary had another 15 years. She lived for the
cheers and heroin of her music. I see a whole collage of Mary images,
singing the same song two or three times in a row while frantic stage
managers pace in the wings. I see her swinging an SM58, bopping emcees
right in their faces.
I hear the crowd screaming, Leave her alone.
The last time I saw her, she was blind and
weak, but she squeezed my hand and said the same thing she always
said when we met: Tell me, how is your daughter.
In Marys world, little Marlena was still a
freckle-faced 9-year-old on the drive to White Springs. I told her
she was grown, now, and doing fine. Praise God, she always said.
The sun was a deep orange sherbet scoop melting
on the sea. Dozens of people were standing in the sand, facing west.
Day was almost night, and I contemplated the sunset of Diamond Teeth
Marys life.
This all happened after she turned 80:
She played Carnegie Hall, the White House,
the W.C. Handy Awards, the Long Beach and Chicago Blues Festivals,
The Apollo Theatre, The Cotton Club and toured Europe three times.
She appeared on NBCs Today Show, in an off-Broadway Musical
and danced in the streets with the kids of Fame. She played
every hall, bar and juke joint in this part of Florida, hundreds of
shows. She was backed by nearly every blues musician in Tampa Bay,
including Loony Larry, Mikey Leach, Diddy Wah Diddy, Boneshaker, Smilin
Mike, Raiford Starke, Southside Charly, Freightrain, and Gentleman
John Street. She tried to make church every Sunday to beg forgiveness
for the blessed sin that was her life in the blues.
Levon Helm put her name in a Band song, and
Marlboro used her in a national ad. She starred in a PBS TV special.
They named the performing room upstairs at Tobacco Road Diamond Teeth
Marys Cabaret. They collected her gowns for the Florida State Museum.
She received Floridas highest folk music award and was up for the
national when she passed away at 6:45 a.m., Tuesday, April 4.
The last surviving member of the Rabbit Foot
Minstrels, the Brown Skin Models and Sammy Greens Hot Harlem Revue,
the last of the legendary blues shouters, the last tree in the first
blues forest was either 97, 98, 99 or 100 years old. Each time she
reached the crossroads, the Devil had let her pass.
Under next of kin, she had them put the blues
musicians.
Praise the Lord thank you Jesus.
A guy named Digger, a Vietnam POW who handled
Marys affairs at the end, said there was no pain, just holding on.
I told her, Mary, you can rest now. You dont have to do any more shows,
he recalls. She relaxed. She said Im going home now. My mothers waiting.
And she was gone. Just like that.
Out in Dripping Springs, Texas, guitarist Erik
Hokkanen went to the woods to make some smoke: Funny thing is, I wasnt
sad. I felt she was there with me. Seminole Chief Billie offered to
pay for Marys burial, but her bank account had enough to cover it.
I can tell you right now, Mary was damned proud of that, says Rock.
At Marys request, Digger will spread her ashes
on the West Virginia tracks where she jumped a freight at 13 to begin
the incredible adventure that was her life. One journeys finished.
Another journey begins. Thats the way Mary looked at it, sighed Digger.
Everyone loved her. She loved everybody. She was bigger than life.
Much bigger than life. A treasure of Tampa
Bay. And, when the last teeny sliver of sun plipped behind the horizon,
I heard applause in every direction, the length of Sunset Beach. I
heard hoots and hollers mixed in with the hand claps. I hear Diamond
Teeth Mary screech: I love that kind of carryin on.
