Jake Leg Blues
Over the next few days, I’m going to be posting the entire JAKE LEG BLUES album. This fine compilation of blues and country songs put together By John P. Morgan has been out of print for years. That’s a shame because it’s a great set. The informative notes by Dr. Morgan describe both the Jake Leg epidemic of 1930 and the songs about the horrible disease.
Anyway, here’s the Dr. Morgan’s history of Jake Leg and the first song:
Jake Leg Blues
Then he would eat of some craved food until he was sick; or he would drink
Jake or whiskey until he was a shaken paralytic with red wet eyes.
-- John Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath
The strange paralytic illness of 1930 was widespread and to some communities devastating. Literally thousands of men (and a few women) were paralzed in the large cities of the southern rim, Kansas City, Wichita, Oklahoma City and Cincinnati. The affect in smaller southern towns, although less documented, was likely worse. An afflicted attorney in Johnson City, Tennessee believed that more then 500 men in a community of less than 20 thousand were struck down with the paralysis.
Newspaper articles beginning in early March, 1930 and later, medical journal articles, described the epidemic and its sufferers, many of whom were affected before the summer of 1930, The earliest newspaper articles atributed the illness to the ingestion of an alcoholic extract of ginger - the "Jake." There is however, a strange paucity of information on the impaired futures of these victims. They did not die, but they seemingly ceased to exist and there were very few follow-up articles in either newspapers or popular journals. The style of the 1930 reports is very unrevealing about the sufferers. The medical writers were sober and objective, and described statistics - not men. The newspaper reporters interviewed hpysicians, health officials and government spokesmen, but not victims, and produced narrativesas devoid of human issues as the clinical-scientific prose of the medical journals.
Some reasons for this one-dimensional chronicle are clear. The victims were generally poor working and farming class men. Owing to the Depression, many were not not working at all. In Cincinatti, most of the affected lived in rooming houses and small hotels in a poor downtown area populated almost exclusively by white men from Eastern Kentucky and Tennessee. who had left failing farms and coal mines in search of work in the city. There were significant numbers of black victims although initially they were notincluded in the counts because even more than poor whites, they were excluded from contact with the medical system. Further, in a culture and a time that ostensibly valued abstinence and innocence before the Prohibition law, they were drinkers of illicit alcohol. They did not even deerve the equivicol pity we usually award the lame and halt because they were conted responsible for what happened to them. They were an embarrassment to the communities in which they lived, the characteristic paralytic walk marking them more clearly than a scarlet letter, bringing shame to the family. They became invisible men without compensation, without redress, nearly without sympathy.
An alcoholic extract of ginger (usually Jamaican) had been available in the United States since the 1860s. It was reputedly useful in many ailments, and it's alcohol content undoubtedly contributed to its popularity. Powdered ginger root, or an oily resinous extract of the root, was dissolved in a solution of 70-90 percent alcohol. The usual instructions specified a few drops dissolved in water to be taken for digestive upset, delayed menstuation or as a cold remedy. It was employed popularly as illicit alcohol in the southern United States well before Federal Prohibition because many towns, counties and entire states were already dry. After Federal Prohibition began in 1920, its use exploded. The official and legal medicinal extract was very high in ginger content and too irritating for most to drink. However, beverage entrepreneurs produced an adulterated version consisting of small amounts of ginger, dissolved in 75 percent alcohol and mixed with a variety of adulterants. The adulterants provided the necessary solid content because, at least theoretically, an FDA inspector could heat the product to dryness and check the weight of the residue. The illegal product was an amber-colored, pleasantly flavored beverage (called Jake) labeled as the official and approved Jamaica ginger extract. It was sold throughout the South in drug stores, groceries, roadside stands, and barber shops. At $.35 per 2 ounce bottle, it provided more alcohol than two legal pre-Prohibition mixed drinks.
In February f 1930, Harry Gross of the Hub Products Corporation in Boston, adulterated a bunch of Jake with triorthocresyl phosphate - an ingredient of paint and lacquers. It seemed an ideal ingredient. It was cheap, tasteless and odorless, miscible with ginger and soluble in alcohol. He shipped most of the Jake in bulk to rebottlers in larger cities. This single batch of TOCP-contaminated Jake4 paralyzed thousands of thirsty Americans. Gross served lass than two years, charged only with breaking the pure food and drug law.
Those poisoned were permanently paralyzed and most never walked again without canes, crutches or walkers. They dragged their feet, rocking from one side to the other to swing their weakened legs forward, slapping their shoes to the pavement. This peculiar gait became known as the Jake Walk and the illness, the Jake Leg.
Black and white untutored musicians of the South had entered recording studios for the first time in the 1920s - recording blues, fiddle tunes, gospel songs and other downhome music. In 1930, and a short time after, in an unprecedented fashion, they recorded multiple songs referring to the Jake Leg. They, knowing the vistims (and ocasionally being the victims) were personal, frank and explicit. Medical Journals and the Johnson City News did not discuss inpotence, but some surgeons surely did. The body of songs expressed some sympathy, but a more often a fatalistic, even humorous, view of the rounder with the Jake Leg.
Songs:
"Jake Walk Blues" - The Allen Brothers: This recording sold widely (perhaps 25,000 copies), and lyrics were quoted to me by two Jake Leg Victims I interviewed in 1975 in Johnson City, Tennessee. The lyrics are not sympathetic and express the view that for a tough-drinking, tough-living man, the Jake Walk was inevitable. Lee Allen recalls seeing many victims as he and his brother, Austin, worked in an around Chattanooga, Tennessee.
"Jake Walk Papa" - Asa Martin: This late performance, 1933, was based on the Allen's "Jake Walk Blues", but modified the lyrics and the interplay between male and female characters in the song. Roy Hobbs played the fine mandolin lead. Marting lived, at this time in Corbin Kentucky - a community hard-hit by the illness - and recalls many acquaintances and friends who had the illness.
More JAKE LEG BLUES tomorrow!
Anyway, here’s the Dr. Morgan’s history of Jake Leg and the first song:
Jake Leg Blues
Then he would eat of some craved food until he was sick; or he would drink
Jake or whiskey until he was a shaken paralytic with red wet eyes.
-- John Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath
The strange paralytic illness of 1930 was widespread and to some communities devastating. Literally thousands of men (and a few women) were paralzed in the large cities of the southern rim, Kansas City, Wichita, Oklahoma City and Cincinnati. The affect in smaller southern towns, although less documented, was likely worse. An afflicted attorney in Johnson City, Tennessee believed that more then 500 men in a community of less than 20 thousand were struck down with the paralysis.
Newspaper articles beginning in early March, 1930 and later, medical journal articles, described the epidemic and its sufferers, many of whom were affected before the summer of 1930, The earliest newspaper articles atributed the illness to the ingestion of an alcoholic extract of ginger - the "Jake." There is however, a strange paucity of information on the impaired futures of these victims. They did not die, but they seemingly ceased to exist and there were very few follow-up articles in either newspapers or popular journals. The style of the 1930 reports is very unrevealing about the sufferers. The medical writers were sober and objective, and described statistics - not men. The newspaper reporters interviewed hpysicians, health officials and government spokesmen, but not victims, and produced narrativesas devoid of human issues as the clinical-scientific prose of the medical journals.
Some reasons for this one-dimensional chronicle are clear. The victims were generally poor working and farming class men. Owing to the Depression, many were not not working at all. In Cincinatti, most of the affected lived in rooming houses and small hotels in a poor downtown area populated almost exclusively by white men from Eastern Kentucky and Tennessee. who had left failing farms and coal mines in search of work in the city. There were significant numbers of black victims although initially they were notincluded in the counts because even more than poor whites, they were excluded from contact with the medical system. Further, in a culture and a time that ostensibly valued abstinence and innocence before the Prohibition law, they were drinkers of illicit alcohol. They did not even deerve the equivicol pity we usually award the lame and halt because they were conted responsible for what happened to them. They were an embarrassment to the communities in which they lived, the characteristic paralytic walk marking them more clearly than a scarlet letter, bringing shame to the family. They became invisible men without compensation, without redress, nearly without sympathy.
An alcoholic extract of ginger (usually Jamaican) had been available in the United States since the 1860s. It was reputedly useful in many ailments, and it's alcohol content undoubtedly contributed to its popularity. Powdered ginger root, or an oily resinous extract of the root, was dissolved in a solution of 70-90 percent alcohol. The usual instructions specified a few drops dissolved in water to be taken for digestive upset, delayed menstuation or as a cold remedy. It was employed popularly as illicit alcohol in the southern United States well before Federal Prohibition because many towns, counties and entire states were already dry. After Federal Prohibition began in 1920, its use exploded. The official and legal medicinal extract was very high in ginger content and too irritating for most to drink. However, beverage entrepreneurs produced an adulterated version consisting of small amounts of ginger, dissolved in 75 percent alcohol and mixed with a variety of adulterants. The adulterants provided the necessary solid content because, at least theoretically, an FDA inspector could heat the product to dryness and check the weight of the residue. The illegal product was an amber-colored, pleasantly flavored beverage (called Jake) labeled as the official and approved Jamaica ginger extract. It was sold throughout the South in drug stores, groceries, roadside stands, and barber shops. At $.35 per 2 ounce bottle, it provided more alcohol than two legal pre-Prohibition mixed drinks.
In February f 1930, Harry Gross of the Hub Products Corporation in Boston, adulterated a bunch of Jake with triorthocresyl phosphate - an ingredient of paint and lacquers. It seemed an ideal ingredient. It was cheap, tasteless and odorless, miscible with ginger and soluble in alcohol. He shipped most of the Jake in bulk to rebottlers in larger cities. This single batch of TOCP-contaminated Jake4 paralyzed thousands of thirsty Americans. Gross served lass than two years, charged only with breaking the pure food and drug law.
Those poisoned were permanently paralyzed and most never walked again without canes, crutches or walkers. They dragged their feet, rocking from one side to the other to swing their weakened legs forward, slapping their shoes to the pavement. This peculiar gait became known as the Jake Walk and the illness, the Jake Leg.
Black and white untutored musicians of the South had entered recording studios for the first time in the 1920s - recording blues, fiddle tunes, gospel songs and other downhome music. In 1930, and a short time after, in an unprecedented fashion, they recorded multiple songs referring to the Jake Leg. They, knowing the vistims (and ocasionally being the victims) were personal, frank and explicit. Medical Journals and the Johnson City News did not discuss inpotence, but some surgeons surely did. The body of songs expressed some sympathy, but a more often a fatalistic, even humorous, view of the rounder with the Jake Leg.
Songs:
"Jake Walk Blues" - The Allen Brothers: This recording sold widely (perhaps 25,000 copies), and lyrics were quoted to me by two Jake Leg Victims I interviewed in 1975 in Johnson City, Tennessee. The lyrics are not sympathetic and express the view that for a tough-drinking, tough-living man, the Jake Walk was inevitable. Lee Allen recalls seeing many victims as he and his brother, Austin, worked in an around Chattanooga, Tennessee.
"Jake Walk Papa" - Asa Martin: This late performance, 1933, was based on the Allen's "Jake Walk Blues", but modified the lyrics and the interplay between male and female characters in the song. Roy Hobbs played the fine mandolin lead. Marting lived, at this time in Corbin Kentucky - a community hard-hit by the illness - and recalls many acquaintances and friends who had the illness.
More JAKE LEG BLUES tomorrow!
posted by KS at 9/04/2006 08:02:00 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home