Kent.
Yup, that was the story. Also, yes, it was based Leadbelly
who was big in New York right after the war (WWII that is,
for me that's THE war, as for any New Yorker THE city is New
York, and, actuality, Manhattan at that. I grew up in
Brooklyn, and when we went to Manhattan we said we were going
into the city.) during the big folk and left protest song
revival that swept the city led by Pete Seeger before the
right wing crackdown that the mid fifties brought and most of
the folk singers were banned from radio and television.
(There was a story back then that when CBS needed a folk
singer for some kind of special TV show, the only one they
could find who wasn't on the Attorney General's subversive
list was Burl Ives!) Talk about Hegel.
I knew Lead casually from various Village bars, and much of
the dialogue in
"Yellow Gal" is real, and most of the songs were from Lead's
repertory. But most of the story is imagination, as all
fiction should be.
I have another story about "Yellow Gal." Not too long after
it was published, I receivd a call from the Curtis Brown
agency. They wanted to know if I had a novel, and when I said
I did, they wanted to meet me. The particular agent, whose
name I forget, arranged a lunch meet at the Harvard Club. I
arrived first (I worked right around the corner at that time)
and left my name at the desk. When the agent arrived he
stopped at the desk, and when the concierge pointed me out, I
saw him look at me and his face fall in obvious
consternation. Lunch was strained, and he made no offer. Yep,
you guessed it, he had assumed I was african-american, and
when I wasn't lost all interest in me. Oddly, the same
general thing happened to Jim Sallis many, many years
later.
I'll tell Gayle about Ted Holland. I'm sure she will remember
him, the Iowan meant a lot to her.
Best,
Dennis
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