***From Out In The Be-Bop Blues Night- Sippie Wallace's Women Be Wise

A film clip of Sippie Wallace performing her classic, Women Be Wise (also covered by Bonnie Raitt and Maria Muldaur among others).

From The Pen Of Frank Jackman

A while back, oh, maybe a couple of months ago, when I was on one of my periodic barrelhouse women’s blues moments, a moment when I desperately needed to hear that crystal clear “folk” wisdom many of those hard-living, hard-drinking, hard-working, hard beat down man times women put forth in their songs (many of the lyrics written, written maybe in blood, by the based on those same hard experiences). One song, Women Be Wise, done originally by Sippie Wallace way back in the late 1920s when she was one of the queens of the barrelhouse blues, caught my attention and stayed in my mind for a while. At that time I decided to let Sippie’s words speak for themselves and posted the song on the Blues In The Night blog that I make comments on occasionally with this: “Well I will just let Sippie tell it like it is for once. Speak some unfathomed truth.  Without further comment by me since anything added would be some much bad air. Okay. ” And that was a right decision at the time. Then last month out of the blue one of my young co-workers told me a story, told it to looking for a little sympathy since I knew the guy involved, about her wayward girlfriend and her, well, two-timing straying man. After hearing her out I sensed there was some kind of cautionary tale to be told so I will repeat what she said to me as best I remember it. If the story sounds familiar, sadly familiar to your own life experiences, then just skip to the bottom for my take on the thing:  

Brenda Swain had gone to the Rhode Island School of Design and studied the graphic arts, worked in Providence for a while after school at a small firm before moving to Boston, really Hullsville a few miles south the city to be closer to her new work location at IAM Associates, the place where I work as well. She shared a condo with another young woman roommate, also an artist of sorts. Brenda had moved to Boston to have more opportunity to grow in her chosen field. And she turned out to be crackerjack graphic artist in every way providing us with high quality work and many worthwhile suggestions for layouts in our various campaigns. Although we did not work directly together, she was not part of my staff, our joint projects brought us together enough that we could chat, chat personal stuff from time to time without embarrassment, and without the hassles associated with talking to peers, work peers or generational peers.

Early on Brenda had told me that beyond expanding her career horizons she had moved to Boston to have better shot at grabbing a man (she didn’t put it that way, it was not her style, her way of speaking, but that is the gist of her idea, okay). She said the male market in Providence was “the pits. (and that was her expression)” Since she had not had a serious relationship for a few years because she had decided to concentrate on her career she was beginning to worry that she was old hat, that she was going to wind up living alone with a cat, or some such thing. When she told me this I thought that she was probably going to be in for some disappointments in that arena since the Boston area was overloaded with talented and very eligible women looking for a relatively small cadre of “do-right” guys. At least that was what my daughters and others had told me. And so for a time, maybe six months Brenda would come into my office, usually on Monday, and relate her latest “bummer” to me. Usually this was about some desperation “one night stand” or running into some weirdo who wouldn’t take no for an answer. Then Tim, Tim Larkin, came on her horizon.                  

Above I mentioned that one of the reasons Brenda told me her latest sad tale that I am relating to you was that I knew the guy. See Tim was a young go-getter self-starter who worked for the firm that does our final phase layout work, who actually does the bulk of the layout work himself, and does it well. He had been out of town on some big assignment for a while but when he came back we needed his help on the Cassidy account, the big department store chain based over in Clintondale. And Brenda was the chief graphic artist on that account. So they met, met and worked together for a few weeks while I was working on other projects. Then one day, maybe a month later. Brenda came in and told me that they were, and this is the way she put it, “an item.”  She then went on to describe his virtues, his personal virtues since I already knew his work virtues. She even hinted that he might be “Mr. Right” although she said that a little tentatively, a little like she wasn’t sure when the other shoe would drop like had happened with some of her other recent explorations.               

And this Tim did seem like one of that very small pool of “do-right” guys that are a vanishing breed at least in Boston. He came out of the Dorchester working-class section of Boston, put himself through Boston College and was making himself indispensable at his job. A bright future, no question. He also had been unlucky at love, having been engaged at one point and then the young woman got cold feet. Brenda also told me, or started to tell, me his qualities as a kind and thoughtful lover before I cut her off on that subject. I am neither priest nor sex-crazed and so reserve the right to not have to graphically hear about the mating habits of the young (besides my temperature might rise a bit too much so consider the health factor too). So Tim Larkin seemed like some angel and good for Brenda.

Except Tim, along with his stellar virtues, was also a man and that is where Brenda made her fatal mistake. It seems that she not only confided her Tim thoughts to me but would regale her roommate, Minnie Shaw, with Tim’s virtues, including his wonderful ways under the sheets. Now this Minnie, also was sans a male friend, also was looking for a “do-right” guy although Brenda assumed that she would go out into the “meat market” bar scene to find such a male. Wrong. We had to send Brenda on assignment for a week to San Francisco to do some work for an important client and somehow, the details were sketchy here, during that time Minnie, using her Brenda knowledge of him, of his likes and dislikes, snagged one Tim Larkin, snagged him right in their shared condo. And here is the strange part, strange to my older ears anyway, Brenda finished up her sad tale by saying she hoped, pretty please hoped, that somehow the three of them could work something out. Jesus.            

As Brenda was relating her story the words to Sippie’s song kept beating through my head and this thought too- while Brenda and Sippie were separated by two or three generations Miss Sippie long ago had the right advice, the right advice indeed-“yah, don’t advertise your man”- and guys think carefully about this wisdom too.         

******

Sippie Wallace

Women Be Wise

Women be wise, keep your mouth shut

Don't advertise your man

Don't sit around gossiping

Explaining what he really can do

Some women now days

Lord they ain't no good

They will laugh in your face

They'll try to steal your man from you

Women be wise, keep your mouth shut

Don't advertise your man

Your best girlfriend

Oh she might be a highbrow

Changes clothes three time a day

But what do you think she's doing now

While you're so far away?

You know she's lovin your man

In your own damn bed...

You better call for the doctor

Try to investigate your head

Women be wise, keep your mouth shut

Don't advertise your man

Women be wise, keep your mouth shut

Don't advertise your man

Now don't sit around girls

Telling all your secrets

Telling all those good things he really can do

Cause if you talk about your baby

Yeah you tell me he's so fine

Honey I might just sneak up

And try to make him mine

Women be wise, keep your mouth shut

Don't advertise your man --

Don't be no fool!

Don't advertise your man

Baby don't do it!

********
 

Beulah "Sippie" Thomas grew up in Houston, Texas where she sang and played the piano in her father's church. While still in her early teens she and her younger brother Hersal and older brother George began playing and singing the Blues in tent shows that travelled throughout Texas. In 1915 she moved to New Orleans and lived with her older brother George and got married to Matt Wallace in 1917. During her stay there she met many of the great Jazz musicians like King Oliver and Louis Armstrong who were friends of her brother George. During the early 1920s she toured the TOBA vaudeville circuit where she was billed as "The Texas Nightingale". In 1923 she followed her brothers to Chicago and began performing in the cafes and cabarets around town. In 1923 she recorded her first records for Okeh and went on to record over forty songs for them between 1923 and 1929. Her brother Hersal died of food poisoning in 1926 at age sixteen. Wallace was unique among the Classic Blues singers in that she wrote a great deal of her own material, often with her brothers supplying the music. The sidemen who played on her recording sessions were always excellent and included the cream of New Orleans Jazz musicians, like King Oliver, Louis Armstrong, Clarence Williams, Sidney Bechet and Johnny Dodds among others. Sippie moved to Detroit in 1929 and left show business in the early 1930s as the Blues craze ran its course. In 1935 and 1936 her aunt Lillie, her husband Matt and her brother George (who was hit by a streetcar) all died . She found solace in religion and during the next forty years she was a singer and organ player at the Leland Baptist Church in Detroit. She occasionally performed over the years, but did little in the Blues until she launched a comeback in 1966 after her longtime friend and fellow Texan, Victoria Spivey called "Sippie Wallace and Victoria Spivey". Wallace's next album was called "Sippie Wallace Sings the Blues" for the Storyville label in 1966. Wallace suffered a stroke in 1970 but managed to keep recording and performing. With the help of Bonnie Raitt she landed a recording deal with Atlantic Records and recorded the album, "Sippie", which featured Raitt, was nominated for a Grammy in 1983 and won a W.C. Handy Award for best blues album in 1984. Sippie Wallace was the aunt of Hociel Thomas and Hersal Thomas.