Sharecropper's Suite
This project began with Freddie Matthews uncasing his Guild Mark IV on a Friday night in 1978 and hammering out a ten song concept album by sundown on Sunday. His Mississippi Delta raising by a cotton farming family gave him all the background he needed to pen these plaintive and angry songs about a poor white sharecropper in the early twentieth century.
“Filmed in Sunflower County, Miss., the movie tracks a poor farmer and his family trying to pull themselves out of poverty by working another man’s land with a mule and plow…The movie is honest and evocative.”
Perry Flippen; San Angelo Standard Times
This half hour concept video covers a year in the lives of a young Tennessee hill dweller and his family trying their luck in the rich Mississippi Delta farmlands between Memphis and Vicksburg... Moorhead, to be specific. ”Where the Southern Crosses the Yellow Dog” was its calling card for it was a robust railroad crossing town with four passenger trains meeting there daily, legend has it.
As the hard work starts, “It Ain’t No Easy Living” is the song, followed by “Hot As Hell,” adding flavor to the salty grime of plowing gumbo land in the heat. Social life beckons on a Saturday night with “Me and Mama and the Girls” sandwiching two instrumentals written by the leading man of the video, Thomas Free;“Delta Bottomland Breakdown”and“Lady Sarah’s Waltz.”A little girl’s paean “Blooms on the Cotton” cavorts from the sound track as her playtime thoughts are painted in the music.
Problems raise their ugly heads as first glimpsed in “Send Us Some Rain” at the church house. The minor keyed“No Hiding from the Sun”encapsulates the mood as time takes a walk through its own paths allowing the wife’s inner feelings to flow through the haunting elegy“My Mountain Home”
"When I saw Sharecropper… I was moved with the spirit of the whole production. I couldn't help but appreciate the life style of our farming community and their connection with God and nature. I especially loved the dance hall scene. Thank you Freddie for moving my heart."
Cindy Jordan; Songwriter
best known for writing "Jose Cuervo (You are a friend of mine.)"
“Mister Johnson” plays on the triumph of man over his environment and gut wrenching reality takes root in the final song of the work called“I Hear They’re Hiring Men in Oklahoma”.The spark of life possessed by all human beings flashes in the final scenes where optimism crowds out the frighteningly real consequences of life gone awry.
Sharecropper’s Suite, begun almost thirty years ago, ends giving us the opportunity to examine life and what it means to us in the ever present “here and now.”
Buy the CD
1. Mississippi Morning
2. Chalk Dogs, Cigarettes, and Beer
3. Southern State of Mind
4. Hanoi Flyway
5. I Want to Lose Myself
6. You Can Find Her in Laredo
7. Sweet Tender Lady
8. No Hiding From the Sun
9. Feet Nailed to the Floor
10. Going Home Blues No. 2
Listen to sample clips and get more information on purchasing the CD
Sharecropper's Suite
Now after all these years, it's here!!! Sharecropper's Suite is on DVD!
Upcoming Shows:
Fat Baby's Catfish House, Highway 61, 15 miles south of Cleveland.
Every Saturday at 5:00 p.m. til 8:00 p.m.
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© 2006 Freddie Matthews