Robert Wilkins

Last night I discovered Robert Wilkins, a somewhat obscure blues singer and guitarist, born in 1896 in Hernando, Mississippi, just south of Memphis.  It was midnight and I was winding down, chilling to his light-fingered Piedmont-style guitar, crisp vocals and thoughtful lyrics, when this line from Falling Down Blues caught my attention:

I'll certainly treat you just like you was white.
I'll certainly treat you just like you was white.
If that don't satisfy you, girl I'll take your life.

All sorts of things crossed my mind.  First, how politically incorrect!  And then, how much things have changed, only to come back.  In a different context, it almost sounds like a contemporary rap lyric.

Robert Wilkins has an interesting story. In 1928 he recorded the song Rolling Stone, for Victor Records.  He only did a few other blues recording sessions, the last one in 1935, and his body of recorded work is limited.  Blues was a rough and rowdy scene in those days. with musicians playing bawdy songs in juke joints, parties and travelling medicine shows, with plenty of home-made liquor and a surprisingly abundant supply of drugs.


The story is that Wilkins' wife became very ill and he prayed at her bedside that if God would let her live he would give up the blues and devote himself to religion. His wife did recover and Wilkins stayed true to his word and became a minister, often playing guitar and singing as part of his service. But he abandoned the old blues lyrics, often replacing them with religious ones.

His most famous song started as a blues tune--That's No Way to Get Along, which was later covered by Eric Clapton, Guy Davis and others. Wilkins rewrote the lyrics and in 1964, at the age of 72, recorded the new version as The Prodigal Son, (by The Reverend Robert Wilkins--Memphis Gospel Singer).  In 1968, a modestly altered version of Prodigal Son appeared on the Rolling Stones' Beggars Banquet album, but listed Mick Jagger and Keith Richards as writers/composers. When the song was identified as a Wilkins original, the Stones had to re-release the album with the proper credits. Copies of the original Beggars Banquet album with the misappropriated credits are a rare collectors' item.

Robert Wilkins died in 1987 in Memphis, Tennessee, at the age of 92.