River Music: An Atchafalaya Story

Chapter 11: Turning Tides

c h a P t e r 1 1 Turning Tides I n February 2007, Voices of the Atchafalaya , the exhibit containing John Amrhein’s fifty-nine black-andwhite photographs and Earl’s sixtyminute soundscape, opened in the Patterson museum. Friends, relatives, and St. Mary Parish residents thronged the exhibit hall, sipping wine and Coke from plastic cups, lingering longer before each photograph than city gallery hoppers are wont to do. Dean Wilson and Natha Booth manned an information table, passing out literature for Basinkeepers. Eula attended, escorted by a nephew, and watched the proceed- turning tides 167 ings from a chair off to one side. “A lot of people came,” she said to me, nodding. But stealing the show were the subjects, attired for the evening in crisp dresses or shirts and jackets, listening to their own voices resound through the space, staring with pride and wonder at John’s haunting images of themselves landing fish, peeling shrimp, gigging frogs, and even, in the case of boat pilot Shine Beadle, showing off his violin, whose wobbly sound haunts Earl’s soundscape like an old 78-rpm record. Adam Morales, a veteran fisherman and as yet unrecognized driftwood sculpture artist, wandered the hall, appraising its arrangement, not knowing that in two years, the American Visionary Art Museum in Baltimore would select his Statue of Liberty as the icon for a year-long international exhibition titled “Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.” Across the room from Morales, the elderly shrimper Marvin Hardee posed for snapshots before his own picture, his mouth twisted upward into a little smile when viewers did a double-take passing by. In one evening, he had turned into a living legend. Earl’s notes for the show read, in part: Photographs capture history and tell stories—they are vehicles by which we know ourselves. The sounds recorded for the accompanying “soundscape” are derived directly from the river as source material—ferry engines, bells, fog horns, whistles, seagulls, bridge sounds, tug boats and trains provide an ambient soundfield for the emergence of voices of our elder residents. The voices tell stories based on memory and, in so doing, create impressions or feelings. The idea the composer would like to convey is“the river as keeper of dreams.” The impermanence of the river, constant—yet flowing, is much like our subconscious itself. In three years’ time, five of the twelve men and women featured in the show would be gone, entombed in nearby cemeteries. In October 2009 both John and I happened to be in town shortly after Shine Beadle’s 168 chapter 11 death, and with Earl, attended his Masonic funeral service at a Morgan City funeral home. The sanctuary was packed with at least four generations , the elderly parked closest to the coffin in wheelchairs, the most restless children sent to the lobby to play. The Masonic service begins with a solemn procession of the brotherhood, wearing over their suits the traditional white apron, symbolizing the Freemason’s trade and innocence . On their lapels, the men wear evergreen sprigs, for faith in the soul’s immortality. Shine Beadle’s rites were based in Christian practice, according to the tradition of his lodge.Toward the end, everyone present joined in the Lord’s Prayer, and the fisherman was committed to the Celestial Lodge above. •฀ •฀ • Also in 2007, Earl received a commission from Dolores Henderson, beloved Morgan City educator of at-risk children and a well-known storyteller; some of her tales have been documented by folklore scholars. Titled MissToots, Earl’s CD,composed of six autobiographical narratives, blends Henderson’s smooth, lyrical voice with nature utterances, piano/ bass jazz, and improvised percussive effects with found sounds like a player piano, a washing machine, and a spinning bicycle wheel.Together, they yield an organic whole—a kind of sound poem.Henderson’s opening narrative is based on Louisiana childhood memories,but the best sections may be her long remembrances of David Butler and Royal Robertson, the outsider artists Frédéric Allamel introduced to Earl. Henderson, like Butler and Robertson, is African American and had known both artists personally, even commissioning them. “They’re special people with a spiritual connection to their maker, and a love of their fellow man—but wanting as much privacy as possible,” she says on the CD. Henderson had gotten to know David Butler through his niece, who worked in the...