BLUES
IN OUR BLOOD
By Frederick A. Hurst
When I
heard that the Connecticut Valley Historical Museum was planning to exhibit Blues
in Our Blood: The Artistic Evolution of Taj Mahal and Carole Fredericks, I
was pleasantly surprised because Taj Mahal and Carol Fredericks were unique
musical pioneers from my own time and my own Springfield neighborhood. But what I also understood and wanted the
public to appreciate is that the two celebrated in the exhibit are but the tip
of the spear of a great Springfield family whose genius has been felt around
the world.
I was introduced to the family of these
two giants through the next to the oldest brother, Edward Samuel Fredericks,
who we affectionately nicknamed “Teacup” because, while we all sipped coffee
and other liquids, Edward sipped tea. I
met Teacup at Buckingham Junior High School and we both attended Technical High
School together. We took an
architectural drawing class together and, while for me it was simply another
burdensome graduation requirement, I was certain that the seriously studious
Teacup would become a great architect.
But it was not to be. When we graduated in 1962, Teacup enrolled
in Tennessee State University and was hired by IBM right out of college. Somewhere around 1970 his life took what
seemed to be a strange twist when he left IBM to manage the burgeoning career
of his older brother Henry, better known as Taj Mahal. After eight years managing Taj Mahal, Teacup
left to launch a career as a collector of Black art. By 1983 he began traveling the jazz festival circuit selling art
works from his extensive collection and in 1985 he opened Samuel’s Gallery in
Oakland, California, where, until recently moving his business to the internet,
he featured the works of the nation’s top African American artists and set the
national standard for showcasing African American art. (I am proud to have hanging in my home a
painting from his collection that he gave to my wife and me.)
What seemed to be a strange twist
actually brought Teacup in line with his family’s artistic inclinations. His paternal grandparents, Samuel Fredericks
and Clara Carey, were born and raised on the Caribbean island of St.
Kitts. Samuel met Clara in New York to
where they had both separately migrated.
They married and gave birth to their son, Harry Fredericks, who
eventually married Mildred Constancher Shields, a marriage that would ultimately
yield five offspring including, Henry (Taj Mahal), Edward, Richard, Connie
(Co-Curator of “Blues in Our Blood”) and Carole, in that order.
The Fredericks maternal grandmother,
Mildred Constancher, met and married Edward Sumter Shields in their native
South Carolina. Edward, who owned and
operated a “pressing” club in South Carolina, which was steeped in the Jim
Crow, anti-Black Southern tradition, got into an altercation with a White
customer who refused to pay his bill.
In the heat of their argument, the White client threatened Shields, who,
fearing for the welfare of himself and his family, closed his business that day
and, that evening, wisely drove his entire family to Brooklyn, New York, which
is where Harry met and married their daughter, who was also named Mildred
Constancher.
Mildred gave birth in a Harlem hospital
to their first son, Henry, who was to become famous as musician Taj Mahal. Harry and Mildred eventually moved to
Springfield, where he was able to find work and eventually purchase a home at
127 Monroe Street, where the remaining four Fredericks were born. Monroe Street has recently been co-named
“Taj Mahal Way” in honor of the accomplishments of the Fredericks’ most famous
son.
Unfortunately, tragedy struck the
family. In 1954, Harry Fredericks was
killed in a work-related accident that his young son, Henry, witnessed. Some say that the memories of the tragedy
helped to shape his music.
But, the turmoil that befell the family
at Harry’s death was under girded by the prescience of Harry himself. Before his death he had convinced Mildred to
upgrade her teaching degree that she had earned at South Carolina State before
her family left the South. Mildred was
able to support the family due to the Master’s Degree she earned in Early
Childhood Education.
Before his death, Harry also convinced a
friend, Hughan Williams, who had recently lost his wife, to let Mildred
baby-sit his young children. When Harry
died, Hughan offered the family support and comfort and a year later he and
Mildred were married, which, with the addition of Hughan’s three children,
Robert, Winston and Hughan, expanded the Fredericks-Williams household to eight
children. Soon “Ozzie” (Osborne
Alexander Williams), the ninth and final child, was born to Mildred and
Hughan.
It was in the spirit of the rich and
varied family history and mixed family environment on Marion Street in
Springfield that the 11-year old Henry, while roaming through the unfamiliar
basement, discovered the older Hughan’s guitar and began teaching himself to
play it with a comb. It was an
inauspicious start, it would seem, to such an auspicious career.
Henry’s musical curiosity was in the
blood. Before moving to Springfield,
father Harry was a respected New York musician and musical arranger. Taj Mahal
simply took it to another level. Taj
Mahal is known as a guitarist but he also is proficient in many more
instruments, including piano, banjo, mandolin and harmonica and he excelled as
a vocalist and actor. It is not
possible for this layperson to explain the style of Taj Mahal. To say it is eclectic is like describing
fine wine as a liquid. Look up
biographies of Taj Mahal on the Internet and you will see what I mean. He weaves a mosaic of Caribbean and Southern
influences, with gospel, blues and jazz, mixed in with African and reggae music
and more. The mark of his music is that
it is always different, always changing and always his own. Many artists attribute their success to the
contributions that Taj Mahal made during an astoundingly prolific career that
continues unabated.
Taj’s sister, Carole Denise Fredericks,
also defied description as a singer.
The youngest of the five Fredericks, she refined her singing talent in
San Francisco, where brother, Henry, introduced her around. But Carole soon left for Europe, where she
spent her remaining career and made a lasting mark. Her impact is best
expressed in words e-mailed to me by her older sister, Connie Fredericks: “Steeped in the fertile music traditions of
her parents, striving professionals from the Carolinas and the West Indies, she
emerged as a powerful singer who wove the passionate threads of blues, jazz,
gospel and R&B into a uniquely French tapestry….In 1990 she joined
Jean-Jacques Goldman and Michael Jones to form the phenomenally successful
trio, Fredericks Goldman Jones. For ten
years they performed in front of sold-out crowds throughout Europe, Africa, Southeast
Asia and Japan. During this period
(Carole) also released two popular solo albums.” Carole was at the peak of her career and fame when, at 49, she
died suddenly from a massive heart attack in Dakar. The world lost an artist but Carole left a legacy. The Blues
in Our Blood exhibit at the Connecticut Valley Historical Museum at
Springfield’s quadrangle displays a small, though important, part of it.
Connie Fredericks, the older of two
sisters and fourth youngest behind Richard, is actually named Mildred
Constancher Fredericks after her grandmother and mother. To avoid confusion with her mother, Harry
Fredericks nicknamed her Connie, which is the only name I ever knew Teacup’s
younger sister by. Connie followed in
the artistic footsteps of her family.
Early on, she sang, danced with the Hatchett Dancers and actually made
up songs for school plays. She was the
producer and host of WHYN’s children’s program “Heritage Corner” before
relocating to California where she became a writer and producer for several
public affairs television shows for KGO-TV, the leading ABC affiliate station
in San Francisco. After a brief stint
in the corporate world as a Communications Assistant, in 1983 she began a
15-year career as an actress and singer, doing commercials, daytime dramas,
off-Broadway and regional theater and New York clubs and cabarets. She is currently manager and official
spokesperson for CDF Music Legacy, LLC negotiating with such powerhouses as
Sony, Music/France, BMG/France, M6 Interaction and JRG Editions Musicales. She is also Director of the Carole D.
Fredericks Foundation and has worked closely with the Springfield Museum
Association as the Co-Curator for the “Blues in our Blood” exhibit. And, in keeping with the Fredericks’ spirit,
she has done and is doing much more over a career that spans almost four
decades.
It seems that all the siblings were
touched by older brother Taj Mahal and given a gentle lift. Richard Fredericks, the third born, is no
exception. He is also known as “Ricky”
and “Seabreeze. Richard is a freelance
audio engineer now based in Springfield.
After a stint in the Air Force, he studied business education at Texas
Southern University and Laney and Contra Costa College in California. He soon established an audio engineering
company, “Seabreeze Audio,” and worked for two years as the sound engineer for
Taj Mahal and toured with him throughout Africa and Europe. Later he was selected by the State
Department to tour throughout Europe, Africa and the Middle East with Jimmy Owens
and the Dr. Billy Taylor Trio. Richard
has also served as Audio Visual Director at Bernard College, taken a State
Department tour of South and Central America and the Caribbean and, following
the tradition of the Fredericks/Williams family, done and is doing so much
more.
Ozzie Williams, who also lives in
Springfield, and the three Williams siblings, Robert, Winston and Hughan also
expanded upon their roots in the fine arts.
By the time he was four years old, Ozzie was interpreting soul balladeer
Jackie Wilson. He minored in Music
Activities and performed in various bands while attending Westfield State
College, where he became a certified drug and alcohol counselor. He still works in the Human Services field
but music remains a passion in his life as reflected in his lead singing role
in a local blues band.
Winston followed a B.A. in Sculpture and
Art Education from the University of Massachusetts with a move to California,
where he worked for a while with his half-brother, Taj Mahal, performed in
numerous plays, sang in local clubs, directed, produced and taught theater and
even worked as a graphic artist.
Robert and Hughan died young, Robert in
1995 at age 46 and Hughan in 1987 at 34.
But each made his mark, especially the artistically-gifted Hughan, whose
interest in art started in the third grade.
He took lessons at the George Walter Vincent Smith Museum of Fine Arts
and graduated from the Art Institute of Boston. He was a pioneer in Black art on large and small canvases. His work has been on display at all three
local colleges. He and Don Blanton, a
regular contributor to Point of View, were contemporaries and
collaborators. Robert worked as road
manager for Taj Mahal but eventually ended up in the private banking business
sector as a computer operator.
The Fredericks-Williams family is a gift
to the world from Springfield. Taj
Mahal and the late Carole Fredericks are the proud tips of the spear. But the glory extends to the entire
Fredericks-Williams family, those living and those who have passed on.
So often we forget to pay homage to the
great ones in our midst and those parents and grandparents who raised them to
reach their potential. Go visit the Blues
in Our Blood exhibit at the Connecticut Valley Historical Museum. It will be there until November 9,
2008. And as you review the items in
the exhibit, reflect on the fact that the exhibit is but a small part of the
substantial contributions made to humanity by the Fredericks-Williams family.
And, allow me a moment of indulgence. I’ve got nothing against writers of
children’s fiction. But, it occurred to
me, if Springfield can make the fiction fairy tales of Dr. Suess a major and
permanent component of the Quadrangle and a basis for promoting the City, why
can’t we do the same with the real life drama of the Fredericks-Williams
family? Rather than a passing exhibit,
why not make Taj Mahal and Carole Fredericks and family a permanent
opportunity. It would certainly expand
Springfield’s international visibility and help to heal some wounds in a city
whose minority population has soared.
I can say some things that others
cannot. Such as, when I found out at
the last minute that the Taj Mahal/Carol Fredericks exhibit was coming, I felt
like Alicia Keys must have felt when she sang, “Somethin’ ain’t right.” We have a newspaper that blankets the Black
community like no newspaper ever has and we were among the last to know about
the exhibit that had been in the planning stages for at least a year! We would have promoted it every month!
Somethin’
ain’t right!
The Fredericks/Williams siblings are my
contemporaries as they are the contemporaries of the George Marshall’s and
Kamal Ali’s of Springfield and the Don Blanton’s, Ray Jordan’s and Russell
Orr’s and Carolyn McDonald’s and you name it.
The family represents the grassroots and the heart of Springfield’s
Black community and, if properly promoted, any exhibit representing the family
or any of its members would be massively attended.
Somethin’
ain’t right!
And, I will continue to feel that
somethin’ ain’t right until the Fredericks-Williams family, that gave so much
to the world from Springfield, is given, at least, the same promotional
importance in Springfield as has been given to a man who wrote children’s
fiction.
Well, Teacup, my old friend, as you can
see, the old warrior is still at it! I
want justice for the African American community in Springfield, whose
contributions are so often relegated to the negative, and for those who, like
the Fredericks/Williams family, accentuate the positive.
To Taj, Carole, and all of the other Fredericks/Williams family past and present, congratulations for a job well done. n