Boomerangst
Born blind into slavery in 1849 and acquired with his family by the Bethune family of Columbus, GA (who
eventually managed him), Tom Wiggins taught himself how to play the piano in his master's house by the age of four
and by eight was giving public performances. Dubbed Blind Tom, this autistic
savant could effortlessly mimic and commit to memory not just music, but sounds,
from the chirping of a bird to a clap of thunder, from the chugging of a
railroad train to a dead-on impersonation of Lincoln's debate partner, Senator Stephen Douglas, that drew capacity
crowds around the world. He was the first African-American to perform at the
White House and eventually became an international sensation, playing for the
"crown heads of Europe," garnering intensive press attention wherever he went
for his primitive grunts and odd stage gyrations, which included hopping on one
foot and stretching himself parallel to the ground like the letter
"T."
Deirdre
O'Connell's meticulously researched and footnoted The Ballad of Blind Tom (Overlook Duckworth) is a remarkable
tale that poses any number of issues about the source of creativity vs. mere
mimicry, the so-called "natural genius" of Blind Tom vs. the classical educated
model of learning, as well as the exploitation of native talent that has
apparently been part of show business from the very beginning. All of this is
set against the heated backdrop of the Civil War, the ongoing battle between
abolitionists and those pushing for emancipation, and the uneasy spectacle of a
black slave making hundreds of thousands for his white master long after the
last battle had been fought.
Audiences would flock to Blind Tom's concerts in large part for the
novelty of seeing this grunting, mostly inarticulate black man turn into a
world-class pianist, playing note for note the works of Beethoven, Bach, Liszt, Mendelssohn, Chopin, Thalberg, Gottschalk and the
like, not that much different from the shock registered when Susan Boyle first opened up her mouth,
or Jim Nabors segued from Gomer Pyle
into an aria. There is also the fascination of seeing someone whose mental
stability is an issue, from Wild Man
Fischer, say, to Wesley Willis and Daniel Johnston, except, in
Blind Tom's case, impeccably impersonating a world-class virtuoso.
Of course, because Blind Tom remained beholden to his white "masters,"
from General James Neil Bethune, who
built a fortune from managing him that included horse farms in
Virginia and
Kentucky, to Eliza Lerche, his legacy was largely
ignored by African-Americans, who viewed him as a traitor to their race. Only
recently have black musicians begun to appreciate Blind Tom, with pianist John Davis playing an ebony grand piano
set up by his gravesite in a Brooklyn cemetery in 2001,
marking a freshly delivered granite tombstone commemorating his death in
1908.
Blind Tom's saga, from escaping on foot with General
Bethune as the devastated South fell to General Sherman's Union troops, to his
supposed drowning in the Johnstown
flood, would make a great film. I'm thinking Jamie Foxx could definitely channel
Tom's inner Ray Charles while
portraying this larger-than-life character who really was this country's first
African-American pop star. Tom's act was filled with the type of theatricality
often associated with rock and roll-he'd play the piano behind his back, perform
two different songs simultaneously, one with each hand (shades of the modern
mash-up), take requests and even describe objects being held by a member of the
audience.
In the end, Blind Tom evokes a sense of wonder, how a self-taught slave
could possibly master the piano and play some of the world's greatest
compositions, so beautifully. Was this just a parlor trick, a dog learning how
to roll over... or did it represent something more, something that transcends race
and culture, even time and space, to signify a higher power at work?
As O'Connell puts it: "Was it possible... that through music and sound, Tom
was able to experience the underlying unity of all things? Did his savant powers
exempt him from the dualistic mode of perception-the state of mind that
separates subject from object, and prevents us from recognizing the ‘I' in the
‘other'? Did his deep empathy for music allow him to return to a Garden of
Eden-so to speak-to a time before The Fall, where, blind to his own nakedness,
he could revel in the state of grace?"
Those are the kinds of timeless questions The Ballad of Blind Tom poses, bringing
this long-forgotten figure into the present with all those contradictions
intact.