The Birth of Paul the Resonator
(Bringing the Blues Back to Africa) by Paul Grussendorf
I came to Saloum, Egypt, a Bedouin town on the Mediterranean, in July 2011 to work with the UN Refugee Agency. We interviewed African refugees from Darfur who had found shelter in the UN refugee camp on the border with Libya, seeking resettlement. They had earlier fled Darfur because of violent incursions into their pastoral homelands by Arab Janjaweed militias who were killing and plundering in order to drive them out. I was the only American in an international team.
I brought a small classical guitar with me, occupying my free hours playing country blues for anyone who cared to have a listen. I shared a house with three UN officers, a Norwegian guy named Siegfried, a Canadian, Mark, and a Syrian, Anas.
Every morning we drove the eight kilometers up the escarpment on the Egyptian-Libyan border to the camp. In the windblown, dusty setting the pre-fab metal interview huts suffered constant power blackouts, causing loss of air conditioning and current for our laptops. We were always sweaty and exhausted by the end of the day. I especially appreciated working with our African interpreters, benefiting from their knowledge of the culture and their empathy for the refugees. They translated much more than the various languages.
Siegfried scheduled a goodbye party and asked if I could please play guitar. At first I declined, knowing the small guitar, without amplification, wouldn’t carry well in an open space with a lot of people talking and socializing. But Siegfried insisted.
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The night of the party, I wait until everyone has gotten their food and the general commotion is a bit died down. Around a hundred people, including twenty African interpreters are enjoying themselves in the pleasant warm air under a starlit sky. I take my position on the steps facing the courtyard. My friends, seated in a semicircle about 20–30 feet out from me, create a natural amphitheater. They’re expecting a show, but I’m not a showman. I’ve never played for more than a handful of people. I start with a bouncy tune, Payday by Mississippi John Hurt, one of the first tunes I learned decades ago. I notice the applause are decidedly loudest from the interpreters who are watching me with radiant faces.
I shift gears, playing Wabash Rag, an upbeat ragtime tune by Blind Blake. His jazzy, highly-syncopated guitar stylings were unmatched in the twenties when he recorded for the so-called Race labels, and he is still considered the paragon of fingerstyle blues guitarists. After the first chorus several of the Africans leap to their feet, boogying right in front of me, with hands in the air, eyes wide, heads shaking, displaying intricate footwork. Our colleagues join them, clapping hands. With a big smile my German friend does her version of a cakewalk. The look of delight on the dancers’ faces inspires me. I keep the beat going, astonished at this spontaneous eruption of musical synergy. For a half hour we’ve got an African juke joint happening, people kicking up their feet, dancing away the day’s tedium, punctuated with occasional Darfurian leaps-into-the-air with shouts of joy. I play songs of Blind Boy Fuller, Gary Davis, and Blind Lemon Jefferson. When I rev up the beat in the chorus of Police Dog Blues, Abraham, a Darfurian interpreter cries, “Oh Mr. Paul, that is the kind of music we like!”
And in that moment I’ve found my true mission, to carry the African American country blues back to Africa and around the world. What stage name? Since I specialize in resonator guitar and the swampy sounds of the Mississippi Delta, I christen myself Paul the Resonator, a play on the old gospel tune John the Revelator. I’m born again — a blues missionary. I have since played in many refugee camps and schools in Africa, always with gratitude to those African interpreters who that night showed me the way.
Paul the Resonator’s CD is Soul of a Man
