Cisco Houston

Gilbert Vandine "Cisco" Houston (born August 18, 1918 in Wilmington , Delaware , † April 29, 1961 in San Bernardino , California ) was an American folk musician.

Life

Gilbert Vandine Houston was the second of four children. His father, Adrian Moncure Houston, worked in sheet metal processing. When Houston was little, the family moved to California, where he went to school in Eagle Rock, a suburb of Los Angeles.

Houston began playing guitar during his school days, initially folk songs that he knew from his family. Although he suffered from nystagmus of the eyes, which reduced his eyesight, he was described as highly intelligent and well-read. In part, he acquired his knowledge by memorizing what he heard in class. He wanted to be an actor and got smaller roles in Hollywood, but could not be used for many roles due to his severely limited eyesight.

The economic crisis ( Great Depression ) that prevailed in the USA from 1929 onwards , combined with mass unemployment, overshadowed the beginning of Cisco Houston's years of traveling, during which he took one job after another in order to earn a living and also performed as a street musician. When a labor movement began to form in the USA in the thirties and forties, Houston, under the influence of his experiences, played a decisive role in building it up. As a musician he supported them by singing "combative and militant folk songs in protest against the social grievances for working men and women all over the mountains and valleys of our country" (Woody Guthrie). In 1939, through his fellow actor Will Geer, he met the folk musician Woody Guthrie , who at the time had a regular broadcast on the KFVD radio station in Los Angeles and also appeared at trade union events supported by the Communist Party , often together with Geer and his colleagues Mrs. Herta. Soon Houston was playing with them too. In 1940 Houston came to New York, worked as a bouncer at a striptease club to make a living, but wherever it turned out, played mostly with Guthrie and other folk musicians from the local scene. During the war he was in the merchant navy and was also on several trips to Europe with Guthrie.

Career

From 1944 he accompanied Guthrie together with Sonny Terry and occasionally other musicians on recordings for the small New York label of Moses Asch , which specializes in folk music , in which they often recorded dozens of songs over several days in informal sessions. These were published over several years. In 1948 Asch founded Folkways Records and Houston was the first musician to do recording sessions for the new record label, which shortly thereafter also released his first solo album "Lonesome Valley". In the course of the 1950s, Cisco Houston appeared at countless events in clubs and universities, played concerts with almost all the greats of the folk scene at the time, and toured India in 1959 with Sonny Terry, Brownie McGhee and Marilyn Child. By 1960 Houston was already seriously ill with cancer. Still, he took part in this year's edition of the Newport Folk Festival , continued to give concerts and wrote new songs. He could still perform until February 1961; the last event took place in New York . He died of cancer on April 29, 1961 in San Bernardino, California .

The importance of Cisco Houston has long been underestimated. It consisted on the one hand in his absolute credibility, since he had experienced firsthand everything he wrote and sang about and on the other hand in the fact that he had an influence on the quality of Woody Guthrie's songs through his extraordinary musicality and his instrumental skills, although as his partner he was always a bit in the background. Last but not least, he was indirectly one of the role models of Bob Dylan , who at the beginning of his career was very much oriented towards Guthrie and him u. a. honored with his "Song To Woody".

Web links

• Cisco Houston's website