This is the solstice edition of the Song of the Week, which means it is “Summertime.”

“Summertime” is an aria sung in each act of the 20th Century American opera, Porgy and Bess.  Usually it is sung as a lullaby, though once it is offered as a counterpoint to a craps game.

These days, when Porgy and Bess is mentioned, most people immediately think of George Gershwin, who composed the music.  What became Porgy and Bess began as a novel called Porgy, written by DuBose Heyward in 1925.  Heyward, who was a descendant of one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence, had worked in his youth as a cotton checker, with the Gullah stevedores on the Charleston, South Carolina waterfront.  He became a successful businessman and author in Charleston, so he continued his observations of the Gullah Afro-American lifestyle for many years.  Such observations formed the basis of his novel.

When the novel became commercially successful, Heyward and his wife, Dorothy, wrote a play, also called Porgy, which opened on Broadway in 1927.  The play was also quite successful.

Then, in 1930, George Gershwin received a commission from New York’s Metropolitan Opera to write a distinctly American grand opera.  His first choice for the libretto was the stage version of Porgy, to be produced with an all-Black cast.  Since this was a time of strict segregation in most of the United States, there was immediately a problem.  Still, Gershwin worked closely with DuBose Heyward who converted the play to an opera libretto by early 1934.  George Gershwin spent most of the next two years writing and orchestrating the music, and working with Heyward and Ira Gershwin, George’s brother, to make necessary changes to the lyrics or libretto.

Porgy and Bess opened in September of 1935 with a classically-trained African-American cast.  It was not very successful, and closed its Broadway run only four months later.  George Gershwin died of a brain tumor in 1937, so he never knew how successful and influential the work eventually became or its positive influence on the so-called Harlem Renaissance in the arts.

Although casting the African-American performers helped theater move toward greater racial equality, Porgy and Bess was considered by many to be racist.  The story depicts the seamy side to Black life with alcohol, drugs, physical violence, etc.  If it was written in the 21st Century it would probably never be produced because of its content.  Beyond that, it seemed incongruous that a couple of Jewish boys like the Gershwin brothers (whose family name was originally Gershowitz) would write “folk songs” for the former slaves of South Carolina’s Lowcountry.

“Summertime” is easily the best known song from the opera – it has been recorded more than 25,000 times.¹  For the Song of the Week, I have chosen what is is probably my favorite version.  This one, I think, avoids any racial overtones.  In fact, you could say that it is certainly “color blind” because it is performed by Doc Watson.

Arthel “Doc” Watson (1923-2012) suffered an infection that left him blind before his first birthday.  Life was hard for his family during the Depression, but they did not let the economy or blindness hold Doc back.  He became interested in music, so his father bought him 78 rpm recordings and made him a fretless banjo.  Later he saved money earned from cutting trees and bought a Sears Roebuck Stella guitar.  He was a natural musician and soon began playing publicly in venues around his North Carolina home.

He played acoustic guitar for his initial public performances, which featured traditional tunes familiar to his local audience.  He was not making much money, however, so he took a job playing electric guitar in a rockabilly band.  The band did not have a fiddle player, so Doc’s trademark became his ability to play intricate fiddle parts on the electric guitar.

In 1960, Doc had the opportunity to play for a folklorist from the Smithsonian, who was not impressed with Doc’s electrical repertoire but was impressed with his acoustic playing.  That was the time that the “folk revival”  was popular in American music, and that audience loved Doc and his acoustic sound.  He was soon recognized as probably the best flatpicker there ever was, and was rewarded with commercial success, multiple Grammy awards, a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award and a National Medal of Arts presented to him by President Clinton.

Doc’s son, Merle Watson, was also an excellent musician, and the two performed together form 1965 (when Merle was not quite 16) until 1985 when Merle tragically lost his life in an accident on the family farm.  I was privileged to see Doc and Merle play at the Denver Folklore Center a couple of times, and I really enjoyed those concerts.

Besides his amazing guitar playing, Doc Watson always had a great voice.  A girl I knew in college said his was the only voice she had ever heard that sounded “like a 40-year old Martin.”  I repeated that analogy to a different lady several years later, and she replied that she knew nothing about guitars, so that meant nothing to her.  However, she did know that “Martin” was a type of guitar, because I had not included that information in what I had said – so who knows how much she really knew.²  Be that as it may, the words “a voice like a 40-year old Martin” conjures an aural image of a full, round, pleasant means of delivering a song.

It is also inspiring that Doc did not let his blindness hold him back in life.  He did many things that most would not expect from him – things like driving a car around his farm and doing electrical wiring in his house.  Most certainly, he was not held back musically.  Here is the Song of the Week, Doc and Merle Watson playing “Summertime.”

Summertime
By George Gershwin, DuBose Heyward, Dorothy Heyward and ira Gershwin

Summertime,
And the livin’ is easy
Fish are jumpin’
And the cotton is high

Your daddy’s rich
And your mamma’s good lookin’
So hush little baby
Don’t you cry

One of these mornings
You’re going to rise up singing
Then you’ll spread your wings
And you’ll take to the sky

But till that morning
There’s a’nothing can harm you
With daddy and mamma standing by

Summertime,
And the livin’ is easy
Fish are jumpin’
And the cotton is high

Your daddy’s rich
And your mamma’s good lookin’
So hush little baby
Don’t you cry

Copyright with Lyrics © Warner/chappell Music, Inc.

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1.  I am not going to list the various recordings here, but if you are interested you can read more about them by clicking here to take you to “Summertime Connection.”

2.  For those of you who don’t understand some people’s obsession with vintage guitars, you can find an interesting discussion by clicking here.