Carrie Robinson. A.K.A. Mary Washington, Gospel Singer, Chicago (film to video capture, 1964)

Many years ago I walked along the broken sidewalks and soiled gutters of Chicago's Near-South Side and entered the gritty, trash strewn city lots of Maxwell Street Market. The first activity I saw was a group of men standing around an open car trunk. They were gesturing and talking loudly to one-another, occasionally falling silent to stare pointedly into the back of a black sedan.

 “These look like real Chicago Tough Guys.” I thought to myself, while easing quietly over to see what they were looking at.

 “Hey shithead! Dis don't concern you asshole!”

One of the big guys who had been chattering in the group walked over to me and shoved me hard. I fell straight back, my hands catching me in the oil-soaked street filth.

 “What the shit? All you had to do was ask me…”

One of the other guys, a bald man who was much older, yelled at the man who pushed me. “Hey tough guy, he’s just a kid! Hey kid, you wanna look?”

As I got back to my feet, a nice lady handed me a half used roll of paper towels. She smiled, I thanked her and smiled back, and then I turned to the bald guy.

“Yeah, …OK!”  I walked towards the trunk opening, eyeing the pushy thug as I walked past.

Down low in the trunk lay a body…a very old body that looked to be a mummified human being. The skin was like dark leather, stretched over yellow bones. There were remnants of cloth on parts of the chest, and the legs were folded underneath the upper torso, as if they had been intentionally broken, maybe to make the mummy fit inside a small sarcophagus…or the trunk of a sedan.

The sight was shocking. It was strange to see something like this outside the context of a museum exhibit.

I saw the bald man watching my reaction... I had to know.

“How old is it, where did it come from?”

The bald man was looking down at the figure with a very soft expression.

“Kid, I don’t know nothin’ about it. Some guy from the Field Museum is gonna be here at 2:00. Shit, dat’s gotta be someone’s dad or mom…imagine your folks bein’ looked at by bunch of mugs! 2000 years from now!”

“Can I get closer?” I wanted to see the face.

The bald man smiled and said, “Sure kid, now no makin’ out dare..”

He backed up slightly and turned to the group of guys.

“Hey da kid wants to put a lip lock on dis dame!”

There was a round of laughter, and I felt the bald man’s hand slap my back. We both leaned down to look at the face.

“If it is a woman, she was beautiful.” The bone structure was symetrical and refined. The remaining remnants of the hair were dark and course. It made me think of ancient Africa.

“Beautiful…Yeah, dat she was kid…someone’s true love.”

The group of guys watched me as I nodded and walked on. I was trying very hard to look as if I was disinterested now, because I was aware of the legal issues that might have been at play here. The guys knew by my age and frightened comportment I wasn’t a cop, but I could read the obvious “Tell anyone and you’re dead!” looks on several of the faces. The older bald guy, who seemed to be in charge, just smiled and waved.

This was a more impressive warning, and I managed a weak smile as I continued along the tables of the flea market, wiping the street grim from my hands, the backs of my legs and buttocks with the paper towels. I was still a little scared, and I had this empty, metallic feeling, but after a few moments, the edgy restrained violence of the street poured into the emotional void, shifting my attention to the cacophony around us, and I felt strangely safe.

 A few turns along the tables and vendor spaces of Maxwell Street could supply anyone with foolhardy visions of grand projects. There were strange remnants of artifacts from buildings, from parks, cemeteries, and other more furtive, forbidden places. You never knew whose stuff you were buying, who had been ripped off, some victims never knowing about their losses for months or years. Then there were always the desperate folks who were searching…I always heard different versions of the story where the hapless victim buys his hubcaps back on Maxwell Street.

Deeper into the bedlam of the fast streets, I saw another, more friendly group of spectators gathered around an old broken driveway, held between two crumbling sidewalks. There was music, and it was loud and crackling with the distinct rasp of ancient amplifiers and blown speakers. The musicians were elderly, skilled, and oblivious to the bedlam the listening crowd unwittingly screened out.

 Adjacent to the lead guitarist was a tall, nearly emaciated woman slicing a tambourine in a rhythm that no walking person, otherwise soulfully immobile on his or her feet, could resist.

I was feeling a little drunkenness from the experience with the Chicago “Wise Guys”, and I felt less inhibition. I moved my feet to the tambourine, making pathetic country boy gyrations and leaps. This was the birthplace of Chicago Blues... but this music was Gospel, a type I had never heard. The lead singer, the shaker of the tambourine was a living dead ringer for the “Damsel of the Sedan.”

Carrie Robinson. A.K.A. Mary Washington, Gospel Singer, Chicago  (film to video capture, 1964)

“Who is that woman?” I blurted the question, hoping an answer would somehow magically come back from the street.

“What the fuck muthafucka!”

Just behind me a tall, dark man with a deep purple fedora was looking at me.

He pointed to the singer.

“You don’t bring your honky ass muthafuckin shit round here muthatfucka! Everyone; I mean everyone knows dat’s Carrie Robinson! They’s power in that spirit shit!”

There was a ghastly similarity, between what I had just seen, and this magnificent woman who was belting out music to beat back the Devil…I had seen her ancient doppelganger a few moments before…In my mind, the ages enlarged this living vision. She was luminous, in full view of the multitudinous things above this world, and things below.

The soulful shake-maker of the grey, dirty streets, was confronting the physical world's darkness, spreading blessed sounds around, with her strong feet pounding pavement and breaking the devil’s hold… and this was 1977, thirteen years after Carrie Robinson was gathering power in the streets of the greatest city on Earth…

 Carrie Robinson. A.K.A.  Mary Washington, Chicago, film to video, original, 1964

Footage from Mike Shea's film "And This is Free" filmed in 1964 over several Sunday visits. The film has just recently been re-released, alongside another documentary, with photos, interviews and writings about Maxwell Street and its deep history. Released through Shanachie, it's now officially called "And This is Free: The Life and Times of Chicago's Legendary Maxwell Street"

 Note:

 Please notice the girl near the car on the right in the last half of the film. Her movements can be associated with  the “Trance State” of other religous rituals. Most of the spectators are rapt in attention as the woman enters the trance, but many are shuffling around in embarrassed denial.