Back Street Jelly Roll.

A person asked recently where the expression Back Street Jelly Roll comes from which often occurs in Van Morrison lyrics. So, I dusted off this old piece I wrote to try and give an answer………

There are many key words that keep appearing in the lyrics of Van Morrison songs, words like vision, avenue, gardens, mystic, rain, healing, slipstream, and Jelly Roll. Jelly Roll? Where did that come from? I looked on the internet to find the meaning and as I suspected it is a New Orleans sexual slang term. I first became aware of the expression on Van's album Moondance in the song And It Stoned Me where Van sings, And it stoned me to my soul, Stoned me just like Jelly Roll. Being a young hippie at the time I thought that it was some sort of drug reference as in stoned, and Jelly Roll was slang for some drug. That is completely wrong. Van had used the term earlier in the song He Ain't Give You None on the Blowing Your Mind album which was released in 67. 

In the song Van sings, I've done more for you than your Daddy has ever done, gave you my jelly roll, And he ain't give you none. A friend told me recently that Van got those words from a Blues singer called Barbecue Bob. The expression crops up again on the Into The Music album from 79 in the sublime And The Healing Has Begun. Again, it has a meaning of sexual healing. let's play this Muddy Waters record you got there, if you just open up a little bit, and let me ease on in this backstreet jellyroll. Backstreet Jelly Roll occurs again in the song Philosopher's Stone on the Back On Top album from 98. I was born in the backstreet, born in the backstreet Jelly-Roll.  I'm on the road again and I'm searching for the Philosopher's Stone. On the track On Hyndford Street, Van says, Coming back to Hyndford Street, feeling wondrous and lit up inside, With a sense of everlasting life, And reading Mr. Jelly Roll and Big Bill Broonzy, And "Really The Blues" by Mezz Mezzrow, And Dharma Bums by Jack Kerouac, Over and over again.                

Mister Jelly Roll is a book by Alan Lomax about Jelly Roll Morton and as I was already acquainted with Big Bill Broonzy, Mezz Mezzrow and Jack Kerouac I knew I had to read this book. I looked on eBay and although the book is available in a new paperback edition, I didn't want that. I wanted to buy the edition that Van himself might have read as a kid in 1950's Belfast. I found the 1st UK edition published in 1952 complete with dust-jacket and in particularly good condition considering it is 60 years old. I also bought a double CD Jelly Roll Morton, The Essential Recordings. The book arrived first, and I eagerly opened it. Although I didn't know anything about Jelly Roll Morton apart from hearing the name, I did know a bit about the author Alan Lomax because a few months before I had read a book called America Across The Sea by Shirley Collins. She is a famous English folksinger who had a relationship with the musicologist Alan Lomax in the 50's and they had toured America together recording and collecting the Blues and Folk music. They recorded music in the fields and even in prisons and captured on tape music that would otherwise have remained unknown. They also discovered Blues singers who would have lived out their lives in obscurity such as Mississippi Fred McDowell.

One day in 1938 Alan Lomax sat down in a Washington  studio and began recording Jelly Roll for the  Library Of Congress and allowed him to tell his story. As he talked Jelly Roll played the piano and a new form of writing history was invented. An autobiography with music. These recordings were not originally meant for general release, but I believe they have been recently released on CD. Jelly Roll told the story of New Orleans and the Mississippi delta where the great river washed its muddy foot in the Gulf and the Jazz music of the 20th century was born. His real first name was Ferdinand after the King of Spain, but he adopted the name Jelly Roll. One thing I have learned about Jelly Roll was that he was cheated out of a fortune by the corrupt American music business. Something that Van would have sympathy with. Also, reading this book helped me understand why Van loves New Orleans so much. New Orleans is mentioned in several Van songs, along with Bourbon Street, Fats Domino, and Doctor John. I wonder if Van’s fascination with New Orleans began with him reading this book?  A lot of what Jelly Roll says is just bragging and I have read since that at every session Alan Lomax provided him with a bottle of whisky and you have to wonder if you can trust Lomax’s editing of the recordings. Shortly after he made the recordings Jelly Roll was stabbed in a fight which eventually led to his death in 1941. The book which Lomax later wrote also includes interviews with people who knew Morton and letters to his wife Mabel and the lyrics and music to some of his songs.

The double CD I ordered arrived which I played. And I enjoyed it. I haven’t got a huge amount of Jazz albums and I don’t know much about the history of Jazz and if Jelly Roll invented it as he claimed. I don’t suppose I will play it very often. It is the music of 90 years ago and is slipping into being an artefact of history. There is one track called Whining Boy Blues which must be where Van got the idea for his song Whining Boy Moan from.

Well, they call him Mr. Jellyroll

It's just the way he rolls his dough

Let the whinin boy moan

Let the whinin boy moan

Let the whinin boy moan

If you don't know how to do it yourself.

Which shows that even in modern times Mr Jelly Roll Morton is still an influence on Van Morrison just as he was when Van was a young kid in the back streets of Belfast, reading his dads books about Jazz and Blues and listening to his record collection. That's where he comes from man, the backstreets, back street jelly roll.

Since I wrote that piece I discovered this from Van's Hot Press interview of last year.

‘Into The Mystic’ is a song that seems to encapsulate a number of themes that recur in Van’s music. I mention the ‘gypsy soul’...

“Later it was ‘jellyroll soul’,” he says. “I changed it. See, these lyrics are interchangeable, so I change it to the ‘jelly roll soul’ sometimes. Which was a Charlie Mingus number. ‘You’re My Jellyroll Soul’.”