Honky Games

 

Iris Bell
with The Jive-Ettes

Honky Games
(Bell-Pierson)

Sound clip taken from Ancestors Of Rap: A Collection Of Highly Underrated Prototype Rap Songs, a compilation issued in Germany in 2012. Originally issued on the Highlass label, Iris Bell's own label.

The inclusion of Iris Bell in this proto-rap compilation is somewhat outlandish. The explanation can be probably deducted from the following lines from a review found online  :

Although Tramp Records is known worldwide for its expertise in soul, funk and jazz from the 1960s and 70s, label boss Tobias Kirmayer always had a deep connection to hip hop and rap music. His dream to compile prototype rap songs has existed for quite some time. In the search of quality songs, Kirmayer realized that it takes more than to simply scratch the surface. The challenge was to locate enough proper material to meet the criteria to be called prototype rap. The answer is Ancestors of Rap.

What about Bo Diddley, Tobias?

Iris Bell (1934-2008)

Iris Bell was the daughter of Aaron White, eye, ear, nose and throat surgeon; and Irene Humphreys Goode, who had been classically trained in voice. Iris was trained in classical piano until age 14, graduated from Stonewall Jackson High in 1951, and began playing with Charleston bands almost immediately.

She led her own band, the Iris Bell Trio, from the age of 22. Iris knew over 7,000 tunes and wrote several songs of her own. "I Hear Him Comin' Down the Road" was a tribute to her grandfather, John Goode. In 1962, she penned "This is My West Virginia," the last adopted of our three state songs and a powerful anthem to the beauty of the state, its people and its culture.

In 1968, Iris moved to Ann Arbor, Michigan. For seven years, she played at the Rubaiyat Supper Club using her new banner, the Iris Bell Adventure, with Derek Pierson, Butch Miles, and later, her eldest daughter, Elizabeth Bell.

In 1977, Iris returned to Charleston to stay, continuing her career while caring for her ailing mother and raising her youngest daughter, April. She played several venues around the city, including the Athletic Club, the Owl's Club, Cagney's Pier, and the Fifth Quarter. She played events and private parties for such dignitaries as former Gov. Caperton. The Iris Bell Trio/Adventure played hard-hitting jazz, rock and roll, and psychedelic rock from the early 1960s through the 1980s. Iris frequently played solo gigs in Charleston, WV starting in the early 1980s, including several years with the West Virginia Jazz Festival.

Excerpts from a 1973 interview  :

You don't have to drive a truck or pick cotton to have the blues. It's when things make you want to wail, so instead of crying or lying on the floor you sing out the hurt.  Thre are thousands of blues happy, sad, sexual--whatever.    (...)  

When fourteen years old, I listed to black stations, black music, bought blacks records at a time when it was called "race music." I went to concert/dances with big black revues featuring people like Lionel Hampton and Ray Charles and Chuck Berry and the Clovers singing "Your Cash Ain't Nothin' ButTrash".