Bluesman

Bluesman is a graphic novel written by Rob Vollmar, with black-and-white art by Pablo G. Callejo. Originally serialized in 2006, it was published under the Comics Lit imprint by NBM Publishing in 2008. The story centers upon the figures of Lemuel (Lem) Taylor and Avery “Ironwood” Malcott, two African American blues musicians who wander through Arkansas in search of opportunities to play, while also dealing with the strictures and violence of the Jim Crow South. Vollmar and Callejo had previously received the Eisner Award, the highest award in the comics industry, for their 2003 work The Castaways.

The book opens with guitar player Lem and piano player Ironwood pretending to be itinerant preachers on two occasions—the first time to calm down a farmer who has found them sleeping in his barn and the second in exchange for food at a diner in Hope (Hempstead County). A man named J. L. Dougherty, who runs a furniture business on West Ninth Street in Little Rock (Pulaski County) and also scouts musical talent, directs them to a local juke joint called Shug’s, run by Otho “Shug” Johnson, where their playing that evening earns them a regular gig. They impress Dougherty, who offers them the chance to record for Eastern Star Records out of Memphis, Tennessee. They just need to be in Memphis by the following Friday.

At Shug’s, Ironwood takes a liking to a woman named Tarene Davis, and the pair spend the night at her cabin with one of her friends, Maisy Abrams, but during the night, Tarene’s white lover, Wyatt Bilyeu, shows up. He owns the cabin so that, as he tells Tarene, “I can have a piece of you anytime I wants without havin’ to pay for it,” and although the two bluesmen succeed in hiding themselves, he grows suspicious and attacks Tarene, killing her. Ironwood comes through the door, stabbing Wyatt in the throat just as he shoots Ironwood in the head. Maisy drives Lem away and stays behind to ensure Wyatt’s death. In the morning, Shug finds the three bodies in the cabin. Later Maisy is found to have hanged herself at her home.

Sheriff Beasley attempts to run a fair investigation, but Welton, the district attorney, seems eager to arrange for the lynching of Shug in order to stem local ire. “Colonel” Jackson Bilyeu, Wyatt’s father and a prominent landowner and businessman from Little Rock, also wants to see someone punished for his son’s death. Meanwhile, Lem has hopped a train out of town and joined up with some hobos but is soon on the run with a man named Leland after their group gets attacked by vigilantes. Other vigilantes burn down Shug’s house after torturing him to get the name of Lem Taylor, which leads to an all-points bulletin being issued for him.

Lem and Leland seek help from J. L. Dougherty in Little Rock, but he sets them up, and vigilantes in the employ of Bilyeu kill Leland and take Lem prisoner. Bilyeu and his men begin to torture Leland, but Sheriff Beasley shows up to take him prisoner instead. The sheriff and one of his deputies haul Leland, Bilyeu, and two of Bilyeu’s thugs back to Hempstead County in a truck, but a storm rolls up, and the truck slams into some cattle that have wandered into the road. Leland is able to cut himself free and saves the sheriff only to find Bilyeu pointing a gun at him. The two men’s struggle is ended when Sheriff Beasley shoots Bilyeu dead.

As Leland is praying over the injured Beasley, a tornado blows up, and Leland walks into it, singing “the Gospel Train is coming” as it carries him away. In an epilogue, a musicologist named Ira Deldoff meets a long-retired Beasley in Poteau, Oklahoma, in 1961. Beasley has become a music collector, and Deldoff reveals to Beasley, who has always believed that Lem died in the tornado, that he has uncovered a record Lem Taylor cut for Eastern Star. The book ends as he plays the B-side for Beasley, “Gospel Train Blues.”

The volume was widely reviewed. Laurel Maury, for National Public Radio, described Bluesman as “a blunt and upsetting book that uses racial epithets and unflinching scenes of violence and death to illuminate a brutal time in our history.” Publishers Weekly stated that it “mixes the mythic and dramatic with the nitty-gritty reality of the hard parts of life, just like a good blues song does.”

For additional information:
Maury, Laurel. “Graphic Novel ‘Bluesman” Sings a Soulful Song.” NPR, July 28, 2008. https://www.npr.org/2008/07/28/92869182/graphic-novel-bluesman-sings-a-soulful-song (accessed November 22, 2024).

Plowright, Frank. Review of Bluesman. The Sling and Arrows Graphic Novel Guide. https://theslingsandarrows.com/bluesman/ (accessed November 22, 2024).

Price, Matthew. “State Man’s Graphic Novel Draws Blues Star’s Interest, Keb’Mo’ Involved in Film Option for ‘Bluesman.’” The Oklahoman, January 19, 2007. https://www.oklahoman.com/story/entertainment/books/2007/01/19/state-graphic-novel-draws-blues-stars-interestbrspan-classhl2keb-involved-film-option-bluesmanspan/61823733007/ (accessed November 22, 2024).

Vollmar, Rob, and Pablo G. Callejo. Bluesman. NBM Publishing, 2008.

Staff of the CALS Encyclopedia of Arkansas