Please Mr. President

Guitar Shorty
|  May 1, 2010
by David Kearney, Bruce Iglauer, Wyzard

Guitar Shorty. Photo: Paul Webster. Click to enlarge.


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Born David William Kearney in Houston in 1939, Guitar Shorty grew up mainly in Florida. He began playing guitar at an early age and leading a band not long after.

His first single was in 1957, You Don't Treat Me Right under the direction of Willie Dixon.

He joined Guitar Slim's band and moved to New Orleans. Inspired by Slim, before long Shorty was doing somersaults and flips on stage. In New Orleans he played regularly at the Dew Drop Inn where he was joined by guests such as T-Bone Walker, Big Joe Turner, and Little Richard.

At 19, he moved to the West Coast to play with Sam Cooke. Jimi Hendrix attended several of his gigs in the Seattle area.

He gigged steadily through the late 1950s and 1960s. During the 1970s he worked as a mechanic, playing music at nights and on weekends. He again became a full-time musician in 1975.

In 1985, he released his first album. He went on his first tour to the UK in 1991, and there he recorded My Way or the Highway with Otis Grand. This won him a W.C. Handy Award.

In 2002, he was featured on a Bo Diddley tribute album. He joined Alligator Records in 2004. His album that year, Watch Your Back and his 2006 album We the People charted on the Billboard Top Blues Albums at numbers eleven and twelve, respectively.

In this tune Kearney sings of the need for a little "stimulus" in his personal economy:

When the economy turned bad, the first thing the government did was help out the big banks. I know they had to do that, but the working people needed help too. I know too many people who live from week to week and day to day.

Musicians like me have been doing that our whole lives. The President is doing a good job trying to fix this mess, but the government needs to help the people who need to work to feed their families and keep their houses. I wanted to write a song that spoke up for those people.


Please Mr. President

Please Mr. President, lay some stimulus on me
Please Mr. President, lay some stimulus on me
Cause I’m just a working man
Trying to feed my family

Barack Obama announces Economic Recovery Advisory Board, February 6, 2009, eleven days before signing the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, a/k/a the "stimulus" package. Photo: Pete Souza. Click to enlarge.

I used to have a good job
Working forty hard hours a week
Had money in the bank
And mortgage I could meet
But then they started layoffs
And they got poor me
And now that mean old banker’s
Trying to put me out in the street
Please Mr. President, lay some stimulus on me
Please Mr. President, lay some stimulus on me
Cause I’m just a working man
Trying to feed my family

Now I sure don’t mind working
I’m not scared to break a sweat
I’m not looking for a handout
But I gotta pay my debts
I don’t know how be a bad guy
I’m not gonna steal and rob
But if I’m gonna feed my children
I got to have me some kind of job
Please Mr. President, lay some stimulus on me
Please Mr. President, lay some stimulus on me
Cause I’m just a working man
Trying to feed my family


Buy guitar Shorty's Bare Knuckle CD.

Personnel: Guitar Shorty, lead guitar, vocals; Jerry "Wyzard" Seay, bass, editing; Rickey Rouse, rhythm guitar; Keb Mo, rhythm guitar; Harold Seay, drums; Alex Alessandroni, keyboards; Tadashi Namba, Ian Sloane, Wyzard, recording; Larry Goetz, mixing; Dan Stout, Bruce Iglauer, mastering; Bruce Iglauer, producer.


 

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    At the June 2004 Great Labor Arts Exchange. . . This is for Victor Reuther, Millie Jeffries, Marilyn Majors, Eddie Starr, Hedy Hilburn....
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    Utah Phillips
    August 1, 2004

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    . . . That's when I met Herb Edwards. Herb Edwards lived in West Seattle. He was an old IWW organizer, and a Norwegian immigrant. . . ....
  • I Hate Wal-Mart
    Dave Lippman
    July 1, 2004

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    Brought 6,000 jobs back to South Carolina  /  For a whole 6 months, then sent 'em back to China  /  Where they work 12...
  • Unemployment Compensation Blues
    Finland Station
    June 1, 2004

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    Written in 1949 and recorded in 1989, this timeless tune speaks of Thorazine. Today the drug choices have multiplied.
  • What It's Like
    John McCutcheon
    May 1, 2004

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    In 1985 UFCW Local P-9 struck the Hormel meatpacking plant in Austin, Minnesota. The local waged a determined two-year fight, taking on the...
  • A Little A' This 'N' That
    Pete Seeger, Tao Rodriguez-Seeger
    April 1, 2004

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    My grandma, she can make a soup, / with a little a' this 'n' that. / She can feed the whole sloop group, / with a little a' this 'n' that...
  • Moving Day / We Shall Not Be Moved
    Charlie King, Karen Brandow
    March 1, 2004

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    Fred Stanton got the idea for this song from labor activist Bob Peters in Clive, Iowa, who sent him a story about an eviction in a working-...
  • Solidarity
    Fruit Of Labor
    February 1, 2004

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    This song debuted in the Southern Capitol City of Raleigh in 2001, at the first ever National Union Convention in the State of North...
  • Time To Ring Some Changes
    Tom Juravich
    January 1, 2004

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    This old country's tumbling down / Walls are gone but the roof is sound / Government's deaf, they can never be found / Time to ring some...
  • War On The Workers
    Anne Feeney
    December 1, 2003

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    Anne Feeney went to the Staley picket line 20 times from her home in Pittsburgh, was arrested once, and sang union fund-raising concerts all...
  • Hospital Workers
    Rebel Voices
    November 1, 2003

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    John Philip Sousa as a labor leader.
  • El Mojado
    Águila Negra
    October 1, 2003

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    Baldemar Velasquez has a pretty important day job—president of the Farm Laborers Organizing Committee. But his work for workplace justice is...
  • Jerusalem
    Joe Uehlein, Bev Grant, Pam Parker, Anne Feeney
    September 1, 2003

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    I woke up this mornin' and none of the news was good. / The death machines were rumblin' 'cross the ground where Jesus stood.
  • We're An On-Time Union
    Gloria Britton-Ellis, AFT Singers Burnetta Ajide, Jo Autry, Rennette Brown, Tom Moran, Sharon Wilson
    August 1, 2003

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    Music, struggle, teaching: all of a piece...
  • I Cannot Sleep
    Jon Fromer, Francisco Herrera
    July 1, 2003

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    A Malvina Reynolds tune: I cannot sleep thinking of the children / Who cannot sleep, gone supperless to bed. / I cannot sleep thinking of...
  • Toxic Dreams
    Pat Wynne
    June 1, 2003

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    In 2001 Pat Wynne traveled to Cuba with members of the Freedom Song Network to perform and attend a labor conference and the May Day...
  • Mean Things Happening / Ain't You Got A Right / Roll The Union On
    Luci Murphy, Janet Stecher, Susan Lewis
    May 1, 2003

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    Elders of the tribe: These songs of the civil rights movement were recorded at the June 2001 Great Labor Arts Exchange.
  • If I Only Had A Brain
    George Mann, Julius Margolin
    April 1, 2003

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    I'd read poetry for hours / Circulate in ivory towers / Know Mexico from Spain / I would say it very bluntly / Africa is not a country / If...
  • The People Are In Charge
    Ray Korona
    March 1, 2003

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    Every big, political demonstration has its own rhythm, sense of danger, spirit of determination and edgy humor. Each one, in its own way,...
  • One Puppet Town
    Charlie King
    February 1, 2003

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    Don't bring your puppet to the inauguration / W don't allow no puppets marching around / Don't try any free speech or protestation / 'Cause...
  • No Sweat
    Pat Humphries
    January 1, 2003

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    Bev Grant and I wrote No Sweat for United Students Against Sweatshop's campaign of the same name. We were both raising teenage daughters...
  • Reindeer Games
    David King
    December 1, 2002

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    What if Santa’s reindeer didn’t like how they were treated?
  • Labor Of Love
    Bev Grant
    November 1, 2002

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    Inspired by the birth of Malaya, her daughter's daughter.
  • One More Time
    Charlie Ray Fetty III
    October 1, 2002

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    A song about the Mobil Inspirational, third-prize winner in the 1999 Colorado State Fair Parade (and first prize in originality).
  • The Mill Was Made Of Marble / I Ain't No Stranger Now
    Joe Glazer
    September 1, 2002

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    Since I've been introduced to the CIO / I ain't no stranger now.

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