{"id":330,"date":"2008-10-06T09:09:28","date_gmt":"2008-10-06T13:09:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.summerofjim.com\/2008\/10\/06\/nusic-legend-passes\/"},"modified":"2025-07-12T15:48:52","modified_gmt":"2025-07-12T19:48:52","slug":"nusic-legend-passes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/summerofjim.com\/?p=330","title":{"rendered":"Music Legend Passes"},"content":{"rendered":"

Blind Pork Tail Schwartz (1919 -2008)<\/u>\u00a0 {Los Angeles} After a period of extended\u00a0decline the music great, Blind Pork Tail Schwartz passed away to what has been referred to as mostly<\/em> natural causes.\u00a0 The announcement came from his long time publicist and personal chef Tina Tea, “the greatest kazoo player of our lifetime has joined the big band in the sky.”<\/em><\/p>\n

Considered to be the greatest of the blues kazoo players, some of\u00a0the titans of the genre have expressed their deep sadness.\u00a0 Blues\u00a0icon B.B. King noted, “My oh my, but that dude could play!”\u00a0 Eric Clapton remembered, “I was looking for another lead instrument for a music project that I was putting together {Derek and the Dominoes<\/em>} and asked Pork Tail to join the recording sessions; but he couldn’t because of other commitments in the Catskills, so we had to settle for Duane Allman.” Buddy Guy, when notified of Schwartz’ death, added a tribute song to his playlist on the evening.\u00a0 From the stage he announced, “I have just learned\u00a0of the passing of a great personal friend,\u00a0someone who opened my act for ten years and would\u00a0then sit in on hot<\/em> numbers with my band.\u00a0 I’d like to play ‘Chopped Liver Done No Man No Harm’… this is for you Pork Tail.”<\/p>\n

Bernard Schwartz was born blind\u00a0in Charleston, South Carolina to a family of comfortable means. Martin Schwartz owned a successful dry goods store. Rachel Schwartz taught Hebrew School. Bernard\u00a0at age\u00a08 was given a kazoo. In the documentary on PBS that first aired in 1997, Schwartz said, \u201cMy mama gave me a kazoo… she thought I wuz playin’ too much with myself or by myself… {chuckle} Well, that wuz Mama!\u201d\u00a0 At age 10 he wrote his first song, “Chopped Liver Done No Man No Harm”… it brought him immediate success\u00a0with its\u00a0haunting lyric:<\/p>\n

It doesn\u2019t look good
\n<\/em>It doesn\u2019t taste good
\n<\/em>Oh, my day is long<\/em><\/p>\n

This song was first recorded by the Blues immortal Robert Johnson, and soon after that Bernard left his family home and moved to the Mississippi Delta to join Johnson traveling the countryside playing their music.\u00a0 Schwartz recalled that period of his life, “I wuz dirt poor; but happy… ya’ know dere wuz the Depression goin’ on, an’ all… I jest played my music, did a little reefer… oh, I guess I wasn’t supposed to say dat {chuckle}.”<\/p>\n

When World War II came, Schwartz tried to enlist.\u00a0 The Draft Board turned him away. Disappointed, he said, “…dey didn’t take blind folks into da Army, or da Navy fer dat matter.”\u00a0 Still, he felt he had to do his part to help the war effort so he signed on with the USO and toured bases, most notably with the Andrew Sisters.\u00a0 “I wrote Boogie Woogie Kazoo Boy (Company B)<\/em> fer them.\u00a0 Great little song.\u00a0 But half way thru one tour I wuz aksed to leave.\u00a0 I had what d’ya call a social disease<\/em>.\u00a0 Well, LaVerne, Maxene and Patty got it, too!\u00a0 I told em dat we musta got it from da same toilet seat!\u00a0 But da guys in charge didn’t buy it! {chuckle}\u00a0 So, they kicked my ass out and changed da song to a Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy.\u00a0 <\/em>Ain’t dat da dumbest thing ya ever heard?”<\/p>\n

After the War, Schwartz’ popularity crested.\u00a0 He was in constant demand as a session <\/em>man.\u00a0 He recorded with Buddy Rich, Frank Sinatra, Ella Fitzgerald and the Ink Spots among others.\u00a0 He also toured with Louis Armstrong as a featured guest performer.\u00a0 Of Schwartz the great Satchmo said, “That cat can play.”<\/p>\n

Revived interest in the Blues in the 70s brought him back to his roots.\u00a0 He traveled with Muddy Waters,\u00a0B.B. King, Johnny Lee Hooker\u00a0and others to England to record with a host of British Blues musicians: Eric Clapton, Ron Wood, Charlie Watts, Nicky Hopkins, Steve Winwood, Peter Green, Jimmy Page, Mick Fleetwood and Rod Stewart.<\/p>\n

Speaking of those days Schwartz just shook his head, “Crazy, man… jes crazy.\u00a0 You know dose guys over dere speak English.\u00a0 You know, WOW! They got funny toilets over dere, though… real funny {chuckle}… and they sure have a funny way of talkin’.”<\/p>\n

In 1979 he was invited to Moscow to play in the Palace of Congresses in the Kremlin.\u00a0 He played to three sold out performances of Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition.\u00a0<\/em>It is the only time that great musical piece was played\u00a0in its entirety\u00a0on the kazoo.\u00a0 He was awarded the Medal of Freedom and Culture and named an Artist of\u00a0the People.\u00a0 After his final performance, Leonid Brezhnev embraced him in his signature bear hug…\u00a0the Soviet Premier\u00a0waved warmly to the crowd, took the microphone and shouted, “Tot chuvak umeyet igrat!”<\/p>\n

His last concert was in 2003 to help celebrate Johnny Winter’s successful completion of his 17th re-hab program.\u00a0 The two blues kings worked their way thru “It’s My Own Fault”, “Jumping Jack Flash” and “Johnny Be Good”.\u00a0 Their encore number was “Chopped Liver Done No Man No Harm.”<\/p>\n

Mama said yes
\n<\/em>I said No
\n<\/em>She said you hafta
\n<\/em>Oh, my day is long<\/em><\/p>\n

Back stage Winter put Schwartz’ performance in perspective, “sledgvek mghke qoplw plkwsh!”<\/p>\n

Blind Pork Tail Schwartz is survived by no one that he will admit to.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Blind Pork Tail Schwartz (1919 -2008)\u00a0 {Los Angeles} After a period of extended\u00a0decline the music great, Blind Pork Tail Schwartz passed away to what has been referred to as mostly natural causes.\u00a0 The announcement came from his long time publicist … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-330","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-entertainment"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/summerofjim.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/330","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/summerofjim.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/summerofjim.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/summerofjim.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/summerofjim.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=330"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/summerofjim.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/330\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":111526,"href":"http:\/\/summerofjim.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/330\/revisions\/111526"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/summerofjim.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=330"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/summerofjim.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=330"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/summerofjim.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=330"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}