Banty Rooster

Very little hard facts are known about this obscure cult figure. It is possible that he descended from european imigrants of the ‘Bantam’ family, coming in from New-Orleans...............................His first real job in security is offcours well documentated in Charly Patton’s song about him. Patton then claims he fires him for ‘sleeping on the job’. Banty Rooster has been heard saying that he left on his own accord ‘cause of sexual harrasment by Patton, mumbling something about ‘feelin’ him in the dark’. We don’t want to discredit ‘the king of the delta blues’ offcourse, but what the hell was he doing in the henhouse if he was looking for his ‘rider’!..............................We all know the story of Son House remarking to the young Robert Johnson who wanted to play along: "Don't do that, Robert. You drive people nuts. You can't play nothin'.". A few months later he came back being able to play like a devil. BR was playing at all the shacks around Clarksdale at that time and earning an extra buck giving guitar lessons to youngsters, his most liked songs then were ’Sweet Home Chicken’ and ‘Hounddog On My trail’. He just quit working for Charly Patton, linking ‘m all together!..............................BR took to painting somewhere in the 20’s, after being in an indian peyotl-ritual. Having his workplace in Alamogordo New Mexico his total oevre was destroyed by the first experiments with the atombomb. The National Art Gallery of Madrid supposetly had an early painting by BR. It somehow got there through an Mexican artdealer going by the name of ‘Don Juan’. It was exhibitioned once and was only seen by a few visiting art students, permenantly screwing up their eyesight, before the show was hurriedly closed. Who were there? Is it a coincidence that Picasso started his awkward way of painting at that time?..............................He joint Castro’s revolution in Cuba, which earned him the top position in Fidel’s henhouse. But being ‘on top’ all the time started eating at his adventurist nature, so he hitch a hike on Che’s bandwagon spreading the revolution to the rest of Latin-america. This didn’t go all to well for Che and BR seemed to have vanished from the earth at that time. There are some mallignent rumours of contra-spionage for the CIA.........................................Out of nowhere he then suddenly appears as actor in a Foghorn Leghorn movie. Apart from the photo in the late 30’s, these are the only known images of BR. He is offcourse ‘acting’, so the question stands if this is a reliable source if you want to get to know the man. The total of the wall slang he uses in this movie is a testimony to the man’s legendary improvisation talent, but is it convincing? Is this BR as he would act in day to day life?.......Have a look at: www.petcaretips.net/banty-rooster.html...................... ......... There is a lot of confusion on the name. People seem to think ‘banty rooster’ is a breed of chicken. BR sure had a lot of offspring, but not so much that he spawned a whole race! It’s more likely that the cult figure of BR was such an inspiration to young chicks that they adopted the name as a way of life. ‘I’m a banty rooster’ meaning: ‘I’m a real cool chick’...............................Al Lowmax wrote a whole book on the notorious figure BR in his book: Mister Sleeze Ball The Misfortunes of Mr. Banty ‘Sleeze Ball’ Rooster “incentor to a tragedy” .... Unfortunatly Al Lowmax himself faded in obscurety and there are no known copies of his book. Only a few quotes remain: “His diamond-studded grin lit up the smoke filled room as he feathered his hen-house rhythms out of the 12 string arhoolie.”..............................The world today would be a totaly different place if it wasn’t for the cult figure and icon BR. Maybe a better one, but to blame BR would be unfair and perhaps even historicaly wrong. But we do need to fill the huge gaps in the man’s history to fully understand our own. So from this place comes the question to anyone who has any information on Banty Rooster to come forth and enlighten us in these dark times....................................................... ...........I edited my profile with Thomas' Myspace Editor V4.4