Columbia Cut the Words From “Fables of Faubus.” A Year Later Mingus Sang Them Himself, on Another Label, Under Another Title

When Charles Mingus recorded Mingus Ah Um for Columbia in 1959, “Fables of Faubus,” his bitter portrait of Arkansas governor Orval Faubus, came out as an instrumental; the label would not release the lyrics. On October 20, 1960, at Nola Penthouse Sound Studios in New York, Mingus got his answer on record. Working for Nat Hentoff’s independent Candid label with Ted Curson, Eric Dolphy and drummer Dannie Richmond, he cut the piece with the words and spoken exchanges restored, Mingus and Richmond trading them call-and-response. Contractual limits meant it could not carry the old name, so it was issued as “Original Faubus Fables” on Charles Mingus Presents Charles Mingus (1961). The same afternoon the quartet also taped “All the Things You Could Be by Now If Sigmund Freud’s Wife Was Your Mother,” a loose, beatless riff on “All the Things You Are.” Accounts differ on exactly why Columbia balked, so the motive stays unproven.