Blues Talk #1

Post-Slavery Blues Song Themes

1. Freedom of Education 2. Freedom of Partner Choice 3. Freedom of Travel

The great migration actually sending leftover/surplus people to the cities (urbanization)

BB King: fear of boss (something eating at you/bugging you: shellshocked) & woman

Blues not from slavery (one opinion)

Blues Talk #2

Two poles black cultural nationalism (60s) / Blues Universalism (escapism)

1954 Juke blues pop end 1960 RocknRoll 1970 White audience

Dialectical of the blues (urban/country)

Blues moment Time to stand up Male tradition [not whites n blacks?] (Trickster) Im here/not here [off the grid]

Blues Talk #3

Good company (musicians). Frank Floyd (white) 20s & 30s Irritable mental gestures not ideas [brain fart]

PreCivilWar Spirituals Civil War Blues (emancipation)

Bluesman term from 1950 by white folklorists Musicians (b and w) had a common, wide repertoire Original black audience: WC Handy 1914, Woman/blues queens Today blues referred to as back story of rock (Stones) Elijah Wood says Robert Johnson not popular in his time. 1910-120: queens tour south in tents. City informs the country False impression of bluesmen: they played different music Sometimes, the woman is the man Outrage at the accumulation of violence Surcharge of feeling/complexity in blues

Blues Talk #4

Blues Expressiveness: Music, Dance, Literature/Poetry Blues Conditions Feelings Expressiveness Ethos/Philosophy Music Genre: 8 or 12 Bar 1. AAB Repetition. A, A reprise/intensify (over different chords), B 2. Call and Response. (early stuff was solo players). A conversation. Could be done by one person themselves, or between singer and slide, or guitar and harp. In blues you dont suffer alone. A place of sacred unburdenings. When playing: dont try to impress audience, double up on groove. Respond to vocal melody. 3. Tonality/melody. Vocalizations. Make the harp talk. Throw down what you got. Signifyings = using code words 4. Ethos. Stylization of process. Exaggeration of qualities, humor, brutal honesty in metaphor, Never Give Up, toughness of spirit, improvising, eye open for opportunities [flip the script], getting out there [walk around].

Blues Talk #5 W.C. Handy and Birth of Blues

Pre-1920: Crazy Blues (recording) 1850-1890 to 1920: recording industry 1890s: Ragtime is the pop

Mid 1890s: segregation, guitars in South 1892-3: public lynching 1902/4: Blues Moments. Black entertainment developing, from Minstral fun to deep reality 1903: (1) Handys slide guitar story. Delta Miss only recently settled (20 years), not archaic music, no old traditions, more of a boom town, blues was cutting edge. (2) Handy plays with local band, whites love it [so it wasnt fringe music or throwback?] 1909: 1st account of blues published 1912-1920: Blues pop industry

Field Hollers (athan) Musically: b3, b7, slurring

Blues Talk #6 Blues Craze

1941: Handys autobiography (looking back) It wasnt a distinct folk music 1902-1909: first usages of blues term. 1912 Memphis Blues (sheet music) 1920: Victrola comes out, Crazy Blues a big hit Mami Smith: women recorded first 1920-1922 Surge in Blues, NOT from Mississippi The music not yet harps and guitars. Its women backed by Jazz Bands 1925-26: country blues recorded (the men) Blind Lemon Jefferson: now we see the 12-bar blues from southern blacks 8-Bar: Key to the Highway Bars: (fill spaces): A 3/4, Aprime 7/8, B 11/12

Blues Talk #7 Southern Black and Blues Culture

Self-mythifyingIm bad! Delta was frontier land at that time.

Violence in the Juke Joint environment Dialectic of pleasure and pain (Memphis Minnie Bumblebee) [Animal Farm] Dont develop bossy Slave Master mentality Tea Cake (musician): violent blues culture, play them like they need to be played to develop

Blues Talk #8 The Devil and The Blues, Part 1

Two popular misunderstandings: #1 Robert Johnson at The Crossroads. Actually Tommy Johnson from Ladell Johnson. Transferred because of Me and the Devil, movie Crossroads #2 White blues critics wrong about the devil in blues, that there is a religious and blues/secular split among blacks, but actually not the case.

Some blues songs refer to white as devil, hell as oppressive environment Devils daughter? Folk materials. Petie Whatstraw had a white woman, a white dog on a chain. Devil is a shapeshifter. As a figure hes available to signify with for what we dont have control over. Son House, said devil in his pants.

In 1900-1930s in blues context: guitar is the devils instrument 2.0. The fiddle is associated with the devil in black culture early on. Late 1600s, a record of a devlish slave fiddler. Puritans saw devil everywhere. Link to African sorcery. African God and evil not completely separated, Puritans saw it distinct. Evangelical revival to hit black society in the 30s, causing some split in the culture.

Civil war, emancipation, post-slave culture is wet, now more drinking, juke joint recreational culture, while there is the growth of black churches. Two sources of making a living. 1940s, Lomax etc inventory Mississippi culture, mention 4 generations: 1) pioneer men with fiddles, 2) railroad men and women, spiritual, 3) Son House, Charlie Patton, bluesmen/ministers, cars, 4) young moderns, RJ, BB King.

Blues and the Devil dispute intense in Miss Delta, Clarksdale (center of black Methodism). Bluesmen often the son of a deacon/minister. Blues guilty by association, parents/preachers disparaged it as devils music. Blues musicians say it isnt. In fact, preachers were in economic competition with bluesmen, Fri and Sat night for juke joints, Church on Sunday. Ministers were lambasted in lyrics (1932). They were the voice of the great migration. 1917: Church looking to grow in the Delta boom, but migration out starts. Bluesmen are the soundtrack to the exodus, move into urban life.

Church had to adapt to the young moving crowd. Its not that blues singers of auto generation had a belief in the devil, but their elders were trying to keep control. Young people busting out all around townthe new rising devil class.

Johnny Lee Hooker. His father the father outdone by bluesmen. Its like a PAC MAN gameits coming at you.

Blues Talk #9 The Devil and The Blues, Part 2

1. Robert Johnson/Crossroads. Probably not true. 2. First time mentioned in a blues song.

Miss State: blues and blues tourismMiss not a death place, horrible for blacks. Why New Orleans and Memphis getting the tourist action? Hodoo/conjuration book. Old southern views on this: Sell self (not soul) to devil? Nothing set in Miss, none mention the blues (but to learn instruments can do it). Turning soul over to devil.praise/insult. A 7-year dealnot forever. Crossroads is an X, rituals. Up and Down. 9 Sunday mornings. Summoning ritual.

Aruba religion? Crossroads deities? Tantric. No evidence bluesmen were into magic. Tommy was the myth, not Robert. Songs: Crossroads Blues (devil not mentioned), Me and the Devil Blues (1937), 14 years after Clara Smiths Sold My Soul to the Devil. Lyric: Why Hello Satan? Prewar blues songs mention devil, never mention Satan. Satan back then in the gospel biblical tradition.

Adam: hes a young modern, trying to be cool, bad dude. Wald: blues happened in the Delta. The churches even mixed up sacred and secular things (1941). Heaven or Hell Party at Baptist Church. Compromising to keep the young crowd. Blues was a ticket to get money, get girls, get out of the fields.

Clara Smiths Sold My Soul to the Devil (1924). Man, gold, (dukun or pimp?). Lost Generation in 20s in big cities. Early womens lib? Devil = shapeshifter, not just voodoo. Devil Dance Blues.

Crossroads mythology.blues people see beyond dualisms.

The devil takes on specific meaning in specific socio-historical contexts

Blues Talk #10 Blues Form, Portraiture and Power

1. Blues Form 2. Blues Portraiture 3. Blues Power

Form? AAB 4:25ERROR!!! To Minute 19

Portraiture?

Power? Of the music to transform lives. 19:00 Blues is grace under pressure. Assertion of individuality Blues music as resistance: omni-democratic, American form of national liberation Didnt want to be told what to do by white society, black church set up an escapist safe area of heaven or hell, blues crowd packed a lunch, an eye still on reality. This philosophical framework restricted one to meekness (Jesus) or recalcitrant (devil). Blues avoids strict categories.

Blues Stories: improvisational abilities. A brutal confrontation with facts of life. Resistance has to be grounded in clear vision of your situation. Sometimes you lose [but sometimes you dont]. Self-acceptance. Ready to jump on an emerging improv moment. Squeezing humor from hurt. Blues is not about work songs, its weekend music, for when after the work is done. When Ma Rainey Comes To Townthousands with no place to gobut she gives a place to go, a healing they need.

Blues Talk #11 Blues Revival and Black Arts Movement

Call and Response. Birth between end of formal slavery and turn of century Blues are basically defiant, survivalist, lyrical responses to facts of lifenot sorrow songs. Blues is black power: ritual and drama of blues performance preseves te worth of black humanity and somebody-ness. House in 30s. As if white blues audience bent on cannibalizing black arts movement.

Blues (Music) Power vs. Black (SocioPol) Power (near split in society) White platitude-mongering 1. White blues fans and musicians have run with it. 2. Black blues writers take their stand in writing (cant stem white blues music)

Blues Talk #12 Blues and the Postmodern Condition