To cut the black man off from Blues is like a child disowning their parents. I dunno, but perhaps the reason being the white culture embracing the Blues of the black man, or black people running from the Blues and going Hip-Hop?
Controversial for sure! Some writers can get a hold of an issue and make the reader think, others can incite riots. The author here was bent on the later I think. The blues was indeed the product of extreme prejudices, violence and hardships. The future of blues is beyond that now. It's about good men feeling bad. Race, creed, sex, etc. aside. ---------- "Keep it in your mouth" - XHarp
If that article is truthful,I am indeed disturbed. Quoting Billy Branch & Sugar Blue sure gives it a ring of truth. Those guys know the business.
XHarp-"The blues was indeed the product of extreme prejudices, violence and hardships. The future of blues is beyond that now. It's about good men feeling bad. Race, creed, sex, etc. aside."
I totally agree,but I don't think it should be forgotten. Like the Holocaust,not delved on,but not forgotten.
Absolutely Tuckster. You can't know where you're going if you don't where you came from. The history is the foundation but not the whole structure. ---------- "Keep it in your mouth" - XHarp
maybe that article was written before we lost an emerging icon of modern blues, a black man named Michael Burks. he was coming off a Europe tour when he passed due to a heart attack. he was well loved by many. he had crisscrossed the nation several times in the last decade and was well on his way to the hall of fame from where i was sitting. i know another guy from Marshal Texas who is just back from a Europe tour, Bobbie Mercy Oliver by name. he has worked in music tirelessly for decades and just had his first trip to Europe.
so there are exceptions to that article, but i do see where the writer is coming from. i saw this in Clarksdale mississippi a couple years back and to some extent in Helena arkansas as well.
this may indeed stir some stuff up. i wonder right now how many of us on this forum are white males of a certain age? how many of asian ancestry? and of course how many of african heritage? ---------- http://www.reverbnation.com/jawboneandjolene
Overall I think there are more white people into the blues these days than Black folks , - and there are likely many reasons for that. For starters , there are more white people in this country, - so there's that basic demographic reality. But another issue - and I'm not the first one to say this, is that, starting in the late sixties and into the seventies, when Black Power and Black pride where in ascendence - and continuing on somewhat till today, playing the blues took on for some, an aura of 'Uncle Tom-ing".
Blues was born in a pre liberation era and reflects the real history of oppression. Attitudes and self perception changed in the sixties and since, and some may not have wanted to go what they felt to be going culturally backward in time.
I am not Black - so I hope I am not being too culturally presumptive here. I did not come to this myself as I said, I've heard it, or read it, from others, - and it just makes some sense to me.
My parents and generations before them spoke Yiddish. A wonderful flowery and expressive language that gave us among many other words, Shmuck, Putz, Shlep, Kvetch, Shmata, Shmear,- I could go on. Yet despite Jews rabid attachment to culture and history, Yiddish was abandoned for much the same reason. - it was the language of the "shtetle" - the village, where jews where segregated and meek. That culture effectively ended with a roundup to the cattle cars and the death camps. My parents and grandparents spoke it to themselves, but not to us. They (tried anyway) to make us learn Hebrew, an ancient language - revived in the new proud (for them) state of Israel.
Years on, many Jews of my age and younger are going back and exploring Yiddish (oy gavalt). We have the distance and perspective that our parents didn't have, - that allow us to
I just watched a film on the history of the banjo and there are corollaries. The banjo has a lot of African roots and was a big part of earlyAfrican American traditional music. It was co-opted by the black-face Minstral perfomers however, and one can certainly understand why Blacks would not want reinforce the degrading minstral show characterizations of their culture. It took a long time before someone like Taj Mahal - and now the Chocolate Drops, could begin to reclaim the instrument.
I am guardedly hopeful that this is starting to happen with the Blues these days. Still - young Black musicians dreaming of a career in music today, are thinking HIP HOP, not blues. This makes sense in plain economic terms, besides the fact that it is what dominates much of popular musical culture, in the media, and on the street .
In the Blues scenes I've been a part of (and that includes a very long hiatus to raise them kids up), Blacks, while often in the minority, have always played a part. White blues boys backing a black singer, or bands with a black drummer or bass player. It seemed to me that the inclusion of African Americans added an unspoken 'legitimacy' to a blues act. It is a 'roots' music after all - and the roots of the blues is undeniably the African American experience in this country. (Sugar Blue says it with much more passion and eloquence in the piece)
Just getting back into the blues scene a bit here in San Francisco, I was delighted and somewhat surprised to find there was a Black owned Blues establishment - Velma's - that hosted a diverse crowd of patrons and musicians, where everyone felt welcome.. (Unfortunatley the venue has since closed). A place I just started going to - the 7 Mile house- has a blues night on Thursdays - and also has a diverse and funky (in the best sense) scene that includes local Blacks, Philipinos, and a nice mix of everyone in the more working class outer-lands of the city . The Scilicon Valley techies haven't found it yet, or are dressing down if they have.
I can't speak to what's going on on the pro tour circuit except for what I pick up on TV. When there's blues on the tube, Buddy Guy or BB King is just about guaranteed to be one of, if not THE headliner. If the pro level Black blues artists are actually getting shut out of the business (such as it is) - that is indeed a terrible, if not criminal shame. I can't imagine it's because white Blues audiences don't want to see Black performers however. How could you even be into the Blues and have that attitude?- it makes no sense.
I have given some thought to this subject, not just as it relates to blues but also to other black music styles that have huge white followings (jazz, reggae). I'm no expert, just a longtime (black) listener who's seen a lot of live shows over the decades.
What I have observed is that unless they grew up with it, your average black person tends to ignore older forms of black popular music. Why this is so, I"m not sure. I think the Yiddish analogy (post above) has some validity, but it's not always as deep as all that. This goes not just for blues but for things like Motown, 60s soul, 70s funk, etc. as well.
Like when I was a teenager I went to see BB King in NYC where I grew up. The audience was a mix of older black folks (40s, 50s, 60s) who grew up with blues, and also a lot of white people of all ages, including young people who probably came to blues via rock music (as did I).
Also as a teenager I went to hear George Clinton play (funk, for those who are not familiar with him). This was contemporary music at the time, back in the early 80s. Young white people were just getting hip to his brand of funk, so there were a lot of young white folks in the audience, as well as young black kids like me.
Fast forward nearly 30 years to last summer, I heard Clinton play again, in Brooklyn. This time around the audience was an even mix of old heads like me, black folks who grew up on funk music, as well as a good portion of white folks of varying ages, including young white hipster types who were born well after Clinton's heyday. Where were their young black counterparts?
I have seen this dynamic played out over and over when it comes to audiences for black music. You have critical masses of white people who seek out and will come out to hear a show, whereas black folks will not, unless they had some experience with the music during their youth. I see this with my friends now. Their musical tastes stopped at Luther Vandross, Anita Baker, as well as some of the older hip hop. There is just not the same interest in things like blues. Speaking in generalizations of course, there are always exceptions.
Regarding Billy Branch's comments, I have to respect what he says as a veteran of the scene. I have heard similar complaints from black jazz musicians I know regarding jazz.
From my perspective as a listener though, I'm glad that SOMEONE is keeping the blues alive. On the real tip, If it weren't for white folks, the blues would not have the following that it has, and blues artists of all ethnicities would not command the audiences that they do. You could probably say the same for jazz and roots reggae (in the US at least).
With that said though one of the thing I like about Adam Gussow's site, his music, his whole perspective and the line-up at HHC is the racial mix. He makes sure to black players are integral to the scene. The same cannot be said of every blues scene/festival, but perhaps that is a function of geographics as well.
It's complicated.
Last Edited by on May 26, 2012 5:50 AM
with as much war between the races in society as far back as humans lived here on earth it`s a good thing to have the BLUES ,a gift from the black race and a gift to them from the Creator to them who needed to sooth their pain.i embrace the language of Blues ,it is a spiritual medicne that works wonders too those who listen...i feel the BLUES languge can be found in much more than what we read on line etc. it`s in gospel,jazz ,soul,r&r,and a ton of other modern music, it`s a language that can be mixed with any music,feel funky and come up smelling like a rose...
@ lynn "I think the Yiddish analogy (post above) has some validity, but it's not always as deep as all that." I appreciate your perspective - and think you are likely right. Welcome to the forum -hope you sitck around.
13 posts and it ain't locked yet. we can be adults after all. I hate to see any people's disconnect with their history. I tell you where the disconnect is even worse, with the black jug bands... and I think the same thing is happening with blues. I'll embed this tonight when I get back from the ball game. The band I think I respect probably more than any other is the Carolina Chocolate Drops, who, in addition to their jug band stuff, do stuff like this: Hit Em Up Style ---------- David Elk River Harmonicas
i think i understand why young black men and women don't seem to care for the blues.
when i was growing up my father and our family listened to country music. when i was old enough to have my own radio, and later records, the last thing i wanted to listen to was that crap ( as i called it then). i thought ernest tubb sounded like the wheel bearings on a greyhound bus going out...i didn't like hank snow, even hank williams.
i see no reason young blacks would feel different than me.
Last Edited by on May 28, 2012 8:42 PM
I've wanted to post in this thread since the day it started, but have held me tongue... so I'm gonna get it all out of my system right now.
When most folks hear me talk, they consider me a southerner. I do too. But the Paynes came to West Virginia from Massachusetts (although my great-grandma Payne's name was "Dixie"). They fought in the Union Army, so did my mother's family - who was still speaking German in the home at the time of the war, even though they'd been in America for 130 years by then. Really what connection have I to Massachusetts? Does anybody really think I'd be welcomed as a long-lost native son if I went there? I even have to look it up every time I have to spell it, because I can't. Nobody in my my mothers family alive for me to know knew a single word of German, including my great-grandfather, even though his great grandfather spoke German. It's pretty easy for these connections clung to by the forefathers to be broken over just a few generations - and this dynamic of broken generational connections was even the true reason for the American Revolution.
So maybe white people are the majority of those at the blues festival - I'm not addressing this bookings thing at all - but at least we're there. And hopefully, we'll keep it alive until the next generation comes to it, whoever those people will be.
I think Clyde hit this nail on the head. I could see a reluctance to embrace that slave and post-slavery culture. But it really saddens me to see it. Back in those days, those people lived under a system of bullshit that defies comprehension and then to turn backs upon those people as if they have nothing to say is just terrible. All they went through, they should be remembered. they were human beings. They had something very valuable to say and I think it should be heard.
There is this cloud of B.S. myth that hangs over everything and sometimes as we look back, we only see that smoke and mirrors and not the true people who were there. When I worked for the daily newspaper in Parkersburg, I spent a lot of time with Henry Burke, who died a couple of weeks ago. He was one of the nation's top experts on the Underground Railroad. First thing he said to me was "all that stuff about hanging coded quilts and lanterns in the windows is a bunch of bullshit. The slave trackers would pick up on that stuff right away. That's what they did for a living." I had a history degree and I still didn't understand really the Underground Railroad until I met Henry. The railroad wasn't in the South it was in the North - you were basically on your own until you crossed the Ohio River and once you did, if you were lucky, the railroad could get you to Canada before the slave trackers caught you.
He told me the stories of real people, running from the slave trackers - who thanks to the Dred Scott decision could track them through the North like Dog the Bounty Hunter. Several times he took me on drives along the Duck Creek section of the U.R. and told me the stories, this guy hid in this cave with a broken arm, then he showed me the cave, etc. It's so easy to get lost in this historical veil of myth, but Henry's legacy to me helping me understand these weren't stories in a book, but real people, like you and me, just trying to have the simplest of basic things. These people were so poor they didn't even own themselves and yet they accomplished remarkable feats. I think what they had to say is very important.
As far as the musical origins go, black, white, whatever, we're all southerners (in the South) and we're all Americans (in America). I've always clung to the notion that there was far more musical interchange between black and white than anybody will admit. You see a lot more black in white music of the 19th and early 20th Century than I think most white people understand and also a lot more white in black music than anyone understands... and I think there is more of both in both than actually I myself understand.
What saddens me is to see backs turned upon people, even though their influence can be seen so much today in the black music that has been disconnected from it. The black jug/string bands especially - they have NEVER been on white folks' musical radar and you don't see a lot of blacks listening to jug bands... but beatboxing, you see so much of that today is a direct descendant of what people used to do on jugs.
That's why I respect the Carolina Chocolate Drops so much. They say "this is our heritage. This is what those people had to say musically and we think it's important" and I think they really drive this home when they interchange beatboxing and jugs. Maybe I would have a different opinion if I were black. I don't know cause I'm not. But I consider these people who played before my fellow Americans and I believe what they have to say is valuable. I'm a fourth generation musician in my family and I embrace the music they made. I wish everyone would embrace the music of their families. I don't think this disconnect will last forever. Someone will rediscover it for a new generation. As far as "white" music goes... we did this exact same thing in the 1940s and 1950s and it took the scholars and the hippies to rediscover it for us in the 1960s and 1970s. Doc Boggs, Clarence Ashley , all these guys we forgot... and there were only a few guys - and Doc Watson is the only one I can think of offhand - keeping it alive in the meantime.
Here's some vids from the Carolina Chocolate Drops. I should also mention they won a Grammy last year. They REALLY get it:
Perhaps it has something to do with the diversity of your country. In Ireland, traditional Irish music is still alive a well and is practiced and apprieciated by many young people. However over the last 20 years there has been a huge influx of other races to Ireland and today that popularity is stating to wain. (BTW..I think diversity is a good thing!) If your parents listened to a type of music then it's likely you will have some appreciation for it as it is familiar to you (though you may not like it and rebel against it). But as modern Irish kids start to listen to pop, hip hop and other forms of music I believe the popularity of traditional music will start to fade. You see the same thing happening in India and other far-eastern countries and also Africa where there are long establish musical traditions. Now I know the Blues is a little different in that it is a type of music which evolved rather than coming fully formed from Africa but the blues itself has evolved and IMO hip hop is part of that evolution.
When I was growing up in Ireland we used to see a lot of German tourists who were obsessed with Irish music and some who could really play it well. I have no problem with German people playing and appreciating Irish music...good on them for helping keeping it alive. The article above though is perhaps trying to say something different though and points more towards an insane predijuce that may be present in some people in that scene. Unfortunately that's not just exclusive to the USA...it's world wide. ---------- Oisin
Our harps were invented in Germany, guitars probably came from Spain. Pythagorus spoke about musical theory in Ancient Greece.
Music is part of a shared human heritage.
Blues deals largely with suffering and human emotion; these things are universal; you don't have to be a persecuted minority to feel the blues.
I would like to think that promoters would respond to supply and demand, supporting artists that people want to hear. If they make decisions based on race, well that's racism, and it sucks.
I think that clearly all musical genres grow and evolve in new niches. Lets not forget that a big revival of the blues came from England in the sixties. I think it might have been Howlin Wolf that commented on the British interest in Blues that 'these white boys gonna make us rich' (or words to that effect).
Should only aborigines play the didgeridoo?, or only scotsmen play the bagpipes?
Whoever wants to take it on, is good at it and that people want to hear, can and will dominate any genre.
I'm a traditionalist, and think that study of the original masters is a must.
@ElkRiverHarmonicas: Thanks for those Carolina Chocolate Drop videos, I just got hip to them a few months ago and am looking forward to hearing them play later on this summer when they come to my neck of the woods (upstate NY).
@David & Lynn that PBS show "Give me the Banjo" I referenced in my first post in this thread - does feature Hubby Jenkins from the Chocolate Drops quite a bit. I think you will find an it interesting if not perfect history of the banjo.
It doesn't surprise me at all that this is the reality of the blues. Its commercial success has always been largely driven by middle-class white people, namely baby boomers. The Blues Brothers, SRV, Johnny Lang, etc...
Sometimes it reminds me of how there is the current fad of being a green and liberal yuppie, lol. There is a word for this sort of thing in the business world. There is a bell curve and a tipping point... ---------- Mike VHT Special 6 Mods Quicksilver Custom Harmonicas - When it needs to come from the soul...
"Its commercial success has always been largely driven by middle-class white people, namely baby boomers. The Blues Brothers, SRV, Johnny Lang, etc..."
Oh gosh. I think you're overusing the word "always."
As Elijah Wald makes clear in ESCAPING THE DELTA: ROBERT JOHNSON AND THE INVENTION OF THE BLUES, the commercial success of the blues was driven by white people between 1910 and 1918 or so. Then, after 1920, it was clearly driven by black consumes of so-called "race records." Whites bought blues records by both white and black artists back then, but the huge engine of the blues' commercial success between 1920 and 1960 was the African American consumer and local denizen of the juke joint, the cafe, the concert hall.
I see a lot of blues happening in that list you've just posted. The Holmes Brothers, James Cotton, Tommy Castro, Elvin Bishop, Joan Osborne.
If they're not pure enough for you, then I'm sure all the early blues queens, hopelessly compromised by vaudeville, are equally objectionable. Some people cringe when Robert Johnson sings "Red Hots," since the commercial cries of hot-sausage vendors hardly qualify as mainstream blues.
Then again, some of us don't cringe. Muddy Waters sang Gene Autry songs. Celluloid cowboy songs! How dare he?! But of course white A&R guys wouldn't let him record the full spectrum of what he actually played at gigs.
It depends on how we define success, I guess. I am thinking more of the-world-is-flat popularity...which was more like the 60's and later...when it was no longer about regional success and artist were getting national appeal.
>> the huge engine of the blues' commercial success between 1920 and 1960 was the African American consumer and local denizen of the juke joint, the cafe, the concert hall.<<
Yep, my mom told me how she'd go down to the record shop and buy "race records" back in the 50s when she was a teenager.
Its hard to even reply to this thread without sounding racist, ( which to me is a very over used term these days..) The guy that wrote that article will be held up as a literary genius for have the courage to write that article, when to me its stuff like that that keeps racism alive in America. It would be like me writing a article on how most sports stars started out white and now most of the biggest stars are black. And how they are taking over blah blah.. Its sad that we still have to deal with this kind of crap.. Ok enough with the rant..
I couldnt make it through the whole article, I was getting angry, but isnt it enough that we idolize the "black" bluesmen that brought us this music. Still buy their albums, etc.. While a huge amount of Black Americans are too busy throwing their money at artists, like Kanye West, Pdiddy, Etc. I am keeping "their" heritage alive. People like that writer just drive me crazy.
Which brings me to an idea that I have. In about 20 years there will be a GREAT NUMBER of white male harmonica players in their 70's. Why don't we all promise to get at least one kid interested in blues harp in the meantime? And if it can be a black kid, great, but any kid will do, male or female.
For me, I don't want to leave my gear to some relative who doesn't give a shit about blues harp and will sell it for half price on eBay. Leave to someone who will carry on.
Last Edited by on Jun 07, 2012 3:10 PM
Busking yesterday and this 8-yr-old boy showed great interest in the harp. I showed him how the notes were made. He said, "Where can I get a harmonica?" Maybe a seed has been sown...
Last Edited by on Jun 07, 2012 4:58 PM
there has been a huge influx of other races to Ireland and today that popularity is stating to wain.
Irish Banjo (from Africa) Bodhrán (Arabic/North African Frame Drum) Fiddle (The afghan rebab a souvenier from the crusades) Harp (from ancient persia) Irish bouzouki (originally from west china then turkiye then to greece)
yes those damned invasive species they will fuck up nationalist music every time.
Regarding the OP, I also think that, speaking in very broad generalities, that there's a difference between what black and white audiences want to hear. White blues audiences often seem to have an overlap with "classic rock" crowds, with a preference towards instrumental virtuosity, especially long guitar solos. These sort of acts work well in a festival , whereas harp led combos, or soul-orientated acts perhaps work better in an intimate club setting.
Perhaps also promoters over-estimate the need to keep the majority happy, so we end up with line-ups that are only tenuously blues or dominated by white guitar bands.
At several points in the past decade or two, I've noticed the phenomenon that Sugar Blue refers to--blues festivals, often in California, that feature six or seven all-white acts--and I've thought that was strange. (I actually tore an ad out of Blues Revue at one point that featured exactly what SB is complaining about.) Couldn't they have found at least one black headliner? It's not as though we're talking about badminton here. The phrase "affirmative action" means that you value diversity--which is to say, in this case, the participation of nonwhite performers in a blues event--and you go the extra mile to identify and contact people who can help you achieve that goal.
Then again, some people are under the mistaken impression that blues is black culture--or, more precisely, a black cultural inheritance. This is only partly true. What's more true, in line with quite a lot of new blues scholarship over the past 15 years, is that white folks have been deeply involved in making the blues since the earliest days. It's not as though before Paul Butterfield and Charlie Musselwhite came along, no white people were playing or singing blues. The first version of "St. Louis Blues" to achieve mass popularity--which is to say, popularity among white and black record buyers, both--was Marion Harris's 1920 version. She was a white singer, and a good one. No minstrelsy here. She just sings the song:
Harris isn't Bessie Smith, but she's just as good, IMO, as Mamie Smith, an African American singer whose "Crazy Blues," released the same year, made her the first black female blues singer on record--and made her a sensation among black audiences:
At this point in history, in the year 2012, blues is white culture. It's black culture, too, of course, but it's also an incredibly widespread, well-articulated, institutionally supported part of NON African American cultural life. There are blues societies in every state and dozens of foreign countries, and most of them are dominated by white people who love, play, consume, and know something (and in some cases a great deal) about the music. Do what you want with this fact--blues as white culture--but at least be intellectually honest enough to acknowledge it AS a fact.
Regardless, there's no question, at least in my mind, that blues music as a form is, in historical terms, deeply interlaced with various kinds of oppression suffered by the black folk who made and used the music. There's a lot of truth to that. By the same token, Elijah Wald's very smart book, ESCAPING THE DELTA: ROBERT JOHNSON AND THE INVENTION OF THE BLUES, disputes this connection. He acknowledges ALL the oppression, he acknowledges the feelings it engendered in black folk, but he disputes the easily equivalence between the feelings and social conditions on the one hand--"the blues" that black people had--and the musical form. He calls the former stuff "folkloric melancholy." He argues that for the mass black blues audience, blues was something exciting, uplifting, stylish, and new. It most certainly was NOT slavery and the pain of slavery. It was Bessie Smith singing about sex--about how she was so wild about "that thing" that she'd offer to sell herself back INTO slavery: "for your love I'd be your slave." Angela Y Davis, in BLUES LEGACIES AND BLACK FEMINISM, argues something of the same thing. Blues, she said, was the music of the first and second generation born after the end of slavery--generations that were free for the first time 1) to travel widely rather than being locked down on the plantation; and 2) to choose their own sexual/romantic partners without being told by any master who they HAD to couple with. These twin freedoms created great excitement, great pleasure--and great pain, because when everybod
Last Edited by on Jun 08, 2012 8:38 AM
[cont'd]...y is free to hit the road and couple at will, it becomes much harder to keep monogamous partnerships and marriages together.
The pain audible in the comments by Sugar Blue and Billy Branch suggest that they're afraid that whites who play and listen to blues, whites who dominate the contemporary scene, would be happy to forget all the specific racialized oppression of the bad old days, all the "blues" that is specific to black people and that white musicians and singers, no matter how well they play and sing the music, simply can't claim and express THROUGH the music. I think that's mostly true. Some white blues aficionados and journalists, of course, love to fuse the oppression with the music and imagine that the two are wholly continuous; those who do that tend to sentimentalize black people as a poor suffering tribe, missing some of the harshness and cussedness of the men (and women) who actually made the music in the bad old days and used it, and their wits, to survive. Honeyboy Edwards and Sunnyland Slim, for example, knew that you needed a white man on your side if you were going to survive and prosper in Jim Crow Mississippi; Sunnyland became the sheriff's driver--his cabbie, so to speak. Honeyboy tells wonderful stories about putting on concerts for the sheriff and his boys down at the jail.
It would be nice, BTW, if Sugar and Billy had noted that some blues festivals--such as Hill Country Harmonica: hello!--make a point of thoroughly integrating not just their performers' roster but their staff. HCH takes place on a black-owned farm in Mississippi, for god's sake! I'm delighted to see the Hollowells make the good money they make. (This time around I'm quite sure they netted more than Jeff and I did.) And Billy and Sugar, between them, are three for three as HCH headliners. Some white blues promoters, it turns out, put more money into black blues musicians' pockets than they put into their own pockets. That's just a fact. I'm here to testify to it. I've lived it.
The day after Billy said what he said up at the symposium up in Chicago, he got in his van and drove down to Hill Country Harmonica, where Jeff and I paid him top dollar--something we were happy to do, I might add, because he's the best. Did he mention HCH at the symposium? Not according to the newspaper article. Why not? Because some kinds of blues complaints need full heat, full self-righteousness, for maximum effect. I get that. The amen corner requires a full airing of the general complaint--which in this case means beating up on white blues sinfulness. But the truth of the matter happens to be more complex.
The truth is, contemporary African American blues performers are in a tricky position, financially and ideologically, and it's incredibly easy to clarify this point. If I were at that symposium and I had the nerve (which I'm not sure I would have, given the inauspicious context for certain kinds of stringent critical thinking), I would have asked the following two questions:
1) If you could reconfigure the contemporary blues scene in such a way that all the things you dislike about it evaporated and justice, as you see it, prevailed, what would it look like? How would your own position in it be different?
2) If you had a magic wand that you could wave, so that every single white (or non-African American) blues fan, blues musician, blues promoter, blues label owner, blues festival organizer, blues journalist, and purchaser of your recordings suddenly disappeared--all of them--what would the contemporary blues world look like? Would it be a better or worse place for black blues performers than it is now? Would you be making more or less money as a performer and recording artist than you do now?
Last Edited by on Jun 08, 2012 8:39 AM
Still, I'm glad the issue got an airing up at the "Blues and the Spirit" symposium. It never occurred to me that something was lost when the W. C. Handy Awards were changed to the Blues Music Awards--like the name of the African American "father of the blues," duh! Good point. It deserves to be made.
Imagine if the bluegrass scene were as wholly dominated by banjo-strumming, fiddling, guitar-picking black folk as the blues scene is dominated these days by white bluesers. Imagine not just that the bluesgrass musicians were black--to the point where bluegrass festivals were dominated by black acts--but that the audiences up in the hills and hollers were dominated by black folks who came pouring in on their motorcycles and in their campers from surrounding states. Imagine if the journalists who cover the bluegrass scene were almost all black and if the promoters who made money off bluegrass festivals were all black guys.
Imagine if those black fans wore t-shirts that said "No hicks, no homeboys, just.....badass bluegrass, y'all!" Imagine if the black bluegrass performers, including guys from the south side of Chicago, worked really hard to copy not just Bill Monroe's way of dressing, but his Appalachian twang? Imagine if societies of well-intentioned black bluegrass aficionados said "Keep bluegrass alive!" and sponsored competitions where they combed the hills of white Appalachia for a white boy who could REALLY play his grandfather's mountain music, and if this mass black audience then celebrated the white boy they'd found as "the future of bluegrass."
Don't you think Bill Monroe, if he were alive, might get a little cranky about all that?
The fact that this imagined scenario seems utterly surreal while the "contemporary blues scene" is just...the contemporary blues scene might help us understand why a "blues and the spirit" conference is necessary, and why it won't do just to dismiss race-conscious complaints made by black blues performers, even when they may not speak the whole truth. The truth they speak is significant and worth attending to.
Last Edited by on Jun 08, 2012 8:55 AM
adam if you look at photos of this lady she has bulging afro/asiatic eyes that do not sink into the sockets like white people. she also has very thick eyelid skin with no folds on them a tel tale sign of asiatic/native american blood. she didnt seem to like to smile much but here you can see the asiatic overbite
as well as curved (shouveled) asian teeth. if she was light paper bag brown shed be a dead ringer for my cousin marla. my guess is she had a native in her family or was a melungeon like me. not everyone who passes for white actually is. my cousin dave had an irish name black hair an orange tan like elvis and blue eyes. he died if sickle cell in the 80s. they sat with clipboards and watched him die of a "mysterious" disease they never saw in white people before.
Hi Billy Shines...I think you've misunderstood my post. I happen to think diversity is a very good thing. Diversity helps to change things which is why Irish music didn't change for a long time, whereas the blues .....well within 100 years it's gone from Robert Johnson to Hip-hop.
blues is older than robert johnson. hip hop came from military jodies like:
I DONT KNOW BUT I BEEN TOLD sound off one two ESKIMO PUSSY IS MIGHTY COLD sound off three four
i first heard rap around 1973 when the word homeboy was an insult that meant you were a mommas boy who couldnt hang out past 11 at night one went,
i hate to talk aboutcho mama butchu talkin bout mine she got ring ding titties an a black behind she got a big wide butt size 2x4 got a baby name GI Joe
the other one all the kids said was
mutha fukka tittie sucka 2 ball bitch yo mamas in da kitchen cookin red hot shit yo brothas in jail tryin to raise bail yo sistahs on da corner yelling PUSSY 4 SALE!
there was an earlier version of the latter with a more florida ragtime blues line the first descending guitar line i learned to play on the first two lines were yo mamas in da kitchen cookin rice yo daddys outside shootin dice. but this wasnt changed until 1973 and nobody rapped until then. and usually it was military jodie style and usually about fuckin yo mama.
one time around 74-75 we were in the back of class beatin african rythms on desktops and i was laughin at a girls whos nose had a hump on it and the guy next to me forget his name maybe andre he starts beatin on the desk and doing like a piedmont blues type thing:
humpnose dont close the door on me humpnose dont close the door on meee-eeeeeee humpnose dont close the door, oh hump hump just let it be humpnose dont close the door on meeeee
well that was the working title and it was more country blues with all that hickey nose singing and evolved into dirtier lyrics. but at the time we listened to soul music kc and the sunshine band and disco was just on the horizon yeah funk was big cool and the gang ohio players mostly. but what we did on the desks was straight up blues or rap oh yeah there was another a blues called aint yo mama pretty
aint yo mama pretty well now aint yo mama pretty she got meatballs on her titties well aint yo mama pretty she got ham an eggs between her legs well aint yo mama pretty
you know i took her to a party and she turned around an farted i asked her why she did it and she turned around and shitted well now aint yo mama pretty
Billy and Dietra are absolutely right. There's something totally wrong with this picture and I hope this syndrome doesn't totally infect Europe and other places in the world. I've seen this syndrome up in my neck of the woods for close to 40 years and it boils down to this: We (or the majority of Black Americans) were sold a bill of goods when it comes to the Blues--THAT'S PART OF THE PROBLEM, IT WAS VIRTUALLY THROWN AWAY BY MOST OF "US"---it's as relevant today as it ever HAS been. I have been marginalized myself and I see certain disturbing/nauseating patterns. I would be lying if I said that I didn't receive SOME support among white promoters, clubowners, and the like, but I have seen the predominately white fanbase and many more promoters and clubowners in action and I'm here to tell you that it isn't pretty. What you see at many of the festivals near me are Blues-Rock outfits toted as Blues acts. I have personally seen all-white Blues festivals and all I could do was shake my head in disgust. Don't get me wrong---I'll play with a MARTIAN if the sound of their Blues is to my liking. I would much, much, much, rather listen to 1975 Fabulous Thunderbirds than, say, a Black Roxbury Funk band trying to play blues SONGS instead of playing the BLUES. Will add more later, but am tired. Prof. Harp
yeah prof im not saying blues is dead im saying its become a joke of its former self the feel is just not there. you dont learn Negro spiritual prostest songs in first grade anymore when i leaned them king had just been slain. now its all been tidied up and protesting is a bad thing that will get you run over my a ny pigs scooter. you you gotta go to a church with a full band to feel it anymore. and this used to be in our soul not even blood. and the thing is everyone still knows it. yeah the 60s bands with the horns they were singing better. today anyone can sing robot vocals. and going back to 6th grade never in our wildest dreams did we think groups would put down horns and the staccato guitar and that our dirty military jodies passed down to us from our grandfathers who fought nazis, would ever become mainstream. yeah man i listen to boogie on reggae woman yesterday and cried. miss those days of radio too poor to buy records... there are stronger powers than you that make a joke of everything special and good. revolution becomes a che shirt, reggae becomes a cruise ship full of old people who like to gamble, blues becomes a black hat and sunglasses.
Last Edited by on Jun 12, 2012 5:35 AM
You've got it pegged, Billy. My guitar player once told that "the Blues is today's GB". That about sums it up. Now what Adam and the crew do @ Hill Country Harp is a real good thing-it's nice to have diversity. But I say this to all promoters, club owners, Blues fanbases, etc.--it's past time to turn this ass-backward trend around; YOU CAN'T FORGET THE ORIGINATORS. It's bad enough that the old Black bluesmen are dying off, so when you DO find Blacks who appreciate and/or play them, they ought to be treasured, not marginalized. For the most part, in MY neck of the woods you'll see, Black NATIONAL acts or formerly-national acts that get the gigs; but for guys like me, there is far, far, too much marginalization. Next, I'll talk economics and politics, but have to go now.
I saw Sugar Blue years ago, perform at Manny's Car Wash. The place was packed for him and headliner Lucky Peterson. The audience was mostly white. Mr. Blue came across as angry, bitter and extremely condescending. His attitude was a big turnoff. Luckily, Peterson came on for his set and blew the roof off. He was fantastic. ---------- Sun, sun, sun Burn, burn, burn Soon, soon, soon Moon, moon, moon
Now for the economics---today, we have a bad economy. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to know the ripple effect. This is another reason why I hate the marginalization: In a bad economy, the vicious circle of marginalization--non-support-more marginalization is exacerbated. Add that to the marginalization of the Blues itself as opposed to mainstream music (you see it w/the renaming of the Handy Awards, the Grammy Awards consolidating the Blues category into an "all-purpose 'Roots'" category), then to top it off, the journeyman Black Blues artist has no more "chitlin circuit" to rely on. It kind of reminds me of a BB King interview I read about 40 years ago where he said that being a Black Bluesman is like being Black twice. It's now worse than that-- thrice or maybe x4.
Nah--but I WOULD someday like to play in real Africa, as opposed to Africa's back yard.g I've had Africans in my audiences occasionally and they dug what I was putting down. Japan, from what I've heard might be cool, too. BUT--wherEVER you go, you have to find folks who know, love, and CAN PLAy the music, the way you want to hear it. Then, there are always the closed circles, that seem insurmountable.....
well i like this guy http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2zAcQPjkOkA he plays blues on a lute that was even used by the ancient egyptians. in one interview Bassekou Kouyate said his family has been playing blues for african kings going back 350 years. so blues is at least that old if not older.
japan is expensive i lived in turkiye a month really nice place. its like hollywood in the 1920s. the pay isnt great but youre treated like royalty the red carpet etc. theres a jazz guy there hes always there he musta payed a bribe for an entertainers license, but anyway hes on the talk shows everyday as a famous american jazz guy but the truth is nobody here has ever heard of him. it is really easy to get famous there. and istanbul has one hell of a nightlife. yeah i love african music studies i wanna study this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MrmCOfOMdzc
