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Dirty-South Blues Harp forum: wail on! >
Charles Keil's URBAN BLUES (1966)
Charles Keil's URBAN BLUES (1966)
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kudzurunner
3331 posts
Jun 21, 2012
10:01 AM
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For forum members looking to expand their appreciation of the blues idiom this summer, I'll recommend a book that remains a singular classic, almost 50 years after publication. Charles Keil's URBAN BLUES is a study, most broadly, of the way in which urban bluesmen B. B. King and Bobby "Blue" Bland performed a specific and important social function within black urban communities in the early/mid 1960s. (It's important to remember that the pub date of a book always postdates the period when the research was being collected and the book was being written.) But it's so much more than that. It begins with several chapters in which Keil demolishes a series of misunderstandings of "the Negro" that were being propagated at that particular moment by sociologists, cultural theorists, politicians, folklorists, blues historians (including Oliver and Charters), and even a writer or two (Ralph Ellison).
Keil is one of the most brilliant men ever to have written about the blues, but his brilliance is equaled by his friendly, direct, easy-to-understand literary voice. He's a genius communicator, in other words: he's never obscurantist, he's always in control of the rhetorical acts he engages in (spearing sacred cows, mostly, in a way that seems entirely sensible AND original--the definition of uncommon sense). URBAN BLUES has a voice that you'll remember. It's distinctive and will live a long, long time.
He retells the story of the history of the blues in a way that will surprise and enlighten those who think they know it all. And because he's had such a wide and continuing conversation with black blues performers, he's able to take silly generalizations made by blues commentators and make plain why they're silly, why they're out of touch with conditions on the ground in the mid-60s black ghetto. He never sensationalizes his subject; in fact, he resolutely does the opposite: says "These are real people making real choices, and you're missing the point of their lives."
Because of the historical moment when the book was written, some surprising things jump out--such as his claim on p. 79 that "I doubt that more than a few thousand white Americans outside the Deep South have ever heard B. B. King's music." But this was surely true. In 1965 (again: when the book was being written), King was still working the chitlin circuit, still working the "big four" clubs--including the Regal and the Apollo--as a headliner. He was three years away from the big crossover moment at the Fillmore West where he was greeted by a standing ovation from the "hippie kids," as he called them. And, most importantly, the blues revival on the folk music circuit was ignoring him even as it had begun to embrace city bluesmen like Muddy Waters. (Keil distinguishes four types of blues: country, city, urban, and soul.) King--amazingly--was held in considerable disrepute by the mass of white male folklorists, who thought that his music was too loud, too focused on sex, too commercial. URBAN BLUES was one of the cultural events that began to turn the tide in King's favor. Charles Sawyer's THE ARRIVAL OF B. B. KING was another.
Buy this book!
[Sidebar: In 1995, I put together a panel on blues for the American Studies Association meeting in Pittsburgh, and Charlie Keil agreed to chair it. He's an amazingly nice, funny guy. These days his big thing is music education in the schools, especially the importance of rhythmic, participatory education. Hands-on. Beat on things and keep the beat. Thirty years ago he founded the 12/8 Path Band. You can find clips on YouTube. They've also got a Facebook page:
http://www.facebook.com/groups/228355699965/
Last Edited by on Jun 21, 2012 10:06 AM
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wolfkristiansen
118 posts
Jun 22, 2012
10:06 AM
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Your post brought back memories. This book was my Bible in 1967. My university library had a copy, which I borrowed more than once, and read cover to cover more than once.
I photocopied the section dealing with the "four types of blues" and the listed examples of each. The descriptions in that section allowed me to determine my very first and second vinyl album purchases that year-- Howlin' Wolf's "The Real Folk Blues" and Lightnin' Hopkins' "The King of the Blues". I have both albums still.
Back in the day, listening to the blues was for me a serious affair. I'd fire up my landlord's borrowed Seabreeze record player, put the needle on track one, and listen to the album start to finish in my one room basement suite. It was never simply background music.
I remember the hair stood up on the back of my neck when I first heard Howlin' Wolf sing "Poor Boy". It was otherworldly to me.
Cheers,
wolf kristiansen
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JTThirty
165 posts
Jun 22, 2012
10:25 AM
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Adam, you are "spot on" in regards to this volume. It's been my "go to" reference book for a long, long time. Another that stays within reach in Robert Palmer's Deep Blues. I provides a nice counter point in blues styles. BB King defers to Muddy, the Wolf, Elmore James, etc...as playing the deep blues, pulled up from the depths of the Delta.
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Ricky B
http://www.bushdogblues.blogspot.com
RIVER BOTTOM BLUES--crime novel for blues fans at Amazon, Barking Rain Press & the blog
THE DEVIL'S BLUES--coming Fall of 2012
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