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Post by Admin on Jun 22, 2014 10:25:38 GMT -5
On Facebook's RBF, there was a lengthy discussion on the reasoning behind the limitation to African-American blues artists. Many believe the "Blues" aren't limited to the Black community.
So, I am starting this Thread to discuss the rationale behind the belief that the Blues as we know it was derived exclusively from the African- American people. I feel somewhat qualified to discuss some of the factors that led to the origination of the blues, since I grew up in the rural South during the 30's and 40's; My Mother's family were from the Appalachian coal mining communities, my Grandfather being a coal miner in the Cumberland Mountains of Eastern Kentucky/Tennessee; I married a sharecropper's daughter from the E. H. "Son" Hood plantation in rural Tunica County, Mississippi; and I learned the music from some of the early rural musicians.
It seems true at first glance that the lives of the rural caucasian coal miners and sharecroppers of the southern farms and plantations as well as the mountain communities of the coal mining appalachia was in many ways, similar to the lives of the African American people of the rural south. Thus, it seems proper to believe that the "white" blues were the same as the "black" blues. However, as you dig deep into the differences of these two classes of people, you quickly find there is a big difference in, even the most basic necessities of life.
Over the next few weeks, I'll try to remember and post some of these differences. For example, if you look at on of the most basic needs - water, you find that while most rural southern families relied on springs, wells and cisterns for their water needs, most of the white farmers I knew would put the water needs of their livestock ahead of the needs of the African American workers that relied on the farmer for the necessities of life. A well or cistern was almost always located close to the barns and if the black workers needed to get water, they either had to carry it a long way to their shacks, or get it from creeks and ditches. Even the coal miners had access to water, either from a local spring or from a community well. So the African American sings of "Drinking Muddy Water", in their blues songs.
More to come....
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Post by Admin on Jun 22, 2014 10:40:05 GMT -5
Of Outhouses and Clean Water The Outhouse of the African-American, if allowed by the farm owner, had to be dug by hand and was required to be close to the house. The land was so valuable for growing crops, the location of the outhouse was highly restricted. So, the location was often very close to the water supply, or in many cases at least up-slope from the water supply which we now know contaminated the water supply.
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Post by jlhooker on Jun 22, 2014 16:17:30 GMT -5
This picture reminds me of my greatgrandmother's home. I remember that the out house was located mighty close to the well in the back yard.
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Post by Admin on Jun 23, 2014 7:30:27 GMT -5
I'm not sure everyone outside of those who lived in the rural south during the 30s and 40s can comprehend just how terrrible the living conditions were for African Americans. We know of the mental and physical abuse but for those African Americans being forced to endure unsanitary, terrible living conditions had to impact their arts. Here is a picture from what was known as the "Bottoms" in my hometown - Murfreesboro, TN. during the 40s. This was where the African-American people had to live if they moved away from the farms. It was subject to annual flooding from "town creek".
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Post by Admin on Jun 23, 2014 8:08:55 GMT -5
Just remembering...
Even the booze was more difficult for the African Americans. Yes, both the blacks and whites drank moonshine. But for the coal miners in Appalachia, they were free to grow their own corn. The African Americ ans had to 'glean' for theirs after the farm owners had gathered the real crop for their animals. I've seen some older black families walking the roads and lanes, picking up corn than had fallen from farm wagons. They would then grind this into meal for bread and moonshine.
The white moonshiners used copper for their stills, the blacks - old discarded car radiators. (Full of lead).
And the white people had full gardens, even those in Appalachia. Not so for the black people. The land surrounding their shacks grew cotton (right up to the porch)...
Now as a songwriter of sorts myself, I know I sing and write about those things I know and experience. I've tried to write blues but it comes out as "country". Sure, I can write words that fit the blues style, and I can play blues "style" on guitar and keyboard, but I know it isn't Blues. It's just music played in the style of those that developed the genre - Blues.
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Post by dadfad on Jun 23, 2014 9:24:44 GMT -5
Jim said "... I know I sing and write about those things I know and experience. Sure, I can write words that fit the blues style, and I can play blues "style" on guitar and keyboard, but I know it isn't Blues. It's just music played in the style of those that developed the genre."
True, to a degree, but I don't think the blues, whether experiencing or playing, is necessarily confined to a single race.
I did a solo gig once. I was the fifty-buck "opener." I'd just gotten back from Mississippi. I'd hitch-hiked in just in time to make the gig. I'd been in jail for "bein' on the wrong side of the tracks, yo' Honor, probably up ta no good." (My actual charge.) I'd been given a free buck-knife haircut complements of the fine law enforcement profesionals of Yazoo County, and fined (if memory serves me) $67.73, which, coincidentally, was exactly what I had in my pocket at the time. (I'd been trying to learn a little guitar from an old bluesman who lived on the "wrong side" of those tracks.)
At the gig, I opened for a young Black guy about my age, who was obviously much more "authentic" than me. He'd driven to the gig in a brand new completely outfitted VW micro-bus. He played a new Martin and Dobro and had studied guitar at The Cleveland Institute of Music. He was the son of an insurance company executive who lived in the Hyde Park area of Cincinatti, which back then was a pretty upscale neighborhood.
After my first set and before his, we were sitting in back talking about this-n-that. He complemented my playing, but I would never really be able to play real blues "authentically" because I'd never lived "the Black experience." Then he went on, to play some "authentic" blues (and a Carol King and James Taylor cover or two).
I never share-cropped, or picked any cotton (other than a few bolls at my grandad's farm out of curiosity when I was a little kid). Never had to sit in the back of the bus. I never worked on the "killin' floor" in Chicago. But then neither did Keb Mo' or Robert Cray.
It's a music of Life, the good-times as well as the bad. It might be a little different as far as structure goes from say old-time blue-ballads or coal-miner blues, or from old-time Celtic tunes (where some of its influence came from, back when both Black and Irish prisoner-of-war slaves where sold along side each other on the market-blocks in old French New Orleans).
But the feelings are the same, and I think those feelings are color-blind.
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Post by traveler on Jun 23, 2014 9:58:16 GMT -5
Nice post, dadfad.
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Post by Admin on Jun 23, 2014 14:44:28 GMT -5
It's a music of Life, the good-times as well as the bad. It might be a little different as far as structure goes from say old-time blue-ballads or coal-miner blues, or from old-time Celtic tunes (where some of its influence came from, back when both Black and Irish prisoner-of-war slaves where sold along side each other on the market-blocks in old French New Orleans). But the feelings are the same, and I think those feelings are color-blind. John, you know I have the utmost respect for you and your playing abilities. And I know you have "paid your dues", so I won't argue with you on this point. I knew this old black gentleman back in the 40's who would play his old beat up Stella with a piece of a glass beer bottle and sing songs about (As I remember after all these years) - The Screech Owl who "hunts" at night; and the Hound Dogs that howl in the morning, and howl at night but they only chase the coons in the moonlight. When I tried to sing these songs, he just smiled and told me I sung the songs about an owl and a dog. He sung about the "night riders" who would let him visit the "whuppin post" or "tight end of a noose" if they knew what he was singing about. As he put it, "Mr. Jim, you sing because you want to, I sing cuz I have to...it's the only way I can let out all this thats inside me".. Now I don't believe every "black" man can sing blues, nor do I believe that emotions are limited to a single race. But in general, blues is the music of the African Americans and I don't want to usurp it.
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Post by traveler on Jun 23, 2014 17:37:39 GMT -5
Another nice post.
dadfad brought up Keb Mo and Robt. Cray, now I'm not familiar with their backgrounds, but I doubt they have picked much cotton. So are their blues real or not. If so, why? Just cause they are black? If not because of their color, then why should their blues be any more real than that of some white guy with a similar background?
Heritage maybe?
Not sure I really buy that.
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Post by Admin on Jun 24, 2014 10:01:09 GMT -5
Another nice post. dadfad brought up Keb Mo and Robt. Cray, now I'm not familiar with their backgrounds, but I doubt they have picked much cotton. So are their blues real or not. If so, why? Just cause they are black? If not because of their color, then why should their blues be any more real than that of some white guy with a similar background? Heritage maybe? Not sure I really buy that. Some great questions from both you and John (Dadfad). I will be the first to admit I may be incorrect in my opinion...just an opinion. I can say that most of the music I grew up playing (Country, Appalachian Flatpicking, and Gospel) was major keys - primarily I, IV, V chords and slight 7th variants of those. Even when we tried to cover a "blues" song, we seem to migrate it to a major key and arrange it to fit the old country or boogie beat. So, perhaps I should say that "white" blues seem to be different in character to "black" blues?
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