Talk:Blues
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Verse
I couldn't find a good public domain blues verse to use as an example, so I had to invent one. Its rubbish, so if someone with either
- a better source
- a better grasp of the "Fair Use" doctrine
- more talent
wants to replace it, please do -- Gareth Owen Oh, and I'm really weak on modern stuff...
I had to change your lyrics, Gareth. Hope you are not offended. Thanks for improving the Clapton stuff. I though you were weak on modern stuff (or maybe I am getting really old). == Ian.
Those ones weren't mine ...' -- GWO
Origin of the term blues
Perhaps it's an idea to add a part about the origin of the term blues? I found this on a webpage (http://www.bfbs2.com/rnb2.html): "The first recorded use of the word was in 1741 in a letter from David Garrick in which he said that he "wasn't feeling well, in fact I have ye blues". The word 'blue' had been around since Chaucer's time (c1385) meaning sad, but it was Garrick who changed it from an adjective to a noun." Another version I heard was that 'having the blues' referred to having 'lead-disease', aka lead-poisoning (more common among plumbers working with lead), symptoms of which was feeling depressed/lethargic.--Egregius 17:14, 5 Jul 2004 (UTC)
Gershwin, anyone? I've got no time, but someone might want to do a brief paragraph on George Gershwin after the one on W.C. Handy.
Also, deleted that phrase that went something like "poverty and sexuality from a distinctly black point of view." On the heels of the fairly lurid description of "Down in the Alley," I didn't like the way that read. Preceding paragraphs, particularly as edited, already made it very clear that the subject matter of the blues comes from the material conditions of the time of being poor, black and rural. Also edited the rest of that paragraph because the tone was too informal and subjective. And, of course, I had to mention Mother Africa at the beginning. You can't treat African-American culture like it has no African roots. I mean that's the whole point of "African-American" in the first place. deeceevoice
Challenge: Do we have a category "Unfeatured article"?
What's here is good, but overall this is a pretty weak article. To quote from above "three groups, Country Blues, Chicago Blues, and Modern Blues" pretty much outlines its limitations. Those three are pretty much all that the younger musical fan of today knows, but there's so much missing. The whole "swing" tradition of Kansas City blues, typified by Count Basie and Jay McShann and blues shouters like Big Joe Turner and Jimmy Witherspoon, country music (I just added a sentence about Jimmie Rodgers but there's so much more), the boogie woogie craze of the 40s (also a blues form), the whole notion of instrumental blues (the link to blues scale is a sick joke and I don't see anything here about I-IV-V chord progressions or flatted notes), etc. I will be adding stuff here and there, but I don't have the musical chops to do justice to the musical side. That is, I'm no better than the other contributors to the article as it stands. It needs much much more. That crank, Ortolan88 02:08, 15 Sep 2004 (UTC)
- Hey there, crank. I think what you're looking for is Wikipedia:Peer review. That other crank, GWO
- Agree it's still weak. I look forward to a lot more development. Some things I don't feel competent to tidy up - Need explanation for us musically-challenged of what "A A1 B form" is. I suspect the following para of the article should be linked to that phrase. And 'across the tracks and made it respectable, even "high-toned"' is too colloquial for us non-Americans. Nurg 05:40, 7 Oct 2004 (UTC)
Taj Mahal
I think this needs a diambiguation page, but I haven't taken the time to learn how to do it. Currently, the only Taj Mahal page is about the landmark in Agra. Would someone more familiar with editing like to do it? Tx. deeceevoice 19:46, 3 Oct 2004 (UTC)
Thanks, Timc. :-) deeceevoice 05:36, 23 Nov 2004 (UTC)
A scholar comments on "Muslim Roots of the Blues"
PLEASE NOTE - Editors of Wikipedia - I'm aware that I'm quoting from copyrighted sources. I've written to the Chronicle, but they have no interest in scholarly debunking of a good story (and it IS a good story; it's just WRONG, WRONG, WRONG). So when I found it linked to your page on the blues, I felt I had to do SOMETHING. It is just terribly bad scholarship, and deliberately so. I hate to see such a good site in hock to blatantly bad work. I can't very well debunk it without referring to it. If there's a better way to do this, please let me know. I'm on your side. Joseph Byrd josephbyrd@cox.net
Muslim Roots of the Blues (http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2004/08/15/INGMC85SSK1.DTL), Jonathan Curiel, San Francisco Chronicle, Aug 15, 2004
- Are you arguing that the Wikipedia article blues is inaccurate? Or just The Chronicle? Our article doesn't mention Islam. If you want to debunk The Chronicle, this is not an appropriate place to do so -- I'm sorry that they haven't been responsive, but they won't be any more responsive if you post here. I have removed the copy of the Chronicle article, as it is copyrighted and can't remain here. I do understand your concern about their readers being misinformed; the best thing you could do is improve our article so that it has the real story of the blues, so that people travelling from the Chronicle to our article will be better informed. Tuf-Kat
Actually, I excised an earlier addition to this article (of which the link to the article was a part) which stated definitively that call and response in the blues was the result of Islam -- the muezzin's call to prayer. I skimmed the article link, and, to me, it simply sounded specious. The muezzin's call to prayer is a solitary thing, and I'm unaware of a call and response tradition in Islam related to it. Besides, call and response is a feature of many West African cultures, some Muslim, some not -- which leads me to believe it is indigenous to West African cultures and not the result of Islamic influence. I left the link as a concession of sorts, because I don't pretend to be an authority on the subject. But if Joseph Byrd has scholarship that refutes the Islamic influence theory, fine. He's free to offer it -- and delete the link altogether. deeceevoice 15:08, 10 Dec 2004 (UTC)
Just read/skimmed the Chronicle link more closely, and the theory is an interesting one -- no doubt. But I'm still skeptical. The use of blue notes and note bending as a vocal technique is common throughout non Muslim Africa, as well. Guess I'd have to hear the piece of music referred to in the article -- but right now, I'd have to say I don't see a definitive link. But, again, I'm hardly an expert. deeceevoice 15:18, 10 Dec 2004 (UTC)
- Call and response (or something akin to it) is quite common in non-African folk musics as well, FWIW --- GWO
- IIRC, the banjo is said to be descended from an instrument introduced to West Africa by Muslims. Perhaps the kora, maybe not. Tuf-Kat 17:27, Dec 10, 2004 (UTC)
(Joseph Byrd replies) I thank everyone for reassuring me that the "Muslim roots" theory hasn't been an easy sell at Wikipedia. I keep coming across links to the Chronicle article in otherwise well-intended sites, and it's maddening if you know how error-packed it is. And, of course, it was reprinted in the New York Times Magazine, so innocents all over will assume it to be so.
FYI, my original critique, which neither the author nor the Chronicle responded to, had about a dozen citations that were golden. The claim that the oud is the ancestor of the guitar, for instance, and that business about black churches facing East because of Mecca, and the curious notion that slave names could be related to the Woloff language (which implies that slaves got to choose their own names!). I've expanded the problem of contemporary writers attempting to link Islam with African American music in a short article in the Google Group on American Popular Music. [1] (http://groups-beta.google.com/group/American-Popular-Music/browse_thread/thread/0cc8e1baf6c7f798) Interested persons are invited to discuss this and other topics there.
Regarding the above, the speculation that banjo has West African roots seems pretty well founded. The kora is generically a harp, which Grove's Dictionary treats as a different phenomenon because its taxonomy is different from the lute family, but pragmatic slaves would not have been interested in such categories.
- It's fairly widely known and accepted, I think, that the banjo is African in origin. Even the word is Kimbundu in origin. Sterling Stuckey, in Slave Culture writes about the prevalence of fiddle players (remember the character "Fiddler" in Haley's Roots?) and banjo (kora) players among the African slave population and how they brought these musical skills with them to the Americas. And, GWO, even though call and response is not exclusive to African cultures, given the context, it is clear that call and response in the blues is African in origin. (Let's try to stay on point, folks.) deeceevoice 02:10, 11 Dec 2004 (UTC)
Okay. I've read the link, and it doesn't really specifically address the Islamic link in any substantive manner. It's just a general ragging on certain, apparently, contested links between African and African-American culture and accusing certain writers/commentators of "black racism" because of their views -- a charge which is ... well, I'll just say silly, off-the-wall and thoroughly obnoxious. The author even makes a passing reference to blackface minstrelsy -- which I find a bit curious. The article seems to be a general rant on several topics against certain writers in generaal -- which I think weakens its impact. (Byrd, I invite you to check out blackface, which I rewrote extensively. Maybe you can talk trash about that one, too. :-p As for this issue of Islamic influence, I'm still not convinced one way or the other, and your, IMO, scattershot comments in the article, haven't made a difference. deeceevoice 02:32, 11 Dec 2004 (UTC)
- I think the article, if, as claimed by Joseph Byrd, it is false, plays off of its intended audiences lack of knowledge about African and Islamic cultures, and specifically of the lack of knowledge of the geographic and cultural overlap. Unfortunately, Joseph, I find your comments unconvincing. To claim that a musical trait isn't Islamic simply because it is a general African cultural or musical trait is too facile, especially when the most effective argument against the articles claims is to find non-Muslim sources for the traits found in the blues. One would need to prove, through sources, a non-Islamic African influence. I must admit I also cannot provide primary or secondary sources in support of any influences on the blues. Unfortunately, I see no end to this dispute until such sources are provided. Hyacinth 01:43, 12 Dec 2004 (UTC)
(Joseph Byrd replies) Deeceevoice and Hyacinth make legitimate points. I was extracting rather than making the full case against the Chronicle article, so I'm redirecting readers to it [2] (http://groups-beta.google.com/group/American-Popular-Music/browse_frm/thread/0cc8e1baf6c7f798?tvc=1&scrollSave=&), which I've now expanded to my original response. And while I agree that, as Tuf-Cat says, "If you want to debunk The Chronicle, this is not an appropriate place to do so," I do think that any piece of work so widely disseminated that it appears in 178 places on Google is approaching the status of a legend, and needs to be addressed. Otherwise, visitors in search of enlightenment will probably assume Wikipedia is simply behind the times.
In any event, the *source* of the blues in the cultures of West Africa is hardly in question, and I think the basic article does a decent job. There are nuances to be pointed out: the evolution of the 12-bar form is not immediate, nor was the guitar the sole accompaniment (there are recorded versions that have no such form, and/or use instruments like drum or flute); there is undeserved credit given to W.C. Handy, who as late as 1912 allegedly told Jelly Roll Morton that the blues was essentially sharecroppers' music, inappropriate for his disciplined, uniformed brass band; Ma Rainey, whose first-decade Rabbitsfoot Minstrel Show popularized the form all across the South (and paved the way for the sale of records by Charlie Patton and Blind Lemon Jefferson), isn't even mentioned, possibly because she didn't herself record until 20 years past her prime. (Jelly Roll himself is still woefully ignored; it is likely that he himself spread the blues from the South to the West Coast, and possibly Kansas City, St. Louis, New York, and Chicago, all places he traveled and played long before the form was nationally known.)
We still haven't escaped the hegemony of the white folklorists for whom the blues was/is a spontaneous rural (dare we add "primitive"?) form. If so, why do all the photographs of early stars show them wearing suits and ties? They were professional musicians, performing for money. Robert Johnson, with his shirt-sleeves and dangling cigarette, played these scholars for fools, and they rewarded him by making him a legend, while his highly professional (no less talented) contemporary, Leroy Carr, was ignored.
Deeceevoice has kindly invited me to meet him with pistols at dawn regarding his blackface minstrelsy article. I haven't yet read it, but I know something about the subject (I directed the reconstruction of minstrel music on the 6-sided LP _Popular Music in Jacksonian America_ (Musical Heritage, 1984), and I may take him up on it. :-p [[user: josephbyrd|--68.225.0.99 02:58, 12 Dec 2004 (UTC)]]
- Byrd, first of all, I'm a "SHE" -- not a "he." And while I'd welcome your comments on blackface, an article more immediately in dire need of your attention, based on your stated expertise, is another one I came upon recently, and that is the article on minstrel show. It needs help. (Though whether your perspective is one I should be inviting, time will tell. :-p)
- I'm pleased that you acknowledge the West African roots of the blues. When I first came upon this article, West Africa wasn't even mentioned; at least one writer or two attempted to excise the Africa reference altogether. Same with jazz. (Disconcerting.) The drum and flute business is also quite true. If anyone saw Scorcese's series on the blues, there is a highly interesting segment that draws a direct connection between that very early Mississippi blues form and indigenous African music.
- I have to admit I haven't read the article in its entirety, and I'm sure there are things that could be improved upon; nothing is perfect. There is a general tendency, I think, to overlook women's contributions in blues and jazz (as in many other things). But that's the beauty of Wikipedia. Please feel free to add whatever information you deem lacking/appropriate. deeceevoice 19:54, 12 Dec 2004 (UTC)
Peter van der Merwe (1989) describes African and British origins of the (American) Blues, including "Arabic influences" from North African (p.134). Hyacinth 20:42, 12 Dec 2004 (UTC)
Deeceevoice, forgive my incorrect presumption of your gender. As you say, women are overlooked. IMO Bessie Smith did as much for jazz as Louis Armstrong or Bix Beiderbecke, but she's not only female, but a singer, so she's a footnote. And Ma Rainey was her mentor, so she ought to be regarded as a founder, as I do Jelly Roll. And speaking of Jelly Roll, one of the uncomfortable things about the man was his prickly racism, doubtless one reason why he wasn't more accepted by black musicians of his time (although they all acknowledge his importance, if grudgingly).
I don't think it's possible to address the minstrel show without going into the whole economic/political question. The shows were, first of all, directed to a decidedly lower-class male demographic, which not coincidentally, was the same populist/Democrat demographic that feared blacks as a threat to their jobs. (The Republican Party, representing the industrialists, used the emancipation issue shamelessly.) Minstrel shows, as the article says, were a way of saying, "if you let those ignorant savages loose, they'll rob you, kill you, rape your women," only saying it in a comic style, using the Anglo-Irish musical traditional music as a medium. The early minstrel tunes ("Jim Crow," "Zip Coon," "Whar Did You Kum From?") have nothing to do with anything remotely African American, except maybe the dialect of free dockworkers and boatmen on the Ohio River.
But Dan Emmett was a genius, and yes, I think he heard something no white musician had heard before - syncopation. His fiddle tunes are masterful (complex and inpeccably notated), and in "Old Dan Tucker" he discovered the snappy short-long-short syncopation ("Git out de way...")that can be followed right down to ragtime. It doesn't exist in the fiddle reels and jigs before him, and I think it a fair assumption that he took it from overheard slave songs (as in "I looked over Jordan, and...," in the last three syllables). And if you need a direct connection between the minstrels and the Democrats, consider that Dixie was written and performed in a Bowery theater in 1860, on the eve of war, in the center of the "Copperhead" stronghold of Manhattan.
Unlike the benign familiar lyrics, the original included a brilliant piece of pro-slavery propaganda:
"To Canada old John was bound, All by de railroad underground, Look away, look away, look away, Dixie's Land.
He's got no clothes, he's got no tin, He wishes he was back agin, Look away, look away, look away, Dixie's Land").
In other words, blacks are better off as slaves, where they'll be take care of.
Ironically, after the War, minstrelsy was to become a ladder by which blacks could climb to reach the Parnasus of show biz. Many did, and there were troups of blacks that competed successfully after the War. James Bland (Dem Golden Slippers, Carry Me Back To Old Virginny, Kentucky Babe) was a successful songwriter/performer. And of course, the greatest minstrel of them all was Bert Williams.
Unlike what the article says, minstrel shows continued well into the 1920's, mostly in the South. When the form seemed to be drying up, the white musicians abandoned blackface, and reinvented themselves as "cowboys," the popular new movie formula. Who were they? Well, Gene Autry (and I believe Eddy Arnold) was a former blackface performer, as was Bob Wills (which you can kind of infer from his jokey talking around the music, "Aw-haw! Now take it away, Leon." Songs like "Anytime" and "Lovesick Blues," Hank Williams' first hit, were originally written as comic vehicles for minstrels like Emmett Miller. Needless to say, Emmett Miller is not in the Country Music Hall of Fame.
And I've said nothing about Stephen Foster, who changed the entire face of minstrelsy by combining it with sentimental song. Oy. Anyway, that's a start, and I will try to work on the page, but probably not this month. --Josephbyrd 20:55, 13 Dec 2004 (UTC)
- Byrd, why on earth are you commenting on minstrelsy here? I'm not going to do it, but I suggest you move your comments to the discussion for minstrel show. There's reference to some of what you state here in blackface, which addresses that particular aspect of minstrelsy, its iconography and impact on the ways blacks have been depicted ever since. As I said, by all means, take a look at blackface when you have an opportunity, but I think your comments are best situated in minstrel show for the moment. The article really needs help. I simply haven't had the patience to tackle it after rewriting blackface. (Feel free to move my comments here to the minstrel show along with yours when you decide to move this discussion to a more appropriate venue). deeceevoice 21:20, 13 Dec 2004 (UTC)
Deeceevoice, I'm making a point (obviously not very effectively). The Establishment scholars have carved American music up into Blues, Ragtime, Jazz, Country, et al. Even Wikipedia has different categories for Blackface and Minstrel Show. Boxes are useful tools for getting started understanding the music, but they don't reflect reality. Those boxes didn't exist at the time, except in a very general way, and they oozed into each other. W.C. Handy was a cornet soloist in a turn-of-the-Century minstrel show, and Ma Rainey ran one for two decades or more. Ma Rainey was also the biggest popularizer of the blues, but she also sang a lot of other music, including show tunes. The big minstrel shows of the late 19th Century were really more like variety shows, and finally vaudeville came along and absorbed them; but every vaudeville show would have a banjo act in blackface, and often a 2-or 3-man blackface comedy act. Blackface became a kind of generic "clown" bit, and when Al Jolson make his big step up, he did it as a comic actor in blackface. Jimmie Rodgers - who is in the Country Music Hall of Fame, became famous doing his "singing brakeman" act, singing "blue yodels," and one of his first recordings featured Louis Armstrong. Incidentally, the blue yodels aren't blues.
Ragtime as a vocal medium evolved as "coon songs," which were musically a breath of fresh air in the dull waltz ballad wasteland of the 1890's, and they gradually outgrew their blackface nature to become pop songs like "You Made Me Love You," which Jolson performed in blackface despite there being no conceivable dramatic reason to do so. The sentimental "plantation melodies" of the 1910's and 20's - "Rockabye Your Baby," "I'm Coming Virginia," etc. - were among the jazz recordings of Bix and Tram; meanwhile the early Ellington band, playing at the Cotton Club, created its own fantasies of aboriginal life with titles like "Maori," "Creole Rhapsody," and "Jungle Jamboree." Like Paul Whiteman and many others, Ellington also recorded "Wang Wang Blues," which typically wasn't a blues.
"Jazz" itself is a word that was in use long before anything I'd call jazz actually existed. Jelly Roll Morton says that what the "spasm bands" in New Orleans were playing was merely hot (i.e., fast) ragtime, and if you listen carefully to the Original Dixieland Jazz Band, you'll hear that they aren't really "swinging" the notes, because they are playing so frantically that there's no difference between straight eighth-notes and swung ones. All those terms were marketing devices, and I do not mean to use that term in deprecation. You have to market your music if you want people to pay attention. When Paul Whiteman called himself the King of Jazz, he sent a message to white America that this was not some kind of "low" primitive music, but music appropriate to the stage and concert hall. So when Ellington and Armstrong came along a couple of years later, there was actually a market for their music.
Life is like that, and right now I think it would take several days to put together something that would do justice to the minstrel show. If you would care to do so, please proceed, but as someone wisely said, "I simply haven't had the patience to tackle it." --Josephbyrd 00:36, 14 Dec 2004 (UTC) --68.225.0.99 00:34, 14 Dec 2004 (UTC)
- I haven't read your lengthy missive; I'm crunching a deadline. Yes, I'm well aware that African American musical expression is a continuum, with the various, related styles interacting with one another and often coexisting together in the same work. And, yes, the breaks are artificial. But, hey, that's the way it is. Realistically, Wikipedia can't have articles that go on ad infinitum. Discipline! The separate articles for blackface and minstrel show are actually fine with me, though. A bit awkward, but no more so than with any other related topic. I referred you to minstrel show only because you said it was an area of expertise for you. Deal with it or don't. You say you haven't time, but a lot of what you've written here -- in an "unrelated" space -- could have/should have been inserted there. IMO, it's wasted here. deeceevoice 01:52, 14 Dec 2004 (UTC)
Kansas city
WHich Kansas city is this? In Kansas or Missouri? Jaberwocky6669 19:19, Apr 2, 2005 (UTC)
- Kansas City blues was/is mostly played in the Westport district of Kansas City, MO, down near the river, but then Kansas City, KS is right next door, so there you are. --Blainster 08:26, 11 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Work songs
I added to the gandy dancer article tonight, mostly what I learned from PBS a while back but backed up with some Google. One of the links I found said that gandy dancers invented the basis of blues; while I didn't go so far in my article, I'd be interested to hear from someone who's more music-literate. Perhaps a backlink from the history section of this artilce might also be in order.--Joel 07:53, 28 May 2005 (UTC)