Article on racial protest in the blues

Subject: Article on racial protest in the blues
From: GUEST,Jim Hauser
Date: 29 Apr 24 - 10:42 PM

Anyone who is interested in black resistance and protest in the blues might enjoy reading an article I've written for The African American Folklorist. It has not yet appeared in the AAF, but a preview of it is available on my website (I've included a link to it below.) It deals mostly with blues, but it also briefly gets into a John Henry recording and black spirituals.

The article includes quotes from black musicians about what lies below the surface of blues lyrics, including coded protest through double entendre and veiled meanings. The quotes are from W.C. Handy, B.B. King, Brownie McGhee, Big Bill Broonzy, Willie Foster, Willie King, Ray Charles, and Sidney Bechet.

For example, the quote below is from McGhee. It's from an interview conducted by Lawrence Redd and was published in his little-known book Rock Is Rhythm and Blues.

Most of my blues deep down inside, is resentment, persecution. I want to know why certain things happen to me because my skin is black...People don't understand double entendre--that's what we write a lot of times.


Some of the songs and recordings I discuss in relation to protest include "Joe Turner," "Key to the Highway," Bessie Tucker's "Key to the Bushes," "John Henry Blues" by The Two Poor Boys, and Belton Sutherland's "Blues #1. I also cover songs with verses that contain the line "I can't be satisfied" and a long string of songs which openly protest police harassment, false arrest, and forced labor with verses that contain the line "I was standin' on the corner"or small variations to it.

My discussion of the line "I can't be satisfied" includes a quote from Muddy Waters in which he identifies that phrase as a response to oppression in Mississippi. (It appears in Paul Oliver's book Conversation with the Blues.)

Of course, the blues was about much more than protest. Blues musicians did not spend all of their time singing about oppression, but through my research I've come to believe that racial resistance and protest is one of the foundations of the blues.

You can find the article on my website at the link below.
https://sites.google.com/view/johnhenrytherebelversions/that-joe-turner-blues-cry-that-blues-cry-for-freedom

Subject: RE: Article on racial protest in the blues
From: Lighter
Date: 30 Apr 24 - 11:46 AM

Jim's article is an important one for a deeper understanding of the blues. I recommend it.

Subject: RE: Article on racial protest in the blues
From: Thomas Stern
Date: 30 Apr 24 - 08:57 PM

On this topic, one might also consider the
the Lawrence Gellert recordings
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PTBSd-vCx-g
and books
Negro Songs of Protest
Me And My Captain

Conforth: African American Folksong and American Cultural Politics: The Lawrence Gellert Story

https:https://umpressopen.library.umass.edu/projects/a-sound-history//www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/17321441

A reference which appears on many country/rural blues
Going to the Territory / Nation.
A reference to the Oklahoma territory.

The Red Man and The Blues by Max Haymes
https://www.earlyblues.com/Essay%20-%20The%20Red%20Man%20and%20The%20Blues%20-%20Chapter%204.htm

Going to the Nation: The Idea of Oklahoma in Early Blues Recordings
Chris Smith
Popular Music Vol. 26, No. 1,
Special Issue on the Blues in Honour of Paul Oliver (Jan., 2007), pp. 83-96 (14 pages)
Published By: Cambridge University Press


Thomas.

Subject: RE: Article on racial protest in the blues
From: GUEST,Jim Hauser
Date: 30 Apr 24 - 10:12 PM

In Conforth's book on the white song collector Lawrence Gellert (mentioned in the previous post), Conforth questions the authenticity of the songs of overt protest collected by Gellert. However, Steven P. Garabedian makes a case for their being authentic in his book A Sound History: Lawrence Gellert, Black Musical Protest, and White Denial.

Subject: RE: Article on racial protest in the blues
From: The Sandman
Date: 01 May 24 - 02:13 AM

THANKYOU ,Fascinating

Subject: RE: Article on racial protest in the blues
From: GUEST,Jim Hauser
Date: 01 May 24 - 02:40 PM

Thomas, thanks so much for the link to the Gellert recordings of protest songs. As far as I know, they have not been available for purchase for decades. Also, the two Gellert song collection books that you listed (Negro Songs of Protest and Me and My Captain) are extremely scarce, but I was able to borrow copies of them years ago from my local public library through "Interlibrary Loan." However, I'm not sure if these song collections are housed in libraries outside of the US.

I don't recall ever coming across the Oklahoma/Indian Nation articles. I'll definitely check them out.


Also, I want to clarify my previous post by adding that Bruce Conforth does not question the authenticity of all of the songs Gellert collected -- only the protest songs. Samuel Charters, in an essay about Gellert's songs titled The Blues' Angry Voice, also raises some doubts about Gellert's protest songs. Charters (and Conforth) suspected that the songs stemmed from political agitation by outsiders, primarily American Communists. The publisher of the song collection had ties to the Communist party and articles that he wrote about the songs also appeared in a Marxist magazine titled New Masses.

Nevertheless, Gellert's songs caused Charters to reassess his pronouncement in 1963's The Poetry Of The Blues that "There is little social protest in the blues," and look at the possibility that he had been wrong. My article is framed to a large degree around Charters and his reassessment.

Garabedian, in his book on Gellert's songs titled A Sound History, argues that the songs are authentic. Some of those who were suspicious of Gellert's songs argued that no other collectors had come up with black protest songs like those in Gellert's collection, but Garabedian's book finds a good number of parallels between protest lines and verses in Gellert's songs and protest lines/verses in black folk music and the blues that have been documented in early works on black music.

Subject: RE: Article on racial protest in the blues
From: GUEST,.gargoyle
Date: 01 May 24 - 10:33 PM

Very Interesting Jim...

Your original post, verbage, rhythm ... convey American southern, black negro.

Sincerely,
Gargoyle

< No matter how educated ... some creeps through.