I think this is the article to which Maribel was referring: http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2009/11/18/the-blah-blah-of-gaga.html
Tuesday, November 29, 2011
Bob Dylan in the U.S. Adrian
Prior to reading the articles assigned for the week, I honestly had very little knowledge to Bob Dylan. I will admit that I have heard his name before but never sat down to listened to his songs. Inadvertently I have heard his music through samples. Off of Jay Z's album the Blueprint 3 he samples Dylan's song "Forever Young" as well as the Animals "House of the rising sun". Bob Dylan was an enormous figure during the 1960's as well as the Civil Rights movement. He grew up in Post-War United States in which the country was being torn apart by issues of "race" then by war. (Cantwell 169). For the most part the attitude in the U.S. was to overlook the issues at hand and if needed force was to be used to put down any unrest. Along with supporting the Civil Rights movement, he was also against the war in Vietnam and even performed an anti-war song at the grammys in 1991 during the war in Iraq.(Greil 28-32). Overall Bob Dylan stands as a music symbol and folklore artist that to this day is still being reference by mainstream music.
Dylan Revisited? Or No? ....
"No career better embodies the folk revival than that of Bob Dylan, whose audacious autometamorphosis sanctioned and consolidated the movement already abroad in youth culture." (Cantwell, 185)
This quote from Cantwell struck me as I was finishing up my reading this week. The fact that Dylan is used as a reference point for the folk revival did not surprise me, nor the way in which he has been the focus of much of the scholarship. Rather, what stuck me was the words that Cantwell used to explain his importance and the way in which he is written about... An "audacious autometamorphosis" embodies the romanticism and character given to the movement my its many followers. Similarly, "sanctioning" and "consolidating" are very exacting terms. It is not explained that Dylan became associated with the folk revival or that he identified the movement for some, no, for the scholars we have read this week (Cantwell and Marcus) Dylan WAS the folk revival, and he is the man who the youth identified with no questioned. Dylan became for them the AUTHENTIC folk revival, and those who strayed or did not fit under this definition could still be discussed but they were not the same authentic voice as Dylan. Those voices became the counterculture movement, or were folk singers that were influenced by other passions, ideas, or politics that were not quite as authentic as Dylan.
In fact, I don't know if anyone else got this sense, but when Dylan was discussed in these readings many of the passages themselves read as songs. Marcus's contribution "The Day Kennedy Was Shot", especially reads like a song. For example: "The song melted the mask..." (33) / "Dylan had announced himself under the same shape-shifting shadow" (21) / "Dylan's voice was scraped and twisting" (23).
A folk revival uniform becomes apparent when reading these articles. It is not jeans and a t-shirt or the overalls of a factory worker. The uniform of the folk revival, the AUTHENTIC folk revival, was whatever Bob Dylan wore on stage that day. There is a degree of worship that emerges within these articles. I am not denying the importance of Dylan, nor the value of his music... (if fact I am a fan), instead I am wonder whether or not describing a whole movement through one man "whose audacious autometamorphosis sanctioned and consolidated the movement" is how we should approach the folk revival? I question if we are not now far enough removed from the influences of the "scraped and twisting" voice of Dylan to be able to look around his prominent cut out and see the other players on the stage as well.
- Sarah
This quote from Cantwell struck me as I was finishing up my reading this week. The fact that Dylan is used as a reference point for the folk revival did not surprise me, nor the way in which he has been the focus of much of the scholarship. Rather, what stuck me was the words that Cantwell used to explain his importance and the way in which he is written about... An "audacious autometamorphosis" embodies the romanticism and character given to the movement my its many followers. Similarly, "sanctioning" and "consolidating" are very exacting terms. It is not explained that Dylan became associated with the folk revival or that he identified the movement for some, no, for the scholars we have read this week (Cantwell and Marcus) Dylan WAS the folk revival, and he is the man who the youth identified with no questioned. Dylan became for them the AUTHENTIC folk revival, and those who strayed or did not fit under this definition could still be discussed but they were not the same authentic voice as Dylan. Those voices became the counterculture movement, or were folk singers that were influenced by other passions, ideas, or politics that were not quite as authentic as Dylan.
In fact, I don't know if anyone else got this sense, but when Dylan was discussed in these readings many of the passages themselves read as songs. Marcus's contribution "The Day Kennedy Was Shot", especially reads like a song. For example: "The song melted the mask..." (33) / "Dylan had announced himself under the same shape-shifting shadow" (21) / "Dylan's voice was scraped and twisting" (23).
A folk revival uniform becomes apparent when reading these articles. It is not jeans and a t-shirt or the overalls of a factory worker. The uniform of the folk revival, the AUTHENTIC folk revival, was whatever Bob Dylan wore on stage that day. There is a degree of worship that emerges within these articles. I am not denying the importance of Dylan, nor the value of his music... (if fact I am a fan), instead I am wonder whether or not describing a whole movement through one man "whose audacious autometamorphosis sanctioned and consolidated the movement" is how we should approach the folk revival? I question if we are not now far enough removed from the influences of the "scraped and twisting" voice of Dylan to be able to look around his prominent cut out and see the other players on the stage as well.
- Sarah
Back in the Days
Blog-15
Pat Bc
11.29.11
Reviewing the influence of Lomax in the lives of Leadbelly, and Pete Seeger you can see the functions of privilege and performance. Both Leadbelly and Seeger performed folk music however the role of dominance limited the performance of one yet granted full privilege to another ( Filene, Romancing the Folk, Public Memory, American Roots Music, 2000). Leadbelly’s performance was influenced by Lomax’s view of African American /Black males. While he sought to expose the country to roots music he also marginalized and exploited Leadbelly by using his stint in prison to draw attention to his music. Lomax actually colonized him through his acts of subordination within his home.
However, Lomax extended great privilege and education to Pete Seeger to capture his own authentic style of roots performance bringing about a cult. Lomax had an eye for the reality of life which he captured through his use of technology which expanded the performance of music into a cult of authenticity throughout the country and world to. Without the memories lived in the music of Leadbelly and Woody Guthrie, Pete Seeger’s performance may not have spread to influence others.
Folk music is passed on and the performance is shaped by the points of entry from the memory of the old to the new American life at that time (Cantwell, When We Were Good: The Folk Revival, 1988). Leadbelly’s performance spoke of his memories of the hard times and segregation of the South. Leadbelly’s narratives helped to lend more reality to his performance prior to Civil Rights, then Pete Seeger’s performance shaped by war and the jubilant return of war stirred up a new patriotism that revived the hopes of American people. Dylan’s songs performed for his generation through the latest technology and lyrics to move the consciousness of people through a new period of change in America that continues today. (Marcus, Like A Rolling Stone: Bob Dylan at the Crossroads, 2005).
Expecting the Authentic (Joshua Salyers)
This week’s readings bring to mind an “authenticity” issue I discussed in a blog earlier this semester. In this blog, I related a story about my sister-in-law’s expectation of acquiring an authentic artifact from the Monte Alban site in Oaxaca, Mexico. I couldn’t stop thinking about the relationship between authenticity and expectation. I have a similar approach to the readings that Natasha does (especially Filene) as she called for people to see Dylan “as he is” or the “man himself.” Perhaps the expectation of what his music was represented an idea of authenticity that Bob Dylan, the artist hoping to maintain a career, could never represent forever.
Filene essentially defined the “Cult of authenticity” as a “thicket of expectations,” explaining how the Lomaxes created the criteria for determining what a folk singer looked and sounded like. In the case of Lead Belly, the Lomaxes saw authenticity in a person who had been imprisoned, separated from society, and thus able to represent the authentic folk music and usher in a folk revival. The Lomaxes defined authenticity based on their own expectations of its existence in ones separation from society. Some Dylan fans also labeled his early work, folk, and solidified their expectations of authenticity that failed to coincide with his transition to the electric guitar. These expectations, or for academics, their imaginations, seem to dominate the artist and the music. Since expectations are tied to reception, understanding they shape the perception of authenticity helps to illustrate the precarious terrain that folklorists enter when discussing authentic folk music.
Monday, November 28, 2011
Inauthentically Authentic
By Kelley Merriam Castro (or am I?)
The topic of authenticity reared its head again this week in the readings, in the ironic, and complex ways that makes the study of folk culture both fascinating and exasperating. The Lomax team found authenticity in the deprivation of freedom -- Lead Belly's decade in prison supposedly isolated him from the modern world and made him more authentically "folk." Folk music traditions as I understand them, are oral traditions created and sung by people to meet specific needs. They are lively and relevant rather than canonic. Yet those who observed the evolution of Lead Belly's music after he left prison interpreted his changes as a degeneration of his original sound rather than the evolution of a folk style to meet a changing reality, audience and scene. Dylan faced a similar challenge in his evolution into electric, rock styles by those who identified him as "folk". For both of these singers and songwriters, Filene defends their musical growth and change as part of the growth and evolution of a musician, and in the case of Dylan, finds folk roots throughout his career.
The not-very-subtle irony of Bob Dylan's own "authenticity," of course, lies in the complete inauthenticity of his own persona, his decision to invent a name and inconsistent personal history, and occasionally provide nonsense answers to interviewers. Filene parallels this to Pete Seeger's own stated desire to be able to hide behind a pseudonym at times, and relates it to the very contradiction the concept of "authenticity" imposes -- Pete Seeger, the six-figure-earning wandering "everyman," versus Mr. Zimmerman-come-Dylan. Neither stemmed from the "authentic" racialized folk music roots that ultimately inspired them. Yet both found ways to fashion a life of musical and cultural experiences that rejected rat-race 9-5 middle and upper-class America, granting them at least a little street cred as wandering minstrels.
In an odd way (and at the risk of blasphemy for my colleagues in ethnomusicology who adore all the Seegers), almost because of his blatant and outright invention, Dylan could be interpreted as more authentic than Lead Belly or Pete Seeger. Dylans wandering minstrel quality took on a whole new dimension and cut through questions of identity and truth itself. Lead Belly sought to conform more closely to convention as his career progressed, rendering his authenticity suspect by folklorists. Seeger lamented the bifurcation between the success he had become and the working-class simplicity he meant to impart. And Seeger attempted to define Dylan and wall him into a static acoustic folk scene. Dylan rejected the limitations of the folk convention and blast into the electric rock scene, never mind the criticism. He rejected even the framing placed on him by his own name and heritage, defining himself as he thought he should be. He rejected the conventions of news interviews, giving nonsense answers when he became bored with the routine.
Here, then, the inauthentic has become mingled and infused with the authentic, demonstrating how complicated, futile, misleading or unnecessary the quest for authentic folk can be. Marcus and Cantwell recall with deep emotion their first reactions to Dylan and what his music signified to them. Whether he was actually Bob Dylan or somebody else, whether he was folk, rock, or electric, whether he felt like answering questions that day or not -- the moment of defining "authenticity" for him, or any musician for that matter, resided more in how the listener responds to the music and performer than in the performer him- or herself. It seems the true folk musicians, those who adapt their songs to local scenes, traditions and moments, and allow it to evolve with the time, understand that the real authenticity in folk music is not in the musician or the music, but in the moment of reception -- that moment where the listener hears and interprets the music and finds it real.
***
My blog post ends here, but I was googling around and found this:
And, I was coursing YouTube to listen to Lead Belly, Woodie Guthrie, Pete Seeger and others, and could not resist sharing this:
See y'all in class!
Nostalgia (Awndrea Caves)
The articles “The Day Kennedy Was Shot” and “When We Were Good” reminded me of the tendency we all develop as we grow older, and not necessarily wiser: nostalgia. We speak of our childhoods, our musical idols, our movie gods as if no one ever had any before us. And maybe they did not have such things to reminisce about as we do, but everyone certainly has something or someone over which, or whom, to wax nostalgic. My childhood event was the Challenger explosion. I remember watching the replay, as it must have been a replay because I recall knowing the explosion was going to happen and feeling dread in my stomach. One of my students told me recently that after I mentioned it in response to her paper over 9/11, that she asked her brother, ten years her senior and my age, what it was all about. For the first time, my response to this was not an internal eye roll, but more of an understanding that time moves on and my historical benchmarks are, in fact, historical and fade into history books as they fade out of the culture’s very short span of attention. They stay in my mind, just as Marcus’ first listen to Bob Dylan.
On the subject of nostalgia, does a desire for some dreamt of past influence us to search for the folk? With nostalgia, we imagine a more pure past, with minstrels instead of recording artists. That is the place the Lomaxes intended to keep Leadbelly, in his prison past, confined in his prison work clothes, singing for their supper. What is nostalgia to the study of folklore? What is nostalgia to the study of Bob Dylan? ;)
The Tug of War: Buffalo Springfield & Dylan vs. Leslie Gore & The Beach Boys by S. Rocha
This week readings by Cantwell, Filene and Marcus were truly a wonderful blast back into the past. Although I was about as far from the typical Loretta Young prodigy as one could get, I was certainly touched by the flavors of sound created in reaction to the midnight train, American race for first place in arms proliferation. All this with a raining back-drop of Annette Funicello and the Mickey Mouse Club, Mighty Mouse, Rin Tin Tin, Circus Boy, Dean Martin and plastic curtains, plastic tile, lath and plaster houses with dirt basements and, yes, half-dug fall-out shelters from the previous owner of a turn of the century one-bedroom.
I remember hearing Bob Dylan’s music played at the old Peony Park giant swimming area in the west part of the city. The ghostly instrumentals fusing with his own fleshy voice became a surreal memory of sorts that clashed with stiff, bouffant hairstyles and Brylcreemed boys. No amount of water could coax even one hair to fall out of place. A perfect, starched imaginary set of plastic figurines in Barbie Doll swimsuits danced and pranced in the sun. Nothing made sense until Dylan segued into Beach Boys Help Me Rhonda—a much more appropriate sound track until the gears switched back again. And The House of the Rising Sun made my summer sun all the hotter with images of dead bodies in some East Asian conflict on yesterday’s six o’clock news, and all the flirty beach blondes teasing the soon-to-be Viet Nam sacrificial lambs (who did not have a clue). The House of the Rising Sun, lead singer of the Animals, Eric Burdon suggested the song came to him by way of an English pub. Said to have originated from a sixteenth-century English folk song about a brothel, the song somehow found equal relevance in 1964. It was Viet Nam and the “house” was everything that built the conflict. Transplanting location to New Orleans, the song sent a somber warning to that generation:
There is a house in New Orleans
They call the Rising Sun And it's been the ruin of many a poor boy
And God I know I'm one.
With its ominous minor chord arpeggio, it picked-up where Dylan left off. The sound of the times wrestled at opposite ends of the continuum. The residue of Donna Reed debutantes facing off with the merging voices of Stephen Stills, Neil Young and acid rock anger turned me off and sent me back home to music that made sense to me, looked like me, and held the uncanny power to turn the knob off on the old Silverton television where the Huntley-Brinkley report sent regular, nightly chills down my back as I sat cross-legged on the linoleum floor watching the civil rights movement explode along with Viet Nam. Plastic transistor radios and 45 records of a comfortable familiar: Sam Cooke, Otis Redding, James Brown and Etta James—cried honestly and made us smile. I didn’t realize then what a weird, white world was forming around me. At the time, I thought it was just a cacophonous community that rallied a little too much around what Grandpa referred to as “foolishness”. I didn’t know it was a serious life style that burned the edges of my world with a caveat of forebodings that felt, sounded, tasted like finger nails of a loutish arrogance scratching against the chalkboard of society.
Ah, what memories are elicited in sound and song.
Post-Dylanism (Natasha)
Don't get me wrong, I love Dylan. Some of my earliest musical memories are of the song "Blowin' in the Wind" and I still listen to his earlier stuff all the time. But I think that each of the authors get a little carried away by their romanticized memories of him, the pivotal role he played in their lives, etc. I find Filene's conclusions in particular to take the Dylan mania too far. I appreciate his interpretation that Dylan didn't reject Seeger (and the folk genre) but that he rather adapted him (and it) so that it was viable in the age of rock. I agree he probably did advance the genre, but the way Filene talks about, that was it. Folk music ended the day Dylan brought his electric guitar onto the stage of the Newport Folk Festival. This attitude is overly simplistic and denies a vibrant folk music tradition that continues today and is key propagator of protest music in many activist circles. Artists like Utah Phillips, up until his death just a few years ago, continued the tradition of protest songs as they'd been sung by Mother Jones, Emma Goldman, and other early labor organizers.
Utah Phillips brilliantly revised old songs so they'd have relevance to contemporary audiences. He made union songs of the 1930s make sense in the context of the Iraq war protests, for example. Ani DiFranco and David Rovics are other contemporary folk musicians driven by a social action imperative. So, I think to say that folk was subsumed by rock is short-sighted and excludes a very vibrant counternarrative to contemporary rock and pop music.
Oh and Dylan's hypothetical corporate sell-out to "ladies garments" that Filene quotes from the 1965 San Francisco press conference? That became more or less a reality in this controversial Victoria's Secret ad:
Though Dylan lost many fans after this ultimate corporate sell-out (at least among my mother's set of first-wave feminist friends) I think it speaks to his ability to be utterly adaptable to his audiences and to new trends in the realms of music and popular culture. The authors of this week's readings showed us what a chameleon Dylan was capable of being and I think we should see his musical transitions within that context. Dylan didn't transition folk into rock, he saw that rock was going to be the next big thing and he made that move as an individual artist. Perhaps we all need to see Dylan as he is and stop over-inflating the importance of every career choice he's ever made because, in doing so, it's too easy to lose sight of other musical trends (ie. the continuing strength of folk traditions) and of the man himself.
Utah Phillips brilliantly revised old songs so they'd have relevance to contemporary audiences. He made union songs of the 1930s make sense in the context of the Iraq war protests, for example. Ani DiFranco and David Rovics are other contemporary folk musicians driven by a social action imperative. So, I think to say that folk was subsumed by rock is short-sighted and excludes a very vibrant counternarrative to contemporary rock and pop music.
Oh and Dylan's hypothetical corporate sell-out to "ladies garments" that Filene quotes from the 1965 San Francisco press conference? That became more or less a reality in this controversial Victoria's Secret ad:
Though Dylan lost many fans after this ultimate corporate sell-out (at least among my mother's set of first-wave feminist friends) I think it speaks to his ability to be utterly adaptable to his audiences and to new trends in the realms of music and popular culture. The authors of this week's readings showed us what a chameleon Dylan was capable of being and I think we should see his musical transitions within that context. Dylan didn't transition folk into rock, he saw that rock was going to be the next big thing and he made that move as an individual artist. Perhaps we all need to see Dylan as he is and stop over-inflating the importance of every career choice he's ever made because, in doing so, it's too easy to lose sight of other musical trends (ie. the continuing strength of folk traditions) and of the man himself.
Lomax, Lead Belly, and the Adaptability of Folk Traditions--Katie Moore
When the Lomaxes set out in 1933, they were on a mission to make audio recordings of “unadulterated” folk stylings from rural communities cut off from the contaminating forces comtemporary music through records and radio (Filene 2000:56). Writing to his wife, Lomax explained that they were collecting songs that “seem folky” (51) from prisons and rural communities that were less susceptible to modern musical influences. They were out to collect “authentic” samples of a truly American folk tradition, separate from the European peasant folk song tradition.
The Lomaxes were trying to break away from the manuscript-driven study of folk music which remained in the stacks of libraries to get at folk songs without the degree of interpretation from the folklorist. Audio recordings were supposed to capture “pure folk,” although little consideration was given to the influencing factors such as the context of the recording, the people present, and the purpose (the apparent government sponsorship by the Library of Congress which caused some singers to address the President directly in their songs (56-57).
Lead Belly’s large folksong repertoire was used by the Lomaxes to assert that folk songs were still alive in contemporary America, yet they insisted on looking at these isolated pockets of communities like prisions. But isn’t this in some ways counterintuitive to the argument that these traditions really be representative of “contemporary America” as a whole? Why, then, could they not have looked in the cities and suburbs of America for the American folk song traditions. The Lomaxes argued that Americans should fight the tendency to think of folk culture as static, yet they themselves were searching for the music with the least influence from other sources, i.e. the most unchanged. This raises a contradictory conundrum for popular conceptions of “the folk” by academics and the public. This contradiction is further complicated by Lead Belly’s evolving performance and song style, partially encouraged by the Lomaxes, such as making his pronunciation more understandable to northern audiences and increasing Lead Belly’s distinctive “interpolated narrative” in his performances (65-66).
While billing Lead Belly as “pure folk,” they also exoticized him as the “other,” a primal performer linked at once with purity, danger, past, and present. They emphasized his prison past and attested to his animalistic nature in ways that still don’t make any sense to me—what exactly does it mean to be “as sensual as a goat” (59)? Lead Belly was even forced to perform in his old prison uniform, despite his express aversion to this. This brings up many historical issues that we have found intertwined in folk culture, revivals, and commodification of the folk, such as racial and class inequality, exploitation, and romanticism.
While they claimed to be exhibiting the pure folk, the Lomaxes were in fact doing something much more interesting and useful, which is highlighted in Filene’s Chapter 4. Their recordings allow us to see how these performances and folk styles evolved over time even within the scope of just one person, Lead Belly. The Lomaxes “fundamentally misrepresented the reality of folk culture…[which] had always depended on its adaptability,” but their series of recordings actually showcase that even as they discouraged change except in their own sanctioned cases, Lead Belly found small ways to adapt in true folk fashion (71). The restriction of change is what held Lead Belly’s songs back from widespread success. His music did not reach wider popularity until it was adapted by his successors, ranging from the Weavers, to Little Richard, to Kurt Cobain. Below are two youtube clips of "Where Did You Sleep Last Night," the first by Lead Belly, and the second by Nirvana about 50 years later.
Folk song in Taiwan (Ying-wen Yu)
Do we have folk songs in Taiwan? Of course, we do. I grew up listening to my parents singing the Taiwanese Campus Folk Songs. Back in 1972 when President Richard Nixon visited China, he said to the public that it was important to create songs with mother tongue. As a result, the Taiwanese folk songs became popular after the 70s. In the early stage, most of the folk songs were about praising the Nature, nostalgia toward China the homeland, and classic Chinese poetry. It was in the late 70s that a lot of the songs were about social awareness, justice and concern. Modern poetry were incorporated into the lyrics written by people who have studied or traveled abroad. The songs also encouraged people to explore the world. The songs were sung on campus. Singers played guitar and sang their dreams out loud. These songs were so popular that almost everyone knew at least part of the lyrics. However, 99% of the songs are in Mandarin Chinese instead of in Taiwanese. Therefore, in 80s people had different opinions about the definition of Taiwanese Campus Folk Songs. Some argued that the songs should be in Taiwanese so as to show a sense of belonging while other still maintained that no matter what language the song was written, the song was a product of Chinese culture. It was after 90s that some of the Taiwanese singers wrote New folk songs, sang in Taiwanese and incorporated rock in the music. But still, the younger generations born after 90s are not familiar with the folk songs that were once so popular in the past. They know the songs from TV shows that are adapted to a new form or new arrangement. “The original flavor has changed,” my dad always says.
Reading the 2 articles on Bob Dylan, I can’t help but wonder if there is a Bob Dylan figure in Taiwan music industry as well. Even though I grew up listening to all these folk songs, I still have no idea if I have experienced the heyday of the Taiwanese folk songs or the revival of the folk songs (if there was one). But if you want me to name a classic Taiwanese folk song, “Olive Tree” is probably the one. The song was written in early 70s and it is about a person wandering for the olive tree in his/her dream and therefore he/she has to wander far far away. Some critics suggest that the song probably insinuates the historical fact that people came to Taiwan after 1949. So to some degree, the song is not only beautiful but political.
Lyric:
There is a farmer who walks on the road
Stranger, why do you wander? Oooh...
Don\'t ask from where I have come
My home is far, far away
Why do you wander so far
Wander so far, wander so far
For the little bird free I wander
For the meadow green and wide
For the mountain high and blue
I wander, wander so far
Then, is there more?
Yes, for the Olive tree of my dream
Don\'t ask from where I have come
My home is far, far away
Why do you wander?
Why do you wander so far?
Far, far away
For the Olive tree of my dream
Don\'t ask from where I have come
My home is far, far away
Why do you wander so far
Wander so far, wander so far
Stranger, why do you wander? Oooh...
Don\'t ask from where I have come
My home is far, far away
Why do you wander so far
Wander so far, wander so far
For the little bird free I wander
For the meadow green and wide
For the mountain high and blue
I wander, wander so far
Then, is there more?
Yes, for the Olive tree of my dream
Don\'t ask from where I have come
My home is far, far away
Why do you wander?
Why do you wander so far?
Far, far away
For the Olive tree of my dream
Don\'t ask from where I have come
My home is far, far away
Why do you wander so far
Wander so far, wander so far
Music and Modernism (Stephen Pallas)
I saw Bob Dylan while studying English as an undergraduate student at the State University of New York--College at Oneonta. Reception was mixed, the greatest appreciation having come from the older generation (mostly professors at the university) who appreciated first-hand his legacy and the impact he likely served on their individual composition. The students, however, were disgruntled by the lack of pure entertainment offered by the superannuated Dylan and his band, the craggy voice that pushed through the microphone, and the stolid performative maneuvers meandering behind a guitar or piano. This lack of enthusiasm on the crowd's part (of whom I was a dissenting opinion) betrayed their allegiance first to entertainment for its own sake, for ours is the generation of immediate satisfaction, of instant gratification. Patience for art has faded away. It is my belief, however, that this process is an inevitably natural process by which art methodically destroys and creates itself in ever-transforming guises to suit a particular moment in space-time. Bob Dylan being relegated to the past does not condense his memory, only recognizes the natural process by which art (especially music) fades into the new. This process has nearly banished Richard Wagner's operas, which have become a niche mode of artistic appreciation. Wagner's struggle to maintain relevant (like Dylan's) was not his battle to fight, but was splayed (unlike Dylan, obviously) throughout the novels of British Modernism around the time of the first World War.
First published in 1915, the narrative of Maugham's Of Human Bondage displaces itself into the previous century in its discussion of Wagner well before the outbreak of violence of Maugham's contemporary history. In a discussion of Henrik Ibsen's plays, one “Professor Erlin classed him with Richard Wagner, but of him he spoke not with anger but with good-humoured laughter…He had seen Lohengrin and that passed muster…But Siegfried! When he mentioned it Professor Erlin leaned his head on his hand and bellowed with laughter. Not a melody in it from beginning to end! He could imagine Richard Wagner sitting in his box and laughing till his sides ached” (100). Erlin contends Wagner would never have taken himself as seriously as do audiences of his operas. He continues: “‘I tell you young people that before the nineteenth century is out Wagner will be as dead as mutton. Wagner! I would give all his works for one opera by Donizetti” (100), an Italian composer whose works were composed a few years before Wagner emerged to prominence. Of Human Bondage necessarily escapes too lengthy a discussion on the composer, partly because of the complicated British-German relations in the early months of the war. But Maugham showed a great appreciation for Wagner's music, even is it was largely banished from British society, a fact that caused Ford Madox Ford to hide Wagner in his novel, The Good Soldier (also published in 1915), under the guise of Lohengrin--the Arthurian tale/Wagnerian opera. Wagner never appears explicitly in the text, but one can't ignore the four references to Lohengrin, the most telling describes, "Edward was always right in his determinations. He was the Cid; he was Lohengrin; he was the Chevalier Bayard" (260). Then, in D.H. Lawrence's was likewise fascinated by Wagner, and his earlier novels borrowed from Wagnerianesque pessimism. And John Galsworthy discusses Wagner in A Man of Property, crying against, "one of those new-fangled German pantomimes by that fellow Wagner...that fellow Wagner had ruined everything; no melody left, nor any voices to sing it" (32-33). A similar sentiment was described in E.M. Forster's Howards End, where Margaret says, "the real villain is Wagner. he has done more than any man in the nineteenth century towards the muddling of arts" (47). The fascination with Wagner resides in the significance of his German culture, as the pessimism of modernism and the twentieth century begins to develop into a more fully realized discourse. What cannot be mistaken is that these authors, for the most part, never relinquished in their satisfaction of experiences Wagner, only that they were forced to aestheticize the relationship which British society had for his music and Germany holistically.
Performativity and Folk Identity - Lindsey's Post
One word kept springing to my mind as I read this week’s articles: Performativity. The idea of performance as an imperative action in creating a folk culture was mentioned in several of the articles, most poignantly when Filene described the negative reaction Bob Dylan received when he played at the Newport Folk Festival with an electric guitar. What I found most interesting in this example was the fact that not only was Dylan performing, but so were the crowds and the individuals (like Pete Seeger) behind stage. In a public performance like this one, where a change in normative notions of what ‘folk music’ should be occurs, performativity is key in every person’s unique form of identity-making.
My first semester in grad school, I took an archaeology class about public space in Mayan urban centers, and many of our discussions surrounded the idea of performativity and its relation to power, hegemony, and community. In the readings assigned for this very theoretical course, I learned a great deal about the multi-faceted aspects of a public performance, one of the most important being that the individuals whose voices were not heard are of equal importance to those whose voices were broadcast atop the constructed platforms in Mayan public centers. Even in ancient sites like Tikal and Ceibal, there was the ‘public record’ of actions that occurred – those which were recorded in glyphs and sculptures to reflect the hegemonic telling of history – and the ‘private record’ – the inevitable existence of a counter-discourse. (Can you believe there was even such a thing as Mayan graffiti, rushed etchings on the sides of temple walls depicting prominent rulers carrying commoners on their backs?)
Sunday, November 27, 2011
A Bone To Pick with the Lomaxes...-Krystal
I've enjoyed our selections from Filene's Romancing the Folk: Public Memory and American Roots Music, but one part in particular hit me the wrong way. Leadbelly brandishing a knife against one of the Lomaxes because they did not pay him appropriately?! What? And even more so than that, from Filene's chapter: "For the first eight months or so that he was with the Lomaxes, they used him as their chauffeur and house servant. He drove the car on their collecting expeditions and to and from concertn engagements, and he did chores around teh Lomax home in Wilton, Connecticut. The Lomaxes kept two-thirds of Lead Belly's concert earnings and deducted room and board from the remainder. Lead Belly angrily challenged this arrangement (brandishing a knife) in March 1935, and a shaken John Lomax put him on a bus back to Shreveport, Louisiana. Lead Belly promptly hired a lawyer to press for compensation. Lomax eventually apid a lump sum to settle the matter" (62).
They used him as a glorified servant, took most of the money he earned, and then coldly payed out only after tensions had reach a peak? I don't like this one bit. Arguably, Leadbelly's success was due in part to their marketing, but reading further, we quickly realize that the Lomaxes and Leadbelly were unable to "sell" him as either folk or popular music: he was fatally stuck in that limbo which made his life financially difficult. It just seems against what the Lomaxes valued. They took 2/3rds (more, if his room/board really was deducted from it), and almost left him out to dry until he got a lawyer? Not right. Considering the beginning of this chapter, we know that there was significant arguments between the Lomaxes on many issues, so I wonder if Filene's chapter ignores an important note as to which Lomax brother is most guilty of Leadbelly's financial reimbursement. It seems it could save at least two of the men from scorn if, possibly, one decided on this to the chagrin of the others. So, bottom line, I'd like to know who made those decision, or if it was some unanimous undertaking (doubtful, considering their political differences).
Phew. End rant :). These are important chapters, ones engaging with many of the larger concepts we have delved into this semester. The chapter asks between the lines: what then is folk? Who decides what is popular? What or who can confer authenticity onto a subject? And is the value of hearsay less than that of first hand fieldwork? And if there is a difference, how can the role of the interpreter be dealt with?
Important questions, important ideas. I will be spending the rest of the evening introducing myself to Mr. Bob Dylan :) Of course I've heard the name, the man is a legend. But having been born at the end of 80's (okay barely, 1989), and my mother was not born until the late '60s, our house did not reverberate to the folk or rock influenced Bob Dylan. Even though some of his later (revivals?) were released into 2001, I have until this point never had a memorable "first time I heard Bob Dylan" story ;) Learning at its best!
Have a great week!
They used him as a glorified servant, took most of the money he earned, and then coldly payed out only after tensions had reach a peak? I don't like this one bit. Arguably, Leadbelly's success was due in part to their marketing, but reading further, we quickly realize that the Lomaxes and Leadbelly were unable to "sell" him as either folk or popular music: he was fatally stuck in that limbo which made his life financially difficult. It just seems against what the Lomaxes valued. They took 2/3rds (more, if his room/board really was deducted from it), and almost left him out to dry until he got a lawyer? Not right. Considering the beginning of this chapter, we know that there was significant arguments between the Lomaxes on many issues, so I wonder if Filene's chapter ignores an important note as to which Lomax brother is most guilty of Leadbelly's financial reimbursement. It seems it could save at least two of the men from scorn if, possibly, one decided on this to the chagrin of the others. So, bottom line, I'd like to know who made those decision, or if it was some unanimous undertaking (doubtful, considering their political differences).
Phew. End rant :). These are important chapters, ones engaging with many of the larger concepts we have delved into this semester. The chapter asks between the lines: what then is folk? Who decides what is popular? What or who can confer authenticity onto a subject? And is the value of hearsay less than that of first hand fieldwork? And if there is a difference, how can the role of the interpreter be dealt with?
Important questions, important ideas. I will be spending the rest of the evening introducing myself to Mr. Bob Dylan :) Of course I've heard the name, the man is a legend. But having been born at the end of 80's (okay barely, 1989), and my mother was not born until the late '60s, our house did not reverberate to the folk or rock influenced Bob Dylan. Even though some of his later (revivals?) were released into 2001, I have until this point never had a memorable "first time I heard Bob Dylan" story ;) Learning at its best!
Have a great week!
peace and love and folk and stuff by David Meyerson
For our honeymoon, my wife and I took a very long road trip up the West Coast, hitting notable spots on the way. We spent four days in San Francisco, a city neither of us had ever been to. (Keep in mind, she was four months pregnant, and emotions were more...on the surface than usual.) After a day of some walking and lots of eating (we didn't scrimp on this trip), I felt the need to take the trolley to Haight-Ashbury. Being a huge fan of music, history, and anything resembling counter-culture, I was excited. Sharonne was...willing. We left the trolley and walked around, me wondering what the streets would've felt like in 1967, Sharonne pointing out that the place looked like nothing had changed since 1969, a paltry two years from when the Haight was the epicenter of "The Summer of Love". As I opened my eyes to the scene, I was aware of what Sharonne was seeing and feeling as well as my keen disappointment in the place. This disappointment would likely have been accompanied by some disgust had I ventured here in 1969. The hippie counter-culture died a slow, violent death in the ensuing years, to some degree appropriated by those who wanted to commercialize it for personal gain. Vietnam continued to happen. Johnson resigned. Nixon was elected by the "silent majority". While Woodstock stood frozen in time on that farm in New York, Altamont happened. MLK and RFK happened. Kent State happened. I was born (okay, that wasn't important or bad...) Watergate happening seemed to be a fitting coda. What strikes me as particularly sad about the nation's collective response to Watergate was that Nixon won. A man in his position could disgrace his office, yet there was no violent rebuke from the people. We elected a gadfly, who couldn't make us happy and then an older president who represented symbolically and physically (read about Reagan's days as governor of California) the ongoing fight to stamp out any resistance to the myth of America.
Why am I so infatuated with the 60s? I was born into Nixon's New America. I grew up riding the happy mythos/discourse of Reagan. My parents are a few years too old to be the core Baby Boomers. My mother and stepfather's musical journeys stopped with the Folk Revival. Like the Cantwell piece, I see through the plastic vision of protest taken on by The Kingston Trio. I have a Pete Seeger CD, and while I enjoy the music, there is a child-like innocence that strikes me as too idealistic. In a sense, I can appreciate Bob Dylan for moving where his psyche directed him. His protest songs, "Masters of War" in particular, are seminal. But, he was not Pete Seeger, in temperament or context. One couldn't have blamed Seeger if he had changed his trajectory to fit in. McCarthyism left him without work, yet he rode it out in relative cheer holding fast to his principles. Bob Dylan's principles blew in the wind because, like my parents and many of their peers, change became a principle itself. The times were a changing every day and what was tried and true didn't necessarily work. More importantly, a hegemonic structure became even more complicated due to the promise of inclusion butting up against widening disparities, social and economic.
As exciting as the 60s are reported to have been, I've met many more people who wouldn't want to live through it again. America stood at the cliff, looking into the abyss of revolution, then took a step back. This is not unprecedented in my lifetime. I listened to Tom Snyder in the dark of my room as he hysterically described the riots going on outside his window in 1992 Los Angeles. Musically, I listened bewildered as hip-hop culture and rap became part of the vocabulary. Much like GHWB sending in the troops to L.A., I found out that certain cultural objects were necessarily commodified in order for the revolutionary aspects to be boxed in. I found out in the 90s that protest music was largely a product of the middle class. It is allowed to be so because privilege trumps outrage.
I sometimes wonder if the angry outcry to "Like a Rolling Stone" has something to do with connecting to that within African-American folk music which is angry. Like the creation of the Negro spiritual as an agent of limitation, the American adult psyche is more comfortable with the easily defined characteristics of Ray Charles than the constantly changing Michael Jackson. In a sense, this may be the biggest loss in Selena's death. Could she have been the next Bob Dylan, enacting change as a core principle over a long period of time while expanding the possibilities of what it means to be Latina?
Why am I so infatuated with the 60s? I was born into Nixon's New America. I grew up riding the happy mythos/discourse of Reagan. My parents are a few years too old to be the core Baby Boomers. My mother and stepfather's musical journeys stopped with the Folk Revival. Like the Cantwell piece, I see through the plastic vision of protest taken on by The Kingston Trio. I have a Pete Seeger CD, and while I enjoy the music, there is a child-like innocence that strikes me as too idealistic. In a sense, I can appreciate Bob Dylan for moving where his psyche directed him. His protest songs, "Masters of War" in particular, are seminal. But, he was not Pete Seeger, in temperament or context. One couldn't have blamed Seeger if he had changed his trajectory to fit in. McCarthyism left him without work, yet he rode it out in relative cheer holding fast to his principles. Bob Dylan's principles blew in the wind because, like my parents and many of their peers, change became a principle itself. The times were a changing every day and what was tried and true didn't necessarily work. More importantly, a hegemonic structure became even more complicated due to the promise of inclusion butting up against widening disparities, social and economic.
As exciting as the 60s are reported to have been, I've met many more people who wouldn't want to live through it again. America stood at the cliff, looking into the abyss of revolution, then took a step back. This is not unprecedented in my lifetime. I listened to Tom Snyder in the dark of my room as he hysterically described the riots going on outside his window in 1992 Los Angeles. Musically, I listened bewildered as hip-hop culture and rap became part of the vocabulary. Much like GHWB sending in the troops to L.A., I found out that certain cultural objects were necessarily commodified in order for the revolutionary aspects to be boxed in. I found out in the 90s that protest music was largely a product of the middle class. It is allowed to be so because privilege trumps outrage.
I sometimes wonder if the angry outcry to "Like a Rolling Stone" has something to do with connecting to that within African-American folk music which is angry. Like the creation of the Negro spiritual as an agent of limitation, the American adult psyche is more comfortable with the easily defined characteristics of Ray Charles than the constantly changing Michael Jackson. In a sense, this may be the biggest loss in Selena's death. Could she have been the next Bob Dylan, enacting change as a core principle over a long period of time while expanding the possibilities of what it means to be Latina?
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