“…the surest sign of a blues club’s genuine authenticity is if the working-class regulars who patronize it do not know it is authentic, because of the lack of concern regarding such matters demonstrates that their enthusiasm for the club is truly sincere and not contrived.” (13)
My home is Omaha, Nebraska. Just under a million folks populate the metropolitan area including connected towns and smaller cities. We are the only hit between Chicago and Denver, Minneapolis and Kansas City. In Omaha, Blues music was a staple for a long time, but lately, it’s drying up. Many of the greats are passed on into spirit and what we see now are less blues clubs and more white blues and jazz lounges. Yes, I have seen the commodification of the blues by others who are drawn into the music, and want to play it. It’s their legitimate privilege. Elvis Presley hung around outside SUN Records when Wynonie Harris was in the studio recording “Good Rockin’ Tonight” and stole the song, anglicized Wynonie’s style, and made himself a big hit that paved his way to fame. Wynonie was Black. Elvis was White. Elvis got rich. Wynonie is hardly remembered for being the father of Jump Blues. Wynonie hit the top of the charts with his recording, but somehow Elvis rocketed into fame with the same song. I’ve provided both versions of the song.
Anyone can invest themselves in the Blues as a genre of music, but the difference is this. As Albert King once told me, “The blues is a way of life”. For African Americans, it was the proliferation of life's hard knocks and tough, tough times. For other folks, particularly Caucasians, who engage in the reproduction of a lifestyle they did not birth, it is, “a shared set of beliefs about the nature of things we value in the world. These beliefs are subsequently by the conscious efforts of cultural producers and consumers alike” (12) . Anglos and Caucasians want to be a part of something greater than the American myth. They long for a revival of something that was lost under the auspices of a melting pot nation that boiled away a wealth of lore and cosmology. Their cultural roots were essentially liquidated under the guise of an American Dream—perhaps the great myth of the millennium. So, the problem becomes that in the search for a cultural foundation that gives them a sense of “value in the world”, they co-opt cultural lifeways that are not their own.
Authenticity is compromised. There is no cultural legitimacy when the Blues become a cultural production of the other—those who did not birth its creation.
One has every right in the world to sing the songs that make them feel good, but remembering who they speak for and the suffering that paid for the composition shows integrity in the borrower of the genre.
But what I really want to address is the capacity of the Blues as a musical culture before Amiri Baraka’s declaration that a great music robbery took place—and it did take place but before that...My Daddy ran juke-joints during prohibition where people who were not of the working class came and drank, played poker and rolled dice. They played the numbers, drank some more, lived hard, lived hard, lived very hard. It was their only outlet during a difficult time. To be “colored” was not a bluesy subculture that spun on the high of happiness or good fortune. Rather It was a response to a dire situation in which survivance as resistance made them the producers of culture, music, sounds and songs that were the personal narratives of slavery survivors. Whose song would that be? Authenticity begins in the gut then finds a way to express what the gut cannot say.
** I want to thank Dr. Alvarez for giving us the opportunity to respond creatively and freely to the readings we employed. The experience was rich and the internal dialogue is one that will continue to resonate in the months to come.
No comments:
Post a Comment