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MUSC 15: Blues and the American Century
Lecture 2: Blues and Racial Consciousness
Pop quiz
● … listening examples …● Write down:
– What does “Chattel” mean?
– Briefly explain Calhoun’s defense of slavery
– I-IV-V refer to what, in the music theory of the blues?
Katrina Dyonne Thompson, “Casting: ‘They Sang Their Home-Songs, and Danced, Each with his Free
Foot Slapping the Deck.”● Details of the slave trade
– Appalling violence (graphic)– White slavers rarely traveled inland; slave catchers were normally West Africans. This results in a multi-ethnic group of
victims.● “Mongo John” (p. 47)
● The practice of performing music begins early in the middle passage.– “The transformation of West Africans into Atlantic commodities began with the initial capture, and music and dance soon
followed.” (Thompson, p. 45)– Canot: “harem”– “The coerced physical assertion of the captives represented more than the slavers’ desire to preserve the human cargo; it
also positioned Africans as entertainers.” (52)● ““meffe, meffe, mackarida”
– “African captives were consistently forced to sing and play musical instruments within the Middle Passage” (52)– Top deck = “stage”; africans = “entertainment.”
– Slavers = “choreographers” (Thompson’s word)– Crucially, the myth that the slaves enjoy this persists in spite of (or is it because of) the abuse.
● “Our blacks are a good natured set, and jump to the lash so promptly.” (Richard Drake, quoted Thomspon p. 53)
More Thompson
● Eighteenth-century Liverpool merchant James Penny commanded eleven voyages from West Africa to the West Indies and North America. Throughout his voyages, Penny stated that the captives were “amused with Instruments of Music peculiar to their country,” with which he provided them; and “when tired of Music and dancing, they then go to Games of Chance—The women are supplied with Beads, which they make into Ornaments; and the utmost Attention is paid to the keeping up their Spirits and to indulge them in all their Humours.”– (Thompson, 54)
Thompson
● The arts performed during the Middle Passage introduced images that continued beyond the Atlantic voyage…
● The image of the innate, cheerful black performer and the oversexualized black female were accepted elements of the culture of Africans coming to America. (p. 55)
● The middle passage allowed for Western Europeans and North Americans to enforce their ideal of Africanness on the captives, therefore forcing West Africans to behave in the manner that was scripted for them (55).– Racial stereotyping applies, somewhat unevenly?, to black sailors.
– “The widespread use of blacks for entertainment through music and dance in the voyages to and from West Africa allowed for race to be scripted and blackness continually associated with amusement for both black seamen and African captives. “ (57)
Thompson
● “The continual presence of music, song, and dance did not suppress the captives’ desire for freedom, as many white slavers believed; ironically, it encouraged or assisted in their insurrections.” (60)
● “African captives gained power within the Atlantic voyage through their songs, which acted as a form of rebellion that often has been ignored in historical texts. Music and dance served as a subterfuge for West Africans to stand between their cultural heritage and an expectation to fulfill myths created by another culture. The performing arts allowed for many West Africans to develop a second sight: first, an understanding of their expected role, and second, the maintenance of a grasp of their own distinct cultures.”
● Slaver James Arnold: “women were sitting by themselves. . . their songs then contained the history of their lives, and their separation from their friends and country” (61)
● Captives “were made to exercise, and encouraged, by the music of their beloved banjar” (62)● “<The> Middle Passage violently intruded in West African traditions that were associated with music
and dance while simultaneously fostering an environment that allowed for the continual presence of homeland traditions.”
● “These forced performances entered into the sphere of American entertainment, setting the stage for whites to be amused by blacks, either in person, through stories, or textually.” (65)
James Baldwin, The Uses of the Blues
● This is what it is. Now,I’m trying to suggest that the triumphhere—whichis a very un-American triumph—is that the person to whom these things happened watched with eyes wide open, saw it happen. So that when Billie or Bessie or Leadbelly stood up and sang about it, they were commenting on it, a little bit outside it: they were accepting it. And there’s something funny—there’s always something a little funny in all our disasters, if one can face the disaster.”
● “That has to do with the ways in which we manage to projectonto the Negro face, because it isso visible, allof our guilts and aggressions and desires. And if you doubt this, thinkof thelegends that surround the Negro to this day. Think, when you think of these legends, that they were not invented by Negroes, but they were invented by the white Republic. Ask yourself if Aunt Jemima or Uncle Tom ever existed anywhere and why it was necessary to invent them.” (7)
● “There is something monstrous about never having been hurt, never having beenmade to bleed,never having lost anything, never having gained anything because life is beautiful, and in order to keepit beautiful you’re going to stay just the way you are and you’re not going to test your theoryagainst all the possibilities outside. America is something like that. The failure on our part toaccept the reality of pain, ofanguish, of ambiguity,of death has turned us into a very peculiar and sometimes monstrous people.” (9)
● “right now you find the most unexpected people building bomb shelters, which is very close tobeing a crime. It is a private panic which creates a public delusion that some of uswill besavedbybomb shelters.”– WHY?
Emerging market
● “fourteen million black people, thousands of Southern whites who had enjoyed minstrelsy for years, and urban audiences of both races who liked vaudeville and cabaret.”– Sandra Lieb, Mother of the Blues: A Study of Ma
Rainey, p. 20
Theater Owners Booking Association (TOBA)
● “Demand for black entertainment came from a black population that was on the move geographically and economically at the turn of the century.” (Daphne Harrison, Black Pearls, p. 18)
● Urban black populations, in both north and south, swell at 20th cent.
● Founded by Anselmo Barrass in 1909● Exploitation of black labor, including musical.● TOBA either laudable or despicable, depending on your
prestige as an artist.
Mamie Smith (1843-1946)
● Perry Bradford, WC Handy had been trying to convince record companies to make records for black consumers. Eventually convinces Okeh Records (subsidiary of General Phongraph).
● That Thing Called Love, 1920● You Can’t Keep a Good Man Down, 1920
– Sold 100,000 – huge
● Crazy Blues, 1920– First blues recording
– Sold incredibly well; paves way for “race record” genre.
Flood of artists post-Crazy Blues
● Columbia signs Mary Stafford in 1921– Mary Stafford, Crazy Blues, 1921
– “first colored girl to sing for Columbia”
● Cardinal signs Ethel Waters● Emerson signs Lillyn Brown:
Jazz-me Blues (1921)● Arto signs Lucille Hegamin
Pace Phongraph Company: Black Swan recordings
● Black owned – opens in May 1921, releases recordings by Ethel Waters (Down Home Blues), acquired by Paramount in 1923.
Rabbit Foot Minstrels
● Pat Chapelle → Fred Swift Wolcott, owners● Alumnae:
– Ma Rainey, Ida Cox, Bessie Smith
Gertrude Pridgett -- “Ma” Rainey (1886 - 1939)
● Moniker comes from routine in the Rabbit Foot Minstrels with her husband, Will “Pa” Rainey.
● “Rainey and Rainey, Assassinators of the Blues”● The “Foots” were southern – never played in the North.
– Comedy, dance, contortionist, “the Faust act,”
● By the time of her first recording, by paramount in 1923, she’d already been performing for 25 years.
● “Gertrude Rainey was one of the last of the great Negro minstrel artists, and definitely one of the first to feature blues as such (around 1902) on the stage.” – (Derrick Stewart Baxter, Ma Rainey and the Classic Blues Singers, p. 38)
Ma Rainey● Performing what?
– 1. chorus dance number
– 2. skit, e.g. impersonation of Japanese people, or a live chicken onstage.
– 3. fast number, usually sung by a “soubrette”
– 4. another skit
– 5. Ma Rainey: jokes about sex, then song.● “pig meat,” “bird liver”
● A good man is hard to find, or “walking the dog”, ending with “See see rider blues” as a showstopper● Brief retirement to mexico in 1921? ● 1923 Moonshine Blues● Professional; advocated for fair pay (TOBA was known to be stingy), helped new talent (including Bessie Smith)
– Legend: kidnaps her in chatanooga, teaches her to sing the blues.
– Hard to know the truth about this relationship
● Made 92 recordings! None are high quality (paramount records)● Recorded with top jazz musicians (Louis Armstrong, Fletcher Henderson, Tommy Dorsey, etc):
See See Rider Blues, 1925● Retires to Columbus, GA, and runs two theaters.
See See Rider Blues
I'm so unhappyI feel so blueI always feel so sadI made a mistakeRight from the startOh, it seems so hard to partOh, but this letterThat I will writeI hope he will rememberWhen he receive' it
Seeee see, riderSee what you done doneLawd, lawd, lawd.
Made me love youNow your girl done comeYou made me love youNow your gal done come
I'm go'n away, babyWon't be back till fallLawd, lawd, lawdGo'n away, babyWon't be back till fallIf I find me a good manI won't be back at all
I'm gonna buy me a pistolJust as long as I am tallLawd, lawd, lawdGonna kill my man andCatch the Cannonball. If he don't have meHe won't have no gal at all
These Dogs of Mine, 1924Look-a here people, listen to me,
Believe me I'm telling the truth.
If your corns hurt you just like mine,
You'd say the same words too.
Out for a walk, I stopped to talk,
Oh how my corns dis burn,
I had to keep on the shaded side of the street,
To keep out light of the sun.
Oh Lawdy these dogs of mine,
They goin' to worry me all the time.
The reason why I don't know,
Sometimes I soak 'em in sapolio*,
Lord I've begged to B.Q.**,
I can't wear me no sharpnosed shoes.
Oh Lordy how the sun do shine,
Down on all of these hounds of mine.
Jealous Hearted Blues, 1924You can have my money, baby, everything I ownBut for God sakes leave my man alone
'cause I'm jealous, jealousJealous hearted meLord I'm just jealousJealous as I can be
It takes a rocking chair to rock, a rubber ball to rollTakes a man I love to satisfy my soul
Yes I'm jealous, jealousJealous hearted meLord I'm just jealousJealous as I can be
Got a range in my kitchen, cooks nice and brownAll I need is my man, to turn my damper down
Because I'm jealous, jealousJealous hearted meLord I'm just jealousJealous as I can be
Going to buy me a bulldog, to watch him while I sleepJust to keep my man from making his midnight creep
Yes I'm jealous, jealousJealous hearted meLord I'm just jealousJealous as I can be
Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, 1927
Now, you heard the restAh, boys, I'm gonna show you the bestMa Rainey's gonna show you her black bottom
Way down south in AlabamyI got a friend, they call dancin' SammyWho's crazy about all the latest dancesBlack bottom stomps and the Jew baby prances
The other night at a swell affairSoon as the boys found out that I was thereThey said, "Come on, Ma let's go to the cabaret"Where that band you ought to hear me say"
I want to see that dance you call the black bottomI wanna learn that danceDon't you see the dance you call your big black bottomThat'll put you in a trance
All the boys in the neighborhoodThey say your black bottom is really goodCome on and show me your black bottomI want to learn that dance
I want to see the dance you call the black bottomI want to learn that danceCome on and show that dance you call your big black bottomIt puts you in a trance
Early last morning 'bout the break of dayGrandpa told my grandma, I heard him sayGet up and show your old man your black bottomI want to learn that dance
Now I'm gonna show y'all my black bottomThey stay to see that danceWait until you see me do my big black bottomI'll put you in a trance
Ah, do it ma, do it, honeyLook it now Ma, you gettin' kinda rough hereYou gotta be yourself now, careful nowNot too strong, not too strong, Ma
I done shown y'all my black bottomYou ought to learn that dance
Prove it on me Blues (1928)Went out last night, had a great big fightEverything seemed to go on wrongI looked up, to my surpriseThe gal I was with was gone
Where she went, I don't knowI mean to follow everywhere she goes;Folks say I'm crooked. I didn't know where she took itI want the whole world to know
They say I do it, ain't nobody caught meSure got to prove it on me;Went out last night with a crowd of my friendsThey must've been women, 'cause I don't like no menprove it on me
It's true I wear a collar and a tieMakes the wind blow all the whileDon't you say I do it, ain't nobody caught meYou sure got to prove it on me
Say I do it, ain't nobody caught meSure got to prove it on me
I went out last night with a crowd of my friendsIt must've been women, 'cause I don't like no menWear my clothes just like a fanTalk to the gals just like any old man
Cause they say I do it, ain't nobody caught meSure got to prove it on me
Technology
● Bessie Smith: Columbia Records (after 1925, licensed Western Electric equipment)
● Ma Rainey: Paramount (in Chicago), plus the defects of reissues, which are also not always high quality.
Bessie Smith (1894 - 1937)
● Begins career as a dancer; as a TOBA performer, and apprentice to Ma Rainey, does comedy as well as song and dance
● Death: car accident...racism? (cf. James Baldwin) ● Downhearted Blues (1923)● Gulf Coast Blues (1923)● Cemetary Blues (1923)● Gin House Blues (1926) – lyrics
– “Gin House Blues is a real Gin house” (Baldwin)
● After you’ve gone (1927)– Compare with Ruth Etting’s recording (also 1927)
● Poor Man’s Blues (1928)
Bessie Smith, Backwater Blues
● lyrics● song● John Barry, Rising Tide: The Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 and
How it Changed America.● Davis:
– “The seasonal rains causing the Mississippi River to flood...are part of the unalterable course of nature, but the sufferings of untold numbers of black people who lived in towns and the countryside along the river were attributable to racism. Black people were often considered expendable, and their communities were forced to take the overflow of backwaters in order to reduce the pressure on the levees. While most white people remained safe, black people suffered the wrath of the Mississippi.” (109)
Writing asisgnment #2
● Due tomorrow (July 10) at midnight● 350-500 words
– What, according to James Baldwin, is the “use” of the blues? How is this “use” different from the uses to which we see music being put in the article by Katrina Thompson? And how is this use different from the use of the blues to you as a listener today? (in your response, refer to at least one concrete example of the blues).
