THE COUNTRY IN BLUES
It may be inexperience, disinterest or lack of space but increasingly
music shops are taking weird stabs at placing back catalogue & non-
commercial artists on their racks. The cagey ones though now use the “one
size fits all” category of Roots. Maybe its no bad thing that
Blues, Country, Folk, Gospel …jazz …even sometimes World
get placed together just alongside nostalgia & easy listening
but a long way from the front of the store where its more likely to
be Dance, Hip Hop, Soundtracks, Popular & maybe Alternative.
Blues and Country music have been a lot closer at times than is widely
appreciated. Country gets called white mans blues, but these days
it seems that its white guys singing the blues while young black guys
lean to rapping & hip hop.
Deford Bailey, a black harmonica wizard, was the first act heard
on the original Grand Ole Opry in 1926 & continued to open broadcasts
for years with his signature “Pan American Blues”
It’s also reported that for 20 years, until 1958, the Opry featured a
white ‘ Talking Blues Man’, Robert Lunn. He was, apparently, the “country’s
foremost exponent of the style” utilizing a dry & droll recitation
style later adapted by Woody Guthrie… and that leads to Dylan.
The Nashville based Black Country Music Association reports that
between 17 – 24% of black Americans listen to country music
yet are still struggling to prove there’s currently a market
for black country artists. The banjo is supposed to have come from
Africa but it sure aint cool these days to be a black banjo player …or
a white one for that matter & that’s a pity!
‘Black Texicans’: ( Rounder CD 1999 ) surprises with
its 1930s field recordings of 29 black cowboy singers. This little
known group are at yet another cross roads further west. Black cowboy
blues… currently awaiting market exploitation. Don’t hold
your breath.
The Coen Bros “Oh Brother…” movie celebrates the
marriage of country & blues when the escapees pick up a young
black blues dude” at the Crossroad and then have to swing between
claiming to be either black or white for the blind producer wanting
product to tap into current fashion.
But why didn’t more black guys get into country. Now you say,
what about Charlie Pride? But who ever hears much of him now. Ray
Charles started a life long flirtation with “Modern Sounds in
Country & Western Music” in the sixties despite being known
for soul & rhythm & blues. There are others still doing it
today, like Clarence Gatemouth Brown & Big Al Downing. Both can
move effortlessly between blues and country almost within the same
tune but neither widely heard in Australia.
Jimmy “Father of Country Music” Rogers picked up his
chord changes working amongst black railroad labourers. Jimmy’s
series of 13 Blue Yodels in the late 1920s became the founding canon
of the new genre that wasn’t even called country music yet.
Blue Yodel No1 :T for Texas, became a million seller before such things
were thought possible. Both he, and later Roy ”King of Country” Acuff
even spent time working Black Face in touring medicine shows.
What made Dock Boggs , a hillbilly favourite in the late 20s was
picking his instrument in the style of blues guitar instead of the
then widespread claw hammer technique. Most people, on first hearing
Dock’s 1927 “Country Blues” would assume he was
black & singing blues. And they’d be right, only he was
white & singing country …or was that folk …or blues?
It is said record companies in the late 20s & 30s thought mainly
of demographic target markets rather than styles of music. The result
was often haphazard categorisation with white groups using black sounding
names being sold to the ‘Race’ market and some black artists
sold as white Hillbilly acts.
The characteristic country music yodel of 30s & 40s “Country
Blues” 1927 may have its origin in middle Europe but as a primordial
outlet of emotion yodeling seems a very close relative to Blues wailing,
groaning & moaning. Try it next time you are feeling down.
Hank Williams claimed tuition from an elderly black street singer
Rufus Payne (Tee-Tot). What was his breakthrough number….Lovesick
Blues! When you think about it, Hank Williams lived the same unhealthy
lifestyle as Robert Johnson and both died from it an early age.
Bill Monroe “The Father of Blue Grass” also claimed a
black mentor. Is the blue in Blue Grass a colour or a mood?
Even young Elvis was forever sneaking out to hear black singers but
to gospel sessions in local churches rather than blues shacks.
The actual meeting place for Blues & Country was the honky-tonk
bar & the music form it gave birth too. All those Cryin’ in
your beer songs. Working man laments & regrets about losing girl,
job, dog, truck, friend, money etc etc . Honky-tonk Blues, Long Gone
Lonesome Blues, (both Hank Williams) If country isn’t blues
what is it…Opera?
The Dance clubs of today are just updated honky-tonks anyway. In
Brixton, England, a group of underground Dance veterans running all
night parties prompted Elemental Records label producer to say “ what
struck me was how they recognise the link between Robert Johnson & Hank
Williams and how they fused it. They had a specific social, political & moral
standpoint and a very punk attitude” The subsequent group releases
under the name of “The Alabama 3” come across as authentic …but
authentic what ?
Put it in “Roots”.
LoneTony Joe.
Adelaide’s 3D 93.7 FM
HillBilly Help Desk – Yodel Action.
Alternating Saturdays 11 am.
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