Phil, I would say at Port Townsend there are about 20-30% harp and piano players to guitar players, and that is reflected in the faculty as well. I'm glad you agree with the thrust of my statement, tho', that because the largest percentage of country blues player/learners are guitarists the blues singers that are more popular amongst them will be solo guitar players. And it makes total sense to me that those players who had a rediscovery career (during the first wave of interest in playing this music among young whites) and were recorded cleanly, and filmed, would create more interest to those wanna-be guitar players than piano/combo singers, and even guitarists who did not survive. Those who were most personable to whites, and whose music was most accessible would naturally become most popular, especially when championed by the first major mass teaching pioneer.
Sure, as I said, there were some players still playing, but not enough to keep interest in the music from being esoteric by the '60s as both Mr. O'Muck and UB have qualified it, and I haven't seen you gainsaying their statements?
I guess I'm still confused, tho'. I thought Mr. O'Ms initial post was comparing the situation in the '60s, dropping needles on LPs and sitting at the feet of the surviving masters, with today, DVDs, internet, going to camps and sitting at the feet of those who once sat at the feet of the masters (every city has it's RGD cognoscenti), and far greater dispersal (even if it is still esoteric) of teaching materials.
Johnm took the conversation into a comparison of the popularity and assumed motivations of the original artists and those of modern wanna-bees. I wonder if your hypothesis holds true in other genre, Johnm? Are the most popular pre-war jazz artists also the most popular among jazz reissue CD purchasers? Do Bix and Charlie Christian have a lot of extra cachet because of their early deaths, or were they major sellers all along? Obviously they both worked in popular groups, but were people buying records to hear them or were they more "musician's musicians" in their day? I don't really know, but I can think of many ways in which modern market forces would change the popularity of various artists. And marketing decisions, by those selling the recordings, could have a great deal to do with it. As Mr. O'M pointed out, the great majority of consumers are happy to jump on any band wagon that marketing rolls out. And there's no reason to think that popularity in the '20s and '30s wasn't greatly influenced by marketing as well, so I don't particularly see that initial record sales should be a yardstick of artistic value to begin with, nor a predictor of what future audiences, with different tastes and sensibilities, and different marketing ploys, will buy.
But again, this seems to be off of what Mr. O'M originally queried. What differences do you see, Johnm (Being someone who was and is deeply involved in both scenes) between the '60s and now. I've heard DVR's story of the Washington Square devotee who woodshedded for months to finally play Frankie exactly like MJH's sped up original recording, and other apocryphal tales. It doesn't seem that the idea of copying is strictly 21st century. I still have that quote somewhere of Smokey Hogg's brother proudly stating that Smokey could play everything Pete Wheatstraw did, sounding exactly like him. And there are other recorded example of players aping others as well as they could, given the technological disadvantages. We can be a lot more anal about it today, if that's our bent, but I don't really see it as some new aberration. People have always copied. I think one of the major reasons early players were motivated to change things could have been the suggestion of the A & R guys, with their greed for copyright royalties. When people requested a song on the street they may have wanted to hear something that was as close to the original as possible, and our heroes were probably capable of giving it to them.
I think this is a much more complex issue than we usually acknowledge here, how the advent of recording itself, the knowledge that a performance can be replayed and judged, had a marked effect on the motivations of the players. And how market and marketing pressures influenced the motivation of the artists. Pre-recording it may have been advantageous for people to learn very similar arrangements of songs to facilitate playing together. Often I think we bring our modern, post-recording era sensibilities too much to bear on our assumptions of their motivations.
As a comic aside (imagine a row of rolling head smilies here): Two guys getting together to discuss repertoire before a dance:
"You play Big Road?"
"Oh yeah, I have a very interesting arrangement where I go to a VI-II-V-I instead of the V chord and I also added a measure here and there to give it a different feel. Sure, lets play that one!"
"Uh, no, I don't think so." (takes a couple hard pulls on the bottle)
All for now.
John C.
Sure, as I said, there were some players still playing, but not enough to keep interest in the music from being esoteric by the '60s as both Mr. O'Muck and UB have qualified it, and I haven't seen you gainsaying their statements?
I guess I'm still confused, tho'. I thought Mr. O'Ms initial post was comparing the situation in the '60s, dropping needles on LPs and sitting at the feet of the surviving masters, with today, DVDs, internet, going to camps and sitting at the feet of those who once sat at the feet of the masters (every city has it's RGD cognoscenti), and far greater dispersal (even if it is still esoteric) of teaching materials.
Johnm took the conversation into a comparison of the popularity and assumed motivations of the original artists and those of modern wanna-bees. I wonder if your hypothesis holds true in other genre, Johnm? Are the most popular pre-war jazz artists also the most popular among jazz reissue CD purchasers? Do Bix and Charlie Christian have a lot of extra cachet because of their early deaths, or were they major sellers all along? Obviously they both worked in popular groups, but were people buying records to hear them or were they more "musician's musicians" in their day? I don't really know, but I can think of many ways in which modern market forces would change the popularity of various artists. And marketing decisions, by those selling the recordings, could have a great deal to do with it. As Mr. O'M pointed out, the great majority of consumers are happy to jump on any band wagon that marketing rolls out. And there's no reason to think that popularity in the '20s and '30s wasn't greatly influenced by marketing as well, so I don't particularly see that initial record sales should be a yardstick of artistic value to begin with, nor a predictor of what future audiences, with different tastes and sensibilities, and different marketing ploys, will buy.
But again, this seems to be off of what Mr. O'M originally queried. What differences do you see, Johnm (Being someone who was and is deeply involved in both scenes) between the '60s and now. I've heard DVR's story of the Washington Square devotee who woodshedded for months to finally play Frankie exactly like MJH's sped up original recording, and other apocryphal tales. It doesn't seem that the idea of copying is strictly 21st century. I still have that quote somewhere of Smokey Hogg's brother proudly stating that Smokey could play everything Pete Wheatstraw did, sounding exactly like him. And there are other recorded example of players aping others as well as they could, given the technological disadvantages. We can be a lot more anal about it today, if that's our bent, but I don't really see it as some new aberration. People have always copied. I think one of the major reasons early players were motivated to change things could have been the suggestion of the A & R guys, with their greed for copyright royalties. When people requested a song on the street they may have wanted to hear something that was as close to the original as possible, and our heroes were probably capable of giving it to them.
I think this is a much more complex issue than we usually acknowledge here, how the advent of recording itself, the knowledge that a performance can be replayed and judged, had a marked effect on the motivations of the players. And how market and marketing pressures influenced the motivation of the artists. Pre-recording it may have been advantageous for people to learn very similar arrangements of songs to facilitate playing together. Often I think we bring our modern, post-recording era sensibilities too much to bear on our assumptions of their motivations.
As a comic aside (imagine a row of rolling head smilies here): Two guys getting together to discuss repertoire before a dance:
"You play Big Road?"
"Oh yeah, I have a very interesting arrangement where I go to a VI-II-V-I instead of the V chord and I also added a measure here and there to give it a different feel. Sure, lets play that one!"
"Uh, no, I don't think so." (takes a couple hard pulls on the bottle)
All for now.
John C.