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Author Topic: If there was one song....  (Read 4780 times)

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Offline Johnm

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Re: If there was one song....
« Reply #15 on: September 17, 2009, 02:12:25 PM »
Hi all,
I have the same problem with Lonnie Johnson being used as characterizing St. Louis blues as I do with Blake being used to characterize Piedmont Blues--rather than exemplifying the characteristics of the style's sound, Lonnie Johnson stands apart from them.
All best,
Johnm

Offline Mr.OMuck

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Re: If there was one song....
« Reply #16 on: September 17, 2009, 03:04:13 PM »
Quote
If you try to make musical inferences based on where people came from you end up spending all your time trying to explain away the exceptions to the supposedly archetypal sound.

Good point John.
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Offline lindy

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Re: If there was one song....
« Reply #17 on: September 17, 2009, 03:58:25 PM »
Amazing how these categories get made. I've always heard Blind Blake described as an "East Coast bluesman," but I don't associate him with any east coast location except north Florida and Georgia, and it seems like he left those places at a very young age. From what little I know, he spent the vast majority of his life in Chicago, and passed through Ohio on the way there. Geographically speaking, that makes him an upper midwest blues musician, but the east coast label still prevails. Anyone who knows otherwise, please teach me.

Still, I'm wondering if it's possible to talk about the "sound" of a location pre-recordings. I should also add pre-radio and pre-mass migration. There was a time when people just didn't move around that much, and in our human tendency to categorize and build up our own good qualities, folks would say, "You know how those people from ______ country are" or "Man, those people from _______ town are really worthless, ain't they?", even though the counties or towns might only be 10 or 20 miles apart. It was possible to create a specific sound within those limitations, but it didn't take very long at all for recorded music to mix things up. So today I can't make the connection between Lonnie Johnson and St. Louis beyond knowing that he lived there.

Evidence in support of my idea: the "Bentonia sound" of Skip James / Jack Owens.

Evidence to refute it: Mississippi John Hurt's use of alternating thumb while living in the heart of the Delta, which as far as I know, wasn't the norm near Greenwood, Mississippi.

Can't really prove my point because of the lack of recordings from 1860-1920 or thereabouts, but here and there you can find snippets of evidence from people who played in isolation in their communities without ever thinking of becoming recording musicians, then being "discovered" late in life.

Just watched a film on the connection between Sierra Leone and the Gullah people of the Georgia Sea Islands last night, http://www.folkstreams.net/film,166, I think it has a lot to say about how music and other aspects of culture could be preserved within very narrow geographic confines in this country.

Lindy
« Last Edit: September 17, 2009, 04:00:21 PM by lindy »

Offline waxwing

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Re: If there was one song....
« Reply #18 on: September 17, 2009, 04:35:30 PM »
I think, if you had those pre 1920 recordings you're talking about Lindy, you might have to narrow the regions down quite a bit. "Delta", "Texas", "Piedmont", these are just way too large and therefore somewhat meaningless, except maybe as categories in a record store for the uninitiated. David Evans wrote a whole book about Drew Mississippi. Even the Atlanta, Georgia (is that Piedmont?) 12 string players had different "schools" of sound.

And, hey, according to my ears Charley Patton used the occasional alternating bass. So is he "Piedmont" when he does and "Delta" when he doesn't?

Wax
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Offline lindy

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Re: If there was one song....
« Reply #19 on: September 17, 2009, 04:56:46 PM »
Agreed, Wax, that was the point I was trying to make, the categories would have to be a lot more narrow, as in Bentonia versus Itta Bena instead of Memphis vs. St Louis or Piedmont vs. Delta. I must not have stated my idea clearly.

Good point on Charley Patton. Skip James also played songs with alternating thumb, meaning that alternating thumb can't be used as the sole categorical divider/delimiter. Somebody please call an ethnomusicologist to write a dissertation, in plain English if possible. I still think that in the decades before recorded music, a mythical researcher of the blues would have been able to find clear distinctions between towns/counties (even ones that were very close to each other) that were indicative of a very localized "sound".

Depending on which Georgia musicians you're referring to, they may have had a lot of opportunities to listen to recorded music, or they may have brought their local sounds from smaller Georgia towns to Atlanta street corners, where they got thrown into the pot and stirred before they got recorded. Pure speculation in the absence of evidence.

Lindy


« Last Edit: September 17, 2009, 05:09:03 PM by lindy »

Offline frankie

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Re: If there was one song....
« Reply #20 on: September 17, 2009, 05:02:05 PM »
why is it important to identify regional sounds?

Offline Stuart

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Re: If there was one song....
« Reply #21 on: September 17, 2009, 05:28:42 PM »
Responding to Frankie's question, I don't think that it is important as  much as it is interesting--to some of us, anyway.

I also think that Lindy has a good point--when there was a fair degree of relative isolation and independence between individuals and groups, opportunities for influence (one way or mutual) were probably less than when there was a greater degree of interaction.

The impression one gets from being exposed to the material in common circulation (long after the fact) and the conclusions one would arrive at after doing an in depth analysis would probably be quite different. I'm a "what really happened and why" kind of guy. But even when we know that there is a direct line of transmission from one musician to another, the results are often not easy to predict.

Offline Johnm

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Re: If there was one song....
« Reply #22 on: September 17, 2009, 06:12:06 PM »
Hi all,
In response to Frankie's query, I would say that we don't have the information needed to generalize about regional styles in any meaningful way at this time anyhow.  Access to sound recordings eliminated the great majority of even the micro-regional styles quite a long time ago.  And I'm dubious as to whether anyone is currently alive who pre-dates the recording era and who can describe or play the music that was made in a given locale back then in the kind of detail that would put the sound of that music in our ears.
Blind Boy Fuller's sound was hugely influenced by recordings, every bit as much as was Robert Johnson's.  There's a tendency to think that learning from records originated in the '60s--not so.  People started copping stuff from records as soon as records started being made.  There are recordings from '27 and '28 where people are already trying to copy Lonnie Johnson and Lemon.  And if you think of more or less current Piedmont players like John Dee Holman (thank God still current) and Guitar Shorty, each plays or played both repertoire and styles that didn't derive from their locale at all.  And you know what?  It doesn't make a heck of a lot of difference as to what I want to hear.  I'd feel idiotic saying I like hearing John Dee Holman do a Fuller song but don't want to hear him play a Lightnin' Hopkins song because Lightnin' was from Texas.  We can't put everything back in the bottle at this point. 
All best,
Johnm

Offline unezrider

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Re: If there was one song....
« Reply #23 on: September 17, 2009, 10:53:00 PM »
hello friend,
when i first started getting into this music around '94, '95, when i was 17, or 18 years old, one of the first things i was taken by, aside from how the music really hit home with me, was the vast variety all within one supposed genre. & the quality of it all too. & i don't know if it was from reading liner notes, music books, my ears, or all the above, i noticed how music from different regions seemed to be distinct from one another. & for awhile i really paid this much mind. upon reflection though, listening to this kind of music for the first time must have been something to someone used to the more homogenized sounds coming from classic rock radio & mtv. (nirvana & pearl jam were big then). ( i grew up with those dreadful 'hair bands', too  :-X) i had no idea something so vast could have ever existed! hell, from all accounts i had come across to that point, jimi hendrix invented quality guitar playing. it really was a small world i was coming from.
but as the years rolled on, & the more i thought i had this regional thing figured out, there would be another player from such & such region i'd come across who didn't fit that description. ok, so mississippi john hurt was from mississippi, but the rest of those guys? but then there was bo carter, robert wilkins? & don't even get me started on texas ? lemon, funny papa smith, mance, lead belly, lightnin', all the way down to t?bone. & it occurred to me it really doesn't matter. theres nothing wrong with contemplating these things. i spent many years doing it myself! & yes, i learned a lot about those players too. but big bill didn't play like patton. skip james didn't play like?well, anybody. tommy johnson had his own thing. it was the music i loved. but where so & so was from became less important to me the deeper i got into it.
i encourage anyone on this journey. the music is it's own reward. & in the end, it is the music itself that matters. besides, i think it was in wald's 'escaping the delta' book were he mentions how much influence a record company talent scout had on what kind of music (or namely what kind of players) was to be recorded at any given session. which is another bag of worms itself. but food for thought, none the less.
chris
"Be good, & you will be lonesome." -Mark Twain

Offline unezrider

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Re: If there was one song....
« Reply #24 on: September 17, 2009, 11:29:11 PM »
it just occurred to me too ? if every area had it's "sound", wouldn't it stand to reason piano players from said area would share same musical feels & ideas (& limitations) as that area's guitarists? these people did associate with one another.
"Be good, & you will be lonesome." -Mark Twain

Offline dj

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Re: If there was one song....
« Reply #25 on: September 18, 2009, 03:32:59 AM »
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why is it important to identify regional sounds?

It's not important in the vast scheme of the universe.  But it's human nature to sort and categorize things to make the world understandable.  We all carry bunches of ill-defined lists and charts around in our heads and add and subtract to them all the time.

Categories like regions and styles are useful especially to help a newcomer gain easier understanding of a mass of information, and "regional sounds" certainly once helped me sort through and make sense of the music I was listening to.  As we become more familiar with the music, we tend to see regions in terms of richness and variety rather than narrowly defined styles.  But that narrow definition is fine, and probably indispensable, as an aid to comprehension for the beginner.



 

Blind Dawg

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Re: If there was one song....
« Reply #26 on: September 18, 2009, 11:48:49 AM »
why is it important to identify regional sounds?

Every book seems to break it down into regions. I have CD's dedicated to them Texas, Georgia, St.Louis etc etc  blues. So it appears that's how it's done. I personally perfer to do it that way when I'm mixing a CD using material from other CD's. It seems to make sense to me. Roosevelt Sykes just after Walter Davis and before Hi Henry Brown sure sounds a lot better than Sykes then Bessie Tucker then Skip James.


Blind Dawg

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Re: If there was one song....
« Reply #27 on: September 18, 2009, 11:53:35 AM »
Hi all,
I don't think of Blind Blake as being Piedmont Blues at all.  As far as I know there's no evidence that he was from or ever resided in the Piedmont.  I think of him as an early Chicago blues musician who, for the most part, influenced other musicians via his recordings.  I think of Piedmont Blues (over-simplified) as the music in the Carolinas that influenced Blind Boy Fuller, then Blind Boy Fuller, then the music that was influenced by Blind Boy Fuller.  That having been said, there's plenty of music that came out of the Piedmont, like that of Virgil Childers, that doesn't appear to bear any obvious relationship to Fullers' music at all.  

I question the efficacy of trying to draw musical conclusions as to what was archetypal of a particular style based on where people came from; where people came from is interesting, but mostly for its own sake.  If you try to make musical inferences based on where people came from you end up spending all your time trying to explain away the exceptions to the supposedly archetypal sound.  But to return to the original issue cited, I think of Blind Blake, who supposedly came from Florida as no more a Florida musician than I think of Tampa Red as a Florida musician.  I think they were early musical professionals who developed their sounds independent of any regional style of playing that we have access to at this time.
All best,
Johnm  





Anytime I read anything about Blake it usually mentions him as a Piedmont player. Example....


His first recordings were made in 1926 and his records sold very well. His first solo record was "Early Morning Blues" with "West Coast Blues" on the B-side. Both are considered excellent examples of his ragtime-based guitar style and are prototypes for the burgeoning Piedmont blues. Blake made his last recordings in 1932, the end of his career aided by Paramount's bankruptcy. It is often said that the later recordings have much less sparkle.


I hear ya and knew about his Florida/Georgia roots. Hmmmmm?

Offline dj

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Re: If there was one song....
« Reply #28 on: September 18, 2009, 01:15:25 PM »
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Every book seems to break it down into regions.

Well, you've got to organize things somehow.  But as John M. and a few others have said here, geographic proximity, whether at birth or when recording, doesn't necessarily equate to stylistic proximity.  It may, but it ain't necessarily so. 

As for Blake, all the biographical information we have about him from the period before he started recording is contained in a few sentences in a Paramount ad and some internal evidence on "Southern Rag", where Blake does a Gullah accent native to the Georgia Sea Islands.  The accent may or may not mean anything, the Paramount add may be based on a quick interview with Blake or it may be complete fabrication, and we'll probably never know exactly where Blake learned to play guitar.  But hey, you've got to stick him somewhere.   

Offline Stuart

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Re: If there was one song....
« Reply #29 on: September 18, 2009, 01:18:08 PM »
Is it or is it not the case that the music made by individuals associated with a specific geographic region is the ultimate arbiter of what constitutes or defines (a) regional sound(s)?

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