cmelo wrote:love_islander wrote:12stars wrote:Could someone please explain Jack's comment about how some modern day artists are selling authenticity through blues music. Just HOW are they doing that?
he kind of explains it in It Might Get Loud about how blues came out of the depression years, racism, and slavery of black people. You might think "wow, Jack (or anybody) is deep for being able to pull off blues music, but they don't have the struggle behind it like years of the aforementioned hardships.
To put it another way, if I started releasing and selling lots of copies of songs about menstrual cramps (there are so many hit titles I could rattle off), people might think me, despite being a male, must be authentic about menstrual cramps. No matter how much people might say it, I've got no idea what they are like
Trust me. They authentically suck.
yes... they are like someone reaching up inside of you and yanking out your intestines slowly over a series of hours... that having been said i will just say that bringing honor and crediting the old blues folks in a way that pays them is something that i have found to be a compassionate art form if one knows what one is doing and makes a cover that also displays artistry as opposed to a fine copy which may as well be fronted by an unknown craftsman for the sake of reproducing it unremarkably
case in point would be the many many songs that i have heard from Black Keys which are indiscriminately generic from other contemporary blues artists such as gary clark
try as i might i have not been able to discredit an artform just because there are lesser people attempting it... of course im not trying too hard but that having been said let me point out that the blues was as much about poverty and not being able to do much more than nail a string to the wall to learn or enjoy some front porch family time which is nothing in the measure of racism in and of itself but rather more to how a dominant culture of banking as a process of taking over land spilled into the personal lives and economic spoils of their dirty little war on American Freedoms ... even civil liberties if you will
racism did force the bluesmen to hit the road and look for work as well as resort to a life of crime from time to time but the loose women and the speakeasy and the hard times was a plenty for any guy who wanted to sing about it ... but what we really have to take note of is the times and the economy because Jazz was and is mixed with the blues often even though the art and the style and the participants clearly indicate that these fellas could afford better instruments and better drugs more like what them doctors offices are handing out during war times etc. etc... its all about the locations of where and how folks lived along with economy and culture when it comes to these original forms and their makers just as we see with Scott Joplin whose mama was from kentucky and his daddy was from texas ... authenticity is related to all this
Bluegrass is another example of how a musical form is getting co-opted by other cultures and people who aint from the hills but the way we look at that is that them whites and blacks was sittin on they porch together not worried about the shotgun in the corner just a pickin and grinnin until the bank man and the coal man came and tore old dixie down ... thats when you had to start worryin about who your daughter was sneakin off with and if'in they was gonna be able to work and pay to raise that baby ... here is the straight dope on the east coast blues made by the Melungeon people
http://www.whatisamelungeon.webs.com/
the history and the origins of a people goes far beyond their race when it comes to fully respecting the culture and ambitions of its individuals such as we see when they are really only welcomed to work in certain regions and amongst particular economies such as we saw in the south with the declining agricultural society which has been replaced with migrancy and the prison culture that finds a reason why you must be guilty and then introduces you to their economy ... which is actually one of the other most unique things about the american economy besides the blues given that we are the worlds largest manufacturers of prisoners and prison culture ... slavery... yeah
Prisons and churches are by far and large the real home of the blues and the honky tonk that preached on sunday mornin after doin a whole lot of research on sinnin in the previous nights before with that tiny little pay check that lead you to drink out of somebodys dirty little shine still that would eventually be a the site of a shoot out when johnny law came to town for a piece of the cut such as we saw with George Washington and his mercenaries in the Whiskey Rebellion when it came time to tax the poor
so ultimately race is no greater a factor in the truth of playin the blues in all its variations so much as the formats used to instrument and market the sound goin on
The clock in the kitchen says 2:55..... And the clock in the kitchen is slow
