Finally!

In my previous post, I remarked on the lack of plot in Delta Blues, by Ted Gioia, saying that it was mainly an anthropological look at the Delta Blues. This was interesting, but at times quite monotonous and textbook like. But, finally, in chapter three, it starts recounting the lives and stories of major blues players. Chapter three starts out describing the history of the previously unmentioned Mississippi plantation of Will Dockery, dating from the mid 19th century. Gioia describes it as an relatively upstanding plantation, "The late Will Dockery - who had abstained from smoking and drinking, and always dressed in an austere black suit - had aimed to uplift, not corrupt, his black workers, taking care of their needs, both earthly and eternal. Instead of jukehouses, he could boast of two churches (one Methodist, the other Baptist) and two elementary schools on his land, as well as a commissary, a sawmill, and a blacksmith's works. When he learned that town practitioners were overcharging his tenants, he hired a white physician to reside on the plantation and take care of all patients, whether black or white." (46) When reading this, it seems totally unrelated, but Gioia soon introduces blues great Charley Patton. As Gioia says, Patton was a "hard drinking, loose living, work shirking field hand hanging out among the ramshackle cabins and broken-down boxcars that passed for living quarters on the northern end of the plantation. " (48)
Patton is painted as a rough, uneducated man, “Patton could only spell one word, his first name; and even that he couldn’t write down, but merely name the letters.” (52) Gioia points out an interesting observation, “He was proud and boastful, and often contentious. H.C. Speir, the talent scout responsible for Patton’s first recordings, remembered him as “kinda forward” for a Southern black man of his day.” (48) Because of this forwardness, he gives a new face to the black, southern blues musician, not as an entirely suppressed, being, but an intense, fun-loving, outgoing person. Now that I have the information and background that the first textbook-like chapters gave me, I have something to relate the stories of individuals to, as well as a context for their lives. I’m looking forward to reading about more blues this week.

The Blues

Delta Blues, by Ted Gioia, is quite different from how I imagined it would be. The blues, born in the deep south, with roots in Africa, clearly didn't have scholarly beginnings. Because of this, I expected Delta Blues to be a recounting of stories of the lives of blues performers. Perhaps it will get to be more story oriented, but as of now (page 45), it takes a very anthropological look at the blues. Gioia writes, "Without the blues, much of the music we hear every day would be fundamentally different, eviscerated and tepid." This excerpt demonstrates the professorial approach that he takes to talking about the blues, describing it in the scholarly terms of "eviscerated," and "tepid." He goes very in depth when talking about the instruments that influenced blues in it's early days in Africa, referencing little known instruments, "The diversity of these African instruments is remarkable: the bolon, with its striking appearance of a hunter's bow married to a calabash drum; the harplike kora, with its twenty-one strings, perhaps the most expressive traditional intrument found in any part of the world; the two-string konde of Burkina Faso, with metal bells attached to its neck, so that it jingles when the strings are plucked; the lutelike ngoni, an ancestor of the banjo, often unfairly dismissed as a hillbilly novelty in the Americas, but in Africa the instrument of heroes and kings." He goes on to talk about how these intruments influenced early blues, and how the cultures that employed these instruments were also influencial in the distinct sound of the delta blues.
As well as acting as an anthropologist, Gioia also takes the stance of a historian, when addressing the path that the blues has followed since the nebulous date of its creation. He begins by recounting the performances of minstrel troupes and medicine shows. Gioia describes their performaces, "In addition to the standard music and comedy fare, and the inevitable promotion of a healing potion, the shows might represent trapeze artists, circus acts, ventriloquism, dramatic skits, stage magic, vaudville routines, or anything else that might hold an audience's attention for a few minutes at a time." These minstrel troups and medicine shows also had distasteful, offensive portrayals of black people by whites who would smear charchoal over their faces. These "blackface" skits, usually inclued performances of the delta blues. "At a time when few black musicians had the means to present their music directly to the public, these surrogates took on undue influence. For many Americans, especially those outside of the South, their attitudes toward the county's growing slave population, their sense of African-American vernacular speech, music, and behavior, were shaped as much by these vulgar routines as by any firsthand encounters with black culture," Gioia explains. He goes into more detail about a few blues musicians who lived after the popularity of these "surrogate" performers. The next chapter, titled Dockery's Plantation, appears to be more story oriented, with a picture of blues great Charley Patton. This will be a nice break from the textbook style writing of the first two chapters.