WEEK 13 & 14: BLUES

Once again, as I learn more and more about Blues music and the lives of the black people who originated it, I really feel almost a guilt for enjoying this music. Blues music was made to be played for black people by black people. It was originated as music they could sing while working on fields and music they could use to communicate with one another. Delta blues was borne of this kind of struggle. The kind of struggle only someone in destitute poverty could really feel and express through music. Despite slavery being over, sharecropping could still keep Black people indebted to, and essentially enslaved, to white plantation owners. Until the Civil Rights Act of 1964, black people were legally discriminated against and treated like second class citizens. It's infuriating to think of now, how some things haven't changed even 50 years later.

A lot of black musicians decided to pursue music as a job or a side job because it paid more than any other options they had at the time. City blues/Chicago blues grew from the Great Migration, a movement of millions of black americans from the southern to the northern states in search of opportunity. Some of this opportunity was the option of making money through music, either as a way to supplement their income or as their main source of income. Additionally, music was one of the few roles in which white people could accept black people. Many of these musicians were incredibly talented and the race record producers who took advantage of their situation knew that. Looking at 2017, most of the richest and most influential black people are entertainers or athletes. Children living in inner-cities with little access to quality education will see these two paths as the only way out of an insidious cycle of poverty.

Trying to separate the Blues musician from the music seems almost impossible. As I was watching a documentary on youtube about the Blues (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5qq_qnLHf74) I was struck by how seamlessly the musicians interviewed could transition into singing and back to talking without missing a beat. The music seems to be so ingrained in them that it shows itself in the natural way they talk.

It makes me angry to think of how the contribution of African-Americans to American music has been so diluted in modern consciousness. There have always been people who will love black music but never the black musician. They will take any chance they can get to digest black music through a white figure (Bob Dylan, Elvis). Of course, I'd like to think that the majority of people are not this way, but it's hard for us to combat the systemic racism seeped into the roots of this country if we do not acknowledge that these people and these attitudes exist. It makes me upset that up until recently I have heard frequently of figures such as Bob Dylan, Elvis, Janis Joplin, etc. but nothing of Muddy Waters, Sister Rosetta Tharpe, Mississippi John Hurt or any other important musical figures who inspired them. Taking what I learned from this class I want to continue to dive into folk music, into black music, into the history of the United States. It makes me embarrassed to think of how ignorant I was and still am in this area. By educating myself I can hopefully start educating others and keep the men and women who made this music alive.