Genuine and Good

Subject: Genuine and Good
From: Jerry Friedman
Date: 06 Dec 97 - 04:30 PM

BK writes:
(and for many of my freinds Dillan was an angry, expressive, persuasive blues singer - for me, he was a clean-handed white city boy, who had not likely ever done a lick of manual labor - let alone real dirty work, in his life, ripping off a black schtick. He also seems to have borrowed an occasional tune from Jewish/british isles folk music; I know, the Irish do it all the time... I just don't like him, and never took him as genuine.)

This seems strange to me--I care far less how genuine a performer is than how much I like the performance. I also don't see Dylan much as a blues singer, but maybe that's because most of my favorite songs of his are in white folk, rock, and pop traditions, not blues traditions. (Hm, maybe I do prefer his more his more genuine works.) Any thoughts on the importance of being the kind of person suggested by your performance style?

Subject: RE: Genuine and Good
From: dick greenhaus
Date: 06 Dec 97 - 05:48 PM

Take a look at Shel Silversteins "Folksinger's Blues" (What do you do if you're young and white and Jewish?)

Subject: RE: Genuine and Good
From: dick greenhaus
Date: 06 Dec 97 - 06:07 PM

Take a look at Shel Silversteins "Folksinger's Blues" (What do you do if you're young and white and Jewish?)

Subject: RE: Genuine and Good
From: Gene E
Date: 06 Dec 97 - 07:11 PM

I recently played solo for a small party, only my second time out without a band to "lean on. I played a set of bottleneck blues, mixing some Fred McDowell, Big Joe Williams with some accustic originals in Delta style. After my set, a friend said "man that was great, I though I was down on the Mississippi, but you sound too white."

Problem is, I am too white but I love the blues and I'm gonna play and sing it. I realize that I've never lived a difficult life, I "haven't paid many dues" but I like to help the music live for my friends just as the old masters did for theirs. I this way it's real and true. Read a few rare interviews of old bluesmen and you'll find that they wanted to give us their music and style so it would live on.

True BLUES is when the performer is honest about the music and not just copying note for note, someone elses song. If it's personal and from the heart, it's the real thing, even if you're a too white suburban dweller living in the '90s

Jus my opinion. ;}

Subject: RE: Genuine and Good
From: Jon W.
Date: 08 Dec 97 - 11:20 AM

I've thought about that myself. If I were ever to record a blues album, I would have to entitle it "Too White to Sing it Right." Then my second album would be "Sanitized For Your Protection."

Seriously though, many if not most African American singers have a certain quality to their voices which is almost essential to make the blues sound really good. It's hard to define but I call it "smoky silkiness." Mississippi John Hurt's voice is a good example. But the white imitators - Presley, Lennon, Jagger, Butterfield, Dylan, Gregg Allman, Roy Rogers (not the cowboy), Rory Gallagher - none of them have it. The only white guy that does is, believe it or not, Tom Jones. But I don't much care for his arrangements of blues songs.