Announcement-Much of this post is very much off topic [in a manner of speaking]

;o)

Hello Gypsy!

You wrote:
"I would NOT have wanted to be a blues player in the time he started......could NOT have been easy. Needed a lot of bluff and bluster just to survive, no doubt."

-snip-

Well, that braggadocio that you called "bluff and bluster" is still going on with rap music and dub reggae and other forms of contemporary music/

But then again it's still true that people making that music need a lot of bluff & bluster to survive.

But on the other hand, alot of middle class artists make up an "I'm tough from the hood [or from the 'yard' in the case of reggae] image and rapped about that even though 'keepin it real' is [supposed to be] a key credo in music from the hood [or yard or street or Black folk who aint got no bling bling yet but wanna get it].

Why are people faking toughness? Because havin physical-and verbal skills are valued in those communities...For examples of the African Diaspora's admiration for verbal skills think about the African griots, and kaiso & calypsonians and Muddy Waters and Howlin Wolf, and-well you can think of some more examples from music-but outside of music there's Muhammad Ali {float like a butterfly and sting like a bee" and Attorney Johnny Cochran and Reverend Mrin Luther King Jr, And Rev Jesse Jackson, and Rev. Al Sharpton, and Senator Barack Obama...and the list goes on.

Skills with words as evidenced by using words to promote oneself and diss others found in many contemporary African American children's foot stomping cheers*

Check out these two examples of foot stomping cheers:


CHECK IT OUT
All                Check us out Aunt Zizi
                Check us out Aunt Zizi
Soloist #1        My name is Dee Dee
                And I'm a star
                You mess me up
                I'll kick you far
Group                Ooh, she/he thinks she/he bad
Soloist #1        Correction honey I KNOW I'm bad
Group                Ooh she/he thinks she hard
Soloist #1        Chile, Please!

Sources: my nieces Yammeshya & Sadiqia Powell [now 13 and 12 years; they said they learned this when they when they were 10 & 8 years old; collected 2005

-snip-

ROCK THE BOAT
Rock the boat,
Rock, rock the boat
Rock the boat,
Rock, rock the boat
My name is Yasmin
(rock the boat)
I know I'm fine
(rock the boat)
Just like my sign
(rock the boat)
My sign is Leo
I go bang-bang choo choo train
Wind me up and I do my thing
Reeses pieces butter cup
Don't mess with me, cause I'll mess you up,
Rock the boat, rock rock the boat....

Source: Yasmin Hernadez, www.cocojams.com ; 2004 Jasmin wrote that she learned this when she was a teen in the late 1980s living in a Puerto Rican/Black neighborhood of New York City.

And there are many more examples of bragging confrontational children's rhymes...
                



*foot stomps are memorized chants that are 'recited' with in-your face attitude by a two or more {usually 7-13 year old} girls using a variant call & response pattern while executing synchronized syncopated like bass sounding foot stomps, hand claps [clapping your own hands], and chest and thigh body pats. The body pattin is testimony to the fact thatjuba patting is still alive. For those who have seen Black Greek letter fraternities or sororities step [in step shows], doing foot stomping cheers are very similar if not the same to the stomping the foot to the beat that these step teams do. Imo, step teams are one of the main sources of this little noted [by adults and by the print or visual media] performance art and oral tradition.