Folklore: Delta Blues & Genetics?

Subject: Folklore: Delta Blues & Genetics?
From: GUEST,wants2bbeachbum
Date: 07 Nov 07 - 10:13 PM

Has there been any research done on the abundance of blues musicians from the Delta? Is there something genetic or is it just a product of their environment for so many talented people to come from one area? Looking for some research for an English paper.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Delta Blues & Genetics?
From: Azizi
Date: 07 Nov 07 - 11:39 PM

wants2bbeachbum, see this archived Mudcat thread:

thread.cfm?threadid=42591&messages=11

That oughta be enuff to get you started on your research.

Best wishes,

Azizi

Subject: RE: Folklore: Delta Blues & Genetics?
From: Nerd
Date: 07 Nov 07 - 11:52 PM

Before you start coming up with genetic theories, you'd have to decide whether people from the Delta were really "more talented" than people from elsewhere. I think that would be hard to demonstrate. After all, you have an abundance of great blues all over the South, and in all the northern cities where Black people went.   The Piedmont is a good example, but there was also great Texas blues, etc. "Delta Blues" gets most of the attention for various historical reasons, but can we really say it's "better?"

If you do want to pursue it, I think environmental factors would make a more likely topic. If you go to other areas of the country, you'll find other branches of musical talent--such as old-time music in Appalachia. Cecil Sharp was struck on his visits by the fact that absolutely everyone there could sing or play.

The thread that connects Appalachia and the Delta is probably general poverty and a similar subsistence-farming lifestyle--people's artistic talent had to be channeled into areas where they didn't need expensive equipment, no one could pay much for entertainment, there were times of the year when farmwork was slack, lack of electricity and technology meant no farmwork in the dark, etc. So everyone played, or sang, to pass the time, satisfy their human need for art, etc. If you grew up in such a community, chances are you'd be good at music too, regardless of your genetics.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Delta Blues & Genetics?
From: Azizi
Date: 08 Nov 07 - 12:07 AM

Great points, Nerd, particularly the corollation between people's artistic talents having to be channelled into areas where they didn't need expensive equipment...

Subject: RE: Folklore: Delta Blues & Genetics?
From: synbyn
Date: 08 Nov 07 - 04:55 AM

The same is true of the Medway Delta in England... the Strood basin being a fine repository of music not found elsewhere, even in Rochester. As to whether it's genetic, it's more likely that it's geographical, the people are short and only a few of them can climb Chatham Hill to get out, especially with a gumbo case. The Medway has many tributaries, and closer to the sea in Upnor a beesnest of 12-string technicians versed in slide and batterpick. See the threads on Dickens... and the Good Intent...

Subject: RE: Folklore: Delta Blues & Genetics?
From: GUEST,Tunesmith
Date: 08 Nov 07 - 07:42 AM

Maybe it's down to one special person - Charlie Patton, for example - setting the ball rolling, and inspiring, directly, or indirectly, Son, Willie, Robert, Muddy and so on.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Delta Blues & Genetics?
From: Fred McCormick
Date: 08 Nov 07 - 07:53 AM

I just want to add to Nerd's argument (ignoring the depraved attempt at a humourous interjection two posts down from it), that the nature of the economy in the delta was a big factor. That is, there was lots of agricutural work, low paid, but enough to finance live entertainment, and enough to bring in a lot of transient labour from outside the area. As a consequence, there was a ready market for musical talent, and a consequent influx of musicians.

Also, transience meant that it was difficult to organise people into religious observance. Which meant there weren't many preachers in the area to harangue people into staying away from those awful sinful juke joints and that terrible sinful blues.

Two things I don't believe.

1. I don't believe that the blues originated in the Delta, or that the Black experience in the Delta was particularly unusual in ways other than than the points I've just raised. The blues is best seen as a crystallisation of pre-existing music forms, which arose out of the social conditions of the American south in the late nineteenth century.

2. That the proliferation of blues in the Delta can in any way be attributed to genetic factors. The blues emerged as a reaction to the white terrorisation of Black communities after the collapse of post civil war reconstruction. As support for this argument I offer the case of Charley Patton, widely acknowledged as the father of the Delta blues. Under the segregation laws, Patton was officially conidered Black, but he had far more White ancestry than Negro.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Delta Blues & Genetics?
From: Brian Hoskin
Date: 08 Nov 07 - 08:07 AM

If this is for an academic paper, I would suggest you start by reviewing the general literature critiqueing these kind of essentialist arguments (arguments that suggest categories of people - usually based on 'race' - share commonly inherited attributes which, in turn, give rise to particular cultural practices).
Personally I would recommend you look at the work of Paul Gilroy, specifically his 1993 book The Black Atlantic, or,for a more accessible account of his work specifically applied to 'black music', see Keith Negus's 1997 book Popular Music in Theory: An Introdution - the chapter on indentities.

I hope this is of some use.

Brian

Subject: RE: Folklore: Delta Blues & Genetics?
From: GUEST,pattyClink
Date: 08 Nov 07 - 09:18 AM

Fred, can we get a source of info on that statement "there weren't many preachers in the area to harangue people into staying away from those awful sinful juke joints and that terrible sinful blues." ?

Subject: RE: Folklore: Delta Blues & Genetics?
From: Brian Hoskin
Date: 08 Nov 07 - 11:22 AM

I agree that Fred McCormick's assertion above that "there weren't many preachers" in the Delta at the time isn't very credible. Charlie Patton himself claimed at various times to have once been a preacher or church deacon.

Although I agree wholeheartedly with his more general point that the importance of the Delta area to the blues is a product of a range of economic, social and cultural practices.

Brian

Subject: RE: Folklore: Delta Blues & Genetics?
From: Fred McCormick
Date: 08 Nov 07 - 01:51 PM

Brian, I'm afraid you've lost me. I've just lifted Gilroy's book off my shelf, where it will have to remain until I find time to read it. But his argument seems to centre around social culture and conceptions of Black identity, rather than around genetics.

In any event, I'm not trying to say there weren't preachers or congregations in the Delta. There were both. However,there was also a lot of transient labour which fell outside the moral restrictions of the church and of the settled community. That's why the Delta is so rich in blues.

BTW. You'll have to forgive my fading memory, but I can't off the top of my head remember reading anything where Patton actualy claimed to have been a preacher. Can you supply a source?

Subject: RE: Folklore: Delta Blues & Genetics?
From: M.Ted
Date: 08 Nov 07 - 09:49 PM

Blues is heavily rooted in work chants--the wide variety of rhythms are work rhythms, and the combination of improvised and floating verses is characteristic of work songs. There was a lot of transient work--building the levees, and lumbering, where there were camps, where blues could thrive--It wasn't so much that church people objected to the blues per se, it was that the blues were emblematic of the "Sportin' Life" associated with the transient life style.

So you had both an eager market for music, and a lot of raw material to create music from--that's all you need--

Subject: RE: Folklore: Delta Blues & Genetics?
From: Brian Hoskin
Date: 09 Nov 07 - 08:20 AM

Fred,

Gilroy's work offers a critique of notions of identity based on genetics, most particularly in his concept of 'anti-anti-essentialism'. So his conception of Black identity is related to social and cultural processes and practices, rather than essentialist, genetic notions. The book is not exactly a 'page turner' and not the most readily assessible work.

Charlie Patton's claims to having been a preacher and some responses to them by the likes of Son House are documented in Calt & Wardlow (1988) King of the Delta Blues: The Life and Music of Charlie Patton and also in Woods (1998) Development Arrested: Race, Power, and the Blues in the Mississippi Delta

Brian

Subject: RE: Folklore: Delta Blues & Genetics?
From: wysiwyg
Date: 09 Nov 07 - 11:22 AM

transient labour which fell outside the moral restrictions of the church

????? The only venue for morality is church? It isn't portable?!?

~S~

Subject: RE: Folklore: Delta Blues & Genetics?
From: Amos
Date: 09 Nov 07 - 11:55 AM

It is absolutely portable, pardon the thread creep.

IMHO you are looking at a set of cultural vectors that cane together in the Delta region, reinforced by early discoveries from the region leading people to focus more on it for new discoveries.

I doubt genes as such is a big factor at all.


A

Subject: RE: Folklore: Delta Blues & Genetics?
From: GUEST,pattyClink
Date: 09 Nov 07 - 04:15 PM

My opinion only, but I can't really buy the 'environment is destiny' theory. I think there were just some talented musicians who played and taught others to play, who knows why clusters of talent spring up anywhere?

There were massive outmigrations to Chicago, Detroit and other points due to economic pressures.   This revealed the music to the rest of the world, served to expose it and give it a prosperous set of clubs to play in. That's the real 'environment' phenomenon.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Delta Blues & Genetics?
From: PoppaGator
Date: 09 Nov 07 - 05:03 PM

Without getting into the very many other issues that come to mind, I have to observe, first of all, that "genetics" cannot possibly have anything to do with this.

Not that a person's genetic heritage might not impact their musical inclinations and talents ~ I'm sure that it always does. But I don't see how any meaningful difference could ever be found between the genetic makeup of the black folks who wound up living in the Delta area, as opposed to those anywhere else in the South, or for that matter anywhere else in the US, or even beyond.

The Delta was sort of the "Wild West" of the world of American slavery, occupied and developed long after the plantation system had been founded to grow tobacco, rice and indigo in coastal Virginia/Carolina/Georgia. The very large Black population harnessed to work the industrial-scale cotton operations that emerged later along the Mississipppi did not come directly from Africa, or even from the Caribbean ~ most came from slave states further to the east.

So, their genetic characteristics, as a group, couldn't possibly be significantly different from those of other African Americans.

Incidentally, some of you reading this may not know that the "Mississippi Delta" is nowhere near the mouth of the river. This term actually describes the northwest corner of the state of Mississippi, just south of Memphis, Tennessee. The once-very-fertile land of the area, wen first discovered, was especially rich in silt from the river's annual flooding over eons of geological time.

The geographical term "delta" refers to the silt deposis typically built up around its mouth; in the case of the Mississippi, the land on either bank for almost half its length ~ the southern portion ~ is alluvial silt. The cotton-growing region just below Memphis became known as "The Delta" because the characteritically fertile soil covered an unusually wide region there.

Technically, I suppose, the word "delta" could be used for an even larger area on either side of the river, much of Arkansas and Mississippi and at least half of Louisiana. But, in practice and by custom, the term "Mississippi Delta" refers to a well-defined region of northwestern Mississippi.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Delta Blues & Genetics?
From: GUEST,pattyClink
Date: 09 Nov 07 - 11:12 PM

And it's BEAUTIFUL this time of year. The leaves are changing, cool breezes, the cotton is all in for the year at last, and every time you look up there is another grand flock of birds swooping past. Geese, egrets, all kinds of flying critters. It's always fun to see the birds lined up on the banks of a catfish pond like old-timers at a smorgasbord.

Subject: RE: Folklore: Delta Blues & Genetics?
From: Janie
Date: 10 Nov 07 - 12:16 AM

Thanks, PoppaGator. I never knew that!

Subject: RE: Folklore: Delta Blues & Genetics?
From: Fred McCormick
Date: 10 Nov 07 - 01:53 PM

PoppaGator. Very succinct observation. My reading of slavery literature isn't very extensive but it does at least embrace Lionel Kolchin's American slavery. Kolchin makes it clear that US slave social culture differed from that of the Caribbean for several reasons. One was that, unlike the Caribbean, the US slave population became self sustaining fairly early on, and that the surplus population were sold farther west as the frontier expanded. Therefore, as far as the Delta is concerned genetics cannot be a serious factor.

However, when we talk of the Delta and the blues, we are talking of a later period in the history of Mississippi. We are talking of a period when nominally free labour could move into the Delta to take advantage of the work provided by all that alluvial soil. I'd guess therefore, that by the time the blues emerged, the genetic mix there would have been considerably intensified.

BTW. The BBC Radio Times which is the prenier radio and television scheduling magazine in Britain, runs a sort of 'mastermind' quiz. IE., it's set by acknowledged experts. One question recently asked "where would you eat gumbo food?". The answer was the Mississippi Delta.