Who coined the phrase 'folk blues'?

Subject: Who coined the phrase 'folk blues'?
From: Miles
Date: 14 Oct 21 - 10:44 AM

I tend to think Abbe Niles did.

Early songs that we now consider blues had been recognized in print as folk songs since Odum in 1911.

Yet, I can’t find the phrase “folk blues” before February 1926, when it is seen in announcements for Blues: An Anthology (edited by W. C. Handy, with an introduction and notes by Niles), which was eventually released in May of the same year:

“The publication of W. C. Handy’s anthology, 'Blues,' is scheduled for some time in March or April . . . . The book . . . is an anthology of jazz music from the early negro folk blues to modern music . . .” (The Salt Lake Tribune, February 26, 1926, p. 11)

Since (to my knowledge) Handy had not previously used the phrase in about ten years of articles and interviews, whereas it is constantly used by Niles (himself quite new to blues commentary at this point) in his introduction and notes, it would seem likely that Niles coined it, rather than Handy.

Did I miss something?

Subject: RE: Who coined the phrase 'folk blues'?
From: GUEST,Nick Dow
Date: 14 Oct 21 - 01:24 PM

The phrase really came into it's own in the 1960's as a result of Chicago Bluesmen touring the UK with amplified guitars to the despair of the traditionalists who looked for acoustic accompaniment on a generally beat up guitar, to be authentic. However it is likely that the term was coined by a Folklorist looking for a convenient compartment to shove acoustic Blues. Convenience rather than existing boundaries I expect.

Subject: RE: Who coined the phrase 'folk blues'?
From: Miles
Date: 15 Oct 21 - 05:23 AM

Hi Nick,

The phrase certainly got a boost during the 1960’s revival, both in the UK and the US, and I understand that there were indeed “traditionalists” in London, in the late 1950’s who “knew better” than Muddy Waters what the blues was (!). In this context, “folk blues” may have been conflated with, or understood by some as “acoustic blues.”

Yet, as shown above, the phrase was initially used at a time when there was no electric blues, to qualify a brand of blues that was unwritten, much less published, orally transmitted, collectively created through successive alterations, by mostly poorly educated people, therefore considered anonymous, and not datable with much precision. “Folk blues” was then – and, I would say, now as well, for many of us – opposed to “popular blues,” that is, (supposedly) individually created, likely by a professional / educated musician, written, arranged, published, and, Handy would add, “polished.”

Subject: RE: Who coined the phrase 'folk blues'?
From: Rain Dog
Date: 15 Oct 21 - 05:27 AM

I believe it was a contraction of the term 'folking blues' as in "Oh no, not more folking blues."

Subject: RE: Who coined the phrase 'folk blues'?
From: GUEST,Hootenanny
Date: 15 Oct 21 - 07:08 AM

In the early days of Blues singers coming to the UK it was difficult to get a work permit for a singer when we had many singers of our own. If you could say that the singer/performer in question was a folk singer performing the material of his own people and background then that worked because the UK could never produce a Blues singer.

The tours arranged by Lippman/Rau in the 60's were advertised as "American Folk Blues Festivals".

I don't know who originated the phrase but to me it indicates that the song was not performed by a professional entertainer.

Subject: RE: Who coined the phrase 'folk blues'?
From: Johnny J
Date: 15 Oct 21 - 10:08 AM

As Nick says, it was a popular term in the sixties to differentiate between the electric and acoustic performances of the genre.

The term "acoustic" was also used.

I also remember the term "country blues" being used too.

Subject: RE: Who coined the phrase 'folk blues'?
From: The Sandman
Date: 18 Oct 21 - 03:29 AM

yes. country blues to differentiate from the chicago sound city blues of elmore james, was there not a sonny terry brownie mcghee BACK COUNTRY BLUES. I find hoots suggestion intersting and one thats new to me, i am sure heis right

Subject: RE: Who coined the phrase 'folk blues'?
From: GUEST,Hootenanny
Date: 18 Oct 21 - 06:27 AM

Dick,

If you mean the bit about work permits it was not a suggestion, it was fact I can assure you from personal experience having brought in Blues performers for UK tours.

Subject: RE: Who coined the phrase 'folk blues'?
From: The Sandman
Date: 18 Oct 21 - 06:54 AM

thanks hoot

Subject: RE: Who coined the phrase 'folk blues'?
From: PHJim
Date: 18 Oct 21 - 08:32 AM

In the late fifties or early sixties, I brought home a Josh White LP. I was listening to it on the hifi set in our living room when my dad came in and said, "I didn't know you liked the blues."
I guess I was unfamiliar with the term, because I said something like, "That's not blues, it's folk music."
I still kinda lump acoustic blues in with other forms of folk music.

Subject: RE: Who coined the phrase 'folk blues'?
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 19 Oct 21 - 10:34 AM

who put the bom in the bom bom bom?

Subject: RE: Who coined the phrase 'folk blues'?
From: GUEST,Joseph Scott
Date: 23 Oct 21 - 11:35 AM

Miles,

Handy used the description "FOLK - BLUES" under the title "Got No Mo' Home Dan A Dog" in the 1926 book (p. 61). So it's possible that Niles learned the expression from Handy.

Subject: RE: Who coined the phrase 'folk blues'?
From: Miles
Date: 23 Oct 21 - 04:00 PM

Thanks a lot, Joseph,

Embarrassed I didn’t think of going back to the scores themselves, especially this one, which I have been through more than once.

So, yes, it is possible that it was the other way around.

I would still tend to believe Niles coined it, though, since, besides its appearing just after they had met, it seems to me that it fits rather well Niles' general tone / specific effort to "formalize / conceptualize" the evolution of the blues, in this book and elsewhere, but I admit this is thin, and mainly intuition.

Subject: RE: Who coined the phrase 'folk blues'?
From: GUEST,Joseph Scott
Date: 24 Oct 21 - 06:12 PM

Of course talking about folk blues was common in print well before 1926, e.g. _Current Opinion_ wrote in 1919 about "... widespread discussion of the origin of the 'blues,' a type of folksong...."

Subject: RE: Who coined the phrase 'folk blues'?
From: Miles
Date: 26 Oct 21 - 05:13 AM

"Talking about folk blues" without quotes, i.e., about “blues songs as being folk songs”: yes, absolutely. I mentioned Odum, who, in 1911, included as folk songs “blues songs” that he had not yet acknowledged as such, but you gave a great list of (pre-mid 20’s) examples in another thread, many of which feature the blues both recognized as a genre, and acknowledged as being of folk origins.

If we stick to mentions where the blues is seen as a genre, and where the word “folk” is used, one that I think may qualify, and that is slightly earlier than your 1919 example, though not as explicit, is a 1918 article by Handy, called “The Origin and Evolution of the Blues,” where he makes an analogy between the way “master musicians” of “classical music” used “folk songs” (and folk-lore, it seems) to “buil[d] their greatest work,” and the way he saw worth in the “primitive melodies of the Southern negro,” which he later calls “plantation melodies,” stating: “These melodies were such successes that I then decided to publish at least a few of them.”

Subject: RE: Who coined the phrase 'folk blues'?
From: GUEST,Joseph Scott
Date: 27 Oct 21 - 09:35 PM

John Lomax wrote in 1912, "Among the reels, 'Alabama Bound,' 'The Blues,' 'Big Jim's Dead an' Gone,' 'Railroad Bill' ... are all genuine negro folk-songs."

Subject: RE: Who coined the phrase 'folk blues'?
From: keberoxu
Date: 27 Oct 21 - 11:00 PM

Can't say who coined the phrase.
Just wanted to note the first thing that popped into my head when I saw the thread title:


a live album, that's to say a recording of a live performance,
the date is in or near 1963, and the album title is
FOLK FESTIVAL OF THE BLUES. Remember that one?

The whole group of star performers from Chess Records in Chicago
is on this album.
Howlin' Wolf singing Sugar Mama,
Muddy Waters singing Got My Mojo Working,
Willie Dixon leading the vocals on Wee Wee Baby,
Sonny Boy Williamson ("2") singing Bring It On Home,
a young Buddy Guy singing Worried Blues.

Reckon the earlier posts on this thread are bang on when
they talk about promotion, marketing, work permits and such.

Subject: RE: Who coined the phrase 'folk blues'?
From: Miles
Date: 28 Oct 21 - 01:52 PM

Joseph,

Trying to make it short on a tricky issue:

I agree that whether or not authors had (yet) acknowledged blues as a genre is irrelevant as to when these authors started saying that some of the songs that we now call blues were folk songs.

“Odum / 1911,” “Will H. Thomas / 1912,” or “J. Lomax / 1912” are therefore major milestones, no matter that none of these authors saw “the songs that we now call blues” as constitutive of a specific subset (of folk songs) at the time.

Yet, I don’t find it worthless in and of itself to know when a mainstream audience (a large part of which would not have been exposed to folk blues prior to the rise of popular blues) would have first heard commentators claim that the very concept or form of “blues songs,” was of folk origins.

Your 1919 examples, in your “Delta” thread, seem very compelling to me, in that they feature both the idea of blues as a genre and the idea—if not always the word—of its folk origins.

“J. W. Johnson 1917,” or “Literary Digest (in fact Walter Kingsley) 1917” seem to me to refer to one folk song (no matter how many variants of it these authors may have encountered at this point).

“J. Lomax 1917” is closer to a very loosely defined idea of a blues genre, be it for the title of the article, associated with the many blues lines/stanzas/songs he quotes (including what he considers a single song with many titles [/variants], one of which is “The Blues”)—along with many non-blues, sometimes not even secular ones, though.

If we don’t require the use of the word “folk,” there may be earlier examples than your 1919 ones, or my less compelling 1918 one, or even “J. Lomax 1917,” that would display both the idea of “the blues as a genre” and the idea of its folk origins.

I tend to think, for instance, that when Handy described what the Tutwiler guitarist played (likely before 1906) as a “typical blues,” in “How I Came to Write the Memphis Blues” (1916), both himself and most readers would have understood it exactly the way we understand “folk blues” today.

I can maybe think of one or two more, around the same time, yet likely not convincing enough to be listed here.

P.S. Since we are mentioning J. Lomax’s encounters with the blues, in case you missed it, I had posted info on your “John Lomax’s credibility” thread

Subject: RE: Who coined the phrase 'folk blues'?
From: Donuel
Date: 29 Oct 21 - 10:14 AM

The first blues lyrics that popped into my head this morning was ...

Through early morning fog I see
Visions of the things to be
And all the things that wait for me
I realize that I can see
That insurrection's painful
It brings on many changes
And I can take or leave it if I please
I try to find a way to make
All our little joys relate
Without that ever-present hate
But now I know that it's too late, and
That insurrection's painful
It brings on many changes
And I can take or leave it if I please
The game of life is hard to play
I'm gonna lose it anyway
The losing card I'll someday lay
So this is all I have to say
That insurrection's painful
It brings on many changes
And I can take or leave it if I please
He said the way to win is cheat
so lay it down before I'm beat
And to another give my seat
For that's the only painless feat
That insurrection's painful
It brings on many changes
And I can take or leave it if I please
The sword of time will pierce our skins
It doesn't hurt when it begins
But as it works its way on in
The pain grows stronger watch it grin, but
The insurrection's painful
It brings on many changes
And I can take or leave it if I please
A brave man once requested me
To answer questions that are key
Is it to be or not to be
And I replied 'Oh, why ask me?'
The insurrection's painful
It brings on many changes
And I can take or leave it if I please
'cause insurrection's painful
It brings on many changes
And I can take or leave it if I please
And you can do the same thing if you please.

Subject: RE: Who coined the phrase 'folk blues'?
From: GUEST,The 88
Date: 29 Oct 21 - 06:05 PM

There are good people on both sides.

Subject: RE: Who coined the phrase 'folk blues'?
From: GUEST,Joseph Scott
Date: 30 Oct 21 - 12:51 PM

Hi Miles,

I think Odum 1911 shows that he was interested in the fact that there were songs very much like "Poor Boy Long Ways From Home" in form and lyrics and songs that weren't much like it, i.e. what we call blues songs and non-blues songs. He just didn't bring up the expression "blues songs," which he may not have heard as of 1911. That expression originated in roughly 1908, which was over a decade after what we call blues songs already existed, but still wasn't well-known in 1911. And he apparently had been spending much of 1908-1911 studying black religious songs.

Regarding what mainstream (read Northern, basically) audiences would have known when, during about 1912 to 1915 they largely would have seen blues as an instrumental form, as it happens, as it had been presented to them on sheet music. Only two known blues with AAB lyrics were published before 1915, despite the fact that AAB apparently became popular with folk blues singers in roughly 1905.

Subject: RE: Who coined the phrase 'folk blues'?
From: Miles
Date: 31 Oct 21 - 04:30 PM

Hi Joseph,

I see what you mean on Odum 1911. I think neither of us would describe his blues songs / stanzas / lines as "neatly organized into a single subgroup waiting for a name," but I agree that he does relate some of the blues stuff he collected to other blues stuff he collected, and sometimes seems to see a pattern. I also agree it is especially true of one group of songs, from song 8 (“Po’ Boy Long Way from Home) to 14 (“Baby, You Sho’ Lookin’ Warm”), where not everything is blues, but where there is a lot of blues material.

On the two published AAB blues before 1915: I suppose we are talking about Le Roy White’s “Negro Blues” (1912), and Handy’s “St. Louis Blues” (1914).

One of my early “unconvincing” examples evoked above is related to White’s “Negro Blues.” In January 1915, the Shreveport Journal (LA) made a comment on a performance by Ruby Darby, a white singer, later to be billed as “The Gal with the Blues,” and whom we know performed at least Handy’s “Memphis Blues,” and later “Joe Turner Blues”—her picture is on the cover of the latter’s score.

The author writes: “Her ‘Blues’ song, after the fashion of the levee darkey . . . took the house as would a tornado.”

The potential objections to it being a relevant example are countless: it is more than possible that “Her ’Blues’ song” here meant “Her song whose title she gives as ‘The Blues’”; the author may have described the performance as much as the song; we don’t know what in the song would have been seen as “after the fashion” of black (presumably) workers heard on levees; and more importantly, it could be argued that as late as January 1915, the “fashion” of levee workers could just as well have originated in popular blues. However, it seems to me that the comment can also be understood as “Her blues song, of the kind traditionally sung by black workers on levees, that is, that have been sung for far more than five years”

In articles of the same period, Darby is mainly reported as performing the “Memphis Blues,” yet, in the above article, she is reported singing:
“My Head Ain’t Made O’ Bone,
My Head Ain’t Made O’ Bone,
I’ve sang a Million verses,
But I ain’t No graphophone.”
The latter AAB stanza is found close to verbatim in White’s “Negro Blues,” which Abbott and Seroff called “a monument to early folk-blues literature.”

Subject: RE: Who coined the phrase 'folk blues'?
From: Miles
Date: 31 Oct 21 - 05:06 PM

Sorry, "caught the house as would a tornado."