Review: The Blues by Martin Scorsese (BBC2)

Subject: Review: The Blues by Martin Scorsese (BBC2)
From: GUEST,Penguin Egg
Date: 30 Sep 05 - 08:47 PM

I have just finished watching the Scorsese blues programme, which, in many ways, I loved. It is so wonderful listening to the music of Son House, Robert Johnson, Muddy Waters and Charlie Patton and then to listen to people who use to know them. No complaints there.

Then the film went to Africa to show the African connection to the blues. Trouble is: The African music I heard sounded nothing like the blues. It was very lovely in some parts - but the blues? No way. If anything, some of it sounded more Spanish. It got me thinking. It is assumed that American black music is derived, not unnaturally, from Africa. But how and to what extent. When the blues appeared in the 20s and 30s, how much of it is African, how much of it is an innovation of black americans, and did they take influences from other musics? It should be remembered that there is a big gap (over a 100 years) between the ending of the slave trade (as against slavery) and the 1920s and 30s. What musical development happened in that period? Can we ever know, I wonder.

Subject: RE: Review: The Blues by Martin Scorsese (BBC2)
From: Effsee
Date: 30 Sep 05 - 09:06 PM

In a way ALL human music come out of Africa, in the same way all "humans" come out of Africa.

Subject: RE: Review: The Blues by Martin Scorsese (BBC2)
From: GUEST,Penguin Egg
Date: 30 Sep 05 - 09:14 PM

Mmmm...doesn't really answer my question.

Subject: RE: Review: The Blues by Martin Scorsese (BBC2)
From: GUEST
Date: 30 Sep 05 - 10:20 PM

I would argue that the origin of the blues goes further back than the 1920's. Scorcese's documentary probably chose that period as a reference point, not meaning to imply that before the 20's there was nothing resembling the blues. If so, then he's hawking the equivalent of a Creationist explanation.

My own musical knowledge of the origins of the blues only goes back as far as the 'field hollers' of the slaves that people like Leadbelly so faithfully recreated. To me there are blues elements in those hollers. That and the Negro church hymnals of the pre-civil war period, in which the structure of repeating the first line of a verse twice I've heard explained as the congregation, most of whom were illiterate, repeating back the line that was sung to them by the songleader:

I got a woman, she sure don't treat me right,
I got a woman, she sure don't treat me right,
Stay out drinkin' and don't come home till daylight.

(Of course, that wasn't what they were singing in church, but the example was offered only as an illustration)...whomever it was doing the research here on church hymnals, I wonder if s/he came across any evidence to substantiate this?

And in keeping with an evolutionary explanation, the origins probably go back further than that, and with the passage of time and mutations across generations, the blues has evolved into what we hear today.

Subject: RE: Review: The Blues by Martin Scorsese (BBC2)
From: Desert Dancer
Date: 01 Oct 05 - 12:04 PM

It should be remembered that there is a big gap (over a 100 years) between the ending of the slave trade (as against slavery) and the 1920s and 30s.

Although officially the importation of African slaves was made illegal in 1808, it carried on as late as 1840 (see this timeline). The 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was ratified in December 1865. The parents and grandparents of African Americans making music the 1920's had (in many cases) been slaves. Consider how close the reality of World War II and the Holocaust are to our lives today. That's how close the Civil War and slavery were to the '20s. And, that's ignoring the next 50+ years of tribulation which did not end with the end of legal slavery and enforced the retention of a distinct culture.

I'm pretty much an ignoramus about the blues, but it really has struck me recently how close the experience of slavery -- and by extension, African roots as held in an enforced subculture -- was to people in the early 20th century.

This is not to contradict your point that the blues shouldn't be seen as lifted intact from Africa, just to bring it a little closer.

~ Becky in Tucson

Subject: RE: Review: The Blues by Martin Scorsese (BBC2)
From: GUEST
Date: 01 Oct 05 - 02:09 PM

Scorsese doesn't know jack shit about the blues, any more than Ken Burns does about jazz.

But then, you didn't expect PBS to trust their monies to (gulp) colored folks to tell the story of the blues, now did you?

If you want to know about field hollers, try listening to the hymn singing from the Hebrides.

Subject: RE: Review: The Blues by Martin Scorsese (BBC2)
From: GUEST
Date: 01 Oct 05 - 02:17 PM

Try a few of these resources instead:

The Long Road to Freedom: An Anthology of Black Music

Every Tone a Testimony: A Smithsonian Folkways African American Aural History

But especially this:

Wade in the Water: African American Sacred Music Traditions (a boxed CD set)

Subject: RE: Review: The Blues by Martin Scorsese (BBC2)
From: GUEST
Date: 01 Oct 05 - 02:24 PM

Sorry, I forgot to add the brand spanking new:

The Sounds of Slavery: Discovering African American History through Songs, Sermons and Speech

Subject: RE: Review: The Blues by Martin Scorsese (BBC2)
From: GUEST
Date: 01 Oct 05 - 03:33 PM

thanks for the thorough listing of sources .

Subject: RE: Review: The Blues by Martin Scorsese (BBC2)
From: fat B****rd
Date: 01 Oct 05 - 03:38 PM

I have a paperback of "The Roots Of The Blues - An African Search" by Samuel Charters. It's from 1981 but may still be usuful. fB.

Subject: RE: Review: The Blues by Martin Scorsese (BBC2)
From: GUEST
Date: 01 Oct 05 - 04:15 PM

Well thanks Guest, or should that be guests, and to you Desert Dancer. To be quite frank, I am not doubting that the blues is African in origin. However, whenever I hear African music, it doesn't strike a resonant chord with me - it just sounds like African music. I love American black music until house music fucked it up and I would love for someone to show me its African roots and how the music developed from there.

I would like answer Guest's criticism about PBS not allowing a black person to talk about his own music and instead leaving it to a white person. It is,afterall, a valid point. However, the fact is that the vast majority of blues lovers are white and this is odd when you think that the blues is the blackest of music. I remember when I went to see Muddy Waters at the New Victoria Theatre in London in the late 70s. It was packed out with people, but with white people. There was not a sngle black person in the audience. I think a lot of black people became alienated from the music in the 60s when, in truth, it became associated with white people, and these blues artists began to look, well, a little Tom. Grossly unfair, I know, but I believe that is how they saw them. It also seems probable that rather than PBS employing Scorsese to front this programme, this is Scorsese's own project - and all in all, despite my criticisms, I think he deserves credit for it.

Subject: RE: Review: The Blues by Martin Scorsese (BBC2)
From: GUEST,Penguin Egg
Date: 01 Oct 05 - 04:16 PM

The last posting was by me. I rather stupidly forgot to put my name. Doah!

Subject: RE: Review: The Blues by Martin Scorsese (BBC2)
From: GUEST,Hootenanny
Date: 01 Oct 05 - 05:45 PM

If you think that this programme was a little wide of he mark, wait until you see the Mike Figgis one about the British blues scene featuring those well known blues singers Lulu and Tom Jones and if my memory serves me right (sorry couldn't watch it more than once) a certain Van something or the other who I personally found to be a bit of a joke.

Incidentally if you want to know about a black American researcher's experience with the blues Robert Gordon has just had a new book published which gives details from the research notes of the guys that were on one of the same trips as Alan Lomax down in Mississippi. Haven't got hold of a copy yet myself but it would appear to be a very interesting read. Sorry but I don't have the details to hand of title etc but it is new and shouldn't be hard to find

Hoot

Subject: RE: Review: The Blues by Martin Scorsese (BBC2)
From: Desert Dancer
Date: 01 Oct 05 - 05:55 PM

Guest 2:09, about the Hebrides connection, that horse got beat very hard here (or was it all around the bush) in this thread.

~ Becky in Tucson

Subject: RE: Review: The Blues by Martin Scorsese (BBC2)
From: GUEST
Date: 01 Oct 05 - 11:22 PM

Which thread demonstrates peoples' vast ignorance of the subject. Gospel was a hybrid, like all forms of African American music was in that era.

I found out about the Hebrides connection myself, listening to the excellent Wade in the Water series I mention above. That series was done by Bernice Johnson Reagon of Sweet Honey in the Rock, who holds a PhD in African American history, and was working with the Smithsonian at the time the programs were first aired. They devoted an entire program to the Hebrides hymn singing and it's influence upon slave music in the US.

I'll take her word for it over the Mudcat motley crew, thanks.

Subject: RE: Review: The Blues by Martin Scorsese (BBC2)
From: GUEST
Date: 01 Oct 05 - 11:25 PM

And BTW, I found the article which started out the thread you linked to, to be pretty racist in it's presumptions.

Gospel doesn't have European origins. It has American origins. It is a hybrid of African and European music traditions, blending and becoming something uniquely American.

Subject: RE: Review: The Blues by Martin Scores Easy (BBC2)
From: Severn
Date: 02 Oct 05 - 12:46 PM

Years ago (1970) in the UK, Columbia records issued an LP called "Savannah Syncopators-African Retentions In The Blues" (CBS 57299) as a companion piece to Paul Oliver's book by the same name (which I haven't read), published in the Blues Paperback Series, by November Books Ltd., published by Studio Vista Ltd. I found a used copy of the recording here in the USA, (where it was never issued). It contains side by side illustrations of American blues and types of African music each selection grew out of, 16 cuts in all, as compiled and produced by Oliver.

Find, read, listen and share his draw your own conclusions. Don't know whether the album or book are still in print, but I gave you what was on the LP jacket. Happy hunting!

Subject: RE: Review: The Blues by Martin Scorsese (BBC2)
From: Stewie
Date: 02 Oct 05 - 11:01 PM

Severn, Oliver's 'Savannah Syncopators' has been reissued with 2 other Studio Vista books in a single volume: 'Yonder Come the Blues' Cambridge Uni Press. The other 2 are Tony Russell's wonderful 'Blacks, Whites and Blues' and Dixon and Godrich's 'Recording the Blues'.

--Stewie.

Subject: RE: Review: The Blues by Martin Scorsese (BBC2)
From: s6k
Date: 03 Oct 05 - 10:03 AM

i saw these when they were on BBC4, and then bought the DVD Box Set

im glad theyre now on BBC2 as more people will know be able to watch them and know about them, they're all brilliant programmes, my favourite is the first one, Salif Keita's performance of Ana Na Ming was just amazing, as were Corey Harris and Keb Mo's Sweet Home Chicago, not to mention Corey Harris' version of Dark was the night, cold was the ground.

be sure to see them all, they are a brilliant collection of episodes.

PS, for the guest who said -
"Scorsese doesn't know jack shit about the blues"

Scorsese has been, apart from a brilliant film director, a huge fan of blues music since he was in nappies i presume. He has an extensive blues collection including many extremely rare recordings and such. He does know his stuff, and I will bet he knows a hell of a lot more than you do who can only post idiotic statements of things you know nothing about onto an internet message board

Subject: RE: Review: The Blues by Martin Scorsese (BBC2)
From: rich-joy
Date: 03 Oct 05 - 06:04 PM

I was sure disappointed that RORY BLOCK got left out in the Martin Scorsese series - I would've thought her lifetime dedication to this music (well, since age 14 at least) and it's originators, deserved a mention at least in passing ...


Cheers! R-J (down under)

Subject: RE: Review: The Blues by Martin Scorsese (BBC2)
From: rich-joy
Date: 03 Oct 05 - 11:35 PM

re my Rory Block posting above :

http://www.roryblock.com/ - for anyone who hasn't heard of her, checkout her website.

I've been a firm fan since Stewie, in Darwin, introduced me to her music in the middle 80s ...


Cheers! R-J

Subject: RE: Review: The Blues by Martin Scorsese (BBC2)
From: Le Scaramouche
Date: 04 Oct 05 - 03:48 AM

"From: GUEST
Date: 01 Oct 05 - 11:25 PM

And BTW, I found the article which started out the thread you linked to, to be pretty racist in it's presumptions.

Gospel doesn't have European origins. It has American origins. It is a hybrid of African and European music traditions, blending and becoming something uniquely American."

Guest, you have contradicted yourself. First you state that gospel doesn't have European origins, but American. Then you say it's a hybrid of African and European music. So how can that be if it doesn't have European origins?