The BLUES, part 1 of 2

The BLUES

I. Music with Suspicion - The Blues
A. Good singing, good song
B. Blues inspiration
C. The Flood
II. Companion story, "The Legend of Robert Johnson"

I. Music with Suspicion - The Blues

A. "Good Singing, Good Song"
When I grew up, there were some very clear opinions expressed about what a good song was (especially from older brothers even moreso than Kathi). A good song had a nice, upbeat, decent melody. A good song had a good singer with a good voice (like Karen Carpenter or Paul McCartney). A good song absolutely did NOT have screaming in it or riff-drenched, wailing guitars.
So are the underlined principles in the above paragraph true? That’s difficult to say because no 2 musical tastes are alike. Each is unique. Even with 2 people with similar taste, you will find one who likes a certain song better than another. That makes judging music somewhat relative and not so absolute.
However, the underlined principles in the 1st paragraph are supported by popular demand. After all, it was the Beatles and not Sonic Youth (Seattle band of the 90s) who make (yes, that’s present tense "make" because Beatles CDs are bought every day some place on planet Earth) tens of millions of dollars and were better known. People of Chicago can crow all they want about Smashing Pumpkins (a very good group that originated in Chicago and Joliet) but did they sell as well as the Rolling Stones? For every 1 person who loves the anger-laced, distorted guitar- driven song by the Pumpkins called "Bodies" (& that includes me), you will undoubtedly find 50 people who will like "Yesterday" by the Beatles. "Yesterday" is also a sad song, but a far more palatable and popular song than "Bodies".
While my political views changed away from most of my family in 1982, my musical tastes were very similar to my family’s before 1988. In the summer of 1988, I fell in love with Led Zeppelin thanks to a great roommate from Minnesota named Mike.
It is indisputable that the roots of Led Zeppelin are from the Blues. While this rock band was classified as Heavy Metal, heavy metal has been defined as "Blues on steroids". Like Jimi Hendrix, Led Zeppelin were inspired by the Blues.
The Blues is about emotion. If someone screams during a song, it’s to reflect anguish, pain. The sad singer’s point comes across as clear as sterile water. Sometimes the Blues is a music of emotion, rather than a music filled with artful tunefulness. Like a good movie that mirrors the reality rather than the "Leave It to Beaver" sugarcoating, the Blues offers you an unvarnished look at life. & life can be difficult.
B. "Blues Inspiration"
The inspiration of the Blues is pretty clear. Certain themes are very recurrent in Blues, and they are
a. man upset that his "woman (or as they sing "wimins") is cheatin’ on him or vice versa man cheating on woman, and the anguish that results.
b. being "messed around" and "double dealed" at work
c. being poor
d. Floods
e. Drinking
f. Getting no justice in Court
g. death
Of course, there’s Blues songs with other themes but that covers about 65% of the Blues. That’s not a criticism!! The Blues is amazing, beginning with the 1st song composed beginning in 1903, all the way to musicians in the present who take a mere handful of themes to make so many awesome songs! So much hurt, pain, and, in general, downtrodden conditions, and therein springs beautiful, empathetic and sometimes even inspirational music vanquishing all the negativity!
Here’s a great example. Before 1975, Robert Plant, singer/songwriter heard and bought the Blues song "Jesus, Make Up My Dying Bed"; that song is old, written 1929-30, composed by "Blind Willie" Johnson. It must have been an artful song, because Robert Plant and the other members of the band reworked the song and came up with "In My Time of Dying" which was released in 1975 from the album Physical Graffiti.
"In My Time of Dying" is nothing short of a Christian song sung with a tragic beauty behind compelling guitars and drumming. It’s a song inspired possibly a 27 year old suddenly confronted with his own death and then making excuses. Now, when you read the lyrics and you are older than say, 32, you must cast off your viewpoint, because 50 year olds, 40 yr. olds and even many 30 yr. olds, thinks far differently than a 27 year old, especially about death. If we don’t understand nor empathize, we find an immature, superficial song. After all, he prays to Jesus, "You can deliver me Lord; I only wanted to have some fun!" But, we all have seen 20somethings confronted with a bad situation. After all, we lived in our 20s and had bad things happen to us during those times. With sons, daughters, nephews and nieces that we personally know, it really shouldn’t be that hard to imagine the desperation, even the minimizing of his guilt in the lyrics found in the Coda section .
Just one awesome song, and there’s so many more songs that pull one away from his problems, hurt and gives perspective. Yet, the Blues isn’t for everyone. It depicts the rough, raw, painful lives lead. See the companion story "The Legend of Robert Johnson" for how one man lived and died by the Blues in the next post before Jan. 12.
C. THE FLOOD
During the Jim Crow era, during 1927, when farmers in the US were already suffering horribly financially well before the Great Depression. The Great Flood of Mississippi savagely struck farmers, townspeople, Blacks and Whites in this tough, hardscrabble reagion. 13,000 people were forced to evacuate and over 1,000 died. Led Zeppelin and in particular, Robert Plant heard the song "When the Levee Breaks". Reworking the song, the band put it on Led Zeppelin IV, Back in 1927, when God decided to make Mississippi flood, it was like the song sadly sang, "Cryin won’t help ya, prayin’ won’t do you no good".
It’s common knowledge that the Mississippi River makes much of the farmland in the state of Mississippi low, flat and prone to flooding. It’s equally valid that sharecropping Blacks bought or tilled land most prone to flooding while their richer White farming counterpart owned better land, less prone to flooding. The Mississippi Flood of 1927 was inspiration to the Blues song "When the Levee Breaks" by the married couple Memphis Minnie and Kansas City McCoy. During the Great Depression, crop insurance was certainly not as commonplace for either White or Black farmers. Many, many farmers were hit by the Depression far sooner than the 1929 Stock Market Crash. Farmers succeeded with burgeoning prices during World War One; yet, those same crop prices crashed brutally in the beginning of the 1920s. The lyrics ache with the desperation of that relentless rain. The lyrics touch on the mass exodus that millions of Blacks (living in the nasty South) moving to the North during the Jim Crow era, moving mostly to Chicago, as well as Northern cities like Springfield, Milwaukee, Madison, Minneapolis and of course, Detroit.
"Going to Chicago, going to Chicago/Sorry, but I can’t take you!" - lyrics from "When the Levee Breaks"
Fathers and mothers (mostly mothers) had to make the agonizing choice of which one of the 5 or so children to bring up North and which one to leave with "Uncle Bob". "When the Levee Breaks" touches briefly on a person being left back in Mississippi to sort out the destruction and carnage left by the massive flood (and thereafter, hopefully finding solace in the many Baptist churches come Sunday). Clearly, there were big families in the South as there were in the North. Just as clearly, with so little money, some Black families couldn’t move North all at once. It happened, and it happened often!
Later in the aftermath, Blacks suffered insult to injury as they were forced at gunpoint to rebuild the levees ruined during the Great Flood of 1927. That’s just one of many cruelties inflicted on that race in the South during the Jim Crow era.
I advise any reader interested in the lyrics cited herein just Google the lyrics of "In My Time of Dying" and "When the Levee Breaks". Good lyrics, compelling lyrics and even better to listen to.