THE AFRICAN TRADITION
Ben S. Austin
The second major tributary of the southern musical tradition comes
from the African continent and is the heritage import of the five million
slaves brought to North America against their will to provide the bulk of
the labor in the pre-industrial agrarian south. Contemporary blues, while
not exclusively black music by any means, remains largely black in terms of
its leading performers and, to a lesser extent, its listening audience.
The forerunner of the modern urban blues was, however, almost exclusively
black and was completely southern and rural. It was, and is, a music born
out of the experience of slavery and Jim Crow segregation with their
attendant poverty, alienation and suppression. As a musical genre, this
remarkable and durable expression has an enormous relevance for the
historical development of southern music in general and the southern black
experience in particular.
Modern blues evolved out of the southern "country blues" and became an
urban phenomenon in the same social, economic and demographic processes
which urbanized black Americans during the two or three decades prior to
World War II. Thus, an examination of the black country blues provides a
potentially fruitful vehicle for the study of southern rural culture viz a
viz the black experience. At the very least, it provides a means for
assessing the perceptions of southern culture which were held and
articulated by a sensitive group of observers -- the bluesmen and
blueswomen of the rural south. The extent to which their music was
received, popularized and appreciated by their audience provides a broader
look at the hopes and dreams, fears and failures of a people.
Parenthetically, white country music served the same function for white
southerners and, remarkable, mirrors very similar values, experiences and
social conditions for poor whites who were as trapped as blacks by the
sharecropping system and economic deprivation of the south.
HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENT OF THE BLUES
The blues, both contemporary urban and earlier country blues, occupies
a unique place in the American folk tradition. It is a cultural product
native to the United States, yet produced by a people who have historically
been systematically excluded from the mainstream of American institutional
and cultural life. The process by which it has earned a place in the folk
tradition is, to a large degree, microcosmic of the struggle of blacks to
achieve legitimacy in American society and history.
The southern region, home to the vast majority of black Americans from
1619 to the post World War I era, gave rise to a unique set of
institutional and interactional restrictions and imperatives which resulted
not merely in a bi-racial society, but a dual society or, to use M.G.
Smith's (1957:763-777) terms, a "plural society." Such a society is
maintained by several structural mechanisms which are designed to
accomplish a high degree of enclosure within one's ethnic group, such as
endogamy, residential restrictions, institutional duplication, and highly
restricted relations with the dominant group (cf. Pierre van den Berghe,
1965). The tone of subordination\ domination was clearly set in the
slavery era and was perpetuated by the Jim Crow system after
Reconstruction.
This regional culture produced two structurally distinct, yet very
similar, very intimate and symbiotic subcultures, one white and one black.
The two were kept segregated, not only by law, but also by what Van den
Berghe calls "a highly symbolized system of racial etiquette" which
permitted a high degree of intimacy at the interpersonal level
(1978:30-33). The resulting caste system was highly paternalistic,
maintained clear-cut status differentials and, at the same time, permitted
a high degree of physical proximity, work-sharing, mutual assistance,
neighboring and similar occupational, religious and social values. For all
their differences, a common cultural heritage underlies the two
subcultures. This dual society, in turn, gave rise to two fairly distinct
musical traditions: white country music and black country blues.
In the context of slavery, much of the African tradition was stripped
away. Blacks were not allowed to retain their native languages, religious
practices, family structure or political autonomy. There is some evidence
that musical traits were also suppressed, particularly the use of the drum
which may have created fears on the part of plantation owners that
communication between slaves would lead to insurrection (Oliver, 1970:81).
The making and use of drums did continue, however, in some areas such as
the sea islands of Georgia and South Carolina and in the somewhat more
liberal French climate of New Orleans. Despite an amazingly effective
stripping process (cf. Elkins, 1968), some vestigial characteristics of
African culture did survive the transplantation of blacks to North America.
Several of these "Africanisms" are of importance to the development of the
blues.
Paul Oliver (1970) has suggested that through a very complex selection
process, most of the blacks who found their way to North America came from
the savannah, or grasslands region of West Africa rather than from the
tropical rain forest as was earlier assumed (since Herskovits, 1930). If
he is correct, the focus should be upon the musical structure and tradition
of the savannah region where there was a much heavier reliance upon
stringed instruments and vocal presentation and less reliance upon drums.
In fact, there are few elements of the musical tradition of the rain forest
which could account for some of the distinctive features of the blues.
White country music, as noted in the preceding section, is
distinctively British. In its American folk form it is based on the
rational tempered diatonic scale (two whole steps, a half- step, two whole
steps and a half-step in an eight note scale), and standard four/four,
three/four or six/eight time in a monorythmic pattern. The classical
European tradition employed a "music-as-language" approach to its vocal and
instrumental arrangements. The African tradition, by contrast, was not
bound by these structural limitations. Chappele and Garofalo (1977:243)
observe that African culture was inherently more musical than the European
in that "...the meaning of words depended upon the pitch at which they are
spoken. Thus, any note falling within the vocal range was a legitimate
note in their musical structure. This gives African speech patterns their
own musicality." This concept of "language-as-music" is applicable to
instrumental as well as to vocal arrangements. The instruments developed
in the African tradition, both stringed and percussion, "spoke" and
expressed feeling as well as lexical content. Further, African music made
extensive use of call-and-response and polyrhythms.
In the field hollers, work songs and chants, and the spirituals,
call-and-response was utilized not only as a musical form, but also as a
communicative device. The black church made extensive use of this pattern
in its congregational singing. There is evidence, however, (cf. Oliver,
1970:57-58) that this pattern was also used in the West African work songs
of the Savannah region, often accompanied by musical instrumentation. In
the cotton and tobacco fields of North America, the work song without
musical accompaniment is well documented (Courlander,) and, no doubt, found
its way into the secular music of the black subculture where it became
intricately interwoven into the vocal and instrumental presentation of the
blues. Even though most of the blues is solo rather than group singing,
the pattern was built into the blues tradition through vocal call and
instrumental response, or vice versa. Excellent examples of this pattern
may be found in the work of Mississippi John Hurt's use of the guitar to
complete entire lyrical passages in such songs as "Talking Casey Blues" and
"Candy Man."
Limited to the stringed instruments available in their host society
(with the above noted exception of the bania), black musicians found ways
to violate the diatonic scale by bending the strings of the guitar to
achieve tones which expressed their feelings. These "bent notes" became a
standard feature of the blues. Call and response patterns were intricately
interwoven into the instrumental and vocal arrangements of black music,
both spiritual and secular.
Yet another Africanism which deserves attention is the extensive use
of the "falsetto wail" or "falsetto leap" in which the voice was raised an
octave "generally in the last syllable of a word, at the end of a line"
(Russell, 1970:67). It is generally believed that this trait was preserved
in the field hollers and work songs of the slavery period and found its way
into the early blues form. Some scholars (Russell, 1970:67; Morthland,
1984:57) have suggested that the "blue yodel " popularized by Jimmie
Rodgers and his many imitators may have been an intentional blend of Swiss
yodeling and the African falsetto leap.
Perhaps the most striking deviation from the European tradition was
the introduction of polyrhythms, i.e., two or more rhythms or beats
simultaneously, resulting in the syncopated meter of the blues, and later
jazz. Despite these surviving Africanisms, and with no intention of
demeaning their significance, blacks in America adopted the basic chord
structure of their host society and generally restricted their melody
patterns to the three chord structure of the folk tradition. Within this
structural similarity, however, stylistic innovations such as the use of
flatted thirds and sevenths and the use of minor chords gave the blues a
distinctive sound. Stylistic innovations such as "bottleneck fretting" and
alternating thumb rolls are also in evidence.
The extensive use of the double entendre should also be noted as a
technique which allowed blacks to express themes, both political and sexual
(e.g., John Hurt's "Candy man") which were forbidden in the highly
restrictive social structure of the south. This technique also has roots
in West African culture (Oliver, 1970:63).
Setting aside these fascinating and delightful Africanisms, most of
the black blues could be, and often was, performed by white country
musicians using three chord progressions with which they were familiar.
Conversely, much of the white folk tradition was performed by black
bluesmen who subjected it to their stylistic innovations. Oliver
collected an album of blues music entitled "The Story of the Blues." In
the album notes he says:
No one knows when, or where, the blues began, nor even how it
came into being. Some people have suggested a history that goes far back
into slavery, but though there was undoubtedly a rich variety of musical
forms sung and played by the Negroes of the plantations before the
Civil War, it seems that these influenced the blues, which probably
emerged at the close of the nineteenth century. Its elements are not,
as many would like to believe, primarily African, but some elements which
can be linked with certain kinds of African music may be traced to it.
The field research which Oliver conducted in West Africa through
the University of Ghana in 1964 confirms his contention. He warns,
however, against taking these traits too far:
There are similarities in the sliding notes, the combination of
wit and melancholy, and the improvisational verse within a traditional
framework which seems to link these songs with the blues. Yet there
are many differences and these arise, in part, from the influence of
the European song tradition which the Negroes on the plantations
learned.
Similarly, LeRoi Jones (1963:17) states that the blues "is a native
American product of the black man in this country; or to put it more
exactly...the blues could not exist if the African captives had not become
American captives."
The black country blues displays such a diversity of form and style
resulting from several regions of North America in which it developed that
an exact classification is difficult. However, as Charles Kiel (1966:
217-218) notes, three fairly distinct types may be identified. The most
influential form, and easily the most recognizable, comes out of the
Mississippi delta region and is known as the "delta blues," characterized
by and alternating thumb roll and bottle-neck fretting style of guitar
work. The delta strain makes extensive use of call-and-response,
especially in the interplay between the vocal and the instrumental. The
Texas blues, exemplified by Aaron "T-Bone" Walker in the 1930s, places
somewhat heavier emphasis on vocals and, instrumentally, is characterized
by intricate single string guitar work. The style of Sam "Lightning"
Hopkins and contemporary blues great, B.B. King is illustrative of this
strain. Though blacks were not as numerous or as concentrated in the
highland areas of the south, a third strain, known as the "hill country
blues" did develop in the hills of Tennessee, north Georgia and Alabama,
the Carolinas and Virginia. This strain is, understandable, more
compatible with the Scotch-Irish, or European tradition. Beyond an
analytical distinction between these three strains, however, their styles
give way to significant similarities and it is sometimes difficult to tell
where one style stops and another begins. Perhaps, as Harold Courlander
observes (1966:145), the blues is not so much a musical form in which one
would expect to find stylistic uniformities, but rather "a verbalization of
deeply felt personal expression." The blues as a means of expressing life
experiences suggests that it is the "blues" in life that gave birth to the
blues in music (Murray, 1976:1-8). To be blue is to sing the blues and,
according to black theologian, James Cone (1972:115-119), it is the black
experience of being black in a white racist society which has provided the
essence of the blues not only in its creation and performance, but also to
its audience who share in the collective experience. Cone says, "It is that
peculiar feeling that makes you know that there is something seriously
wrong with society....No black person can escape the blues....To be black
is to be blue." Or in the words of the old blues song,
If the blues was whiskey,
I'd stay drunk all the time
THEMES IN THE COUNTRY BLUES
The foregoing discussion raises again the question: To what extent
does the expression of popular culture mirror the historical and cultural
realities which produced it? An examination of some of the most important
themes in the country blues may enhance our understanding of this
relationship.
Before addressing the black blues specifically, we return to an
earlier point where it was suggested that the black blues served the same
function for blacks in the south that white "hillbilly" music served for
poor whites. Many of the themes found in the black music of the rural
south are similar, if not identical, to those found in white country music
during the same period. Poor whites and blacks alike were trapped,
literally and figuratively, by the cruel and highly exploitative
tenant-farming system of the post-Civil War era. Poverty, unemployment,
isolation, immobility and personal as well as family disorganization were
their common lot. The messages contained within the songs of the two
musical traditions grew out of the same, or very similar, social and
economic conditions and would have been relevant and understandable to both
audiences.
However, given their subordinate status and inferior economic position
in southern social structure, these conditions were particularly burdensome
for the blacks of the south. The country blues assume a tremendous
sociological importance when we examine those themes which are related to
conditions unique to the black experience (Linneman, 1985:185-186).
In the early 1900s, blues great "Big Bill" Broonzy recorded a song
entitles "I wonder When I'll Be Called A Man." The "highly personalized
verbalization" of his own frustrations must have struck a responsive chord
among black males:
"A black man's a boy, I don't care what he can do"
Broonzy served in the army and was overseas during World War I. He sings:
"When I got into the army, I knew I'd be the real McCoy,
But when I got over there, they just called me soldier boy"
When he returned after the war there was no hero's welcome home;
rather, he faced the prospect of trying to find a job. The
"bossman simply says to him, "
Boy, get you some overalls."
The song ends with the question:
"Wonder when I'll get to be called a man,
Will I have to wait until I get to be ninety three?"
Many blues songs express the futility which blacks must have felt in
the agrarian south. Geographical and economic mobility require both the
right and the means to reveal. During slavery it was the black man's right
to travel which was restricted; after emancipation, while the right to
travel certainly increased, the means to travel were virtually
non-existent. Additionally, the tenant-farming, or share-cropping, system
kept the tenant in debt to the landowner with no way of ever getting out of
debt. An interesting parallel is found in white country music in Tennessee
Ernie Ford's "Sixteen Tons": "So Brother don't you call me cause I can't
go\ I owe my soul to the company store"). The freedom to travel was, for
many blacks, little more than a fantasy; automobiles were far too
expensive, so were bus and train fares. In fact, many blacks in the south
were required to sign labor contracts which legally prohibited travel.
The country blues are this period are replete with references to the
automobile ("T-Model Blues," "Automobile Blues," "No Money Down," "Brand
New Car," "Big Black Cadillac Blues) and more frequently to the train as
symbols of freedom and mobility.
An old blues song, "Midnight Special," from the turn of the century
was popularized in the 1960s by white folk singer, Johnny Horton. The song
had been recorded much earlier by Huddy Ledbetter ("Leadbelly"), Josh White
and by Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee. Terry and McGhee also recorded the
folk favorite, "Freight Train." Willie McTell's "Traveling Blues" must
have provided a tremendous vicarious experience for blacks who were bound
to the land during the reign of Jim Crow.
While natural disasters such as storms, floods and earthquakes have
always been prominent in the British ballad tradition, they take on an
added significance in the blues. With blacks living at the survival level
on the edges of starvation and despair under the best of circumstances, a
flood or storm that destroyed homes and crops would be particularly
devastating. John Lee Hooker's famous "Tupelo" chronicles the 1927
Mississippi River flood which left thousands of blacks homeless. John Hurt
and Bessie Smith both recorded "Mississippi Headwater Blues" which tells of
the same flood as does Brownie McGhee and Sonny Terry's "Backwater Blues."
During the urban folk revival of the 1930s, white folk artists such as
Woody Guthrie and Peter Seegar teamed up with black artists such as Josh
White to chronicle and protest the plight of the worker during the
depression years. Josh White's "Free and Equal Blues" proclaims: "A
molecule's a molecule and the damn thing's got no race." In his "Silicosis
Blues," White calls attention to the problems of silicosis, black lung and
other respiratory afflictions suffered by miners.
Grier and Cobbs, in their marvelous book, Black Rage, devote an entire
chapter to the issue of beauty standards in the United States. Even in
slavery days, lighter-skinned blacks (quadroons and octoroons) were
accorded higher status, assumed to be more intelligent and, especially the
women, were considered to be more beautiful than their darker skinned
brothers and sisters. Little had changed by the 1960s. The Miss America
pageants had consistently depicted the "ideal American woman" as white with
long blonde hair. Even recently when winners and runners-up have been
black, they have been light-skinned and have had long straight hair. Grier
and Cobbs comment extensively upon the wide range of products such as skin
lighteners, hair straighteners, curling irons, hair presses, pomades, etc.,
which were marketed to blacks, both male and female, to help them
approximate white standards of beauty. In this regard, songs concerning
the appropriate length of a black woman's hair find their way into the
blues tradition. Texas bluesman, Sam "Lightning" Hopkins, recorded
"Short-Haired Woman" in which he sings, "I don't want no woman whose hair
ain't no longer than mine." Such a song would have had no relevance to
white audiences, but it was of considerable relevance to black audiences.
Beyond such unusual themes, the blues tell a story of poverty,
unemployment, second class citizenship, unstable, even violent,
interpersonal relationships and drug and alcohol problems. While these
themes are by no means the exclusive domain of black music, they are
exacerbated by the realities of racism and segregation in the rural south.
The blues as a musical form has a long and impressive history much of
which must be traces to the southern United States. It is a musical form
which is rich in imagery, as original as any folk tradition could be, and
immensely relevant to the black experience in America, particularly in the
southern region. Despite the urbanization of America and the consequent
urbanization of the blues, the music remains a robust and viable art form
today.
Often overlooked, however, is the interplay between white and black
music in the pre-industrial rural south and the dynamic cross-fertilization
of the African and British traditions. The black country blues and white
country music spring from a common source, have a similar historical
development, display similar structural and thematic content and have,
since the 1960s, begun to recognize and celebrate these commonalities.
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SOURCES
Chapple, Steve and Reebee Garofalo. Rock and Roll is Here to Pay.
Chicago: Nelson Hall, 1977.
Elkins, Stanley. Slavery: A Problem in American Institutional and
Intellectual Life, 2nd ed. Chicago: U. of Chicago Press, 1968.
Morthland, John. The Best of Country Music. Garden City: Doubleday, 1984.
Oliver, Paul. Savannah Syncopators: African Retentions in the Blues.
London: November Books, Limited, 1970.
Smith, M.G. "Social and Cultural Pluralism," in Annals of the New York
Academy of Sciences 83 (January, 1957):763-777.
Van den Berghe, Pierre. Race and Racism: A Comparative Perspective, 2nd ed.
New York: Wiley, 1978.