In Search of the Blues

Nicely written and informative look at the various forms of the century old blues/folk "revival" though marred by excessive harping on her premise. Musicologists, often self-taught, from 50-100 years ago were not aware of or bound to contemporary anthropological standards, and youthful blues guitar enthusiasts were even less likely to pursue their passion with clear-eyed objectivity. That same passion was at the heart of the blues/folk/rock revival and was responsible for American and British kids producing a ton of memorable music from the 50s through the 70s. Of course, it's easy now to look back and see that Robert Johnson might not have met the devil south of Clarksdale, the Lomaxes might not have been liberal saints, and so-called primitive bluesmen might also have known the radio hits of Bing Crosby. The question is, what's more powerful, de-mystification or the mythology that precedes it?

In her book, "Inventing the Blues" (2008), Marybeth Hamilton advances the provocative claim that the blues, more specifially tbe Delta Blues, is a form of music created in large part by the imaginations of white men. I do not find her argument compelling, to say the least. Nevertheless, I found this book worth reading for the story it tells about how various individuals pioneered in the study of the blues beginning early in the 20th Century to the revival of interest in blues music in the 1960s. Although her book is unconvincing and even infuriating in some respects, it is valuable for those readers with an interest in the blues. Hamilton, born in California, teaches American history at Birkbeck College, University of London, and has written other books on aspects of American popular culture. Early in her book, (p.22) Hamilton says she is not going to cover the development of the Delta Blues as a musical style by analyzing the songs of Charlie Patton, Son House, Robert Johnson and other bluesmen. She points to Robert Palmer's study "Deep Blues" as among the works that have explored the music. Instead, Hamilton proposed to show how her central characters, all of whom are white, "set out to find an undiluted and primal black music." Hamilton then asks what it was that drove these indivduals to think that an "undiluted and primal black" music existed and why it was important to these individuals to find it. The way Hamilton frames her question largely presupposes her result. The works of Palmer and other writers such as Ted Gioia in his excellent recent study "Delta Blues" examine the blues by looking at the blues, bluesmen and blueswomen. Hamilton will have little of this and begins with the assumption that the blues was somehow a conceptual creation of whites. Hamilton finds the need for this conceptualization in the racial attitudes and segregation prevailing in the United States up through at least the 1950's. Late in the book, Hamilton introduces another theme. She finds the Delta blues largely a sexist creation by men who were uncomfortable with their masculinity and worried about evolving ideas of gender and egalitarianism. (see pp 240-243). Each of the five major characters Hamilton discusses is well described. Hamilton offers good insight into how the blues were found, in spite of her hyperbolic claim that the blues were invented. She describes the work of the early sociologist, Howard Odum who early in has career travelled in the byways of lumber camps and out of the way fields in the rural South to hear and record on primitive equipment the frequently obscene hollers and calls of laborers and field hands. Hamilton spends a great deal of time on pioneering work of John Lomax, who discovered Leadbelly in a Louisiana prison. She explores John Lomax's racial attitudes and offers a personal portrayal of him through love letters he wrote to a woman named Ruby Terrill. Lomax's son Alan also figures largely in the story as he tried to move

This book is not a history of blues music. It does not include detailed biographical sketches of prominent blues musicians. Rather, it is a historical study of a series of white foklorists and record collectors who sought to interpret and/or promote African-American "folk" music from about 1900 through the early 1960s. Thus, you will find biographical sketches of Howard Odum, Dorothy Scarborough, John Lomax, Alan Lomax, Frederic Ramsey and James McKune. Each of these individuals had a different take on the music and its meaning. Some had backward racial views and others had political agendas. To varying degrees they were influential in shaping how we view the music today. As a long-time fan (and yes, record collector) of blues and jazz music from the 1920s through the 1960s, I found this book to be fascinating. It adds another dimension to the history of African-American "folk" music (rather broadly defined to include artists like Jelly Roll Morton) - not so much the history of the music itself, but the way it has been defined and packaged by white "experts" and connoisseurs. Well written, well documented and highly recommended.

I've actually read this book. It's a good, thorough, entertaining, and well-written account of the where blues came from and where it fits into the history of music. I found myself at the end before I realized it. There are copious end notes (a good thing), so the text itself comprises only 2/3 of the size. There is no hidden agenda or historical revisionism; you'll find no identity politics or apologists for racism here. Modern blues legends aren't mentioned because this covers the advent of the blues and how those in the midst of its birth wrote about it. Therefore, it does not include any of the many artists of the 60s and onward who were influenced by the original blues artists. Of great interest to me personally was the brief history of recorded music in general, and the views of various strata of society at the time. This book deserves to become part of the cannon for classes on music history.