Week of August 20, 2009, Issue #722
COVER
Edmonton's Labatt Blues Festival
Rollin' and tumblin' : Tracking the blues from the past to today
Mike Angus / mikeangus@vueweekly.com
When this year's Edmonton Labatt's Blues Festival kicks off, organizers Carrol Deen and Cam Hayden will breathe a deep sigh of satisfaction. Celebrating its 11th birthday, the two long-time champions of Edmonton's blues scene have much to be proud of: last year their festival was awarded the Keeping the Blues Alive Award from the Blues Foundation in Memphis. As the self-described "mouthpiece" of the festival, Hayden proudly explains the award's significance.
"We're the only Canadian festival ever to get this award, and it recognizes excellence in outstanding contribution to blues music. What we've tried to create is a genuine blues experience. You look at [Canada's] largest so-called 'blues festival' in [Ottawa] and their headliners are Kiss and [hip-hop artist] Ludacris. Excuse me, but I don't think those are blues acts, exactly. Don't get me wrong, it's a great music festival, but it's not really a blues festival."
For blues artists and fans alike, this claim to "genuine blues" is a badge of honour, and this year's festival boasts legitimacy in spades: John Hammond and Magic Slim are living legends who've shared the stage with Delta greats, while up-and-coming acts like Moreland & Arbuckle and Juke Joint Duo benefit from their adherence to tradition, as well as pedigree (Juke Joint Duo's drummer Cedric Burnside is grandson of Mississippi blues legend R.L. Burnside).
If this emphasis on authenticity seems like a prerequisite for today's blues artists, it's partly due to the blues' far-reaching influence on American music dating back to the early 20th century. As Ted Gioia helps demonstrate in his exhaustive book, Delta Blues, jazz, rock 'n' roll, heavy metal and hip hop all have their origins in blues music.
"By the time you get to the mid 1960s," he expands in an email correspondence, "the line between electric blues and rock [for example] was a thin one, and sometimes disappeared entirely."
While blues music was evolving and influencing other music styles in the 1950s, it was also reflecting emerging sensibilities in post-Second World War American society, giving voice to the changing social, economic and technological realities: African-Americans were moving from Deep South backwaters, bringing musical traditions with them; the civil rights movement was uniting whites and blacks on the ground, be it Chicago or Newport; meanwhile, the electrification of the blues, combined with the explosion of radio and recording, meant that white teenagers across America, and later England, had unprecedented access to this electrifying new genre. Once Elvis went on television, "race" music would never be the same. American society found itself down at the crossroads, on the brink of a revolution. And as Gioia and other historians have pointed out, blues music would be the soundtrack.
At the onset of the Second World War, millions of African-Americans left the rural South for more prosperous factory jobs in the crowded cities north of the Mason Dixon Line. Magic Slim, who will be performing at this year's Blues Festival, was living in Mississippi in the 1950s, and explains his decision to leave the Delta.
"I was working on a farm, I was a sharecropper," he says over the phone. "I got tired of going to field farming, and I went to Chicago to get me a job. There was a lot of blues joints to play."
From Memphis to Chicago, Detroit to New York, urban demographics and economics were being re-shaped by this migration. Inevitably, traditional "race" music that blacks brought with them was confronted by the tougher, louder, more abrasive realities of day-to-day city life. The pastoral field-hollers gave way to the boisterous shouts of inner-city clubs; ex-Delta guitar players were eager to embrace new technologies in guitar amplification.
What was emerging was a powerful new style of blues that spoke to the frenetic, unfamiliar rawness of the black urban experience, underlined with violence, intolerance and sexuality. The acoustic styles of Son House and Robert Johnson had to be left down at the crossroad. Up in the city, a new generation of blues artists like Magic Slim, Muddy Waters, John Lee Hooker and Willie Dixon were howlin' at the world, ready to impose their throbbing, "mannish" style on transplanted black audiences.
But black audiences weren't the only ones listening. White club owners and record label types were actively seeking to capitalize on this potent new craze. Many a Mississippi bluesman came northward hoping to sign recording contracts with labels like Sun Records, Chess Records and Cobra, to name but a few. Naturally, these recordings found their way to another powerful new technology—the medium of radio—where white "crossover" DJs like Alan Freed were broadcasting rhythm and blues to audiences all over the continent. It left an immediate impression on the American soundscape, blazing across the airwaves and turning listeners on everywhere. When a young white kid from Mississippi-via-Memphis appeared on national television in 1956 singing "black" songs, the old definitions of what was "black" music and what was "white" blurred immediately, along with any barriers that existed between their respective audiences. As Hayden points out, "that Elvis kid ... he took a bunch of songs that were originally done by old black blues guys and basically created rock 'n' roll and that's where it started."
The role of technology in this cultural phenomenon cannot be underestimated. In no other way could blues music have flourished the way it did. It had come up the Mississippi modestly enough, it had found its riveting, racy new voice in crowded Midwest cities, but the blues explosion of the 1950s and 1960s—and it most certainly was an explosion—could have only happened through the compact portability of records. When I interview John Hammond on how kids from New Jersey (like him) to England (like Clapton, who he's shared the stage with) got hooked on the blues, he answers simply and reverently, "albums." It was in this way that the predominantly white music industry could press this addictive formula neatly to vinyl, and indelibly onto the commercial mainstream. It was in this way that white teenagers as far away as England could get their hands on this unstoppable new craze that spoke to their suburban ennui and buttoned-up adolescence. It was also in this way blacks from Birmingham to Chicago, New York to Los Angeles, could share a common voice that reflected their anger and impatience with segregation and second-class citizenship. The mediums of radio and TV were in turn re-informing their audiences of these issues, and the burgeoning African-American civil rights movement of the early 1960s benefited from having the blues as a common language between its multi-racial audiences.
In solidarity with the civil rights movement, the folk-music revival of the 1960s (which also drew heavily from early blues traditions) was a strong political and musical component in organizing and promoting racial solidarity. In 1963, the SNCC Freedom Singers appeared onstage at the Newport Folk Festival with Pete Seeger, Joan Baez and a young folk troubadour named Bob Dylan. Two years later, Dylan would climb on that same stage with the Paul Butterfield Blues Band, only to get booed for "going electric." He would receive the same reception in England, this time backed by future members of the Band, though his hit single "Like A Rolling Stone" from the blues-fuelled Highway 61 Revisited—both titles clearly referencing Delta blues—rose to the top of the charts.
In a striking parallel, Muddy Waters had toured England earlier than Dylan, in 1958, and played an electrified set in Newport in 1960. Paradoxically, though, black audiences for electric blues were dwindling in America. When Hendrix planted the seeds for hard rock and heavy metal with Are You Experienced, the irony was hard to ignore: the blues of the 1960s seemed to speak loudest to young white audiences. And nowhere was this voice heard clearer than in England.
In the late 1960s, while the majority of black audiences were moving on to explore the innovations of soul, funk and eventually hip hop, young white British kids were delving back into the blues tradition, honing their chops while initiating a blues revival. Youngsters like Eric Clapton, Jack Bruce, Mick Jagger, Keith Richards and Mick Fleetwood were magnetized to the cagey, raucous style of the American blues sound. As Gioia points out, "these youngsters were responding to the intensity and risk-taking of this music, which really stood out when compared to the pop music of the day. Give teenagers a chance to decide between Perry Como and Howlin' Wolf, and guess which one they will pick?"
There is consensus among historians that the romantic imagery of the poor black bluesman's "authenticity" and spiritual "purity" captivated these young white listeners. As a result, British blues actually benefited from this aggrandizement, as the future careers of these white artists—now legends in their own right—can attest to. These impressionable young scenesters went on to incite the British blues rock explosion: the Animals, the Yardbirds, the Rolling Stones, Cream, Led Zeppelin and Fleetwood Mac are but a few of the British bands that went on to change the face—literally—of blues, and eventually rock, music. Hayden concurs: "it really took the British Invasion to steer North Americans back to the blues roots of rock 'n' roll."
Part of their legacy, and more importantly for blues today, is their romantic practice of "looking back" to blues originators in a search for "authenticity." From half a world away, this emerging blues mythology was so galvanizing in the minds of its disciples that it was canonized immediately. Combined with its traditional element, blues adherents have since demanded a strict code of conformity in form, style and subject matter. Critics of the blues are right to charge this conservative orthodoxy as mere imitation that has often trumped innovation and left the blues to a white gentrification. As Gioia admits, "It is strange to think of a blues scene that is dominated by white musicians. But very few young black musicians seem interested in the blues. Meanwhile, every aging white rock guitar player wants to do a blues album."
To quote concisely from Gioia's book, "The fan base that supports the economic viability of the [blues] today is disproportionately white, well educated and living outside the state of Mississippi." Regardless, as the blues' appeal continues to grow globally, there is no denying that it still has the ability to speak to audiences of every colour in any language.
Edmonton's Blue Festival is a shining example of the blues' continued success. Cam Hayden points to the blues' universal and immediate appeal—instantly recognizable and engaging—as one reason for the festival's ever-growing popularity. Within the blues tradition, he explains, "there are hundreds of acts that really do stay true to the blues roots. Which is not to say that the blues is one-dimensional. That's the thing [Carrol and I] try to do: the blues has a lot of shades, and we try and present as many different types of regional and instrumental blues so we can give people a full-spectrum of the shades of blue."
The success and longevity of the festival, Hayden proudly states, lies in the faith of the festival's audiences and its volunteers, as well as the dedication of local radio. "Edmonton has a real treasure in CKUA and CJSR. It makes a big difference. Our volunteers are really great—there are 250 of them. And our venue [the Heritage Amphitheatre] is quite likely the best outdoor music festival venue we've ever seen." V
Fri, Aug 21 – Sun, Aug 23
11th Annual Edmonton Labatt's Blues Festival
William Hawrelak Park Heritage Amphitheatre
Day Passes $35 – $45, Weekend Passes Sold Out
Complete lineup at
bluesinternationalltd.com
Cam Hayden's Essential Blues Recordings
"Of course there are literally thousands of great blues recordings out there and picking five or six to define an entire genre is a mug's game. You'll always leave some style, geographical variation or unique take on the blues out. But, with some trepidation, here are a few that I think every blues fan should have as a jumping off point to explore more of this great musical form. Read the liner notes and discover the wide world of blues for yourself." —Cam Hayden
- The Chess Blues Box. Four CD set covering selected Chess recordings from 1949 to 1964.
- Muddy Waters, The Woodstock Album. Muddy recording with members of the Band in 1975 in upstate New York.
- Elvin Bishop, The Blues Rolls On. Recorded in 2008 with guest appearances by BB King, James Cotton, George Thorogood, Derek Trucks and others.
- Eric Clapton, Me and Mr. Johnson. Clapton pays tribute to "the man" of the blues.
- Cedric Burnside and Lightnin' Malcolm, 2 Man Wrecking Crew. The North Mississippi Hill country sound, updated for the 21st century.
- Amos Garrett, Get Way Back. A tribute to one of the great blues song writers of all time, Percy Mayfield.
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