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Textures: Origins Of The Blues
About this show
Introduction
In this episode of Textures, Dominik hosts Vic Hobson for a discussion on the history and origins of the blues. The conversation explores the early overlap between jazz and blues, the role of vaudeville and early female recording artists, and a copyright dispute over 'Livery Stable Blues' that left the genre legally undefinable.
Dominik hosts Vic Hobson for a discussion on the history and origins of the blues. Hobson explores the early overlap between jazz and blues, noting that the two were often indistinguishable in the early 1920s. The conversation covers the role of vaudeville, including a 1910 report of a ventriloquist dummy named Little Henry, and the early dominance of female recording artists before men like Blind Lemon Jefferson entered the genre in 1926. Other topics include the career of Lonnie Johnson, the repetitiveness of the blues' musical structure, and a copyright dispute over 'Livery Stable Blues' that left the genre legally undefinable.
Topics
- The relationship and overlap between jazz and the blues.
- The role of transport (riverboats and railroads) in the spread of blues music.
- The international spread of early jazz and blues to Europe and the Czech Republic.
- The role of vaudeville in the dissemination of early blues
- The historical timeline of blues recordings and instruments
- The influence and status of early African-American female blues singers
- The historical erasure of women from the blues and jazz tradition.
- The transition from female to male dominance in early blues recordings.
- The influence of the 1960s blues revival.
- The career and performance style of Lonnie Johnson
- The musical structure and repetitiveness of the blues
- The expansion of the blues into jazz and other forms
Participants
- Dominik
- Vic Hobson
- Vig Hobson
Names are taken from the archive as written and may include spelling variants.
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Textures · Show Opening
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Textures27Jan08-HistoryoftheBlues
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I guess I've had one of these itches that needs scratching from time to time, and it's it's seemed to me for a long time that much that we've come to sort of believe about the blues actually doesn't stack up. So I'm just sort of trying to look into.
There's presumably no recording of that. No, it's a newspaper report from from 1910 that talks about a ventriloquist dummy called Little Henry.
You know, you couldn't differentiate between what was jazz and what was blues. The two things were so closely interrelated that when people talk about or spoke about a blues singer in these days, they were talking about a woman who sang the blues, which was a jazz singer. It was one and the same.
And you know the organisers are not best pleased, of course, when he when he comes off. So they say, you know what? I thought we said, you know, you were going to play some of your blues songs, and he said, I said, I'm getting old. I'm a little bit deaf. I thought you said play some of your best songs.
Selected music
The Origins Of The Blues, With Vic Hobson
- 2Livery Stable Blues · Original Dixieland Jazz Band
Why it was chosen To raise a question about how the blues influenced jazz.
- 3Basin Street Blues · Doctor John
Why it was chosen To keep the New Orleans theme going, connect to a local theme as the artist often plays gigs at the university, and because the speaker likes it.
- 4Untitled · Jarivo Skovets And Jan Verek
Why it was chosen To demonstrate that the blues didn't travel in easy directions and predictable ways, using a 1931 recording from the Czech Republic.
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Why it was chosen To find a recording earlier than the Original Dixieland Jazz Band's 1919 European tour.
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Why it was chosen To give an indication of what the blues sounded like in Mississippi around 1908, when the bow weevil moved into the area.
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Why it was chosen As an example of an older repertoire of material retrospectively called blues, and as a good indication of what Buddy Bolden was playing.
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Why it was chosen To explore the presence of the blues in New Orleans in the early years of the century, specifically regarding what Morton heard Mamie Desdune playing around 1901.
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Why it was chosen Because the speaker thinks it would be nice to listen to as she is not especially well known these days.
- 10Crazy Blues · Mamie Smith
Why it was chosen To illustrate the second great blues craze of 1920, which was kicked off by this track.
- 11Jasmine Blues · Lucille Hegeman
Why it was chosen To illustrate that at this period, one could not differentiate between jazz and blues as they were so closely interrelated.
- 12Nobody Knows You When You're Down And Out · Alberta Hunter
- 13Boom Boom Boom · John Lee Hooker
Why it was chosen To connect to the 60s blues revival and to link back to a previous show topic regarding bass players.
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Why it was chosen As an example of an active attempt to write women out of jazz history, as the original recording was doctored to edit out May Alex's vocal.
- 15Butter And Egg Man · Louis Armstrong
Why it was chosen The speaker notes that the recording has been restored to include May Alex, who was previously cut out, and mentions it as a "very early recording" representing a "transition between women and men"
- 17St. Louis Blues · Bessie Smith
Why it was chosen Because of Ma Rainey's supposed influence on Bessie Smith and because this is probably the most recorded blues track of them all.
- 18I'm Alabama Bound · Papa Charlie Jackson
- 19Me And My Crazy Self · Lonnie Johnson
- 20I Got Nothing But The Blues · Three Bs
Why it was chosen To make a point about the extent to which the blues can be expanded, featuring a local musician performing a Duke Ellington composition.
- 21Caracar · Boubacar Traore
Why it was chosen To hear the blues as it is played in Africa, where the genre supposedly originally came from.