Marybeth Hamilton: IN SEARCH OF THE BLUES

[kenny weir]

Ah, the spiritual home of Flying Nun Records!

MG

Yep, but that all went down long after I'd split, aside froma few Toy Love gigs in Wellington.

When I was a kid, Dunedin prided itself on being "NZ's fourth largest city", which semed like some kinda BD. There seemed like a lot of heavier industry and so on.

Just as I was looking to get out of there, the first tremors of globalisation kicked in.

I've only been back, really, for my dad's funeral about 10 years ago.

But I suspect I'd dig the place these days. I doubt it's the small-town myopic rugby-obsessed joint that dwells in my memories.

These days, I've been led to believe it's all about the university, tourism, heritage buildings and so on, prolly with coffee shops and cool eateries and book shops and bars sprouting all over the place.

Mind, you among all the straightness I remember so well, there was always a pretty staunch stream of alternative loopiness there. Of which Flying Nun was certainly part.

[jeffkuhn]

I know I'm coming late to this discussion, having just finished the book, but I have to agree that Marsh's review did Hamilton a disservice. There have have been numerous blues biographies and histories (perhaps most notably here, Robert Palmer's Deep Blues) and there was no reason to expect Hamilton to add another to the list. Instead, she brings something new to the table. For this, Hamilton is accused of "whitewashing" the original singers and musicians out of history, but it's silly to think that such a thing is possible or that she would attempt it. Marsh also resorts to easy race-baiting, castigating Hamilton for failing to properly demonize John Lomax or devote ample space to black writers. But he's too shallow to even recognize the true racial issue, which is that all of these white researchers and collectors (with the possible exception of McKune) attempted to use black music as evidence for their own ideologies, whether that was white supremacist or Marxist. ... Speaking of which, I once saw a lecture by Bill Russell on a local public access channel in which he contended that Ellington, Goodman, Gillespie, Mingus, Coltrane, etc. were not jazz. Jazz, in his view, occurred only when the front line consisted only of clarinet, trumpet and trombone. The saxophone was not a jazz instrument, he said, and therefore its presence meant that any music in which it appeared was not jazz. And it certainly did not interest him.)

[AllenLowe]

pizza in New Haven? Sounds good - what is your slave name?

[7/4]

Would it be too much to ask 7/4 to produce some critical "content" himself once in a while as compensation?

• Kenny G sucks.
  
• Wynton is evil.
  
• Don't drink.
  
• Go to meetings.
  

[kenny weir]

Sensing - rightly as it turned out - that this was a one-night read, I stalled buying this slim book at the kind of prices it was going for new around Melbourne. $40? No tanks!

Anyways, got a remaindered copy on Monday for $10 and finished it that night.

On the one hand, my suspicions that Marsh's criticisms were silly - in that they were directed at something the book never pretended to be - stand firm.

On the other hand, I wish the book made a more complete assessment of how blues and related musics became cultural icons and listening sustenance for so many of us. By not going into much depth, I did find some of the links a bit tenuous and that were many missing elements.

Just for instance, I'd buy a book that really did a bang up job on covering such inter-related subjects as:

*Non-American participation in all this. When did the same phenomena that gives us Bear Family and Japanese reissues kick in? Maybe not as early as events covered in the last chapter of the book, but not too long afterwards, I reckon. And then there were all the European magazines and so on.

*Other kinds of music. She deals - apart from the Jelly Roll stuff - almost exlcusively with blues, or delta blues. What about old-time country and jazz? And what rockbilly, doo wop, cajun, zydeco, r&b etc etc. My first recall of really spiffy reissues of cats such as Wynonie Harris and Roy Brown came with the European label Route 66, but there was stuff around before that, too. How the delta blues came to be invented in Manhattan is quite a good line, but I reckon what was happening was a lot more complex - and involved a lot more characters - than this book is capable of revealing.

And it seems that through overly glorifying the role of Delta blues, that its contribution to rock music in general has been much overplayed. I recently reread Robert Palmer's Deep Blues and also bought a 2nd-hand copy of the Robert Johnson box. In both cases, I was led to believe that without delta blues in general, and RJ in particular, there would've been NO rock music. Hello? Ever heard of Louis Jordan? Or Bill Monroe?

*Reissue labels are covered briefly, but I'd love a more in-depth analysis of the role played by Arhoolie (which does make an appearance), Rounder, Roots, Blue Horizon and oodles more.

*Only tengenitally does she touch on the influence of musicians - mostly how they were influenced by the pioneering collectors. But these players, too, had a profound impact. And in at least a couple of cases - I'm thinking of the Alexis Korner clique and the New Lost City Ramblers - were far from Johnny come latelies themselves.

These sorts of criticism may be a bit like those of Marsh, in that they are about what the book is not. And maybe about what the author simply didn't have the time or budget to address.

But being, as I am, quite fascinated with all this, I was left feeling disappointed and wanting MORE.

Meanwhile, Marsh's arguments are rendered lifeless by his seeming determination to deny that there was and is any cultural filtering going betwen (delta) blues and the white kids who embraced it. He also fails to acknowledge the Hamilton gives the folk she writes about plenty of credit for their deeds.

Edited August 20, 2008 by kenny weir

[kenny weir]

Interesting Vanity Fair story on Robert Johnson, and a new photo thereof, which embraces issues raised here, hair, hear:

http://www.vanityfair.com/culture/features...1/johnson200811

Edited October 16, 2008 by kenny weir