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while I'd rather we valorize Robert Johnson's turnarounds and touch than the utter fraud of individual profundity perpetuated by Greil Marcus... is that what "we" are now most interested in, slick turnarounds? I count FIVE sides-- tops-- where Robert Johnson gives excellent performances of decent songs-- taking nothing away from that but how does that make him a fucking "King"? If that's the case then Mitch Miller is Ganesh and Chango combined!

And El Jefe, positing Johnson as the highest point of so called Southern acoustic "blues" is farcical (I'm here rejecting the ofay's "Delta" nomenclature)-- leaving aside the legitimate question of how much a "blues" musician he (& many other so-called "bluesmen") (this not implied criticism in least; their range is laudable & fascinating) actually was (were) compared to what he was impelled to record.

if someone wants to posit RJ as peak transitionary figure out of the "Delta" and into the slicker, simpler "Mons" largely bereft of impoiltic squirming... that's another Saturday night cuttlefish fry...

speaking of which, 1) par touch, Michelangeli, not Gould, though I generally myself prefer Gould as artist & 2) the idea-- the reality-- that Robert Johnson's posthumous reputation is now vastly greater than that of Louis Jordan is depressing and vomitous both.

But LP era ofays know better than the (mostly) black folks who bought records in the 1930s, huh?

[Bizarre Sidenote: Sony won't let me embed Tampa Red & Georgia Tom Dorsey "You Can't Get That Stuff No More," which alone is greater than Robert Johnson's entire discography. Gotta protect the franchise? Even if Sony now "owns" much Tampa Red like so much shellac chattel now too.]

 

 

 

 

Edited by MomsMobley
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Oscar Peterson has "touch" and "turnarounds" too... and there's more original profundity in OP & Ben Webster than all of RJ's slick distillations, however well presented.

By what parameters is Robert Johnson 1936-37 the 'peak' rather than a winnowing? Which is fine, no shame in being, say,

Robert Johnson, Fud Livingston of the Delta Blues

but the world is so much larger than that, thankfully.

Papa Harvey Hill & Long Cleve Reed

Lottie Kimbrough

 

Edited by MomsMobley
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Wading into this in all semi-innocence --when I first heard Columbia's Robert Johnson LP, back when it came out, I had already heard a good deal of so-called country blues on record and sometimes in person, from the likes of Charley Patton, Big Joe Williams, Fred McDowell (in BTW 1962, at Fred's home in Como, Miss.), Furry Lewis, Sleepy John Estes, LeRoy Carr, Lightnin' Hopkins,  etc., not to mention, also in person and on record, a good deal of Chicago urban blues (Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf, Junior Wells,  J.B. Hutto, Little Walter, etc. and Robert Johnson's intensity (to use John Litweiler's term) still struck me as remarkable. In the light of all the vintage blues recording I've gone on to hear since then -- from the likes of Bukka White, Son House, et al. -- it still does.   And I have no recollection of being moved back then by any hype -- from Columbia or from the media --in having that response to Johnson's music. Hey, FWIW, working in 1968 on assembling a high school literature anthology as an editor at a textbook publishing company, I transcribed "Crossroads Blues" and got it into the book. In doing that, I suppose, I was an agent of the illegitimate Robert Johnson "legend."

Edited by Larry Kart
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Wading into this in all semi-innocence --when I first heard Columbia's Robert Johnson LP, back when it came out, I had already heard a good deal of so-called country blues on record and sometimes in person, from the likes of Charley Patton, Big Joe Williams, Fred McDowell (in BTW 1962, at Fred's home in Como, Miss.), Furry Lewis, Sleepy John Estes, LeRoy Carr, Lightnin' Hopkins,  etc., not to mention, also in person and on record, a good deal of Chicago urban blues (Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf, Junior Wells,  J.B. Hutto, Little Walter, etc. and Robert Johnson's intensity (to use John Litweiler's term) still struck me as remarkable. In the light of all the vintage blues recording I've gone on to hear since then -- from the likes of Bukka White, Son House, et al. -- it still does.   And I have no recollection of being moved back then by any hype -- from Columbia or from the media --in having that response to Johnson's music. Hey, FWIW, working in 1968 on assembling a high school literature anthology as an editor at a textbook publishing company, I transcribed "Crossroads Blues" and got it into the book. In doing that, I suppose, I was an agent of the illegitimate Robert Johnson "legend."

when Robert Johnson is good, he's a good, like Oscar Peterson is good. But I do think the relatively good sound quality, pressings of the Vocalion sides plays a part-- as does relative scarcity of single artist 1920s-30s guitar blues albums at that time.

willie lofton

 

gitfiddle jim... koko

 

 

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I think that if Robert Johnson had recorded nothing other than Terraplane Blues, he would still be in the Pantheon.  These days, it is popular to accuse Robert Johnson of being derivative.  But where did Terraplane Blues come from?  The whole rhythmic approach to that song strikes me as being very innovative.  

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I think that if Robert Johnson had recorded nothing other than Terraplane Blues, he would still be in the Pantheon.  These days, it is popular to accuse Robert Johnson of being derivative.  But where did Terraplane Blues come from?  The whole rhythmic approach to that song strikes me as being very innovative.  

John, it has nothing do with "popularity" or un--. And "Terraplane" is a good record-- maybe his best-- but decontextualizing Robert Johnson from the music of his time and the cultures/social groups he travelled within has accomplished exactly what? Unfortunately, nearly all efforts at gleaning RJ's 'meaning' among his peer group of surviving musicians-- rather than the black record buyers who mostly didn't buy RJ records--is colored by ofay insistence, i.e. if white boy keeps insisting Robert Johnson was so "important," so "haunted," etc... fuck it, say what he wants to hear. (And even so, not everyone went along with this, inc. John Lee Hooker.)

Instead we have seven decades of mostly insufferable ofay bullshit, each iteration more insipid than the next, though Greil's attempted lyrical analysis are an apogee their kind. But I trust-- as a sage listening artist yourself (really)-- you & others hear "Terraplane" as the comic song it is, yes?

LK, they are, RJ and OP often, if not always, executants. Nothing wrong with that, except for people winnowing history to invest waaaaaaaaaaaay more in Robert Johnson than his music can sustain.

before & after RJ hmmmmmm

 

 

Edited by MomsMobley
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Moms -- As I said in a previous post, when I first heard RJ when that Columbia LP came out, I already was pretty familiar with a good many other "contextual" blues figures.  As for RJ and OP both being executants (allegedly), that doesn't account for RJ's intensity versus ... however one feels about OP's music otherwise, what OP performances would one characterize as exceptionally intense? And if RJ's intensity is essentially that of an imitator, why do we not have other essentially imitative blues figures whom one spontaneously regards the way I (and others) responded to Johnson's music back in the day? If he was the blues equivalent of Frank Gorshin and/or David Frye, why are there not many more (or any?) such blues figures? As for "the black record buyers who mostly didn't buy RJ records" -- if that's your primary standard of validity, I have to laugh. Like availability? distribution? what was more or less "vernacular"/familiar versus that which sounded novel, shifting tastes of urban  and rural populations? disposable income on the part of those populations? etc. Where and when and with what groups does this record-sales standard of validity not apply? The best jazz recording of 1936 was "The Music Goes Round and Round and It Comes Out Here"? More black record buyers bought "Open the Door, Richard" than bought "Shaw Nuff," so...? 

Edited by Larry Kart
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I think that if Robert Johnson had recorded nothing other than Terraplane Blues, he would still be in the Pantheon.  These days, it is popular to accuse Robert Johnson of being derivative.  But where did Terraplane Blues come from?  The whole rhythmic approach to that song strikes me as being very innovative.  

John, it has nothing do with "popularity" or un--. And "Terraplane" is a good record-- maybe his best-- but decontextualizing Robert Johnson from the music of his time and the cultures/social groups he travelled within has accomplished exactly what? Unfortunately, nearly all efforts at gleaning RJ's 'meaning' among his peer group of surviving musicians-- rather than the black record buyers who mostly didn't buy RJ records--is colored by ofay insistence, i.e. if white boy keeps insisting Robert Johnson was so "important," so "haunted," etc... fuck it, say what he wants to hear. (And even so, not everyone went along with this, inc. John Lee Hooker.)

Instead we have seven decades of mostly insufferable ofay bullshit, each iteration more insipid than the next, though Greil's attempted lyrical analysis are an apogee their kind. But I trust-- as a sage listening artist yourself (really)-- you & others hear "Terraplane" as the comic song it is, yes?

Moms - I agree with you that the a lot of the deification of Robert Johnson as King of the Blues came from people who didn't know the context or the real history.   Many bought his records in the 60s and beyond only because of praise heard from a favorite Rock star, but many of them were also genuinely moved by the music.  Clearly, Robert Johnson's music has the power to move even people who don't know the context.   On the other hand, it strikes me that the writers on blues who did know the context (Paul Oliver, David Evans, Robert Palmer, Mack McCormick, Peter Guralnick, etc.) usually wrote largely sensible things about Robert Johnson, more sensible than what has come from the newer wave of so-called revisionist scholars out to prove that Robert Johnson was not an original artist, the case for his musical importance comes from false myths, there was no real deal with the Devil at the Crossroads, and the like.      

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So .... what is this jury's current verdict on "Escaping the Delta" by Elijah Wald, then?

(Just curious, really ...)

 

That is a large bag of worms.  I think that the book is interesting, and has some worthwhile information and perspectives.   But there is one thing that really irritates me about it.  From the very beginning, Wald paints himself as a rebel who is carrying out a campaign against what he calls the "blues orthodoxy."   But notice that there is not a single footnote or reference in the entire book to any examples of statements from the blues orthodoxy that he is taking issue with.   So a lot of his attacks end up being on straw men.  In the end, the book is not nearly as revolutionary as he claims it to be.

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So .... what is this jury's current verdict on "Escaping the Delta" by Elijah Wald, then?

(Just curious, really ...)

 

That is a large bag of worms.  I think that the book is interesting, and has some worthwhile information and perspectives.   But there is one thing that really irritates me about it.  From the very beginning, Wald paints himself as a rebel who is carrying out a campaign against what he calls the "blues orthodoxy."   But notice that there is not a single footnote or reference in the entire book to any examples of statements from the blues orthodoxy that he is taking issue with.   So a lot of his attacks end up being on straw men.  In the end, the book is not nearly as revolutionary as he claims it to be.

John, Wald's not a trained, self- or otherwise, historian per se so I won't go THAT far in defending his book's apparatus etc but it's a VERY good book and his targets are NOT in the least straw men: they are Columbia Records, they are Greil Marcus, they are numerous bullshittin' (ersatz) 'blues' (and black culture) scholars (nearly all white), they are every guitar magazine and rock star ersatz 'blues' turd who collectively birthed and perpetuated this asinine myth of not just Robert Johnson's artistic and creative eminence-- we can disagree on that, fine-- but also his VASTLY overstated "originality" or influence on then contemporary modes of black expression etc.

Big Beat Steve, if anything Wald pulls too many punches but if nothing else, forcing-- by warm encouragement-- to listen to the previous two decades of recorded black music piano & guitar (& kazoo & washboard & fiddle etc).

Jeff, I'm a bit uncomfortable with the J.S. Bach analogy-- I know what you're saying but Bach on vastly different plane of achievement as well as proflicacy... And even were it true-- why on earth, air, fire or water is that summation/reduction desirable?

Why reduce two decades (or Big Johann, a century) of vastly disparate achievement into one schmuck or one genius? (To save shelf space?)

I might very well pick Telemann or Handel (Rameau or Monteverdi), for starters (for entree too), depending on my interests, dramatic v. instrumental, sacred v. secular etc.

I could not possibly care less about Robert Johnson's prong pointed towards the future or Johnny Shines' bootleg career as RJ's corpse carrier.

If Columbia deigned to put out two 16 cut albums of Tampa Red in 1961, the world of music, sound, lyrics as poety etc would not in any way be diminished and arguably it would rather more interesting.

LK, some of those people you name are smarter listeners, thinkers than others. And some of the smartest, most knowledgeable listeners were social misfits cum fanatical record collectors & the depths of THEIR knowledge has yet to be fully tapped...

(If Don Kent ever wrote a book, for example, it would blow everyone's mind; as it is, there are some liner notes and SIX episodes to date of John's Old Time Radio Show where he offers much insight.)

Episode 4, with Robet Johnson (yes) and Bertha Lee Patton, whom Don takes to see Howlin' Wolf in Chicago--

http://www.eastriverstringband.com/radioshow/?p=1214

Episode 5, Don having spoken to Jeremiah Sullivan for the Geechie Wiley feature ...

http://www.eastriverstringband.com/radioshow/?p=1342

Episode 6, Don on "Cairo" & its remarkable influence etc 

http://www.eastriverstringband.com/radioshow/?p=1449

***

Q: Why should I-- or anyone-- recognize Robert Johnson as the apotheosis of what rather than thrilling to Bo Carter, LeRoy Carr, Barbecue Bob? Etc etc etc-- happily! The list is long & variegated, male & female, clay eater & champagne sipper etc etc, including many performers who didn't record enough for even half an album to be later compiled.

Granted, I might have missed out on this & what would our lives have otherwise been?

 

Edited by MomsMobley
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Moms wrote: "LK, some of those people you name are smarter listeners, thinkers than others. And some of the smartest, most knowledgeable listeners were social misfits cum fanatical record collectors & the depths of THEIR knowledge has yet to be fully tapped..."

Just to be clear, you're referring to people that John L, not I, named -- 'Paul Oliver, David Evans, Robert Palmer, Mack McCormick, Peter Guralnick, etc.' The only people I named in my posts were musicians, not writers about the blues.

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Moms wrote: "LK, some of those people you name are smarter listeners, thinkers than others. And some of the smartest, most knowledgeable listeners were social misfits cum fanatical record collectors & the depths of THEIR knowledge has yet to be fully tapped..."

Just to be clear, you're referring to people that John L, not I, named -- 'Paul Oliver, David Evans, Robert Palmer, Mack McCormick, Peter Guralnick, etc.' The only people I named in my posts were musicians, not writers about the blues.

Yes, apologies for confusion! I do aspire to avoid misattributions etc.

Big Beat Steve, the Wald & the Mary Beth Hamilton books are worthy companions on mythos etc, likewise reading contemporary Chicago Defender,  Atlanta Daily World +++, just to get a deep sense of vastness, levels of black culture, society largely absent most so-called 'blues' scholarship.

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So .... what is this jury's current verdict on "Escaping the Delta" by Elijah Wald, then?

(Just curious, really ...)

 

That is a large bag of worms.  I think that the book is interesting, and has some worthwhile information and perspectives.   But there is one thing that really irritates me about it.  From the very beginning, Wald paints himself as a rebel who is carrying out a campaign against what he calls the "blues orthodoxy."   But notice that there is not a single footnote or reference in the entire book to any examples of statements from the blues orthodoxy that he is taking issue with.   So a lot of his attacks end up being on straw men.  In the end, the book is not nearly as revolutionary as he claims it to be.

John, Wald's not a trained, self- or otherwise, historian per se so I won't go THAT far in defending his book's apparatus etc but it's a VERY good book and his targets are NOT in the least straw men: they are Columbia Records, they are Greil Marcus, they are numerous bullshittin' (ersatz) 'blues' (and black culture) scholars (nearly all white), they are every guitar magazine and rock star ersatz 'blues' turd who collectively birthed and perpetuated this asinine myth of not just Robert Johnson's artistic and creative eminence-- we can disagree on that, fine-- but also his VASTLY overstated "originality" or influence on then contemporary modes of black expression etc.

 

 

So .... what is this jury's current verdict on "Escaping the Delta" by Elijah Wald, then?

(Just curious, really ...)

 

That is a large bag of worms.  I think that the book is interesting, and has some worthwhile information and perspectives.   But there is one thing that really irritates me about it.  From the very beginning, Wald paints himself as a rebel who is carrying out a campaign against what he calls the "blues orthodoxy."   But notice that there is not a single footnote or reference in the entire book to any examples of statements from the blues orthodoxy that he is taking issue with.   So a lot of his attacks end up being on straw men.  In the end, the book is not nearly as revolutionary as he claims it to be.

John, Wald's not a trained, self- or otherwise, historian per se so I won't go THAT far in defending his book's apparatus etc but it's a VERY good book and his targets are NOT in the least straw men: they are Columbia Records, they are Greil Marcus, they are numerous bullshittin' (ersatz) 'blues' (and black culture) scholars (nearly all white), they are every guitar magazine and rock star ersatz 'blues' turd who collectively birthed and perpetuated this asinine myth of not just Robert Johnson's artistic and creative eminence-- we can disagree on that, fine-- but also his VASTLY overstated "originality" or influence on then contemporary modes of black expression etc. were social misfits cum fanatical record collectors & the depths of THEIR knowledge has yet to be fully tapped...

Moms - As I wrote, I agree that the book is worthwhile and thought provoking.   But if he is going to attack something called "blues orthodoxy," Wald should be clear exactly who he has in mind, and what particular statements are wrong.  In my mind, the "blues orthodoxy" should refer to the people who I named above and a handful of others.  So which one of them ever wrote that Robert Johnson had commercial success on a national basis, that Robert Johnson was as influential a figure in the blues as Leroy Carr or T-Bone Walker, or that he towered head and shoulders above other blues musicians?   Greil Marcus?   I don't know.  I have trouble understanding a lot of what he writes.  

While we don't want to overstate Robert Johnson's influence on the blues, we don't want to understate it either.  His spirit certainly lived on in the great Chicago blues of the 40s and 50s through Elmore James, Robert Lockwood, Muddy Waters, Johnny Shines, and a few others.  

Edited by John L
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