A heated discussion on 'Race, Gender & the Blues'

[Stan Erhart]

Everyone IS influenced by everyone else, whether they realize it or not. I take Chuck Berry's line as a nod to both Beethoven and Tchaikovsky. They were asked to share the news about rock and roll. 

Steve Martin has a banjo documentary that talks about how some of the soup was mixed thru jug bands, minstrel bands, blue grass bands, and so on. As usual, not always black, not always white.

http://www.thebanjoproject.org/
-----Original Message-----
From:         Ricky Stevens <deltabluz@HOTMAIL.COM>
Sender:       Blues Music List <BLUES-L@LISTSERV.NETHELPS.COM>
Date:         Tue, 29 May 2012 16:37:28 
To: <BLUES-L@LISTSERV.NETHELPS.COM>
Reply-To:     Ricky Stevens <deltabluz@HOTMAIL.COM>
Subject: Re: A heated discussion on 'Race, Gender & the Blues'

Tom,

Please don't make the mistake of trying to insert pesky things like facts and reality into this thread.  That approach obviously doesn't work.

Ricky Stevens 

Arkabutla, Mississippi

> Date: Wed, 30 May 2012 00:23:05 +0300
> From: harri.haka@GMAIL.COM
> Subject: Fwd: Re: A heated discussion on 'Race, Gender & the Blues'
> To: BLUES-L@LISTSERV.NETHELPS.COM
> 
> I had the priviilige of meeting Willie "Big Eyes" Smith two months
> before he died. We talked about white singers with a black voice e.g.
> Tom Jones. And Charley Pride and Ray Charles doing c&w. I doubt that
> blues musicians were actually influenced by c&w and  all of us can hear
> this on recordings and live shows. To be a smart ass, one might say that
> every musician is influenced by Beethoven. But Chuck Berry gave his
> answer to that question.
> Harri
> 
> 
> 29.5.2012 6:09, Tom Hyslop kirjoitti:
> > Harri,
> >
> >  Respectfully submitted, your position as stated is simply incorrect.
> >
> >  Every bluesman of a certain age that I have interviewed - including
> > Magic Slim, Phillip Walker, Big Jack Johnson, John Primer, and many
> > others - professed a deep and abiding love for country music. Whether
> > it was an innate feeling for the style or the fact that it was all
> > they heard on the radio, as has been mentioned, does not much matter.
> > Howlin' Wolf cited the yodeling of The Singing Brakeman, Jimmie
> > Rodgers, as the inspiration for his own vocalizations. Mel Brown
> > toured with Tompall Glaser, just as he did with Bobby Bland; Glaser is
> > a country artist. You can look it up. Or you can continue to believe
> > what you want, rather than to face facts.
> >
> > Best regards,
> >
> > tom
> >
> > At 3:34 AM +0300 5/29/12, Harri Haka wrote:
> >> Like I was saying, there was not a general interest for country music
> >> among the wider black audience. It is of course natural for a talent
> >> like B.B. King to have studied all genres including country and jazz.
> >> But does any of this reflect on his actual playing or singing? He has
> >> flirted with U2, Eric Clapton and others in the past years but I hardly
> >> find a c&w influence on any of his recordings. Mississippi John Hurt is
> >> greatly respected but he was a folk singer and story teller with a
> >> natural connection to country music of his time.
> >> Harri
> >>
> >>
> >> 29.5.2012 2:35, jinxblues@aol.com kirjoitti:
> >>>
> >>>     Not wanting to take part in the c&w discussion more than to say
> >>> that
> >>>     there was never a general interest in country music within the
> >>> black
> >>>     community.
> >>>
> >>>     ------------
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>     This is absolutely not true.
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>     Blues people growing up in the south in the 1930s and 1940s all
> >>> listened to WLAC (Nashville) with its powerful signal.
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>     B.B.King told me in great detail how he had listen to Gene Autry
> >>> and Red Foley and Jimmy Rogers.
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>     Mississippi John Hurt's "Let the Mermaids Flirt with me" is
> >>> unmistakably Jimmy Rogers'"All Around the Water Tank" a/k/a "Waiting
> >>> for a Train."
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> Dick Waterman
> >>> 1601 Buchanan Avenue
> >>> Oxford, MS 38655
> >>>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
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> 
> 
> 
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