Week 9: Leadbelly

The theme this week was Leadbelly. I really liked all the songs that we got to choose from. When I listen to the songs, I have a playlist on my iTunes and I play it as I walk through campus and I rate the songs that stand out. This week, I rated almost all of them.

My favorites:

1.  "Corn Bread Rough" because it is so much fun, it sounds like something you would hear in a circus. This was the first song I gave 5 stars to in this playlist.

2. "Let It Shine On Me" because it's catchy. It gave me the most vivid visual of all the songs. It's the one I did my artwork on.

3. "In the Pines" what is the connection between this song and "Goodnight Irene?" The last verse of "In the Pines" is in "Goodnight Irene."

In the introduction of the reading, I really liked the part where Lomax says "... If you could count on finding that vase and those flowers on the table every night, wouldn't that be something?" I think it fits very nicely with this theme of recording music to make it last. Whenever you need it, it's always there because someone recorded it and made it that way.

I also really like the part where he sat down and had lunch with his African-American maid. He isn't just taking advantage and profiting from their music, he has a deep respect for them as people that was present even before he was invested in their music.

Another part that struck me was after Lomax had recorded a farm worker singing about the problems they had faced and then there was "immense joy in the group because they felt they had communicated their problem to the big world." I think that's kind of beautiful. Mostly because the joy is two-way, but also because it's very true. The best way that we learn about the conditions and the history of the time is through song.  In one of the readings from week 4, there was a quote, "The music was explaining the history as the history was explaining the music." That's exactly it.

Week 8: Anthology of American Folk Music

This week, we had no class so we focused on the Anthology of American Folk Music. I was actually pretty surprised to find that I actually knew a lot of these songs from before.

A couple that I really liked: Present Joys, Georgia Stomp, Fifty Miles of Elbow Room, Ommie Wise, Fishing Blues.

Here are a few pamphlet entries about some of the songs.

Fifty Miles of Elbow Room
by Rev. F.W. McGee

"It won't be long until I pass into that city fair with fifty miles of elbow room on either side to spare"

While originally written in a spiritual sense, these lyrics can be taken very literally nowadays. Space is scarcer and scarcer with every decade due to over population. This is particularly noticeable when passing through Sproul Plaza between classes, in a large lecture hall during a midterm, or on any Economy class seat in an airplane.

Ommie Wise
by G.B. Grayson

"I'll tell you all a story about Ommie Wise, how she was deluded by John Lewis' lies."

A prime example of a misnomer. Ommie Wise may have had wisdom in her name, but the naivete in her mind prevailed.

Week 7: Mississippi John Hurt

The theme this week was Mississippi John Hurt. We'd been doing his music for a while in the course but now we're going in depth.

My favorite song is still "Since I've Laid My Burden Down," but "Make Me a Pallet on the Floor" is a close second.

However, the song that inspired me most for my artwork was "Candy Man Blues." I think the theme of the song, albeit racy, is not unusual. It's only unusual because as a general rule older songs are not as explicit, and the themes tend to be more profound and so we tend to glorify them relative to today's music. Today's music is focused on money, fame, sex, and drugs much more than music was before, but it's also much more artificial - musically, melodically, dynamically... All that aside, how different is "Candy Man Blues" thematically from "Candy Shop" or "Sexy and I Know It?"

On the reading: I really enjoyed the piece by Elisabeth Dubovsky and I appreciate that Tony put it up for us. John Hurt seems like he's very down-to-earth, very spiritual, and very disconnected from the commercial side of the music. That's also very rare today that the artist is who he says he is. There are a lot of artists that like to have a very down to earth image and anti-commercialist attitude, but it's pretty contradictory to all the publicity they get by taking on that image.

Week 6: British Ballads

Last week's class started a lot of good conversations, but the one that stuck with me the most is this issue of gendered violence in "The Banks of the Ohio."

This is such a hot topic in Berkeley right now so I'm not really surprised that it came up so quickly in class. Yet this is probably one of the hardest issues for me to grapple with because it is so far removed from my world. Where I come from, we just had our first violence free gay pride parade and the fact that it was violence free is a huge deal for the Serbian government. However, it was not without a lot of effort: there was 7000 cops, soldiers, water hoses, tanks etc out on the streets to protect 100 walkers.

Pride Parade in Belgrade

That said, the social issues at home are so different and so behind the social issues here that it's very difficult for me to be as passionate about gender issues as maybe I should be. Of course I disagree with gender inequality and of course I don't think there should be violence against women. But do I think that "The Banks of the Ohio" is particularly disgusting because the person who got drowned is a woman? Probably not... I'd probably be just as disgusted by it if it was the other way around.

On the reading: I was so impressed by Sharp's dedication and perseverance in his work. I can't imagine how difficult it must have been for him to travel from England to the US and through the US while being so sick. And not only to travel, but to still be dedicated to collecting the music despite being sick. I am also impressed by Maude who stuck by his side through it all. I would imagine it would be tempting to quit on several occasions, but she must have known that Sharp was doing something that would go down in history. One thing I was confused by though was why Sharp didn't get songs from the African-Americans despite his dislike for them... I'm sure their music was excellent as well. 

On the music: I like the story of "Barbara Allen." I think it's interesting how despite her claiming to be "slighted" by his behavior, she still feels guilty and thinks the church bells are accusing her of being "hard-hearted." What is the significance of the brier? Why did the rose grow out of his chest and the brier out of hers?

The recording is really cool. It's very clean. With a song this long, it's difficult to stay in the right key and without your voice shaking when it's a cappella, but the way this is done is beautiful. I imagine this is what some of Sharp's recordings sounded like.

On the art: One thing that stuck with me from last week was when Tony said that he "didn't want to infantilize" me as an artist. I think Tony saw that that would be sort of demeaning or insulting, but my first thought was, "wait, why not?" I haven't created any artwork since about 8th grade so when I make these things I feel like a child again. It's fun to be playful. We are expected to be adults way too often in life...

Week 5: Appalachia

The songs for this week were "Can the Circle Be Unbroken," "The Banks of the Ohio," and "The Cuckoo Bird"

I thought the reading for this week was pretty interesting. I'm not sure how I felt about the definition of a folk song that they gave, "a folk song is song that survives without the necessity of commercial media." On one hand, I think this definition is too restrictive. First, there's a lot of songs -- and this was mentioned in the reading -- that get covered by pop singers and so their presence is refreshed. I guess we don't know what would be the counterfactual...

The other thing I thought was interesting was that the Fisk Singers were introduced, the article talked about them fundraising through their recordings... but isn't this a form of commercial media? Shouldn't this automatically disqualify them as being folksingers singing folksongs?

The article portrays commercialism in a negative light, and I understand that. I often find myself around people who are against commercialism (eg. Emir Kusturica) but I don't necessarily agree that it is all bad. Maybe it's the econ major in me, but I think we need it to an extent.

Part of the reading mentioned that Alan Lomax "was not a folk scholar" and that "he was less concerned with presenting authentic performances than with offering versions that showed American folk music at its best -- even if that meant adding a stanza from another version or helping his informants to remember forgotten lines." (47) How does this fit in with the anti commericalist view?

It was interesting to see Berkeley mentioned in so many parts...

My favorite song of the week was "Banks of the Ohio." I really liked the contrast of the song -- from the first two verses I was convinced it was going to be a happily ever after love song until it took a total 180.