I am going to be focusing on Blues, While the genre is famous for having it’s start in Mississippi, , the city of Chicago and the Blues have been tremendously influenced by each other. To prepare for my studies this week, I have started reading a book about Chicago blues and watching lots and lots of Youtube videos and listening to clips of very early Blues recordings. I also picked up a Chicago Blues CD from the Evergreen Library.
I came across an article that yielded many comments with people describing their experience with Chicago Blues and what it means to them. One user really caught my attention with their response. They said
“to me, blues is a lifestyle. Simple as that. It follows us home after the music stops”
Although the words are not anything profound, I can understand the point they were trying to get across. So far, I can tell that Blues is rooted from emotions, as most music is, but the Chicago Blues were much more than that. It’s as if the notes were telling a story of how far each artist had traveled in life. You could hear the interactions they are describing in the bass line. Blues is visceral and because of that, it effects some listeners more than other music.
As I described in my presentation at the end of Winter Quarter, I am extremely interested in the circumstances involved for some of these Chicago-centric genres to become popular in the place and time that they did. In my Chicago Blues: The City & The Music book, there is a reasonable explanation as to why Chicago was so opportune for the Blues to become extremely popular there. Logistically speaking, the trains that provided transportation for people looking to move cross country had somewhat specific routes.If someone from North Carolina wanted to move, the train that was associated with their state would stop in Ohio, on the Louisville and then to Nashville. So, there was not much leeway as to where you could go, as there were only a few options per route. As one can probably infer now, Chicago and Mississippi were on the same route and so the Blues musicians of Mississippi were attracted to the work potential of Chicago due to its already existing stockyards and steel mills and settled in Chicago. Over in Chicago, the city was accidentally preparing for a music scene to settle in. In the 20s and 30s, there were clubs built and abandoned by prohibition and then depression. When the forties came around and society had somewhat recovered, there was an influx of musicians emerging in Chicago and coming from the South. Conveniently, there were clubs and halls waiting to be played in, and an audience looking for something to hold onto after The Great Depression.
I hope to find out more of the personal circumstances of the artists as well as the record label executives who helped and hindered careers during my reading/watching. There have been hints in my reading that a lot of the record deals were done in a terribly poor business manner and a plethora of artists were ripped off behind the scenes.
I often question why I am trying to take such a logical route to understand such a visceral subject such as the Blues. I originally was not even going to focus on the Blues because I didn’t grow up listening to it and I had never even heard of Muddy Waters before 2015. I say that with minimal shame because I believe I am well versed in music enough to admit that I don’t know everything about music (who the heck does?) and I am more than willing to jump into something I have no personal history with. I am going to push myself to write poetry about this music. Dance to this music and hopefully even sing along soon enough. I am intimidated by Blues in a way because it is this enormous enigma that people seem to connect with so deeply and I am treading on the Blues surface.
I am searching for that A-Ha moment where some guitar picking strikes a chord in my heart, when I feel so connected that I understand what that comment meant about the Blues lifestyle that carries you home after the music is over.