BarkellWH -> RE: What is flamenco today? (Sep. 22 2015 2:43:58)
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quote:
Thirty years before Elvis, Jimmie Rodgers "The Yodeling Brakeman" was one of the most popular recording musicians in the USA. Many of his most popular discs were what might be called "whitened" blues. I liked to listen to Jimmie Rodgers' recordings when I was 17 or 18 years old. That was the height of the folk boom in the very early '60s, and I was in my three-chord progression stage which could accommodate 150, and more, folk songs, as well as country & western songs. One of Rodgers' songs I especially liked, and I learned to play and sing it as well, was "Waiting for a Train." Jimmie Rodgers is still played today on some old-timey country & western and bluegrass stations. Yes, Jimmie Rodgers' style could be called early "white" blues, but I would argue that a lot of country (leaving off the "western") music down through the years has been a form of "white" blues, particularly in theme, but at times in musicality as well. The reason many people, myself included, consider Elvis Presley the one who made black blues accessible and respectable to white audiences is that he brought it to a huge audience across the United States and the world, and his music crossed class and income barriers like no other had. Jimmie Rodgers' popularity, while significant for country music at the time, was still confined to a niche, much like the early Carter Family (led by A.P. Carter) who were Rodgers' near contemporaries. What I find interesting about many Elvis fans at the time and later is that, as much as they liked Elvis, they hadn't the slightest idea that much of his music was rooted in the blues and homogenized for white audiences. Leadbelly was a great blues and folk musician, but he was little known outside the fraternity of lovers of authentic blues and folk. As you point out, he influenced the Weavers, Pete Seeger, Joan Baez, Bob Dylan, and others in the '50s and '60s, and they were the ones who brought that influence to a much wider audience, through their own interpretations, in a way Leadbelly was unable to do during his heyday. I have always thought it a shame that many of the greatest blues musicians suffered from a lack of a wider audience and only became well-known after their prime: Leadbelly, Blind Lemon Jefferson, Blind Wille McTell, Big Bill Broonzy, Furry Lewis, and a host of others. The one exception might be W.C. Handy, with his "St. Louis Blues." Perhaps Robert Johnson. One white folk/blues singer/musician I like a lot who is still around (although I don't know if he performs these days) is Ramblin' Jack Elliot. Ramblin' Jack Elliot was hugely influenced by Leadbelly and Woody Guthrie, and he in turn influenced Bob Dylan and others. His version of "Philadelphia Lawyer" is a classic. Bill
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