Blues Music and the Art of Narrative Self-Invention
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UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA Los Angeles The Fictional Black Blues Figure: Blues Music and the Art of Narrative Self-Invention A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree Doctor of Philosophy in English by Kimberly Renee Mack 2015 © Copyright by Kimberly Renee Mack 2015 ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION The Fictional Black Blues Figure: Blues Music and the Art of Narrative Self-Invention by Kimberly Renee Mack Doctor of Philosophy in English University of California, Los Angeles, 2015 Professor Richard A Yarborough, Chair My dissertation examines representations of black American blues musicians in contemporary American fiction, drama, and popular music, and it argues that blues music can be examined as a narrative art rooted in the tradition of fictionalized autobiographical self- fashioning. I contend that the contemporary, multi-racial, literary and musical characters in my project who participate in so-called “authentic” blues expression create, sometimes consciously and sometimes unwittingly, a fiction on top of a fiction. This project questions the belief held by many blues scholars, critics, and fans that blues music is a racially essentialized form instead of a narrative tradition made possible through carefully constructed autobiographical and biographical fictions. ii My project makes two important interventions into traditional discussions of blues production and the representations of blues figures in 20th- and 21st-century American literature. First, it destabilizes racial, socio-cultural, temporal, and gendered blues tropes by shifting blues expression from an innate skill to a storytelling art form through which its makers invent themselves. Second, this study allows for a different, interdisciplinary approach to autobiographical and biographical expression. In this project, I excavate literary and musical texts in order to identify moments of autobiographical and biographical articulation. Rather than relying on texts that are generically marked as autobiography or biography, my project teases out the autobiographical and biographical utterances in a wider variety of literary and musical texts. When narrators or characters tell their stories (in my project, songs, musical performances, and interviews with real-life musicians are stories too), they use formal structures, like description or dialogue, to define their lives and personalities. These mini-narratives constitute autobiographies or biographies, even if they are not formal ones. In my opening chapter, literary texts that include iconic American bluesman Robert Johnson as a character, such as Reservation Blues by Sherman Alexie and RL’s Dream by Walter Mosley, juxtapose Johnson, the character, with his historical, mythologized, biographical representation, allowing him to subvert or support his depiction through fictionalized autobiographical expression. Other chapters focus on the self-fashioning of female blues musicians, on the blues apprenticeship, and on blues rocker Jack White’s autobiographical self- invention. iii The dissertation of Kimberly Renee Mack is approved. James E Goodwin Caroline Anne Streeter Robert W Fink Richard A Yarborough, Committee Chair University of California, Los Angeles 2015 iv For Mom v Table of Contents Acknowledgments vii Vita ix INTRODUCTION 1 Chapter ONE Robert Johnson, Myth, and the Power of Autobiographical and Biographical Acts 24 Chapter TWO Blueswomen and their Self-Fashioning through Autobiography and Biography 60 Chapter THREE The Blues Apprenticeship 110 Chapter FOUR Jack White: A Study in Blues Self-Invention 167 Works Consulted 217 vi Acknowledgements First, I would like to thank my wonderful dissertation committee members—Robert Fink, James Goodwin, Caroline Streeter, and Richard Yarborough—for their unwavering support and encouragement during my dissertation writing process. Robert Fink’s close and careful attention to my work, his excellent and timely advice, and his great sense of humor made the journey as fun as it was intellectually rewarding. James Goodwin’s thoughtful critical feedback for both the dissertation and my future book manuscript has been invaluable. Caroline Streeter’s positive support of my research, as well as her incisive advice and support throughout all phases of my academic job search means the world to me. It is difficult to put into words the profound impact that Richard Yarborough has had on my positive growth and development as a scholar and teacher. I will be forever grateful for his kind mentorship, his intimidating but exceedingly helpful close readings, his high standards, and, most of all, his humanity. I would also like to thank all of the supportive professors I have had the great pleasure of knowing and learning from during my time in the English department. I am happy to extend a warm thank you to Ali Behdad, Helen Deutsch, Lowell Gallagher, Yogita Goyal, Ursula Heise, Louise Hornby, Christopher Looby, Uri McMillan, Chris Mott, Harryette Mullen, and Mona Simpson. I also wish to thank Janet Bishop, Nora Elias, Rick Fagin, Jeanette Gilkison, Mike Lambert, and Bronson Tran for all of their advice, help, and support along the way. I owe a tremendous debt to my graduate school friends who helped and inspired me during my time in the English department. I would like to thank Jonathan Collins, Brandon Harrison, Renee Hudson, Marilu Medrano, Hannah Nahm, Erica Onugha, Maureen Shay, Erin Suzuki, and Joyce Warren. I also want to thank my dearest friends outside of the academy— Nzingha Clarke, Matt DeMerritt, the Kassons, Deborah Lott, the Matkovics, Amanda Mosher, vii Joe Quintero, Vijay Shanmugam, and Sunita Suryanarayan—for providing unflagging love, support, and good cheer. I am grateful for having the opportunity to participate in so many wonderful intellectual communities at UCLA. I have many happy memories of my six summers working as a graduate student mentor for the Ralph J. Bunche Center Summer Humanities Institute. I enjoyed working with Veronica Benson-Cole, Jan Freeman, Darnell Hunt, Dalena Hunter, Dawn Jefferson, Yolanda Jones, and Ana-Christina Ramon. The members of my Revolutionary Women writing group have provided insightful feedback on my work and great emotional support during the last two years. My former colleagues (friends, really) at the Scholarship Resource Center were fantastic to work with. I want to give special thanks to Angela Deaver Campbell who made the SRC feel like home and supported me in more ways than I can count. My dissertation received important financial support from various institutions on campus: UCLA Graduate Division, UCLA Institute of American Cultures, UCLA English Department, UCLA Ralph J. Bunche Center for African American Studies, and the UCLA Center for the Study of Women. It is also important to note that a different version of the first section of chapter four was previously published by Taylor & Francis Group in the Musical Autobiographies special issue of Popular Music and Society on 2/18/15. Finally, I wish to thank my husband Adam who has supported me every step of the way along this long and arduous path to a Ph.D. I could not have achieved this without him. I am also extremely grateful to my in-laws—Ann, Norm, Alex, and Hillary— whose warmth, love, and generosity know no bounds. My most heartfelt thanks goes to my mother Jennifer whose love, support, encouragement, and many sacrifices along the way have helped me to become the person that I am. This project is humbly dedicated to her. viii VITA EDUCATION March 2013 C.Phil., English, University of California, Los Angeles December 2011 M.A., English, University of California, Los Angeles December 2003 M.F.A., Creative Writing, Antioch University Los Angeles February 1992 B.F.A., Dramatic Writing, New York University PROFESSIONAL APPOINTMENTS 2015 University of Toledo, Department of English Language and Literature, Assistant Professor of African-American Literature and History and Theory of Race in Literature 2006-09 Springfield College, School of Human Services, Lecturer ACADEMIC PUBLICATIONS “‘There’s No Home for You Here’: Jack White and the Unsolvable Problem of Blues Authenticity” (Peer Reviewed Journal Article). Musical Autobiographies. Eds. Martin Butler and Daniel Stein. Spec. issue of Popular Music and Society, Vol. 38, No. 2, 2015, 176–193. “The Search for Mr. Ethnic-Authentic: Toni Cade’s ‘Mississippi Ham Rider’ and the 1960s American Country Blues Revival” (Manuscript in Progress). OTHER PUBLICATIONS Popular music criticism (CD and live reviews, interviews, and music industry-related stories) for the following national and international publications from 2002-present: Village Voice Hot Press Music Connection PopMatters.com Relix Amplifier SELECTED AWARDS AND HONORS 2015 UCLA Bunche Center for African American Studies Graduate Research Travel Grant 2014-15 UCLA Graduate Division Dissertation Year Fellowship 2014 UCLA Center for the Study of Women Graduate Student Travel Grant 2013-14 Mellon-Sponsored Graduate Fellowship in Literatures in English 2013-14 UCLA Institute of American Cultures Research Grant ix SELECTED LECTURES 2015 “‘Trouble in Mind’: 20th-Century Black American Female Blues Expression,” UCLA Ralph J. Bunche Center for African American Studies Circle of Thought Series, Los Angeles, CA (May 12) 2015 “Living With Music: Ralph Ellison, Gary Clark Jr., and a 21st-Century Vision of American Blues Expression,” Ralph Ellison and the Territory Symposium, Lewis and Clark College, Portland, OR (February 28) – Invited Lecture