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Really the 'Walking Blues': Son House, Muddy Waters, Robert Johnson and the Development of a Traditional Blues Author(s): John Cowley Source: Popular Music, Vol. 1, Folk or Popular? Distinctions, Influences, Continuities (1981), pp. 57-72 Published by: Cambridge University Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/853243 Accessed: 05-11-2017 07:04 UTC JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at http://about.jstor.org/terms Cambridge University Press is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Popular Music This content downloaded from 204.147.202.25 on Sun, 05 Nov 2017 07:04:07 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms Really the 'Walking Blues': Son House, Muddy Waters, Robert Johnson and the development of a traditional blues by JOHN COWLEY On the surface, a study of the evolution of a particular regional Afro- American folk-music style does not appear to be directly connected with the development of popular music. Yet, in one way or another since the 1930s, Son House, Robert Johnson and Muddy Waters, aspects of whose music I discuss here, have all influenced both the development of black blues and, in a much wider context, American and European popular music in general. Johnson and then House became cult figures of the 1960s American folk-music 'revival'; Waters's Chicago rhythm and blues, which he developed in the late 1940s, have sustained him with black and, subsequently, white audiences since that time, his early commercial recordings being absorbed and sometimes emulated by groups such as the Rolling Stones. Despite the undoubted influence of these three bluesmen and an obvious connection between their performing styles, the precise nature of their musical relationship within the folk culture of north- western Mississippi has never been adequately discussed. This is surprising as Alan Lomax carried out an extensive survey of the black folk music of a key area in this region, Coahoama County, which resulted in many important field recordings. Using Lomax's docu- mentation and the commercial and field recordings of House, Johnson and Waters - listed in the primary discographies (Godrich and Dixon 1969 and Leadbitter and Slaven 1968)- I offer this study as a contribu- tion to the discussion. It has become customary to state that Alan Lomax's 1941-2 recording trips to the Coahoama County area were made principally because he was searching for Robert Johnson and that, although Lomax was unable to find Johnson, because he was dead, Muddy Waters was recorded in his stead. In fact Lomax probably knew Johnson was dead (Cowley 1979, p. 2) and was not specifically searching for him. He was engaged in a very comprehensive folk-song survey, jointly sponsored by the Library of Congress Archive of American Folk Song and Fisk University, Nashville, Tennessee, the aims of which were to 'explore objectively and exhaustively the musical habits of a single Negro 57 This content downloaded from 204.147.202.25 on Sun, 05 Nov 2017 07:04:07 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms 58 John Cowley community in the Delta, to find out and describe the function of music in the community, to ascertain the history of music in the community, and to document adequately the cultural and social backgrounds for music in the community' (Lomax n.d. [1941]). Interest in Johnson, therefore, was secondary, not primary. Account, however, had to be taken of his musical involvement in Coahoama society and this is the likely origin of the half-truth that Lomax was solely searching for Johnson and his songs. The purpose of the survey is exemplified by three previously unpub- lished interviews recorded by Muddy Waters in August 1941 which help distinguish his early influences and musical development. Re- sponding to questions from Alan Lomax, Muddy said that he made up 'Country Blues' (AFS* 4769 (4770) A 1), which he had just recorded, 'about the eighth of October in '38', when he was 'fixing a puncture on a car. I had been mistreated by a girl and it looked that it run into my mind to sing that song.' Asked 'Is that the tune for any other blues you know?', Muddy replied 'Well yes, there's been some blues played like that.' Lomax, not happy about this response, queried 'What tune - other blues do you remember runs to the same tune?' and received the answer 'Well this song came from the cotton field and the boy went and put the record out, Robert Johnson, he put out "Walkin' Blues".' Lomax asked 'Did you know the tune before you heard it on record?' 'Yes sir', said Muddy, 'I knowed the tune before I heard it on the record.' 'Who did you learn it from?' 'I learned it from Son House.' 'Son House, who's that?', Lomax quickly asked, and received a brief description and directions as to where House was living. 'How old is Son House?', he queried. 'I imagine Son, he's aged - he's about forty-four', said Muddy. 'Did you know Johnson yourself?' 'Robert Johnson? No, I didn't know him personally.' 'Is House a better player than Johnson do you think?' 'I think they're both about equal.' Lomax then asked Muddy how and why he decided to learn to play the guitar. 'I just loved the music and I saw Son Simms done playing and I just wanted to do it and I took after it', said Muddy, stating that he practiced 'An hour-and-a-half to two hours' daily during the period he was learning. 'Do you remember what the first piece you ever tried to learn was?', questioned Lomax. 'First piece I ever tried to learn was "How Long Blues"; Leroy Carr piece', Muddy responded, explaining that his technique was to learn it by ear 'from the record'. 'Well how did you learn to play with this bottle?' 'Picked that up from Son House.' 'What do you call that?' 'Bottleneck, I call it a slide', ran the ensuing questions and answers, Muddy stating that he wore the bottle * AFS denotes the Library of Congress catalogue prefix, Archive of Folk Song. This content downloaded from 204.147.202.25 on Sun, 05 Nov 2017 07:04:07 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms Really the 'Walking Blues' 59 on his little finger and that his guitar was tuned in 'Spanish'. He knew 'Natural' tuning too, and 'Straight E' (or 'Cross Note' as he also called it). Muddy then went on to play 'I Be's Troubled' (AFS 4769 (4770) A 2) after which John Work of Fisk University took up the questioning. 'How did you come to make it [the song] up, tell us the story?' 'Well, the reason I come to make the record up, once I was just walking along the road and I heard a church song kinda in mind of that and I deal off a little song from that and I started singing it.' 'Well do you make up verses and things often like that, just sitting around?' 'Yes I make up verses pretty often.' . 'And then how do you get the music, get the tunes for it after you get the verses?' 'After I get my verses made up then I get my guitar and try two or three different tunes, see which one takes best - a, be better to play it in - then I got it.' 'Are there many of these country blues around this neighbourhood?' 'No sir, ain't so many round here .. .' 'Do the people round here like them?' 'Yes, they're crazy about them.' 'Do they like them better than anything else at the dances?' 'Yes sir.' Muddy, when asked 'What kind of music do you like to play best?', replied 'I like to play the blues best', also indicating 'we play a little love songs' and 'we can play the break- downs', these, presumably, with his small string band. The third interview, also conducted by John Work, follows a pre- viously undocumented Waters 1941 recording, 'Burr Clover Farm Blues' (AFS 4770 B). The dialogue consists of announcements by Son Simms and then Waters - 'Name, McKinley Morganfield, nickname "Muddy Waters", Stovall's famous guitar player' - and a description of how and why they had made up this song. 'Stovall invented the "Burr Clover Farm" and we named it "Burr Clover Farm" so he would like the blues', said Muddy. 'How long have you lived out here on the Stovall place?', asked Work. 'Seventeen years', Muddy replied. 'Work- ing at the same place all the time?' 'Same place all the time.' 'Mr Stovall always been the owner of the farm?' 'Yes, Stovall always owner of the farm.' Stovall, incidently, is the name both of the plantation where Muddy worked and of Howard Stovall, its owner. I have detailed these interviews so as to establish an accurate record of what was said, for they have previously been misquoted. Alan Lomax, for example, wrongly reports that Muddy composed 'I Be's Troubled' 'while he was changing a tire' (Lomax n.d. [1942]) but, as one can see, it was 'Country Blues' Muddy said he composed while 'fixing a puncture on a car'. Pete Welding (1966) also wrongly inter- prets Lomax's interview by stating that Waters told Lomax he had almost totally patterned his music on that of Robert Johnson - again, one can see, Muddy does not say this.

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