Yonder Come the Blues Combines Three Influential and Much-Quoted

Cambridge University Press 978-0-521-78777-2 - Yonder Come the Blues: The Evolution of a Genre Paul Oliver, Tony Russell, Robert M. W. Dixon, John Godrich and Howard Rye Frontmatter More information

Yonder Come the Blues combines three influential and much-quoted books: Savannah Syncopators; Blacks, Whites and Blues; and Recording the Blues. Updated with additional new essays, the book discusses the crucial early development of the blues as a music of Blacks in the United States, explaining some of the most significant factors that shaped this music. Together, these three texts emphasise the significance of the African heritage, the mutuality of much white and black music and the role of recording in consolidating the blues, thus demonstrating the importance of these formative elements in its complex but combined socio-musical history. Redressing some of the misconceptions that persist in writing on African American music, this book will be essential reading for all enthusiasts of blues, jazz and country music and will be important for students of African American studies and music, popular music and popular culture.   is Director of the Centre for Vernacular Architecture Studies at the School of Architecture, Oxford Brookes University. As well as hav- ing published works on architecture, he has researched and published extensively on blues and African American music, including Blues Fell This Morning, Conversation with the Blues and Songsters and Saints, also published by Cambridge University Press.   is a freelance writer on blues, jazz and country music. He was editor for many years of the journals Old Time Music and Jazz Express and was the compiler and author of the compact disc series The Blues Collec- tion. He is the author of The Blues, from Robert Johnson to Robert Cray ().  . .  is Director of the Research Centre for Linguistic Typology, La Trobe University, Victoria, Australia, and has published several books with Cambridge University Press, including Ergativity and The Rise and Fall of Languages. The fourth edition of his Blues and Gospel Records – was published in .  , who died in , published discographies of the blues in specialist journals. He was co-author with Robert M. W. Dixon of Blues and Gospel Records in its first three editions. A noted discographer,  , joined the team for the fourth edition and contributes an essay for this book.

© in this web service Cambridge University Press www.cambridge.org Cambridge University Press 978-0-521-78777-2 - Yonder Come the Blues: The Evolution of a Genre Paul Oliver, Tony Russell, Robert M. W. Dixon, John Godrich and Howard Rye Frontmatter More information

YONDER COME THE BLUES The Evolution of a Genre

Paul Oliver Tony Russell Robert M. W. Dixon John Godrich and Howard Rye

cambridge university press Cambridge, New York, Melbourne, Madrid, Cape Town, Singapore, São Paulo, Delhi, Tokyo, Mexico City

Cambridge University Press The Edinburgh Building, Cambridge cb2 8ru, UK

Published in the United States of America by Cambridge University Press, New York

www.cambridge.org Information on this title: www.cambridge.org/9780521787772

Yonder Come the Blues © Paul Oliver, Tony Russell, R. M. W. Dixon, the Estate of J. Godrich 2001 and Cambridge University Press Savannah Syncopators © Paul Oliver Blacks, Whites and Blues © Tony Russell Recording the Blues © R. M. W. Dixon and J. Godrich

This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements, no reproduction of any part may take place without the written permission of Cambridge University Press.

First published as three volumes by Studio Vista 1970 and in the USA by Stein and Day Publishers (November Books) 1970 First published as a single volume as Yonder Come the Blues by Cambridge University Press 2001 Reprinted 2012

A catalogue record for this publication is available from the British Library

Library of Congress Cataloguing in Publication data Yonder come the blues: the evolution of a genre / Paul Oliver . . . [et al.]. p. cm. Includes index. Discography Contents: Yonder come the blues: introduction / Paul Oliver – Savannah syncopators: African retentions in the blues / Paul Oliver – Blacks, Whites and blues / Tony Russell – Recording the blues / Robert M. W. Dixon & John Godrich – Afterword / Howard Rye.      (hardback);     (paperback) . Blues (Music) – History and criticism. . Afro-Americans – Music – History and criticism. I. Oliver, Paul, –

ML.Y  .–dc -

isbn 978-0-521-78259-3 Hardback isbn 978-0-521-78777-2 Paperback

Cambridge University Press has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of URLs for external or third-party internet websites referred to in this publication, and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate. Information regarding prices, travel timetables, and other factual information given in this work is correct at the time of first printing but Cambridge University Press does not guarantee the accuracy of such information thereafter.

CONTENTS

List of illustrations viii

Introduction: Yonder come the blues Paul Oliver 

Book one: Savannah syncopators African retentions in the blues  Paul Oliver

 • Afternoon – Nangodi 

 • Africa and the jazz historian 

 • Music in West Africa 

 • Savannah song 

 • The source of the slaves 

 • Africa and the blues 

Bibliographical notes 

Acknowledgements 

vi • CONTENTS

 • Afterword 

Glossary of African instruments 

Glossary of tribes and people 

Record list 

Book two: Blacks, Whites and blues  Tony Russell

Foreword 

 • Minstrelsy 

 • Old familiar tunes 

 • Letting out the blues 

 • ‘That’s the idea of the white people’ 

 • Out West 

 • Out East 

Bibliography 

 • Afterword 

Bibliography 

Recommended recordings (including CD reissues) 

vii • CONTENTS

Book three: Recording the blues  Robert M. W. Dixon and John Godrich

Foreword 

 • Birth of an industry 

 • The new market, – 

 • The classic blues, – 

 • Into the ﬁeld, – 

 • Hard times, – 

 • Urban blues, – 

 • End of an era, – 

Further information 

 • Afterword  Howard Rye

Index to Book 

Index to Book 

Index to Book 

ILLUSTRATIONS

Book one: Savannah syncopators Paul Oliver

 • Fra-Fra musicians, Nangodi, Ghana 

 • The slave compound, Elmina Castle, Ghana 

 • King Oliver’s Creole Jazz Band 

 • Dan Emmett and Billy Whitlock of the Virginia Minstrels, s 

 • Veteran banjo player, Happy Mose,  

 • Ashanti drum orchestra 

 • An Ewe master drummer 

 • Chicago street band; photo, Big Bill Broonzy 

 • West Africa: linguistic areas 

ix • ILLUSTRATIONS

 • West Africa: vegetation 

 • Jali Nyama Suso of Gambia, playing the -string kora, London,  

 • Griots playing a halam duet, Senegal 

 • Lobi musicians, Lawra, Ghana 

 • Tuareg woman playing the inzad 

 • Stem and hollow-log drums of the West African rain forest 

 • Tribes of West Africa (adapted from G. P. Murdock) 

 • Algaïta players, from Denham, Clapperton and Oudney’s Narratives 

 • Savannah instruments with one or more strings 

 • Butch Cage, ﬁddle, Willie Thomas, guitar and Mrs Thomas, patting, Zachary, LA 

 • Fingering positions of griot Amadou Coly Sall 

Book two: Blacks, Whites and blues Tony Russell

 • Charlie Poole 

 • Chris Bouchillon, the instigator of the ‘talking blues’ 

x • ILLUSTRATIONS

 • ‘Comic and Coon Songs’. A page from the Victor catalogue, c. 

 • ‘Old Familiar Tunes’. Cover of the Columbia Records catalogue, c.  

 • Black and white versions of Salty Dog,  and  

 • Johnny Watson, known as Daddy Stovepipe, playing on Maxwell Street, Chicago,  

 • Frank Hutchison, ‘The Pride of West Virginia’ 

 • Spark Plug Smith in  

 • Banjo player Dock Boggs,  

 • De Ford Bailey, c.  

 • A sentimental ballad by the Mississippi Sheiks. OKeh Records,  

 • Victor catalogue list of records by Jimmie Rodgers 

 • Jimmie Rodgers. Still from his movie The Singing Brakeman 

 • Tom Darby and Jimmie Tarlton 

 • Medicine show, Huntingdon, Tennessee, with blacked-up black artist 

xi • ILLUSTRATIONS

 • Jimmie Davis and his band 

 • Swing Blues , by Bob Wills, a Western Swing hit of the mid-thirties 

 • The Allen Brothers, banjo and guitar 

 • Bill Carlisle, with some Vocalion titles 

 • Cliff Carlisle, c.  

Book three: Recording the blues Dixon, Godrich & Rye

 • Lucille Hegamin and her Blue Flame Syncopators 

 • Dinwiddie Colored Quartet, from the Victor catalogue, 

 • Harry H. Pace, of Black Swan Records 

 • Paramount announces ‘Ma’ Rainey,  

 • Bessie Smith recorded exclusively for Columbia 

 • The Kansas City label Meritt recorded Reverend Gatewood 

 • Jubilee singers were promoted by Paramount, ‘The Race’s Own Record’ 

 • Reverend Gates recorded for several companies, including Vocalion 

xii • ILLUSTRATIONS

 • The cover of the  Victor Records catalogue 

 • Frank Stokes appeared with King Oliver and Duke Ellington in the Victor catalogue 

 • Electrobeam Gennett record labels bore ‘Race Record’ and the month of issue 

 • Q.R.S. label – the letters probably had no meaning 

 • Pianist Leroy Carr was highly inﬂuential in the s 

 • Blues singer ‘Georgia Tom’ became the successful gospel song writer, Thomas A. Dorsey 

 • An ARC advance release sheet sent to record dealers 

 • Big Bill (Broonzy) records were sold by the Kress stores on the Romeo label 

 • The cover of the  Decca Race Records catalogue 

 • Washboard Sam, perhaps the most popular blues singer of the late s 

 • Lonnie Johnson as advertised by Bluebird 

xiii • ILLUSTRATIONS

 • Victor’s  catalogue used anachronistic imagery 

Graph of blues and gospel records issued each year 

Chart of ﬁeld trips made by recording units 