r' i I Oneof the most revealingindications of the continuing MemphisSwamp Jam depth and vitality of the bluestraditions of Memphisand the surroundingcountryside is providedby this two-record set of performancesby a number of the finest traditional It's fitting, of course,that Memphisshould be the site artists presentedduring the courseof the three-day1969 of a maior national blues festival, for the city has an MemphisBlues Festival. Now in its fourth year,this festival importan-cein blueshistory rivalled only by that of Chicago. has as its purposethe presentationof a wide spectrumof Foi decades,perhaps since the music's earliestdays' the traditionalNegro and Negro-derivedfolk and popularmusic citv has been'oneof the importantwaystops of the blues' forms. The particular emphasisis of course upon those th6 sceneof a greatmany significant musical developments artists and stylesassociated over the yearswith Memphis as well as the home-baseof a host of blues innovators and its environs,but the influenceand penetrationof those and iournevmen.Situated on the broad Mississippiat the musicalstyles has beenso pervasivethatmany performers nortliern-mbst extreme of the Delta cotton country, Mem' whose relationshipto the Memphis musical traditions "the Dhis. Gatewavto the South;' long has acted as a might not seem immediatelyapparent have been included hagnet to the blu6smenof the lower Mississippibasin. in its concert programsas well. This year, tor example, Ovei the vears thev literallv have poured into the city' festival performers included a good number of young enrichinsits healthv musicil scene with their own vital Britons, whose espousal of the blues and blues.based rural blu-'estraditions. Inevitablythe interaclionhas been music has accountedfor much of the interestand excite. two-way,for the countryblues singers and instrumentalists ment in recent popularmusic. who st6ppedover in Memphisin the courseof their travels But the backboneof theserecordings and the festivalis took stimulusfrom the major bluesstylists and the diverse provided,fittingly, bytheveteran bluesmen of the Memphis. musicalapproaches they encounteredthere. Mississippi area; their stimulating performanceshere This cvcleof contactbetween rural and urban(or at least revealiust how much persausivevigor and relevancethere less con'spicuouslyrural) musical approacheshas been remain in the older-styledcountry blues traditions. For both prol6ngedahd continuous and has had profound large numbersof southernNegroes the bluesare still very effecti uoonlhe courseof the blues,not the leastof which much alive, still full of truth-sayingpower and hard-won havebeen the maintenanceof high performancestandards wisdom,still a touchstoneof realityand a deep,fulfilling and the interplayof contrastingtendencies toward regular' reservoirof commonvalues, experience and yearnings,the form and morefluid, lessrigidly structured modes distillationof three centuriesof sufferingand oppression izationof "sophisication of organization(i.e., vs.primitivism") which as a desoisednation within a nation. has beena corollaryof the busy professionaland amateur Severalof the Derformersheard here are known to vet- eran blues collectorsthrough their prized, old and often performingactivityihe city has longsupported. Put another "golden way, the rough, unpolished country bluesmen brought very rare 78-rpm records made in the so-called powerand passionto Memphis,taking in return ideasof age" of countryblues recording,the l0-year period 1928- technical expertise and more conventionalizedmusical 38, when a number of magnificentrural blues singer. forms and performancepractices. guitarists were recorded,often in such locations as This play of country and city has long beenone of the Memphisand Atlanta by mobile recordingteams sent out account' by the major recordfirms of the period.Their recordings distinguishingfeatures of the Memphisblues, thus "race ing fo; the great diversityof stylesto be heardthere, and were issued in the record" lists which such firms is perhapsbest typified in the music of Negro composer maintainedas separateseries in their offeringsof popular W.C. Handy,the city's best-knownmusical figure. Thor' music;most of the recordsby countrybluesmen were sold oughlysch6oled in the disciplinesof westernmusic, Handy in the areas lrom which they hailed, and often in small was drawnearly to the rude, spontaneous,vigorous music quantities,thus accountingfor their extreme rarity (and of the blues and folk musicians he met in his travels the high prices they fetch in record auctions) today. 1890's, and thesetwo Furry Lewis,Sleepy John Estesand BookerWashington throughthe Southbeginning in the "Bukka" influences- sophisticatedand primitive-blend fruitfully White, o{ those heard here, were among those in his own compositions,which he began publishing in recorded30-40 yearsago. Followingthe declineof popular l9l2 and which representthe beginningsof the commer' interest in the type of blues they performed so well, they cializationand widedissemination of the blues.Throughout and others of their generationwere forced into musical his long and distinguishedcareer Handy continued to retirement-there simply was no large audiencefor their derive insiprationand vitality from his borrowingsfrom music any longer.'All three continuedto play for friends southernfolk music. and neighbors,which explains the greatvitality and dexter- On a more informal,day-to-day basis this sameprocess ity which they continueto bring to blues playingand sing. of contact and interaction has taken place among the ing, and their largely dormant performing careerswere musicianswho met and playedtogether in Memphis,from resuscitatedby the renewed interest in the blues that made way to the occurred as Dart of the tolk music "revival" of the late the earliestcountry musicianswho their '60's. city in the late 19th centuryon to the reigningrhythm-and. 1950'sand early blues and soul music stars who currently live, work and Though his exuberantmusic is solidlygrounded in the record there. During the last three-quartersof a century old barrelhousepiano traditions of that same golden per- the city has beenthe home-basefor such as FrankStokes, iod, PianoRed's career reflects a slightlylater stageof the Will Batts, Furry Lewis, Robert Wilkins, the commercialblues traditions. Dan Sane, "Casey MemphisJug Band,Cannon's Jug Stompers,Will Othersof the companyhere, notably Fred McDowell and Bill" Weldon,Jack Kelly, Will Shade,Allen Shaw, Willie to a lesserdegree Nathan Beauregard,have come to the Borum,Memphis Minnie, Joe McCoy, Willie B. James, Willie attentionof blues collectorsonly recently.McDowell is in Tango,Sonny Boy Williamson(both of them), Willie Nix, fact one of the veryfew significant,greatly original country Howlin'Wolf, Dr. Ross,Elmore James, Jimmy Reed,Eddie bluesmento havebeen unearthed wholly as a resultof the Taylor,Jimmy Cotton,Willie Cobbs,Harmonica Frank, Joe folk music revival, having been discoveredin 1959 by Hill Louis,Walter Horton, Jimmy DeBerry,Willie Love,Levi folklorist Alan Lomax during the course ol a southern Seabury,B.B. Kingand a hostof others,including of course field recordingtrip. And despitehis advancedyears, Beau- the present-dayStax-Volt artist roster. Other bluesmen regard's discoveryis of even more recent vintage; he made have spent varying periodsof time there and in Jact one his first malor public appearanceat the 1968 Memphis could easily compile an impressivelist of blues artists, CountryBlues Festival, where he was most enthusiastically maior and minor, whose visits have enrichedthe city's receivedby fans of traditionalrural-styled blues. music and who havebeen touched, in turn, by its musical The remainingperformers - singer-fifeplayer Napoleon strength and diversity.(lt is of course no mere accident Stricklandand the Como (Miss.) Drum Band,which con- that the so-calledwhite "rockabilly" style of the mid- sists of snare-drummerJohn Tytus and bass-drummer 1950's should have emergedin Memphis;its chief expo- OtherTurner - are lesswell-known to bluesfans, for until nents, Elvis Presley,Carl Perkins and Jerry Lee Lewis, only very recentlytheir music was heard no farther than were all Memphis residentsand had grown up with the the countrysidein which they live. Like all the other per. soundof the Memphisblues.) formersheard here, they largelyhave played for their family ,6" and parties,at fish' commercialmusic. First, traditional music is itself con- and friends,at Saturdaynight dances artist picni-cs.For their peers--relativ.esand servativeand changesslowly; then, the traditional iries and c6untry ot hls peers' wno 6wn generation-this music is still alive most often performs for an audience neishborsof their folkways,values and still sbeaksof and to them in language itrare wittr him the same common and'meanineful. and expressions.His music uivarnished,telling of thingsthat are realand resoectfor traditionalforms otjin anO least very much, simply becauseit iitallv imDortant,embodying unquestioned truths of the dodsn't change,or at cdndition,relating and transfiguringshared expe- doesn't haveto. humin what?Well, for one thing, it means riences, deeply-heldbeliefs, aspirations and, above all' All of which means that for the studentor fan of traditional Negro America.n sorrows. momentit's someof these musiciansmay music,we're living at a fortunatetime. At the Despiteany fleetingfame phaseof that music's down deep they remain unalterablycom- oossibleto sampl6iust about every have attained, -from oldest of country