“I Believe I’ll Go Back Home”: Blindness in Blues and Gospel Race Records by John Francis Bagnato Bachelor of Music, Manhattan School of Music, 1995 Master of Music, University of New Orleans, 2002 Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of The Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Jazz Studies University of Pittsburgh 2018 UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences This dissertation was presented by John Francis Bagnato It was defended on April 10, 2018 Laurence Glasco, PhD, Associate Professor Mathew Rosenblum, PhD, Associate Professor Michael Heller, PhD, Assistant Professor Richard Randall, PhD, Associate Professor Dissertation Advisor: Adriana Helbig, PhD, Associate Professor ii Copyright © by John Francis Bagnato 2018 iii “I Believe I’ll Go Back Home”: Blindness in Blues and Gospel Race Records John Francis Bagnato, PhD University of Pittsburgh, 2018 This dissertation analyzes the contributions and reception of blind African American musicians who produced phonograph recordings between 1926 and 1938. Their records were central in transforming Black popular music. The "downhome" aesthetic they popularized was a significant stylistic departure from previous Race records. The prevalent notion that downhome expression was an always already foundational Black expression complicates its association with blindness and the moment of its popularity in 1926. The downhome became a liminal space on records featuring performances by blind musicians for audiences affected by institutional racism as well as increased acts of racial terror. Relegating blindness to the downhome was extremely popular, and was also a disabling and inaccurate representation. While the musicians presented an aesthetic that suggested an authentic downhomeness, they were participating in a Black modernity as recording artists and performers in cosmopolitan urban centers during their era, far from downhome. The musicians were associated with a past during a period vital to the construction of African American collective memory. Their records functioned as auditory mnemonics through the downhome and the effect of phonographic reproduction. By 1938, at least fifty "Blind" monikers were credited to musicians on recordings marketed to African American consumers. Sight as a marker of modernity contributed to the industry's promotion of a "Blind" downhome expression. The musicians could not "see" the modernity their audiences were navigating, they also could not "see" themselves as a result of their social invisibility. Their recorded expression imposed a break from a present state of modernity, validating a post-agrarian position. Blindness functioned as an authenticating marker of this break. Drawing on public health documents related to African American communities from the mid-nineteenth to early-twentieth centuries, recordings, lyrics, interviews, films, and the Black Press, this dissertation shows how blind musicians became the most popular producers of Black popular music during the late 1920s. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION......................................................................................................................... 1 1.0 BLINDNESS IN THE AFRICAN AMERICAN NADIR ....................................... 12 1.1 RACIAL TERROR IN THE MUSICIANS’ COMMUNITIES .................... 13 1.2 IMAGINING THE DOWNHOME .................................................................. 18 1.3 GREAT MIGRATION, MOBILITY, AND DISLOCATION ....................... 33 1.4 PUBLIC HEALTH IN AFRICAN AMERICAN COMMUNITIES ............. 38 1.5 OBSTETRICS, MIDWIFERY, EARLY BLINDNESS ................................. 44 2.0 AFRICAN AMERICAN BLIND MUSICIANS IN POPULAR CULTURE ........ 54 2.1 BLIND TOM AND BLIND BOONE ............................................................... 55 2.2 THE LIVES OF THE MUSICIANS ................................................................ 61 2.3 FINDING AUDIENCES ................................................................................... 80 2.4 VAGRANCY AND SOCIAL SECURITY BLUES ........................................ 83 3.0 RECORDINGS OF THE MUSICIANS, 1926-1938 ............................................... 92 3.1 PARAMOUNT RECORDS AND THE BLACK PRESS: BLIND LEMON JEFFERSON, BLIND BLAKE, AND BLIND JOE TAGGART ................................. 100 3.2 INCARCERATION BLUES: BLIND BLAKE, BLIND JOE REYNOLDS, BLIND BOY FULLER, AND BLIND WILLIE MCTELL. ........................................ 117 3.3 PENTECOSTALISM: BLIND WILLIE JOHNSON, ARIZONA DRANES, BLIND MAMIE FOREHAND ........................................................................................ 121 4.0 COLLECTIVE MEMORIES AND THE MUSICIANS ...................................... 138 4.1 TECHNOLOGIES OF THE TIME ............................................................... 145 v 4.2 COLLECTIVE MEMORY ............................................................................. 150 4.3 THE PHONOGRAPH AND PROSTHETIC MEMORY ............................ 152 4.4 PERCEPTIONS OF THE MUSICIANS’ AUTHENTICITY ..................... 157 4.5 THE SECRET AND SACRED SPACE OF BLINDNESS .......................... 160 4.6 BLINDNESS AND THE LYRICS ................................................................. 166 4.7 THE INFLUENCE AND CIRCULATION OF THE MUSICIANS’ RECORDINGS ................................................................................................................. 168 5.0 THE RENAISSANCE OF THE NEW NEGRO AND THE MUSICIANS ........ 180 5.1 VISION, VEILS, AND A BLUES DOUBLE CONSCIOUSNESS .............. 182 5.2 TRAUMA AND NOSTALGIA ....................................................................... 195 5.3 LOCKE AND THE NEW NEGRO................................................................ 206 5.4 THURMAN AND FIRE!! ............................................................................... 209 5.5 THE ART HOKUM AND THE RACIAL MOUNTAIN ............................. 213 6.0 CONCLUSION: THE MUSICIANS IN THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY .. 219 DISCOGRAPHY....................................................................................................................... 226 BIBLIOGRAPHY ..................................................................................................................... 227 vi LIST OF TABLES Table 1. Census Table of Blind Population 1910 ......................................................................... 40 Table 2. Blind Musicians on Race records 1926-1942 ............................................................... 177 vii LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1. Portrait of Blind Tom, American Phrenological Journal, December 1865 .................. 58 Figure 2. Blind Willie Johnson's only known photograph on a Columbia record sleeve ............. 59 Figure 3. Blind Lemon Jefferson's only known photograph on a Paramount record sleeve ........ 60 Figure 4. Blind Blake and Blind Lemon Jefferson recording session 1929. ................................ 68 Figure 5. Blind Boy Fuller Photograph......................................................................................... 83 Figure 6. Blind Boy Fuller 1937 Physician’s Report .................................................................... 84 Figure 7. Blind Lemon Jefferson advertisement ......................................................................... 104 Figure 8. Pittsburgh Race record distributor advertisement. ...................................................... 107 Figure 9. Blind Joe Taggart’s only known photograph on a Paramount record sleeve. ............. 112 Figure 10. Blind Blake’s only known photograph on a Paramount record sleeve. .................... 118 Figure 11. Arizona Dranes advertisement .................................................................................. 135 Figure 12. Supertone parlor guitars, Spring 1920 Sears and Roebuck catalog........................... 146 Figure 13. National resonator guitar, Spring 1930 Sears and Roebuck catalog. ....................... 146 Figure 14. Blind Boy Fuller with a National resonator guitar. ................................................... 146 Figure 15. 1920s Artophone Talking Machine ........................................................................... 162 viii LIST OF AUDIO Audio 1. Blind Willie Davis “I Believe I’ll Go Back Home” clip ................................................. 2 Audio 2. Blind Lemon Jefferson “Booster Blues” clip............................................................... 105 Audio 3. Blind Blake “He’s In The Jailhouse Now” clip .......................................................... 118 Audio 4. Arizona Dranes “Lamb’s Blood Has Washed Me Clean” clip .................................... 124 Audio 5. Teddy Darby “Lawdy Lawdy Worried Blues” clip ..................................................... 131 Audio 6. Blind Mamie Forehand “I Wouldn’t Mind Dying If Dying Was All” clip ................. 134 Audio 7. Blind Willie Johnson “Let Your Light Shine On Me” clip ......................................... 137 Audio 8. Blind Lemon Jefferson “Booger Rooger Blues” clip .................................................. 170 ix PREFACE In writing this dissertation, my objective is to provide a candid speculative discussion relating to the significance of blindness in African American communities and the construction of cultural memories from a position outside of the collectivities of these musicians and their audiences. I am also answering an appeal