I believe this article raises some interesting issues regarding music, tradition, prejudice, and record labeling (even beyond the immediate subject matter). http://www.utexas.edu/cofa/music/erlmannseries/corrina.htm
MP3 of the original recording under discussion can be found here:
http://www.publicdomain4u.com/html/bo_carter.htm
Great article Walden,
I have only glanced through it because I’m off to work soon but I will have a more detailed examination of it later.
I have many versions of this song in my collection and I was surprised at Joni Mitchells version not being mentioned,she brings another perspective to it altogether and features Wayne Shorter doing these delightful little bird whistles on a alto sax…
Folk music has always been very open to interpretations based on time and situation which is why there are so many wonderful versions of basically the same theme throughout folk music.
I’ll get back to you on this one.
Slan,
D.
That’s an interesting article. I could go on about it for ages so I won’t. I think the author is very roughly right but that he seems to me to be going over the top in a lot of places. Just a few points.
I don’t know why he chose Bo Chatmon (Carter) as his example. Lot’s of people from the string band and songster traditions would have done just as well and a lot of them sold plenty of records. I’ve had Carter’s records for a long time but don’t like him much. That has nothing to do with stereotyping; a lot of blues fans like songsters other than Carter. I prefer Henry Thomas and (especially) Frank Stokes.
The Blackwell Guide To Recorded Blues has 11 chapters. One is devoted entirely to black artists of the kind the author of this article regards as marginalised and another is devoted to white southern crossovers. Marginal artists crop up in other chapters as well. I’d have thought that just about every blues fan now realises that the recorded legacy of the twenties is misleading in that most black artists played in many different styles but only a few were allowed to record anything other than blues. Being able to play for both black and white audiences was common and that was facilitated by the fact that both groups had a lot of tastes in common. You wouldn’t have needed to change your repertoire or style much. Blues sold well so that’s what got recorded. I think it was mostly a commercial decision although almost certainly a very short-sighted one.
Mississippi string bands, white and black, sound to me quite unlike bands from anywhere else. In the heavy rhythms I hear something of the intensity of the delta blues, an intensity not matched in blues from elsewhere except perhaps southern Louisiana. White Cajun music also has this intensity. Blues and string band music from the eastern seaboard states is lighter and more lyrical. This is true of black and white performers. Obviously they listened to eachother, learned from eachother and probably played together a lot more often than the official record allows. But I don’t think well-read fans of either blues or country music are unaware of any of this.
Since my last visit I have had more time to study this article.
It’s a bit too academic for my simple little mind but this thing about a old geezer writing a song, getting ripped off by the record company and then seeing the song become part of popular culture is not news to me.This kind of thing has been happening since they invented recording.
I also think that the author of the article is being a bit harsh on Dylan and the great Taj Mahal.Neither one of these men made their reputation on a cover of Corrina, Corrina.Taj Mahal has probably done more for American trad/folk music than anybody recording today and deserves respect for his erudition and for his role in introducing many obscure writers to a wider audience.
Folk Music has always borrowed from itself and anybody ,as Wombat has suggested, who knows anything about the subject can see certain lines and riffs cropping up all over the place.Everybody has borrowed off everybody else and adapted songs to suit the line up of their band and to the tastes of their audience.
The Texas Playboys,for example, borrowed from every known genre and produced a rich blend of music that could only be American.This borrowing can be heard everywhere from the Grateful Dead ,The Band,Little Feat right through to todays “Americana” style of music by the likes of the Handsome Family and Lambchop to mention but a few.
That said,I still think Wombat explained it better 
Slan,
D.
Your explanation was just fine, D. I think you’re right on all points.
I find this guy’s description of things mostly OK but a bit odd when he starts trying to explain things. I probably start to choke at about the point things get too academic for D. 
(You’d think I’d be innoculated by now.) He complains about our having too simple a picture and then replaces it with a picture which is also too neat and tidy. First, as we’ve both noted, the interplay between traditions has been crossing the colour boundary for centuries and the writers of books on this music know this and say it. Second, there is no neat correlation between identifying and looking mulatto and sounding mulatto. Leadbelly was a songster. Charlie Patton was mixed race, had a mixed repertoire but inspired the deeply intense school of delta bluesmen. The black and mulatto musicians who played for whites were pretty much the ones they liked to listen to. Note, too, that if you were going to make a living busking it would have been smart to have a broad repertoire that crossed social and cultural divides.
I’d been discussing this article elsewhere and decided it would be good to bring it over here.
Yeah, no news to the well-read, but the well-read don’t seem to be in the majority.
I also think too much was made of the mixed-race status of the performer the author chose to focus on. However, the point about over-generalizations regarding musical tradition, based on record company marketing practices ,is, in my opinion, a very valid one.
I was not too thrilled with the neatness of the conclusions drawn and the manner in which the artists were characterized.
Dubhlinn is, of course, right about the folkloric nature of this music and how one singer takes from another and so forth. People are still piecing together and debating what of the Carter Family repertoire was traditional, what was from pop sheet music, and what was original. Much of it, was a blend of all three, and that goes for the singing of modern groups as well.
I was listening to KVOO this evening, which is a longstanding “country music” station in Tulsa (till recently a clear channel AM station, with far broadcast reach). This station was the home base of the Texas Playboys. I grew up around that sort of music, but what I don’t particularly enjoy about the direction it seems to be going is that there is such a preponderance of songs with lyrics to the effect “I’m a God fearin’, chaw chewin’, honky tonkin’, red neck and those who don’t agree can all just *&^%.” Music has just become so very, very, category-defined, and utterly self-conscious it is losing some of its ability to communicate on a universal level.
Without knowing all of the past songs I would argue that this has always been the case. It is the best that floats to the top. You are surrounded by what you know. Compared to those people that were perhaps surrounded by the same noise, but the noise was forgotten and the timeless things were kept. Time is a filter.
But, I could be wrong.
This would at least be true, I think, of those who primarily listen to current releases and re-releases, or whose exposure to live music is among such a crowd.
I’d say ‘commercially visible’ rather than current here. Probably more old music is readily available now than ever before, even if you have to know where to look to find it. Back in the 20s and 30s it might have been hard to get music that wasn’t stocked where you shopped. I suppose mail order catalogues were a possibility but would people have known about artists from other regions or playing in styles they weren’t familiar with?
BTW, I don’t think it’s a very big deal if most people don’t have an in depth knowledge of their musical heritage. It’s a pity of they don’t know anything and a pity if what they do think they know is unimportant or inaccurate. But ultimately the most important thing is to listen and play with joy. Ignorance of tradition is only a major problem when people who haven’t read or listened widely think they know heaps.
I agree.
Really, though, my point was not that “modern music is going to hades in a handbasket” but that, in the example I gave, there is a style-- one of the well accepted and defined divisions of commercial pop music-- that, has demonstrated an increased focus on comparing itself with other styles, and I think the way I put it with the mocked up lyrics missed that entirely. Not just a disproportionately large number of songs of this type compared to 25-50 years ago, but compared to 5 years ago. Thus, when I said lost its ability to communicate universally, I mean more it’s missing an opportunity in developing such a focus on the musical style itself. Perhaps it’s a natural part of social change. Speaks of a people interacting more with other groups.