"Who Owns the Blues?"

"It ain't me, babe..." Bob Dylan

There is growing recognition that something is wrong with the blues music scene.

Three different events came to my attention recently that inspired me to take notice.

Toronto Blues Society: “Who Owns the Blues?”

At the 2022 Toronto Blues Summit, a professional blues industry conference, the keynote speaker on Sunday, June 19, was Diana Braithwaite. Ms. Braithwaite is a well-known and respected performer. She recently joined the board of directors of the Toronto Blues Society, hosts of the Summit. Joining her on the board as a new addition is Quisha Wint, another well-loved Canadian blues performer. Both are Black and both are women. In the 35-year history of the Toronto Blues Society, Ms. Braithwaite was the first Black person ever to deliver a keynote address.

When Ms. Braithwaite was giving the keynote address at the Blues Summit, she asked for a show of hands by all the Black people in the audience of 50 or 60 people. Only 1 person raised their hand. She laughed. “That’s my daughter,” she said. “I brought her with me.” She recognized that there were only two Black people in the room of Canada-wide movers and shakers in the blues world; herself, and her daughter.

“Who owns the blues?” she asked, partway through an address that lasted well over an hour. “We do. Black people. We own the blues. We have to own something after what we went through..." (Full speech here. Her address begins at 1:07:44. ) Out of a roster of awards given to blues artists in Canada by the Toronto Blues Society this year, only one award went to a Black person (Awards list here.)

As a Toronto Blues Society member, I attended that keynote address. I knew that it was a landmark moment. I wanted to write about it. I gave it some thought. Just because I wanted to write about it didn’t mean I should, at least not immediately. Reflecting, I realized I should give it some thought. Let the moment marinate a little. Let’s see what develops.

Then something did develop. There was a headline that came to my attention. It was dated July 14, 2022.

“Folk Alliance International apologizes for cultural appropriation.”

This is a significant event. Folk Alliance International (FAI) is a large organization. Their main focus is putting on a large annual Folk Music conference. The well-known and respected singer, Madeleine Peyroux, was their keynote speaker. She remarked that she felt like the songs of the Black community had become “her” songs. Folk artist and social-justice songwriter Crys Matthews corrected Peyroux in a statement to the FAI that the songs of Black people were not “her” (Peyroux’s) songs. (You can see the fascinating but short article here. It is not a contentious article, but a thoughtful one.)

Then there was another development.

Rolling Stone Magazine: “The Fight to Reclaim the Blues”

In a case of the Internet deciding I should see something, an article from earlier this year in Rolling Stone magazine came to my attention. A young Black musician, whose blues career is on the rise, was asked about the contemporary blues scene. The article is titled ‘So Much Damage Has Already Been Done”; The Fight to Reclaim the Blues.

Carl ‘Buffalo’ Nichols remarked, when asked about the blues scene, “Should I be truthful or should I be polite?” He decides to be truthful. In the article, an interview by David Browne, Nichols states “(The blues) has already been so far removed from anything recognizable from what black people have ever done." He goes on to make several blunt and troubling statements about today’s blues. (Rolling Stone, The Fight to Reclaim the Blues, David Browne. Feb 17, 2022)

The writer seeks a collaborative quote and gets it from Judith Black, the head of the Blues Foundation in Memphis, which puts on the International Blues Challenge in Memphis every year. Blues societies from around the world send nominees to this event in hopes of being crowned the winner. Ms. Black said this: “Stepping into this role, I was introduced to far more white blues artists than I knew existed,” she says. ‘I was surprised at how few African-American blues artists were really being seen and heard right now.’ (Rolling Stone, The Fight to Reclaim the Blues, David Browne. Feb 17, 2022)

So, that’s the problem. Where is the Black representation? Whose stories do we think we’re telling? Who owns the blues?

Please realize that the blues did not arise from white people. It came out of the struggles of oppressed people of color. Their desire to express themselves, to express their yearning for not just freedom but for personhood, for an identity as a human being, gave voice to the rhythms they carried.

Blues societies as we know them started in the early 1970s. Several factors triggered their formation. One was the death of the early bluesmen who were recorded in the 1930s and were re-discovered by white college kids in the 1960s. As late as 1970 it was possible to have a blues festival composed almost entirely of performers with a connection to the early days of the blues. The Ann Arbor 1970 Blues festival is a case in point. Performers such as Son House, Bukka White, and Mississippi Fred McDowell were there. Contemporary blues was represented by Buddy Guy, Albert King, and Bobby “Blue” Bland. A few years later many of these older performers would be deceased. Of the performers at this festival, only Buddy Guy survives today. So, the founders of blues societies might be forgiven for thinking that the blues were dying out.

Another factor in the fear of losing the blues as a music form was the rise of disco. Lovers of rock, blues, and jazz thought the coming of disco was the end of the world, musically. What they didn’t realize is that disco was another permutation of the blues, just like funk. Disco became so popular that it eventually sank under its own weight as a fad but continues to this day as a building block of popular music.

The generational dying off of the early blues artists and the popularity of disco made the college blues fans think that the blues were in imminent danger of dying out. They went on to start blues societies whose mission was to save the music they loved.

A common mission of blues societies is to preserve and/or protect the blues. This is strikingly paternalistic. The danger in protecting and preserving the blues is that we have created a parallel blues world that does little to express the realities of life in the Black culture that created the music.

Keeping the blues alive is not the job of blues societies. Do you think the Black community would fail to keep the blues alive after 500 years of slavery, lynchings, Jim Crow laws, and segregation? They created the blues out of these very elements. It is not something that community will ever forget. The great blues songwriter Willie Dixon was fond of saying “The blues is the roots, the rest is the fruits.” All great American music has its roots in the blues.

It’s time for us to recognize that this foundational music we love does not belong to us just because we are in a blues society, or even because we love the music. The stories it tells are not our stories.

It is time for the world of the blues societies to open up and let the world in to play.

Coda

I am not criticizing White blues musicians, or the White blues audience, of which I am a member. I’m not saying that White people shouldn’t play the blues. Anybody who wants to contribute something genuine, something real, to blues music should do so.

I have met and listened to musicians who have spent their lives studying the blues, playing the blues, and living the musician’s lifestyle. They have dedicated their lives to the blues. I have nothing but respect for these people and their achievements. But, it’s time. It’s time for some self-reflection, some questioning, and some realizations. The blues community must make an effort to be more inclusive. It’s not enough for us to listen to the black blues musicians of the past. We must also pay attention to the present and future Black blues musicians.

As a member of the Toronto Blues Society, I am happy to see that Diana Braithwaite and Quisha Wint have been added to our board of directors. I am hopeful that their presence will lead to further positive change.

Post Script

Just before I hit the “publish” button on this column today I happened to check out one of the music websites that I keep track of, The Bluegrass Situation. It’s an American website that is interested in more of a roots/Americana slant on acoustic music than a traditional bluegrass viewpoint. I noticed a change in the website. They have added a page titled Black Voices. It features articles and videos featuring Black performers in the bluegrass/Americana idiom. At the top of the page is a statement of purpose that is as powerful as any land acknowledgment, and points the way forward for any group that considers itself a champion of any form of music that was originally pioneered by Black people. I urge you to visit their site and take inspiration from the example they have set. You can see it here.

Illustration “Grapes” by author.