THE BLUES WE ALL USE

by Tom Faigin

Much of our American folk and popular music is based on blues melodies and scales, yet at one time in our musical history, there was no blues form as we know it today. The term "blues" probably originated in Elizabethan England around 500 years ago. A person who was lonely or sad at that time was said to have the "blue devils" and American pioneers used the same term when they immigrated to this country and felt the same feelings. "Careless Love," one of our oldest blues, is claimed by white mountain singers as their own. Black Americans, faced with the same fits of depression, probably copied existing lines and changed then just as they did with hymns and psalms when they made them into spirituals. New forms were thus created out of old ones.

Blues were invented by poor Southern black farmers and field workers, virtual wage slaves after the Civil War. Always behind in their debts, deprived of voting rights, fearful of the Ku Klux Klan and Southern segregation which denied them and their children educational opportunities, they turned inward and introspective. While certain individuals like Booker T. Washington who founded Tuskogee Institute in Alabama, attempted to train young black men and women in professional and vocational careers, there was never enough money, teachers or facilities for such a large black population. In 1896 segregation laws proved to be "separate but unequal" and in the rural South these same young black men and women were forced to take the roughest, most difficult jobs at the lowest pay. They were constantly threatened by white vigilante groups attempting to keep them at the lowest rung of society. This, in turn, led to the breakup of the black family.

"When a woman gets the blues,

She hangs her head and cries. When a man gets the blues,

He jumps a freight and rides."

Around 1900 the blues as we know it really began. Many rural blacks migrated to New York, Chicago, Kansas City and other Northern cities in an attempt to find the elusive jobs that were never available in the Southern states.

Though at first, things seemed to be better, new problems emerged. Overcrowded cities, ghettoized neighborhoods, lack of jobs, recreation and education soon became the evident and fami1iar pattern. And because the new environment was cold and unfamiliar, the newer blues often sang of a despair and a lack of hope that didn’t exist in the older spirituals. The subject matter of the blues, loneliness, missed chances in love, a longing for friends and family in the country gave the singer a chance to air his grievances and to exorcise his pent up emotions of anger and pain. If singing didn’t work, whiskey and drugs became a way of escaping the unpleasant realities of life.

"Take a whiff, take a whiff,

Take a whiff on me . . .

Oh baby, baby, take a whiff on me."

So many blues dealt with traveling and looking for a better place to be, that there are hundreds, perhaps thousands of tunes that use cities in their titles. "St. Louis Blues," "Move to Kansas City," and "Alabama Bound" are just a few. Since the blues were so intensely emotional and personal, they dealt with the many complaints and frustrations the singer encountered in everyday life: being mistreated on the job, woman or man troubles and disappointments. Feelings of pain, anger or resentment were expressed again and again.

"The blues jumped a rabbit,

run him a solid mile,

The blues jumped a rabbit,

run him a solid mile.

When the blues overtook him,

he hollered like a newborn child."

Most of the early blues men were semiliterate at best, their songs were seldom written down, and they evolved and grew as others heard and sang them. We have dozens of versions of the same song, different titles and verses, but with the same idea running through them. Their guitars became the perfect instrument for their itinerant life style because it was portable, inexpensive and its sound was well suited to the voice. Its strings could be bent, strummed or plucked to create a variety of expressive moods as its owner traveled with his songs to the dance halls, picnics, street corners and whore houses in an attempt to earn a meager living.

"I’m going away, rider,

and I won’t be back ‘til fall,

I’m going away, rider,

and I won’t be back ‘til fall.

If I find me a good gal,

I won’t he hack at all."

Although the blues started out in the rural farm areas of the South around the turn of this century, it wasn’t until the 1930’s that the blues really caught on in the cities. Instead of using a solitary guitar, many singers used bands to back them up in the noisy bars and dance halls of Northern factory towns. Next, they added strong rhythm sections, amplified string instruments and sang into microphones to project the sounds and to overcome the noise of the restless audiences or dancers. Out of this came Rhythm and Blues, the frenetic child of the country blues. The early jazz bands also drew musical ideas, techniques and inspiration from blues as well as from ragtime, minstrel shows and marching bands. Sophisticated and talented singers such as Ma Rainey, Bessie Smith and later Billie Holiday took the blues and developed it into an important art form that still pleases the tastes of modern audiences. From George Gershwin to the Beatles, from marching bands during half time at football games to Broadway show tunes, the blues is all part of the fiber of American music.

Tom Faigin has taught guitar, banjo, and mandolin to private student since 1960 while teaching guitar classes at UCLA, CSULA, CSUN, and many other colleges, schools and organizations. Tom has performed on radio. TV, given concerts and Lectured on folk music at California State University at Los Angeles. Currently Tom is teaching English and ESL at James Monroe High School and actively uses folksongs and guitar music to motivate his students.