This book will be seen by some as shoddy journalism; others will see it as an interesting, revelatory new view on an old medium; still others will see it as anathema. It’s about the beginnings of interest in Prewar Blues. It might also be about a son, following in his father’s path finding steps, who gets led astray, and takes future generations along with him.
I have to admit, I was predisposed to thinking of this book as anathema in certain aspects solely from reading the teasers in the book pages of a couple of newspapers. I’ve been a fairly ardent proponent of the blues for the past few years. I’d listened to and liked the blues since my teens, but I never bothered to learn much about it until moving to Wisconsin.
“Wisconsin? Wisconsin?” most people ask, incredulous. “That’s as far away from the blues as you can get.” But what these people don’t realize is that one-fourth or more of the most important prewar blues records ever made were made right here in "Milwaukee on the Mississippi," Wisconsin, by a company with the unlikely name of the Wisconsin Chair Company. From 1920 to around 1932, when the Great Depression wiped out many US industries, a small furniture factory in Grafton, Wisconsin, was putting out some of the most sought-after “sides,” as they’re called in blues lore. It was the original Paramount company, not the one that’s around today, but the original holder of the trademark on the name.
All that’s for a different story some other time, but it was shortly after moving to Wisconsin that I discovered that little nugget of information and began researching Prewar Blues. Prewar Blues is what’s also called Country Blues; it’s blues that was recorded between the two world wars.
As I was reading the dustcover blurb on the book, I became sure I would have to disagree with the book. Fifty words into the dust jacket summary, it says the story of the Delta blues “is largely a myth.” It goes on to say that in the 1960s, when a New York record collector amassed a cache of old Delta blues that he particularly liked, and the records were discovered by others, “collectors used them to invent the idea of the Delta blues.” How can one person, or even a mob of people, invent the idea of something that is supported by literally thousands of examples that predate these same people by at least a generation, more correctly three generations, since we’re talking about the 1960s? I think I’d have to put the person making the “myth” accusation in the same category of those who believe man never walked on the moon. I mean, why let the facts get in the way of a good yarn?
Article comments
1 - Jacob Astor
Uh, I think this review is incomplete. Multiple citations from the dust jacket but none from the book itself!?! How is this any different from browsing the shelves of a bookstore. I feel like I've learned exactly as much.