It's on discs two and three that we enter territory we are more familiar with. But what makes these two discs special is the sheer diversity of the material. The voices and music of long dead men and women who sang for the release and the joy of singing echo down the years. Ghosts from a time when sometimes the only way you could escape your hardships were to sing about it.
"It gives you relief…" says Henry Townsend in an interview talking about the blues. Relief from the feelings of being a second-class citizen, of grinding poverty, and of being looked down upon. Just as the spirituals helped slaves find escape from the misery of working in the fields; their latter day cousin the blues helped the children and grand children of slaves escape their soul-destroying reality.
Regretting the past doesn't get you very far, but it's hard not to listen to these discs and regret that the men and women singing on them didn't get the recognition they deserved during their lifetime. The best we can do for them now is to honour their contributions to our culture and our lives by learning their names now, and not letting them be forgotten.
Paul Oliver has put together an incredible collection of music and interviews on Broadcasting The Blues: Black Blues In The Segregation Era. It is discs like these that are not only a pleasure to listen to, but will keep those people alive forever. What's even more exciting is that he's only just begun working through close to fifty years of radio shows. There's plenty more where this came from.
Article comments
1 - Jon Sobel
Looks like a really interesting collection - guess I'll have to put this on my Amazon wish list.
2 - lumpy
Some of these guys are still alive and performing. Buying their current CDs or going to see them at a club is really the best and most direct way you can support them. And they've been dropping like flies in the last decade so do it soon.