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The Depression Years 2


While this sub-genre might be termed "the cool blues," this is to make a distinction between the social context in which the sub-genre was birthed. These songs (cool blues) were not expressions wrought by suffering, per say, and they were gathering a new audience. John A. Lomax and his son Alan Lomax recorded previously unregistered aspects of the African American musical traditions of the South. Sponsored by the Archive of Folk Song of the Library of Congress, they made their first field trip in 1933 and continued to make several trips each year until 1940. Most of their field recordings were made in state prisons and penitentiary farms, extending from Virginia to Louisiana and Texas. John Lomax discovered the unrivaled songster and twelve-string guitar player Huddie Ledbetter, known as "Lead Belly," singing "Goodnight, Irene"  and "Ella Speed" at the Louisiana prison in Angola; his singing and playing on a 1934 field trip were significant in stimulating other prisoners to record. After Lead Belly's release from Angola, Lomax hired him as a driver.

Alan Lomax

Alan Lomax

Lead Belly's criminal past overly influenced how he was and has continued to be perceived by audiences, mainly due to how the Lomaxes marketed and promoted him. The Lomaxes focused on his convict past and depicted him as a "savage, untamed animal." John Lomax said of Lead Belly that "he was the type known as 'killer' and had a career of violence the record of which is a black epic of horrifies," and that he "was a 'natural,' who had no idea of money, law, or ethics and who was possessed of virtually no restraint" (quoted in Filene 1991, 610). Filene points out that the Lomax's probably and intentionally overemphasized Lead Belly's criminal past as a marketing ploy. John Lomax even "had him perform in his old convict clothes 'for exhibition purposes . . . though he always hated to wear them'" (Filene 1991, 611).

Bo-Weavil Blues

Hey, bo-weavil, don't sing the blues no more
Hey, hey, bo-weavil, don't sing the blues no more
Bo-weavil's here, bo-weavil's everywhere you go

The St. Louis Blues

I got them Saint Louis Blues
just as blue as I can be
He's got a heart like a rock cast in the sea
Or else he wouldn't have gone so far from me