Techniques of Blues Composition among Black Folksingers

Author(s): David Evans

Source: The Journal of American Folklore , Jul. - Sep., 1974, Vol. 87, No. 345 (Jul. -
Sep., 1974), pp. 240-249
Published by: American Folklore Society

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 DAVID EVANS

Techniques of Blues Composition

Black Folksingers*

ANYONE FAMILIAR WITH AMERICAN FOLKSONG knows there are a number of

basic differences between the Anglo-American and Afro-American traditions,
despite more than three centuries of contact and musical interaction between
blacks and whites in this country. These differences are due in part to the separ-
ate cultural and musical heritages from Great Britain and from Africa, as well
as to the American pattern of social segregation, which has forced separate cul-
tural development (though not without many mutual influences) upon the two
groups. Newman I. White noted in 1928 that the black tradition displayed three
important attributes absent in the white folksong tradition: the black tradition
emphasized improvisation ("highly characteristic;... a racial trait"), variation,
and the accumulative tendency.'
Today, in accordance with more modern terminology, we would probably
change White's characterization of improvisation as a "racial trait" to a "cultural
trait." He later states that it is "the continuation of a habit brought from Af-
rica."2 The statement that the cumulative tendency is characterized by "fishing
stanzas out of a spacious but none too accurate or discriminating folk memory""
must not go unchallenged, however. Although a cumulative tendency is found in
many black folksongs, White has committed the error of judging black folk-
songs by the standards of the white tradition, which emphasizes memorization
of songs by their singers. The inevitable result of such judgment is a negative
assessment of the black tradition.
In the light of White's statement, I will examine blues, currently the most
popular and prevalent genre of black nonreligious folksong, and will show how
these songs are learned and composed by black folksingers. These findings will
be contrasted with the ways in which white folksingers learn and compose their
songs. It will be shown that the differences in approach to learning and composi-

* This paper was read at the annual meeting of the Southern California Academy of Sciences,
May 4, 1974, at Fullerton, California. I am indebted to Jeff Titon and my wife for their com-
ments on an earlier version.
1 American Negro Folk-Songs (Cambridge, Mass., 1928), 26.
2 Ibid., 29.
: Ibid., 26.

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 TECHNIQUES OF BLUES COMPOSITION AMONG BLACK FOLKSINGERS 241

tion are not only due to separate musical heritages but are also reinforced by
attitudinal differences held by singers and audiences within the two groups.
Almost all white secular folksongs tell a story or develop a theme. If the mes
sage is told from the first-person point of view and its emotional dimension i
stressed, then the song is called a lyric. If action is stressed, then the song i
called a ballad. A third type is the dialog song, in which there is a verbal con-
frontation of characters. All three types, though, are essentially story-songs,
that is, where the story is not overt it is easily reconstructable. Furthermore, whit
folksongs display comparatively little variation in oral tradition. This partly re
sults from the fact that, as story-songs, they have a theme or plot as a built-i
constant structural feature. But more importantly, the minimal variation is du
to certain values and attitudes held by white folksingers toward their songs.
Normally the white folksinger will attempt to learn his text and tune exactly
as the piece has been performed by his source. Then, once he has learned the
piece, he will attempt to perform it the same way each time he sings it. The
greatest variation in the process of learning and subsequent performance is like
ly to be in the instrumental accompaniment, but we may ignore this because, with
the exception of instrumentally-based musical genres such as bluegrass and banj
and fiddle dance-tunes, instrumental accompaniment is not essential to the per
formance of white folksongs. Instead, accompaniment, if used, remains in the
background of the vocal performance and serves simply to enhance the singin
harmonically and rhythmically. In general, then, in white folksong tradition "the
singer views himself as a voice for whatever piece he is performing; he places
himself in the background, letting the piece speak for itself. He attempts to re
produce the song exactly as he has heard it and learned it."5
The preceding statements, of course, represent an ideal situation. In reality,
change does take place in the white folksong tradition, and some changes are
even made consciously by the folksingers." These changes may occur because the
singer forgets a portion of the song while performing or mishears a portion in
the process of learning it. More rarely, a singer may actually delete those parts
of a song inconsistent with his worldview (such as references to the supernat-
ural) or offensive to his moral outlook (such as sexual and scatological refer-
ences). On the other hand, the singer may feel that a song as he has learned it
is incomplete and therefore will attempt to "patch it up." Variation may also
result from the singer either combining two or more different versions of a song
he has heard or borrowing elements from another song and incorporating them
into his version. In virtually all cases the singer ultimately establishes his own
stable version of the song. Subsequent patching up, combining, and borrowing
simply serve to produce what one might call a "revised standard version." Thus,
the singer's performance at any one time represents the result of his attempts to
develop a definitive version of the song. The white tradition, then, on the whole

* Roger D. Abrahams and George Foss, Anglo-American Folksong Style (Englewood Cliffs,
N.J., 1968), 37-38.
6 Ibid., 12. See also G. Malcolm Laws, Jr., Native American Balladry (Philadelphia, 1964), 82.
6 The ways changes are made are discussed in Abrahams and Foss, 12-36, and Laws, 68-82. For
an excellent discussion of eleven white folksingers' attitudes toward changes in their songs see John
Quincy
III.
Wolf, "Folksingers and the Re-creation of Folksong," Western Folklore 26 (1967), 101-

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 242 DAVID EVANS

is resistant to chang
Mrs. Almeda Ridd
change anything j
make good sense."
Rather little atten
ers learn and create
published on vario
search has tended
content of the son
history of the blue
blues designed for
White, tended to
the standards of w
composites of line
whole songs."0 Thi
tion might be an
might in many case
Because of the scar
composed, I am ba
black folk musician
about one hundred
they learn and com
ants and recorded their blues on different occasions in order to note variations in
performance.
With the decline of minstrelsy and balladry in the last few decades, blues
have become today the most important genre of black nonreligious folksong.
All blues are lyrics in the sense that they are told from the first-person point of
view and their emotional dimension is stressed. Unlike most white folksongs,
however, blues are frequently the original compositions or combinations of the
persons who sing them. Furthermore, blues normally require an instrumental ac-
companiment, which serves as an integral part of the song itself. It is not simply
a background sound which enhances the vocal: throughout the performance it
responds to and interacts with the vocal lines."
In spite of these two major differences, many blues still display the same kind
of stability in tradition that is characteristic of white folksong. For the most

7 Wolf, io8. For another statement of the same view see Roger Abrahams, "Creativity, Indi-
viduality, and the Traditional Singer," Studies in the Literary Imagination 3 (1970), i1.
8 Exceptions to this statement are Harry Oster, Living Country Blues (Detroit, I969), 76-95;
William Ferris, Jr., Blues from the Delta (London, 1970), 34-60; John Fahey, Charley Patton
(London, 1970), 52-70; David Evans, Tommy Johnson (London, 1971), 45-68, 91-107.
' An excellent summary of much of the recent blues scholarship is Paul Oliver's The Story of
the Blues (London, 1969).
10 See, for example, Howard W. Odum and Guy B. Johnson, Negro Workaday Songs (Chapel
Hill, N.C., 1926), 27.
1 Some writers, as well as some blues singers themselves, have called certain unaccompanied
Negro lyric folksongs "blues." These songs may indeed use many of the same textual and me-
lodic conventions as instrumentally accompanied blues, but for analytical purposes I prefer to
call them by the separate term "hollers" because their character and functions when unaccom-
panied by an instrument are quite different from those of real blues.

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TECHNIQUES OF BLUES COMPOSITION AMONG BLACK FOLKSINGERS 243

part, however, such songs can be traced to origins in the popular commercial re-
cordings of blues that have been appearing by the thousands since 1920. Other
blues singers hear these records and try to reproduce them for local audiences.
Most of the variation from the original phonograph record is in the accompani-
ment, where the performer may use a different instrument from that on the rec-
ord or may play a different set of figures on the same instrument, either by
preference or from inability to play the part on the record. As for changes in the
words of such blues, they generally occur as a result of the same factors that
cause change in the white folksong tradition, although Mrs. Riddle's position
against change for its own sake applies to a lesser extent for blues such as these.
Black singers in general tend to personalize their songs and are less likely to see
themselves as simply carriers or vehicles for the performance of traditional
pieces. For example, "Boogie" Bill Webb, a blues singer from New Orleans
whom I have recorded extensively, sang a version of "Red Cross Store," a song
about the government relief program for the poor during the Depression and
World War II and derived ultimately from a commercial blues recorded by
Walter Roland in 1933. Webb's version is close to his recorded source in words
and melody, but he has personalized the lyrics somewhat by inserting his wife's
name in several appropriate places and by adding a spoken introduction which
connects the events in the song to a particular period in his life. His two per-
formances for me of this blues were virtually identical.
Commercially issued blues are usually thematic and therefore could be called
story-songs. Their performers are frequently also the composers. Other singers
learn to perform these blues from the records and may even compose a few blues
of their own, usually story-songs with thematic texts on the model of other com-
mercial blues. Some of these singers later get an opportunity to make commercial
recordings themselves. "Boogie" Bill Webb is such a blues singer with an orien-
tation toward commercial records. He recorded four blues for Imperial Records
in 1953, two of which were issued on a record. It sold poorly, and Webb was
not recorded again until my sessions with him beginning in 1966. The majority
of songs he performs were learned from popular blues records, and on them his
singing is close to the originals, with very little variation from one performance
to another of the same blues. Most of the rest of his blues were learned in per-
son from other singers, primarily from John Henry "Bubba" Brown and Tommy
Johnson. Brown, whom I have recorded in Los Angeles where he now resides,
was a prolific composer of blues, who almost always worked out stable versions
of his songs, which he would then perform the same way every time.12 Webb's
versions of these songs are in most cases very close to Brown's, even to the guitar
playing, which Webb learned note for note. Webb also has developed stable
versions of Tommy Johnson's blues, despite the fact that Johnson himself appar-
ently varied his lyrics considerably from one performance to another.'"
Webb has composed only a handful of blues himself. All of them are the-
matic and almost unvarying from one performance to the next, like his other

12 See David Evans, "Bubba Brown, Folk Poet," Mississippi Folklore Register, 7 (1973), 15-
31; "The Bubba Brown Story," Blues World, 21 (October, 1968), 7-9; Tommy Johnson,
71-72.

" Evans, Tommy Johnson, 91-94.

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 244 DAVID EVANS

blues. Typical of h
which tells in lyric
has a story about h
I made some songs. O
that's what it is. A f
want none of the lad
We knowed three ladi
you to know they w
you know. And so, h
'Drinking and Stinkin
me and him right the

The words of this

i. You've been drink
You've been drinki
Well, I'm gonna say
Girl, you smell lik
2. You smell like a g
If I tell you what y
When you've been
You've been drinki
Girl, you've been dr
3. Repeat stanza 2.
4. You don't never w
in my face.
You smell like something I never smelled before.
Well, you've been drinking and stinking all night long.
Well, you've been drinking.
You've been drinking, pretty babe, and stinking all night long.
5. Repeat stanza 2.
6. Repeat stanza 4.
Spoken: Kiss me, baby!

A few blues singers are adept at improvising thematic blues on the spot at the
time of performance. These spontaneous creations are usually quite original in
their texts, and frequently, because of lack of time for more careful composition,
they contain a good number of unrhymed lines; often the singing is interspersed
with spoken passages. Such songs appear to issue forth from the singer in a
"stream of consciousness," and they are seldom performed a second time. Napo-
leon Strickland of Como, Mississippi, is a singer who frequently improvises such
spontaneous blues. His songs combine startling, sometimes almost surrealistic,
images related to his current thoughts or events in his life, such as the following
blues about an uncooperative mule, "Black Sam.'"

" Recorded in New Orleans, Louisiana, August 27, 1970, and issued on Arhoolie o057,
Roosevelt Holts and His Friends, 12" LP. Stanzas 3 and 4 were deleted on the record.
"5 Recorded in Como, Mississippi, June 27, 1971.

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TECHNIQUES OF BLUES COMPOSITION AMONG BLACK FOLKSINGERS 245

i. Come over here, Black Sam. You know I want to plow your hams down.
Come over here, Black Sam. Believe I'm gonna plow your black hams down.
You know, your legs so long, Lord, you gonna run my short legs down.
2. You ain't gonna hold your line in the wagon, and your plow's all down on th
ground.
Lord, I plowed Black Sam so long, 'til the old coot, he done got straightened
wrong.

3. Lord, when Black Sam got hungry, Lord, I had to take him out and carry him
to the barn.
Lord, I carried him to the trough. Lord, he sure didn't want no water.
4. Lord, his bell ringing all day long. Lord, Black Sam would holler up and hoot.
Lord, I'm leaving here. Black Sam, good day!
What Black Sam will do-he wouldn't eat, he wouldn't eat, he wouldn't eat
when he got hungry.

Many other blues singers, however, have little interest in putting their mom-
entary thoughts or episodes in their life's story into song form. Instead, they
rely on a vast body of traditional formulaic lines and stanzas for composing
their blues. A few dozen to a few hundred of these formulas comprise the rep-
ertoires of many blues singers. To form a blues they will combine about five or
six of these stanzas, usually only loosely related in theme and sometimes even
inconsistent and contradictory. Most of these formulaic stanzas and lines treat
some aspect of the man-woman relationship and express thoughts relevant to al-
most anyone's life experience. Consequently they are known by many blues sing-
ers and are quickly recognized by their audiences, in contrast to the verses of a
blues like "Drinking and Stinking," which will probably always be associated
with their composer.
A singer who frequently avails himself of formulaic lines and stanzas in im-
provising blues is Roosevelt Holts of Bogalusa, Louisiana. He uses all of the stan-
zas of the following blues, "Let's Talk It All Over Again,"'" in other blues, and
I have also heard most of the lines used by other singers in various combinations.
No specific central theme unites the various thoughts expressed in these verses,
nor do any of them refer to specific dateable events in Holts's life. They are,
however, experiences which he or anyone else could easily have undergone.
i. Well, come on, baby. Let's talk it all over again.
Well, come on, baby. Let's talk it all over again.
'Cause you know we love each other. Let's try to hold out to the end.
2. Well, wake up in the morning feeling sad and blue.
Well, wake up in the morning feeling sad and blue.
Well, I woke up this morning, didn't hardly know what to do.
3. Well, I got a red rooster, crow every morning 'fore day.
Well, little red rooster, he crow every morning 'fore day.
Well, I can always tell when my baby gone away to stay.

1" Recorded in New Orleans, Louisiana, February 3, 1966, and issued on Blue Horizon
7-63201, Presenting the Country Blues: Roosevelt Holts, 12" LP.

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 246 DAVID EVANS
4. Well, the lead in my
Lord, the lead in my p
Well, that's the worst

Holts had never sung t

knowledge has never su
and guitar part are sepa
with other stanzas, mel
Some times a blues that combines traditional formulaic stanzas and musical
elements becomes fixed in a singer's repertoire and is repeated in the same way
on different occasions. When this happens, the singer usually associates the blues
with another performer he has known. This association with a particular singer
gives the piece a certain sanctity so that others become unwilling to alter what
they conceive to be the song's "original" version. A similar attitude has been
seen to prevail toward blues learned from phonograph records. One might ex-
pect, then, that such fixed combinations would enter the repertoires of several
singers if the "original" singer enjoyed wide popularity. Such stability of tradi-
tion, however, does not usually occur. Even when a blues singer claims to be
performing a song in exactly the same way as another singer, a check usually
reveals considerable difference. Such was the case with the few fixed combina-
tions in Roosevelt Holts's repertoire in all instances where it was possible to
compare his version with that of his source, and such is the case in most other
comparable instances I have encountered among blues singers. The reason for
this is that often the original singer does not perform the blues in the same way
every time. Only a part of it is fixed in his repertoire. This part, which we shall
call the blues "core," usually consists of the melody, instrumental accompani-
ment, and a single stanza of the text. The remaining stanzas are drawn from the
repertoire of traditional formulaic stanzas and vary with each performance by
the singer.
A singer who uses the core technique for composing most of his blues is
Mager Johnson of Crystal Springs, Mississippi. The following version of "Big
Road Blues''"" is typical of this technique. The core of the song for him consists
of the melody, guitar accompaniment, refrain, and first stanza. The remaining
stanzas vary considerably in his other performances of this blues.

I. Lord, ain't going down that big road by myself.

Now don't you hear me talking, pretty mama? (refrain)
Lord, ain't going down that big road by myself.
If I don't carry you, gon' carry somebody else.
2. Mmmm, Lord, have mercy, mama now, on my wicked soul.
Now don't you hear me talking, pretty mama?
Crying, Lord, have mercy on my wicked soul.
If the good Lord don't help me, the devil will damn my soul.
3. Mmmm, take me back to my same old used-to-be.
Now don't you hear me talking, pretty mama?
Lord, take me back to my same old used-to-be.

17 Recorded in Crystal Springs, Mississippi, March 30, 1969.

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 TECHNIQUES OF BLUES COMPOSITION AMONG BLACK FOLKSINGERS 247

Crying, Lord, I ain't got no special rider here.

4. Says my special rider, mama now, done been here and gone.
Now don't you hear me talking, pretty mama?
Mmmm, done been here and gone.
Crying, Lord, I ain't gon' be here long.

I have recorded versions of "Big Road Blues" from many singers, all of wh
combine the same core with various other stanzas. Isaac Youngblood of Ty
town, M?ississippi, recorded the following version of this blues.1"
i. Well, I ain't going down the big road by myself.
Don't you hear me talking to you, mama? (refrain)
Oh, going down that big road by myself.
If I don't carry you, I'm gonna carry me someone else.
2. Well, I got a riding horse. She's already trained.
Don't you hear me talking to you, mama?
Oh, got a riding horse. She's already trained.
If you want to ride easy, tighten up on your reins.
3. Hey, what good is your bulldog, he won't bark or bite?
Don't you hear me talking to you, mama?
Oh, good is your bulldog, he won't bark or bite?
Well, what service is your woman, she won't let you in at night?
4. Hey now, see, see, rider, see what you done done.
Don't you hear me talking to you, mama?
Oh, see, see, rider, see what you done done.
You done made me love you. Now your man done come.

Unlike Mager Johnson, Isaac Youngblood has established the text as a sta
item in his repertoire and performs it in the same way every time, except
omissions. Youngblood does not consider the song to be completely his own
because he learned it many years ago from Tommy Johnson, Mager's brot
er. Mager Johnson, however, considers it to be very much his own song a
feels free to add verses to the core as he sees fit at the time of the performance
In use among black folksingers, then, are five main types of blues, which vary
according to the degree of stability of the song in the performers' repertoi
and whether or not the text is thematic. The five types are:
i. Thematic/Stable. Examples: "Drinking and Stinking" and most commer
cially recorded blues.
2. Thematic/Improvised. Example: "Black Sam."
3. Nonthematic/Stable. Example: Isaac Youngblood's "Big Road Blues."

1" Recorded in Tylertown, Mississippi, August 25, 1966, and issued on Matchbox SDM 22
The Legacy of Tommy Johnson, 12" LP.
"1 Tommy Johnson apparently shared his brother's attitude. I have recorded this song fro
many blues singers who learned it from Tommy Johnson at various times. Each has a standa
version he performs in the same way every time, yet each singer has a different version fr
every other singer. All versions, however, contain the core of this blues. For the text of Tom
Johnson's own I928 recording of "Big Road Blues" see Evans, Tommy Johnson, 49-50. It
been reissued on RBF 14, Blues Roots/Mississippi, 12" LP.

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 248 DAVID EVANS

4. Nonthematic/Im
5. Nonthematic/P
"Big Road Blues."
There may well be a
the core technique).
Each blues performer
but most can and do
Roosevelt Holts's blu
which are Thematic/
ble. Napoleon Strick
also performs many
Nonthematic/Partly
This range of appro
the situation for whi
of folksongs are The
compositions), almo
approaches are virtual
in the common use
singing and the less
The reasons for these
context of the blues.
branch of the great
of African music, ad
various borrowings fr
can and Afro-Amer
traditions, so that blu
Furthermore, the par
improvisation. The b
ers working alone
Hollers were sung m
rather tedious and u
singer could holler
sing traditional line
hollers became blues
paniment.
Blues today, however, are not normally sung in fields but are instead per-
formed for audiences at parties and dances. They express in their words and
music moods the singer feels or would like to create. They must also express
moods and thoughts to which the audience can relate, or else they will be un-
successful. Since the audience is varied and the moods are constantly shifting, a
blues singer must have considerable variety to his repertoire. His ability to im-
provise offers a simple but effective means of achieving this variety. It enables
the singer to meet the needs of the moment, to try out new ideas to see if they
will be successful, and to abandon unsuccessful ideas. The blues audience is a
demanding one, and it needs excitement as well as rhythm for dancing. Impro-
visation assures that a blues singer's repertoire will not become too familiar to
the audience and thus will continue to provide excitement.

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TECHNIQUES OF BLUES COMPOSITION AMONG BLACK FOLKSINGERS 249

Most white folksingers rarely compose original songs but instead learn th
pieces from other singers and try to perform them exactly as heard or with
few revisions. In contrast, most blues singers claim the majority of their songs as
original compositions, even when they have simply recombined traditional mu
cal and textual elements. The ability to improvise and the fact that such reco
binations have never before been performed in exactly the same way give th
singer a feeling of originality highly valued among blues singers and their au
ences. Among white folksingers and audiences originality is valued less tha
correct and accurate performance of the song. To whites the song and its m
sage are more important than the person who happens to be singing it, but t
opposite is true for blues singers and their audiences. Improvisation in blue
allows the singer to be an individualist while at the same time expressing sen
ments familiar and important to himself and the audience.

California State University

Fullerton, California

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