Blues Fell This Morning by Paul Oliver

[Teasing the Korean]

Anyone familiar with this 1960 book? Later retitled The Meaning of the Blues.

[HutchFan]

I'm not.  

Is it good?

 

[Big Beat Steve]

@TTK:

Yes and no ... About 30 years ago a chance discovery at a French fleamarket led me to (cheaply) buy a copy of the French translation of this book ("Le monde du blues", published by Arthaud in 1962). Being fluent in French and curious about how THEY translated this subject matter in every respect I read it (taking some of the French renderings with a grain of salt, of course) and found it entertaining and rewarding.
But regardless of the actual language (and bowsing through it again now to refresh my basic impressions) I feel the book has its shortcomings:

Oliver quotes and analyzes a huge amount of Blues lyrics (the French translations - done by Jacques Demêtre, a knowledgeable writer himself - appear to make sense and do manage to convey the message, though I have a hunch Madeleine Gauthier would have made an even better job of it) to show every facet of the lives of the Blacks as portrayed in the Blues. But with this book (which AFAIK ranks among his early works) he is very much a child of his time in that he focuses almost exclusively on low-down rural country blues (including at most older "Classic Blues" from the 20s as a BLues genre that was more "citified"), to the almost total exclusion of what happened later, particularly post-war and further up North once the big trek to the urban centers had happened. And in throwing these examples of Blues lyrics together according to a variety of different categories he depicts what he sees as the world and lives of the bluesmen (theoreticizing quite a bit along the way).
So the very, very rural picture he paints of the world of the Blues almost as a sort of sharecropper character sitting in the gutter strumming his lonely guitar (which may well have been romanticised again in the Blues rediscovery period of the 60s when the blues had to be as lowdown and down-home as it ever would get to find favor with many among the white folksy audience of this revival era) IMHO makes this a lopsided and outdated affair that has its blind spots. No doubt this book was important when it first appeared and it still is nice for what is in there but be very aware that there is a lot missing that ought to be in there to provide anything resembling the FULL picture, even by the 1960 state of affairs in popular music for the Black community. 

Oliver continued along the same lines in "Screening The Blues" first published in 1968 and I find this one more varied and interesting and more to the point in his analyses. Though it still is geared primarily to the COUNTRY Blues side of things.

So ... please make allowances for the fact that what I read was the French translation of this book, but since they did not change the core contents as such the gist of my (very personal) impressions should be applicable even to the English original. Not that anyone would have to agree with them but ...

Edited August 20, 2023 by Big Beat Steve

[Teasing the Korean]

5 hours ago, Big Beat Steve said:

@TTK:

Yes and no ... About 30 years ago a chance discovery at a French fleamarket led me to (cheaply) buy a copy of the French translation of this book ("Le monde du blues", published by Arthaud in 1962). Being fluent in French and curious about how THEY translated this subject matter in every respect I read it (taking some of the French renderings with a grain of salt, of course) and found it entertaining and rewarding.
But regardless of the actual language (and bowsing through it again now to refresh my basic impressions) I feel the book has its shortcomings:

Oliver quotes and analyzes a huge amount of Blues lyrics (the French translations - done by Jacques Demêtre, a knowledgeable writer himself - appear to make sense and do manage to convey the message, though I have a hunch Madeleine Gauthier would have made an even better job of it) to show every facet of the lives of the Blacks as portrayed in the Blues. But with this book (which AFAIK ranks among his early works) he is very much a child of his time in that he focuses almost exclusively on low-down rural country blues (including at most older "Classic Blues" from the 20s as a BLues genre that was more "citified"), to the almost total exclusion of what happened later, particularly post-war and further up North once the big trek to the urban centers had happened. And in throwing these examples of Blues lyrics together according to a variety of different categories he depicts what he sees as the world and lives of the bluesmen (theoreticizing quite a bit along the way).
So the very, very rural picture he paints of the world of the Blues almost as a sort of sharecropper character sitting in the gutter strumming his lonely guitar (which may well have been romanticised again in the Blues rediscovery period of the 60s when the blues had to be as lowdown and down-home as it ever would get to find favor with many among the white folksy audience of this revival era) IMHO makes this a lopsided and outdated affair that has its blind spots. No doubt this book was important when it first appeared and it still is nice for what is in there but be very aware that there is a lot missing that ought to be in there to provide anything resembling the FULL picture, even by the 1960 state of affairs in popular music for the Black community. 

Oliver continued along the same lines in "Screening The Blues" first published in 1968 and I find this one more varied and interesting and more to the point in his analyses. Though it still is geared primarily to the COUNTRY Blues side of things.

So ... please make allowances for the fact that what I read was the French translation of this book, but since they did not change the core contents as such the gist of my (very personal) impressions should be applicable even to the English original. Not that anyone would have to agree with them but ...

Thank you!  I just received a paperback copy of this book, with the reissue title, and have not yet looked inside.  I appreciate your observations!

[JSngry]

Reading they lyrics is one thing, but I'd think that actually hearing them sung (by some real/original performers) would be a lot better.

[Big Beat Steve]

@TTK:

Does your copy have a printing or revision date ( year)? From what I have seen online, at one point in the past this book was republished in a thoroughly revised and updated version. This may or may not be the one you got.

@JSngry: No doubt but who except Allen Lowe would be courageous enough to release in-depth writings in book form combined with a 30-CD box set (to comprehensively illustrate the music that the book discusses and make it accessible for listening to every reader in one go)?
 

Edited August 21, 2023 by Big Beat Steve

[Teasing the Korean]

4 hours ago, Big Beat Steve said:

@TTK:

Does your copy have a printing or revision date ( year)? From what I have seen online, at one point in the past this book was republished in a thoroughly revised and updated version. This may or may not be the one you got.

1972.  It says it is the fifth printing.

[Big Beat Steve]

OK, this should essentially be the original version. AFAIK the profoundly revised edition was published in 1990.

Edited August 21, 2023 by Big Beat Steve

[Teasing the Korean]

48 minutes ago, Big Beat Steve said:

OK, this should essentially be the original version. AFAIK the profoundly revised edition was published in 1990.

Thanks.  Not sure if this will be a cover-to-cover read for me, or if I will selectively read passages based on the index.  I may start with railroad references, as I love trains.

[JSngry]

6 hours ago, Big Beat Steve said:

 

@JSngry: No doubt but who except Allen Lowe would be courageous enough to release in-depth writings in book form combined with a 30-CD box set (to comprehensively illustrate the music that the book discusses and make it accessible for listening to every reader in one go)?
 

YouTube

[Big Beat Steve]

29 minutes ago, JSngry said:

YouTube

Maybe this will indeed work with "Blues Fell This Morning". Maybe TTK can let us know in due course if he tried this approach (following up the reference and source - in the annex - of each of the blues lyrics quoted in the text, and then checking out the recording on YT). 

[Teasing the Korean]

11 minutes ago, Big Beat Steve said:

Maybe this will indeed work with "Blues Fell This Morning". Maybe TTK can let us know in due course if he tried this approach (following up the reference and source - in the annex - of each of the blues lyrics quoted in the text, and then checking out the recording on YT). 

You're turning this into a project!  I just received the book as a gift; not sure I'm this invested yet!

Seriously, I've long had it on my to-do list to seriously check out the Blues at some point.  I have generally avoided this genre, largely because hundreds of bad white "blues" bands playing predictable 12-bar patterns over and over have given me a bad impression.  Yes, I'm aware that this is very far from the roots, and I understand at least in a general way how the blues influenced jazz and pop music.  

Edited August 21, 2023 by Teasing the Korean

[Big Beat Steve]

Project? Not really ... Just a suggestion (based on JSangrey's post) in case reading the lyrics piques your curiosity enough to listen to the actual recording. It is rare that anyone who reads a book based on a set of actual recordings offhand has ALL of these in his own collection. And in this case it is pretty much impossible.
So just consider it a LONG-TERM part-time project, OK?

[Teasing the Korean]

6 minutes ago, Big Beat Steve said:

Project? Not really ... Just a suggestion (based on JSangrey's post) in case reading the lyrics piques your curiosity enough to listen to the actual recording. It is rare that anyone who reads a book based on a set of actual recordings offhand has ALL of these in his own collection. And in this case it is pretty much impossible.
So just consider it a LONG-TERM part-time project, OK?

I was kidding with you.

[JSngry]

There's meanings in the voices that transcends written transcriptions. 

Vocal inflections need to be understood, not just in music, but in life. 

[Big Beat Steve]

1 hour ago, Teasing the Korean said:

I was kidding with you.

I wasn't totally serious either.

[Dan Gould]

9 minutes ago, JSngry said:

There's meanings in the voices that transcends written transcriptions. 

Vocal inflections need to be understood, not just in music, but in life. 

I'll just say "examples, please" to try to get a handle on what you are saying.

To me, vocal inflections are akin to good acting vs bad acting.  Or, if you will, the choices that actors make during a performance.

We're also getting beyond recorded evidence unless you believe that performers inflected the same every single time.

So ... examples?

[Teasing the Korean]

14 minutes ago, JSngry said:

There's meanings in the voices that transcends written transcriptions. 

Vocal inflections need to be understood, not just in music, but in life. 

I listen to a lot of vocal music from France and Brazil, even though I don't speak French or Portuguese.  It is amazing how much is communicated by inflections, even if you don't get the words.

[JSngry]

Exactly. Blues from source cultures is no different. And it's a language that you DO speak! 

10 minutes ago, Dan Gould said:

I'll just say "examples, please" to try to get a handle on what you are saying.

To me, vocal inflections are akin to good acting vs bad acting.  Or, if you will, the choices that actors make during a performance.

We're also getting beyond recorded evidence unless you believe that performers inflected the same every single time.

So ... examples?

Ok, listen any Robert Johnson record and then compare that to just reading the word by themselves. Or any Blues record that's not some fizzied up re-creation. 

Acting is not a bad comparison, not at all. A story is being told, and it was to fully exist on paper, actors would be redundant. 

[Dan Gould]

OK so here's one, handy/dandy with lyrics on the screen:

Sorry, not feeling the inflection thing at all.

What I do feel is the power of a great singer to put over a great song.  Just as a great actor may put over a particular speech in a play or movie.  But the words/meaning/emphasis/anything ... it's the same.

This kind of reinforces why I don't really like to read about music - I'd rather just listen.

[JSngry]

Contrast and compare:

Same words, different story. 

[Dan Gould]

Yeah the difference between legit blues and what did you say, fizzied up recreation?

PEE - F-ing YOU.  Glad I never voluntarily heard Cream play legit blues until now.

[JSngry]

There's a lesson to be learned just by comparing the word "bad" in each version. 

[Teasing the Korean]

1 hour ago, JSngry said:

Contrast and compare:

Same words, different story. 

I know Cream only through their hits.  I never cared for them, and this illustrates why.

[Dan Gould]

1 hour ago, JSngry said:

There's a lesson to be learned just by comparing the word "bad" in each version. 

Yes, how a bluesman sings, and how someone else does.

Seriously that was garbage.