Episode 3 The Devil's Music

Some people believe that the blues is a kind of protest music,

that the blues is the cry of the oppressed.

In this programme, we want to examine that idea.

Is blues a form of Black protest music?

And when we say "oppressed", what do we mean anyway?

Well, in the case of Black people in America,

we mean quite specific things.

First, slavery.

The only reason Black people are in America in the first place

is because they were taken there forcibly as slaves.

Second, racism.

Once slavery was ended, a systematic pattern of laws was established

discriminating against Black people.

Blacks were segregated.

They had inferior facilities of every kind -

education, jobs, housing, income.

So, the third mark of oppression,

reinforced by segregation, was poverty,

and there are plenty of blues about that.

Let's see Big Joe Williams, filmed in 1976,

with a song he used to sing in the '30s,

Providence Help The Poor People, Those Who Cannot Help Themselves.

# Well, providence help the poor people, oh

# Those cannot help theirselves

# Well, providence help the poor people

# Those cannot help theirselves

# When you're working 15 hours a week, boys

# Whoo, boys You can help someone else

# Well, there was a toll a-headin'

# Won't your hands all go lace What d'you say?

# No, I got a job waggonin'

# See every name

# Providence help the poor people

# Those cannot help theirselves

# When you're workin' about 15 hours a week

# Whee, well, boys Try to help someone else

# Well, I woke up this mornin'

# Just about half past eight

# Started down on Pine Street to get my meal tickets traded to me

# No

# Providence ain't gonna help no more

# Yeah, when you see Big Joe comin'

# Whoo, my head be the maestro

# Well, now, you stole a hen

# I want you hen to crow

# Said no, I can't get no, Lord, my meal bill

# I can't live any more

# Woah, the providence help the poor people

# Those cannot help theirselves

# Wait till you help them 15 hours a week, boys

# Whoo, Lord, boy, help someone else

# Well, I woke this morning Went out to the old Red Cross store

# To get me some flour and meal

# Say you can go back home, boy

# Cos providence ain't gonna help no more

# Yeah, it ain't gonna help you no more

# Yeah, won't see me again with my mom

# Happy just by the store

# It's hard, you see. #

Big Joe used to sing that to the people standing in line

for the soup kitchens set up for the unemployed in St Louis

during the Depression.

At that time, millions of people were out of work, Black and White.

But for Black people, it was worse. Last hired, first fired.

For this next singer, Henry Townsend,

blues very clearly came from poverty and racism.

He sees blues as a relief from pressure.

Townsend came from Mississippi, but as a boy he left the Deep South,

hoping to find more freedom and opportunity in the North.

He settled in St Louis.

There, with the help of his blues, he made a living,

playing both guitar and piano.

He'd play at speakeasies and at private parties,

picking up dimes where he could.

# Oh, yeah, Lord, yeah

# I know just what I should do

# Oh, yeah, oh, yeah

# I know just what I should do

# Way you've been acting, yeah, of lately

# I have to get rid of you

# Ain't it a shame, ain't it a shame

# The way things are going today?

# Ain't it a shame, ain't it a shame

# The way things are going today?

# Well, I've tried so hard But I can't never have my way

# Oh, last night

# I was wakened up with my nightmare dreams

# Yeah, Lord, last night

# I was wakened up with all them nightmare dreams

# I was dreaming Old Devil

# Was really gonna get my loving queen

# So I'm gonna have to say I'm leaving

# Although I don't wanna go

# Yeah, I'm gonna have to say I'm leaving

# Although I don't wanna go

# Well, I just came for your work

# I ain't standing round here any more

# So I'm gonna wave my hand I'm gonna wave my hand, bye-bye-bye

# So I'm gonna wave my hand

# I'm gonna wave my hand Bye-bye-bye

# So when I leave for good

# Please don't sit around and cry. #

All the people in this programme used St Louis as a base at some point.

Henry Townsend still lives there.

Our next singer was rather different from the others - Victoria Spivey.

She became a very big star.

She travelled on all the showbiz circuits, Black nightclubs,

Black theatres and so on.

And she made a lot of money in the '20s and '30s.

But she never forgot what blues meant

to the ordinary folk who bought her records.

This song, which she originally recorded in 1928, is about TB,

a disease associated with poverty, bad housing and poor food.

The film was shot in 1976.

A few months later, Victoria Spivey died.

Perhaps one should say that her performance here is musically

well below her best, but in a way, that's the thing about blues -

it's the feeling, the emotional involvement,

the commitment of the performer that count,

far more than the virtuoso mechanics of technique.

You decide whether it's protest music.

# TB's all right to hell

# But your friends will treat you so low down

# TB's all right to hell

# But your friends will treat you so low down

# Don't you ask them for no favours

# They even stop coming around

# Oh-h-h-h

# TB's killing me

# Mmm-mmm

# TB's killing me

# Well, you can just bury my poor body

# Lord

# In the deep blue sea

# Now, when I was up on my feet

# I could not walk down the street

# For you men looking at me

# From my head to my feet

# Though now

# TB's killing me

# You can just bury my poor body

# Lord, in the deep blue sea

# And don't you worry about me. #

TB Blues, Providence Help The Poor People,

they're songs about poverty and disease.

And there are plenty of those.

But in a way, that's not the point.

The blues are not directly about oppression.

But in a culture shaped by oppression,

as Black culture in America has been, music has a symbolic significance.

Everyone knows about poverty and racism,

so no-one needs to spell it out.

Everyone's experienced it. So protest isn't quite the word for blues.

It's not rhetoric,

but a knowledge of shared experience, that gives the music its power.

# I was standing at the crossroads

# With my head hung down on the ground

# Yes, I was standing at the crossroads

# With my head hung down on the ground

# So now I'm tryin' to find my babe

# And you know she's not around

# I worked hard for my baby

# And she treats me like a tramp

# I worked hard for my baby

# And she treats me like a tramp

# She must have been tired of living

# I'll put her six feet in her grave

# You know, I don't want no woman

# If she won't pay me no mind

# You know, I don't want no woman

# If she won't pay me no mind

# She done knocked her job in

# She tried to drive me out of my mind

# I believe

# I believe I'm goin' back home

# I believe

# I believe I'm going back home

# I gotta find my baby

# She done left my hand at home. #

That was James DeShay playing in his own club,

the Santa Fe Bar in St Louis.

His clientele are working people, like himself,

and he works by day in a chemical factory.

This last song is typical late-hours, after-midnight stuff,

the old sho 'nuff, slow, sad, mournful blues.

But is it only sad?

Isn't there a lot of joy, the kind of affirmation I've been talking about?

# I met a handsome stranger

# I persuaded her

# To be my wife, to be my wife

# I met a handsome stranger

# I persuaded her

# To be my wife, to be my wife

# I wanna tell all you people

# I have made a mistake in life

# A mistake in life

# She cut my pleasure in two

# The same as she had a pocket knife, a pocket knife

# She cut my pleasure in two

# The same as she had a pocket knife

# A pocket knife

# I wanna tell all you people

# I have made a mistake in life

# A mistake in life

# Don't ever marry in a hurry

# You may make a mistake in life

# A mistake in life

# Don't ever marry in a hurry

# You may make a mistake in life

# A mistake in life

# Instead of marrying your own

# You may marry another man's wife

# Another man's wife

# When you get ready to marry

# You'd better think long and speak twice

# Think long and speak twice

# When you get ready to marry

# You'd better think once and speak twice

# You'd better speak twice

# If you make a mistake in marrying

# You'll be ruined for the rest of your life

# For the rest of your life

# Don't ever marry in a hurry

# You may make a mistake in life

# A mistake in life

# Don't ever marry in a hurry

# You may make a big mistake in life

# A mistake in life

# Instead of marrying your own

# You may marry another man's wife Another man's wife

# She'll cut your pleasure in two

# The same as she had a pocket knife

# A pocket knife

# She'll cut your pleasure in two

# The same as she had a pocket knife A pocket knife

# I wanna tell all you people

# I have made a mistake in life

# A mistake in life. #

Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you very much.