Dave's Anatomy: My History As a Writer #53: "Guitar Blues"

I play blues, and because of my taste for that type of music the story "Guitar Blues" emerged from my imagination. It arose from certain questions:  What is the appeal of the blues? As a musical form, why does it endure despite a limited audience? Why was it so influential on rock and roll music—why, for instance did guitarists like Keith Richards and Eric Clapton work hard to learn the blues styles of Robert Johnson and Big Bill Broonzy? Why did popular groups in the sixties do old songs like "Love in Vain" (a Robert Johnson song the Rolling Stones did) or "Back Door Man" (a song by Willy Dixon done by the Doors)? What is the perpetual appeal of the blues? Why does it never emerge as a dominant style of music and yet never seem to go away?

 

I tried to go back to the origins of the genre in "Guitar Blues." I could not go back to the most remote origins of the music. According to writer LeRoi Jones (later Amiri Baraka) in his book Blues People, that particular genre of music started with the "field hollers" of slaves in the first or section generation of the black diaspora. These shouts, related to African chants, entailed one worker shouting out a phrase with musical intonation—shouting it twice. The other workers would respond with a one-line chorus. This formed the basic structure of the blues: line, repetition of the line, another line that responds to the previous two. Later musicians, who probably had forgotten the African origins and probably even the birth of the style in the "hollers," would add a distinctive musical structure to it. So the blues came about.

The music had existed many years, but in the thirties people began to notice it. In my story, Noah Copeland is thankful to have a job after the stock market crash. He works at a dairy on the edge of the black district. His parents don't approve of his working there, but he keeps his job and begins to know the customers. His ideas on "colored people" and the stereotypes his parents have told him begin to change. When one of the customers finds out Noah plays guitar and likes jazz guitarists like Eddie Lang and Django Reinhart, he gives him some blues records.

Chloe

Noah is fascinated, charmed, and confused by the music. He has learned classical guitarist and is interested in jazz. His parents don't like his learning jazz. One evangelist from his church warns him that it is "jungle music" and derives from the rhythms of African paganism. He is incredulous, begins to learn the style, and finds out a fund-raiser featuring blues players is scheduled in his town. He meets a young black woman named Bess and is startled when he finds her attractive. He doesn't know Bess well enough to ask her out, but he meets Chloe Fettman, a Jewish girl in his school, finds out she likes the blues and that she is going to the concert. She asks Noah to meet her in the soda fountain of a hotel. They will go to the concert from there.

Chloe is quirky, wears short skirts, and is what in that era was called "Bohemian"—hip, quirky, pushing limits. They have a soda together but then she invites him to a room she has rented. They both lose their virginity there (Chloe's idea). They prepare to attend the concert, which Noah finds out will feature Eddie Lang and Lonnie Johnson.

Eddie Lang was a white guitarist who played jazz but who had the distinction of being the first popular musician to do an album in which a black and white musician played together. He did it with Lonnie Johnson, who was black and considered the "governor" of the blues at that time. They did the recording, but his record company feared backlash if they released an "interracial" record. So, they bill Eddie Lang as Blind Willie Dunn. Noah is elated about seeing his favorite jazz guitarist do a gig with the "governor" of the blues. He and Chloe set out for the concert hall.

 As they do, they encounter a group of protesters. They are posted at the entrance to the venue where the concert is to be performed. They are carrying signs that say JAZZ:  A THREAT TO PUBLIC GOOD, STOP THE EVIL INFLUENCE, NO JUNGLE MUSIC, KEEP THE JUNGLE TUNES IN AFRICA. Among the protestors are his father and a pastor from the church he and his parents attend.

Chloe suggests they go around to the back door and slip in unnoticed. She doesn't care about being spotted but is concerned for Noah. At first he agrees, but when he thinks about blues, Bess, the racism and misrepresentation that is going on, and his parents'  attitude, he decides to enter through the front, in plain sight of the protesters, including his father and one of the pastors from his church. He sees Bess there. Things have changed—or are changing for him.

The story was published in a journal called Cave Scribbles, which is no longer published and does not keep an archive. I might try to market it so people can once more read it.

If martial arts, sorcery, wuxia, and historical fiction are your cup of tea, check out my latest novella, The Sorceress of Time.

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