The People’s Songbag

Press, Volume CIV, Issue 30769, 5 June 1965, Page 5

The People’s Songbag

Blues Like Hail

[Specially written for “The Press” by ;

DERRICK ROONEY]

Ample evidence exists ini American Negro folk-song to I show that Negro song-makers [ at an early date became aware of the English, Scottish, Irish and, in the Louisiana area, French ballad styles that have played a key role in the development of other American folk styles. But the effective influence of European styles on Negro singers, except in the Bayou country of Louisiana, was slight. The Negroes never really absorbed the ballad style and the few British songs that found their way into Negro oral literature were considerably transformed. The Negroes' depressed social position cannot be the only reason for this: for in other depressed sections of the American community, most notably in the Appalachian area, European folk songs were for years carefully pre-; served in their original beauty. The answer is more likely to lie in the nature of the ballad itself. In its simplest—and “classical”—form, a ballad is a narrative poem which tells a story and is made up of a series of formal verses, with or without a refrain. Traditionally the ballad is sung in the third person and deals with events and people far removed from daily life. The white cultural heritage is such that there is nothing incongruous about a white backwoodsman singing of kings, princesses and far-distant courts. But the Negro has no such background, and such subjects are foreign and probably repugnant to him: his folk-song!

'is immediate and earthy and his best folk-art is intuitive and highly personal. This is why the best Negro songs are: work-songs and blues, and why the best that can be said about the protagonist of the Negro ballad. “Frankie and Johnny," is that “he was her man and he done her wrong,” while a teen-age blues singer like Robert Johnson can put together this superb refrain: / got to keep movin', 1 got to keep morin'. Blues falling down like hail. I Blues Jailing down like hail. I l got to keep movin', I got to\ keep movin'. I There's a Hellhound on my trail. I Oh. Hellhound on my trail. I Johnson, of whom it is no hyperbole to say that he mirrored the visionary ecstasy of William Blake, was in my opinion the greatest of the Negro song-makers, greater even than the mighty Leadbelly. He died at the age of [l9, reputedly at the hand of la jealous woman, and left a pitifully small legacy of recordings. mostly made in barrooms, taverns and billiard halls to which enterprising talent scouts had tracked him. Many of the best masters were smashed in a bar-room brawl. He sang the blues exclusively, and sang them like a man possessed. His .voice was high, keening, often unintelligible, and his guitar rhythms were wild and broken. But there was no mistaking the passion with which he sang, j and with which he rejected the wan imagery of ballads, j He did not sing ballads: he did not need them. “Woke up 'this morning,” he sang, “And saw the blues walkin’ like a Iman. Little girl, little girl, 1 Igot mean things on my mind.”!