November 30, 2023: Gun Control Histories: The Brady Bill

[30 years ago this week, Congress passed the groundbreaking gun control legislation known as the Brady Bill. So this week I’ll AmericanStudy a handful of key moments and layers to the debate over gun control and guns in American society, past and present!]

On six interconnected figures who together helped create one of the most groundbreaking pieces of gun legislation in American history.

1)      James and Sarah Brady: In recent years, we’ve become all too accustomed to victims of gun violence and their loved ones working as gun control activists; I don’t mean that each and every one of those cases isn’t individual, important, and inspiring, just that the overall story is too damn familiar in 21^st century America. But that wasn’t the case in the 1980s, when former Reagan administration official James Brady (who had been severely wounded by John Hinckley during his March 1981 assassination attempt on Reagan) and his wife Sarah became leading voices in the fight for background checks on gun purchases. The contingencies of history are impossible to unravel with certainty, but I think it’s very fair to say that the Brady Bill was aptly named, that it never would have gotten anywhere without the symbolic, strategic, and significant leadership provided by this couple.

2)      Edward Feighan and Howard Metzenbaum: As that cute little dude from Schoolhouse Rock would remind us, however, for a bill to become a law it takes lawmakers willing to introduce and sponsor it, and in February 1987 these two Ohio Democratic lawmakers, Representative Feighan and Senator Metzenbaum, did just that, introducing the Brady Bill as part of the 100^th Congress. It would eventually be voted down 228-182 in the House of Representatives in September 1988, and would not become a law for more than half a decade, a reflection of the power and pressure of the NRA, the gun lobby more broadly, and its Congressional allies. But those factors only make clearer still how courageous it was for these two elected officials to take on those power structures, risk their own political careers in the process, and start the ball rolling on the Brady Bill becoming a law. 

3)      Chuck Schumer and Bill Clinton: I don’t tend to get into the weeds of debates among Democrats and the American Left on this blog, and I can promise you I plan to continue not doing so as often as possible; see this post on circular firing squads for why. Suffice to say, for many on the Left Chuck Schumer and Bill Clinton represent not just a Democratic Old Guard whose time has come and gone, but also the essence of Neoliberalism. And maybe so, but in that case it’s even more impressive that one of Clinton’s first signature moments as president was a pretty radical one—signing the Brady Bill into law in November 1993, after Representative Schumer had reintroduced it and it had finally passed the House. There might not be a lot about politics in the 1990s that we should seek to emulate today, but I would argue that the era’s gun control victories definitely qualify.

Last gun control history tomorrow,

Ben

PS. What do you think? Histories or contexts you’d highlight?

November 29, 2023: Gun Control Histories: Parkland

[30 years ago this week, Congress passed the groundbreaking gun control legislation known as the Brady Bill. So this week I’ll AmericanStudy a handful of key moments and layers to the debate over gun control and guns in American society, past and present!]

[NB. This is another older post, part of a 2018 year in review series. But like yesterday’s, I think it speaks to both overarching topics and our own moment, so am sharing it as part of this series.]

On what’s not new, kind of new, and entirely new about our worst contemporary tragedies.

Seven years ago to the day, I wrote a year in review piece on the January 2011 Gabrielle Giffords shooting, and on how pioneering scholar Richard Slotkin’s AmericanStudies analyses of violence and guns in American history and identity could help us understand such shocking and disturbing acts of political and social violence. The fact that I’m writing a year in review piece seven years later about another mass shooting—and, more exactly, the fact that I could have picked any one of the almost literally countless other 2018 mass shootings as a starting point for this post; although we must keep counting, and must keep thinking about each of them and their victims individually—proves Slotkin’s theses and then some. The final book of Slotkin’s trilogy called America a “gunfighter nation,” and hardly a day has gone by in 2018 that hasn’t featured literal, painfully exemplary acts of gun-fighting. Indeed, one of the most frustratingly common responses to such mass shootings—the idea that we just need more guns and shooters to intervene—represents yet another layer to that symbolic but all-too-real gunfighter nation mythos.

So we’ve always been a nation deeply linked to images and realities of violence and guns, and mass shootings like the February 14^th, 2018 massacre at Parkland, Florida’s Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School have to be put in that longstanding and foundational American context. But at the same time, no AmericanStudier or American historian (or even slightly knowledgeable and engaged observer of American society) could possibly argue that mass shootings have not become more ubiquitous, more of a fact of American daily life, over the last few years; that whatever the longstanding impulses or inclinations to which they connect, these horrific acts of mass violence have not found more consistent outlets in the 21^st century. Or, to put it more exactly and crucially, that white Americans have not been forced to deal with the threat of mass violence more fully—as African Americans, Native Americans, and Asian Americans (among other groups) can attest, such threats have been part of the American experience of too many communities for centuries. But in 2018, the threat of mass violence has for the first time become a genuine possibility for every American community at every moment and in every space, from night clubs to synagogues, supermarkets to high schools.

That constant threat comprises a dark new reality, perhaps especially for American parents (my sons have to do monthly active shooter drills in their schools, something I can’t quite bear to dwell on). But in the aftermath of the Parkland shooting, young students at the high school also modeled another and very different new reality: a generation willing and able to use their voices, their social media presence, and their activist acumen to challenge such dark histories and their causes. We’ve only just begun to see the potential effects of this group of young people and the broader generation they represent, although the November midterm elections certainly exemplified the kinds of victories this cohort can help produce. But while electoral and political results are certainly important, the fundamental truth is that the Parkland students have already and significantly changed the conversation, making clear that both gun victims and student communities will have a say in the ongoing debate around mass shootings and guns in the United States.

Next gun control history tomorrow,

Ben

PS. What do you think? Histories or contexts you’d highlight?

November 28, 2023: Gun Control Histories: Myths, Realities, and the 2012 Election

[30 years ago this week, Congress passed the groundbreaking gun control legislation known as the Brady Bill. So this week I’ll AmericanStudy a handful of key moments and layers to the debate over gun control and guns in American society, past and present!]

[NB. I wrote this post in a pre-election series back in 2012, obviously, but I think its histories and contexts are far more broadly relevant than that, and remain very much so today.]

On the stakes of 2012 for the newest phase in our longstanding, conflicted national relationship to guns.

When you remember how the American Revolution—or at least the military portion of it—got started, the 2^nd Amendment sure makes a lot of sense. After all, the Minutemen who fought the Redcoats at Lexington and Concord, who fired that shot heard ‘round the world, were a militia in the truest sense of the word: farmers and other locals who brought nothing more than their own lives—and their own guns—to those crucial first conflicts. And for many decades after the Revolution, state and local militias continued to serve as the nation’s primary armed forces, with a standing army being assembled as necessary (during military conflicts such as the War of 1812 and the Mexican American War, for example) but not consistently maintained. Given those contexts, the syntax and logic of the 2^nd Amendment—which reads in full “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed”—seem perfectly natural and uncontroversial.

But the term “militia” has of course come to mean something completely different in early 21^st century America, and the shift to my mind signifies the other side to our national relationship to guns. These contemporary militias, comprising communities of heavily armed resistance to perceived threats (from the government, from the United Nations, from ethnic or racial “others”), see their guns, and their right to bear them, not as a part of our shared national community, but as a way to defend their own lives and security within, and yet fundamentally outside of, that nation. For these Americans, it seems to me, the key words in the 2^nd Amendment are “free” and “the people,” since in this reading of the Amendment its guarantees have nothing to do with the government (which would presumably do the regulating of militias) nor the nation (the State) and everything to do with every individual gunowner. There is of course no necessary conflict between individual gunowners and the national community—again, the Minutemen were composed precisely of such individuals, coming together to fight for their fledgling nation’s interests—but such conflicts have without question come to form a complex, controversial, and crucial part of gun culture in America.

Which brings me to today, and specifically to the “Stand Your Ground” laws that have, in response to pressure from the NRA and ALEC and other conservative organizations, been passed by numerous state legislatures since the ascendance of Tea Party majorities in the 2010 elections. How we analyze these controversial pro-gun laws—which factored directly into the Travyon Martin shooting and other recent tragedies—depends precisely on whether we see them as part of our nation’s founding identity, a legacy of the Concord Minutemen; or part of the contemporary militia movement, tied to the 21^st century Minutemen and their ilk. But in any case, there’s no doubt that the 2012 election—which NRA vice president Wayne LaPierre has called “a turning point for gun rights”—will greatly influence these narratives moving forward; there’s less than no evidence that a second-term President Obama would ban guns or dismantle the 2^nd Amendment (as LaPierre warns), but certainly an empowered Republican majority (nationally and at that state level) could continue to pass more laws like “Stand Your Ground,” and otherwise to push forward this extremely pro-gun agenda.  Which would be a very American thing to do—but what version of America it would embody is an entirely open and significant question.

Next gun control history tomorrow,

Ben

PS. What do you think? Histories or contexts you’d highlight?

November 27, 2023: Gun Control Histories: The Constitution and Framing Era

[30 years ago this week, Congress passed the groundbreaking gun control legislation known as the Brady Bill. So this week I’ll AmericanStudy a handful of key moments and layers to the debate over gun control and guns in American society, past and present!]

No conversation about gun control and guns in American history (or law) can fail to engage with the Constitution, the 2^nd Amendment, and the Framing era. I did so at length in a Saturday Evening Post Considering History column almost exactly four years ago, so in lieu of a new post today I’ll ask you to check out that column to get a sense of the histories and contexts I’d highlight and analyze from those foundational periods. See you back here tomorrow!

Next gun control history tomorrow,

Ben

PS. What do you think? Histories or contexts you’d highlight?

November 25-26, 2023: My Biggest Thanks-giving

[For this year’s Thanksgiving series, I wanted to express thanks for a handful of opportunities I’ve had to connect with scholarly communities this Fall. Leading up to this special tribute to my two most important scholarly influences!]

On three of the countless ways my sons inspire my own continued work.

1)      Last year’s amazing efforts: In June I dedicated one of my Saturday Evening Post Considering History columns to two projects from the past school year through which my sons had taught me a lot about my own work on and goals for both the past and the future. It’s one of my favorite columns across these nearly six years I’ve been at the Post, so would ask you to check it out if you could and then come on back for two such influences from this current year!

2)      Kyle on Frederick Douglass: I have mixed feelings about the school work my sons are asked to do over the summer (and I certainly think there’s more of it than there needs to be), but this past summer it was certainly fun to chat with Kyle about one of his summer reading texts (for AP Lang), Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave. And even more fun was reading the essay that Kyle eventually wrote analyzing Douglass’ rhetorical strategies in that narrative—his arguments about how Douglass challenged ideas about slavery and sought to connect with a white Northern audience were as thoughtful and impressive as his writing always is, but also helped me think about both the continued need for subjects like Black history (and specific topics like the histories of American slavery) and about connecting with distinct audiences (a lifelong goal of my own work).

3)      Aidan’s college essays: It’s late November of Aidan’s senior year, and I’m still far from ready to truly contemplate him being somewhere else next year. But he’s doing a great job convincing me he’s more than ready for all that’s next, and a big part of that has been his amazing work on all the pieces of writing that are now part of college applications (both the main personal essay and the many college-specific supplemental essays). His main personal essay was a profoundly thoughtful, moving, funny, and inspiring look at his vegetarianism and its connection to many other layers of his life and identity, and it made me want to be a better person. And one particular supplemental essay, where he wrote about the importance of challenging prejudices and how he hopes to make that work a part of his life at and beyond college, gave me hope for the future. Can’t beat those influences, on my scholarship and everywhere else!

Next series starts Monday,

Ben

PS. People, communities, or anything else you’re thankful for this year?

November 24, 2023: Thankful for Scholarly Communities: U of Buffalo’s English Department

[For this year’s Thanksgiving series, I wanted to express thanks for a handful of opportunities I’ve had to connect with scholarly communities this Fall. Leading up to a special tribute to my two most important scholarly influences!]

I’ve written many times in this space, most fully in this tribute post, on what the Northeast Modern Language Association (NeMLA) in general and the NeMLA Board in particular have meant for my career. NeMLA is quite simply my favorite scholarly community, and its influences have extended far beyond (both in time and in reach) my years of service on the Board or even my attendance at the annual Convention (which will continue next Spring in Boston). Just a couple weeks ago I got to experience a particularly exciting such extended influence, when—invited by NeMLA Executive Director Carine Mardorossian, who is also an English Professor at the University of Buffalo—I had the privilege of giving a talk in the Buffalo English Department’s Juxtapositions lecture series. It was a great chance to build on prior book talks for Of Thee I Sing, but in keeping with the series’ overt interdisciplinary focus I pushed myself to work with cultural works I hadn’t considered for the book, including 1960s music and 1980s films. I really loved the chance to think about all the layers of culture and society that these debates over patriotism can help us examine and engage, and am so grateful to Carine, Buffalo, and these ongoing NeMLA connections for exemplifying scholarly community once more.

Special tribute post this weekend,

Ben

PS. Communities (or anything else) you’re thankful for this year?

November 23, 2023: Thankful for Scholarly Communities: Black in Boston & Beyond Podcast

[For this year’s Thanksgiving series, I wanted to express thanks for a handful of opportunities I’ve had to connect with scholarly communities this Fall. Leading up to a special tribute to my two most important scholarly influences!]

Dr. Hettie Williams isn’t just in a tie for the most prolific Guest Poster here on AmericanStudies, although she is indeed that. She’s also an equally prolific podcast host who has generously shared my work, voice, and book Of Thee I Sing on two occasions: back in July 2021 for the New Books Network; and this Fall for her newly launched Black in Boston & Beyond podcast for the William Monroe Trotter Institute at UMass Boston (of which Hettie is the new Director!). I really appreciated the chance to share some thoughts on one of my favorite historic sites, the Boston Black Heritage Trail, as well as many other examples of Black critical patriotism in and beyond Boston. Hettie is one of the most supportive folks out there for many different communities (including her service at President of the African American Intellectual History Society), and I’ve loved the chance to connect with her on many different projects, including this two-part podcast conversation.

Last Thanks-giving tomorrow,

Ben

PS. Communities (or anything else) you’re thankful for this year?

November 22, 2023: Thankful for Scholarly Communities: 9 Online Conference

[For this year’s Thanksgiving series, I wanted to express thanks for a handful of opportunities I’ve had to connect with scholarly communities this Fall. Leading up to a special tribute to my two most important scholarly influences!]

As I’ve highlighted many times in this space, my current book project focuses on one of my favorite stories from American history: that of the Celestials baseball team and their tragic yet triumphant final game in 1881 San Francisco. As a result of that focus I’ve started to learn a good bit more about 19^th century baseball, but there’s so much more for to explore, and so I was beyond excited to get to share my own thoughts and listen to many others at this fall’s 9 Online Virtual Baseball Conference. I also connected there with a wonderful high school educator, historian, and public scholar, Brian Sheehy from North Andover High School, with whom I look forward to many future collaborations around American history, sports histories, patriotism, and more. The best conferences offer both immediate inspiration and ongoing conversations, and I found both at 9 Online and look forward to finding (and writing here about!) further opportunities to connect to baseball and sports historians.

Next Thanks-giving tomorrow,

Ben

PS. Communities (or anything else) you’re thankful for this year?

November 21, 2023: Thankful for Scholarly Communities: Freedom Over Fascism Podcast

[For this year’s Thanksgiving series, I wanted to express thanks for a handful of opportunities I’ve had to connect with scholarly communities this Fall. Leading up to a special tribute to my two most important scholarly influences!]

Last year I was honored to be featured on Stephanie Wilson and the Hoosier Victory Alliance’s What the Gerrymander? podcast, talking all things American patriotism. It was a great conversation with plenty of room for follow-ups, so I was particularly excited to be invited back (as their resident American historian, no less!) to chat about curricula battles, book bans, and much more on the renamed but just as vital Freedom Over Fascism podcast. Every podcast I’ve been able to join has helped me think through and express different sides of my ideas, but Stephanie is particularly great at pushing me to connect nuanced takes on history to impassioned perspectives on the present, and since that duality sums up a lot of what I want all of my work to do these days, I greatly value this ongoing opportunity to do so in conversation with one of our best podcast hosts. Watch this space for more!

Next Thanks-giving tomorrow,

Ben

PS. Communities (or anything else) you’re thankful for this year?

November 20, 2023: Thankful for Scholarly Communities: Fitchburg State

[For this year’s Thanksgiving series, I wanted to express thanks for a handful of opportunities I’ve had to connect with scholarly communities this Fall. Leading up to a special tribute to my two most important scholarly influences!]

Here in my 19^th year at Fitchburg State, there is of course no shortage of communities and influences I could highlight as important to my work and career. But I want to focus for this post on two very distinct but complementary examples from this Fall semester in particular. In September, I was invited to give a talk on exclusion & inclusion in the American Founding as part of our excellent Constitution Day (really Constitution Week) series, and in the audience were current students of mine, my academic Dean, and our institutional Director of Communications and Public Affairs. Talk about feeling supported in our individual work! And in October, I took part in a panel of faculty from across campus who are part of our new Digital Media Innovation program, a great example of evolving FSU communities that both feature my work and can help me continue thinking (as I did on this panel) about what it means to be a digital and online public scholar. Two of so many ongoing examples of FSU’s communities and influences in my career and life!

Next Thanks-giving tomorrow,

Ben

PS. Communities (or anything else) you’re thankful for this year?

November 18-19, 2023: Sandra Hamilton’s Guest Post on the Blues in American Culture

[Sandra Hamilton is one of our star Senior English Studies Majors at Fitchburg State, getting ready to move into the next stages of her professional writing career. I’ve had the chance to work with her in this semester’s English Studies Capstone course, and am beyond excited to share her Guest Post in response and addition to this week’s BluesStudying blog series!]

On the topic of the Blues, I am reminded of the 2006 film, Black Snake Moan, with Samuel L Jackson and Christina Ricci, music by the late 90’s bluesman, Bill Withers and then the songs referenced by Frederick Douglass in his narrative published in 1845.

The film Black Snake Moan opens with a blues musician discussing the blues as “[being between] two people, supposed to be in love, when one or the other deceives the other through their love.” He said he wrote lyrics saying, “love hides all fault and make you do things you don’t wanna do. Love sometimes will leave you feeling sad and blue.”

The plot for the film is about a woman with an overwhelming addiction and a religious ex-bluesman who attempts to cure her. Within five minutes of the film, the audience knows both characters have been left by their partners. One has just gone off to war, and the other to be with another man. Within the plot are beautiful sentiments, dominated by music that captures the emotion and moves the audience from one scene to the next.

Samuel L Jackson sings in the film. One such song has lyrics that ring out, “Just a bird without a feather” by the American blues singer and songwriter R.L. Burnside, leaving the audience with a sense of longing. “You know I’m lost without your love”.

The sentiment behind these songs reminded me of the Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass. Frederick was born into slavery in the early 1800’s and after running away, he spoke towards anti-slavery and wrote prolifically on the subject.

On page 7 of his narrative, Fredrick talks about the Great House Farm, and how the slaves often favored being assigned to this house over any others. “Few privileges were esteemed higher, by the slaves of the out-farms, than that of being selected to do errands at the Great House Farm. It was associated in their minds with greatness.”

On the next two pages, Frederick talks about the slaves chosen for the Great House Farm and the songs they would make up along the way. Listen to Frederick describe them.

“The slaves selected to go to the Great House Farm, for the monthly allowance for themselves and their fellow-slaves, were peculiarly enthusiastic. While on their way, they would make the dense old woods, for miles around, reverberate with their wild songs, revealing at once the highest joy and the deepest sadness.”

In the next few paragraphs Frederick talks about the lyrics of the songs.

“I did not, when a slave, understand the deep meaning of those rude and apparently incoherent songs. I was myself within the circle; so that I neither saw nor heard as those without might see and hear.”

“They told a tale of woe…”

“Every tone was a testimony against slavery, and a prayer to God for deliverance from chains.”

In the film Black Snake Moan, Samuel L Jackson’s character literally has Christina Ricci’s character locked in his house with a chain around her waist.

Still on page 8, Frederick goes on. “The hearing of those wild notes always depressed my spirit, and filled me with ineffable sadness. I have frequently found myself in tears while hearing them. The mere recurrence to those songs, even now, afflicts me…”

The memory of the songs is enough to bring Frederick to tears. But why?

“To those songs I trace my first glimmering conception of the dehumanizing character of slavery.” He said.

“Slaves sing most when they are most unhappy.” He adds, “The songs of the slave represent the sorrow of his heart; and he is relieved by them, only as an aching heart is relieved by its tears. At least, such is my experience. I have often sung to drown my sorrow, but seldom to express my happiness.”

The songs give movement and expression to the lives of the slaves, just like the songs in the film add to the plot and move it along. Does Samuel L Jackson’s character feel like a bird without a feather? Or is he trying to reach Christina Ricci’s character, empathizing that she is a slave to her substance. A slave to an idea. Maybe these songs enable Samuel L Jackson’s character to meet her where she is at. Maybe that can be more powerful than throwing down a ladder for someone to climb out of the darkness alone.

A quick film reference is Disney Pixar’s, Inside-out. Have you seen it? It’s hilarious but one scene in particular emphasizes that sometimes all you need is a good cry.

Back to Samuel L Jackson, towards the end of the film, he unbottles his anger and is playing the blues again while Christina Ricci dances with a newfound freedom.

Maybe it’s in the differences between, “Ain’t no sunshine when she’s gone” and “Lovely day”. Two songs by bluesman Bill Withers and both an expression of emotion.

Standing in the kitchen, Samuel L Jackson tugs on the chain, “Come here”. Christina Ricci walks over and he puts a key into the lock. The chains are rattling. “It ain’t on me to change your life or nobody else’s. Shit, people gunna do what the hell they wanna do anyway.” Christina’s character stays silent as she watches the chains fall to the ground and with eyes wide-open, lifts her gaze to meet Samuel L Jackson’s. “You ain’t got but one life. Ya’ll live it the way you want.”

[Next series starts Monday,

Ben

PS. What do you think?]

November 18-19, 2023: AmericanStudying the Blues: 21st Century Artists

[150 years ago this week, the great W.C. Handy was born. So this week I’ve AmericanStudied Handy and other icons of the Blues, leading up to this special weekend post on some contemporary Blues greats!]

One telling song from each of a handful of 21^st century Bluesmen & -women.

1)      Gary Clark Jr.’s “12 Bar Blues”: I’m obviously far from an expert (and welcome responses in comments as always), but from what I can tell no 21^st century American artist is more grounded in the Blues tradition than Gary Clark Jr. (about whom I’ve written a good bit through one of my favorite 21^st century songs). And for proof, check out that hyperlinked video of Clark playing, teaching, & analyzing the genre’s core elements through his “12 Bar Blues.”

2)      Barbara Carr’s “If You Can’t Cut the Mustard”: As I highlighted in Friday’s post, female Blues artists like Ma Rainey and Bessie Smith have long pushed the boundaries of sexuality, and so it’s only fitting that one of the 21^st century’s most successful Blues singers has consistently done the same. I could have chosen any number of Carr’s classics, but who can resist the line “If you can’t cut the mustard, I don’t want you licking around the jar”?

3)      Buddy Guy’s “Blues Don’t Lie”: A protégé of another of my Friday post subjects, Muddy Waters, Buddy Guy has brought the Chicago Blues into the 21^st century. And despite being 87 years old, he hasn’t slowed down in the slightest—this song was the title track from his acclaimed 2022 album The Blues Don’t Lie, which won 2023 Blues Music Awards for both Album of the Year and Song of the Year.

4)      Lil’ Ed & the Blues Imperials’ “Bluesmobile”: Another Chicago Blues legend from the generation after Guy’s, Lil’ Ed Williams has two Blues Music Awards of his own (and six other nominations), all for Band of the Year with the Blues Imperials. The Imperials have released ten albums over the last thirty-five years, so there are plenty of songs to choose from in this spot—but at the risk of repeating myself, who can resist a great metaphor for how the Blues can transport us to another place?

5)      Jaspects’ “Peachtree Blues” (featuring Janelle Monáe): Monáe is one of our most unique contemporary artists, a reflection (like Gary Clark Jr. certainly is as well) of how all our musical genres have become more interconnected and cross-pollinating here in the 21^st century. But I’m highlighting this particular song not only because it’s a collaboration with another contemporary Blues group, but also because of a central lyric that implies the important question of where the Blues go from here: “A lonely night on Peachtree/clubs are closed; it’s only three.”

Next series starts Monday,

Ben

PS. What do you think? Blues figures or contexts you’d highlight?

November 17, 2023: AmericanStudying the Blues: Five More Icons

[150 years ago this week, the great W.C. Handy was born. So this week I’ll AmericanStudy Handy and other icons of the Blues, leading up to a special weekend post on some contemporary Blues greats!]

On just one telling detail each for five more iconic artists (in no particular order):

1)      Son House (1902-1988): What’s perhaps most interesting about the long and influential career of foundational Bluesman Edward “Son” House is that he resisted the genre on two distinct occasions: in his early professional life as a preacher, for whom secular music was blasphemous; and for nearly two decades between the 1940s and 60s, when he abandoned his career and seemingly retired for good. But the Blues were not done with House, and his inspiring late-career partnership with the young white musician Alan Wilson led to new and perhaps even more influential recordings.

2)      Ma Rainey (1886-1939): August Wilson’s Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom (1985) is one of the great 20^th century American plays, and serves as an excellent introduction to both the music and the struggles of this iconic American artist. But because it’s set relatively late in her career, it doesn’t include much engagement with her very complicated and interesting professional origins: 18 year old Gertrude Pridgett married 31 year old performer Will “Pa” Rainey in 1904, became known as Ma, and toured with Will as Rainey and Rainey, Assassinators of the Blues. Without intending any besmirching of Will through the association, there’s at least a bit of Ike and Tina Turner in that story, I’d say.

3)      Muddy Waters (1913-1983): One of the most compelling layers to the 20^th century development of the Blues is the way that the genre followed the Great Migration, moving from Southern (and often Deep South) origins to its growth and increasing prominence in urban centers throughout the North and Midwest. No individual artist better reflects that arc than Muddy Waters, who was born McKinley Morganfield in Mississippi, became there a leading figure in the foundational subgenre of the Delta Blues, and then moved to Chicago at the age of 30 where he would come to be known as the “Father of Modern Chicago Blues.”

4)      Bessie Smith (1894-1937): The towering and prolific artist who became known as the “Empress of the Blues” was also one of the more divisive artists of her era, at least when it came to how she was perceived by the industry. When Smith auditioned for the influential Harlem company Black Swan Records (which featured W.E.B. Du Bois on its board) in the 1920s, for example, she was rejected because she supposedly stopped singing in order to spit and was seen as “too rough.” Yet that roughness also defined many of the qualities that made both Smith and her music so influential and enduring, including a sense of independence and sexuality that were far ahead of her time.

5)      B.B. King (1925-2015): Riley “B.B.” King was a generation later than any of the other artists highlighted in this post, and could be said to represent not just the mid-20^th century evolution of the Blues, but also the ways that genre began to intersect with other emerging forms like R&B, rockabilly, and rock ‘n roll. Indeed, King’s first Billboard #1 hit, “3 O’Clock Blues,” charted in February 1952, just a year after the release of a song often defined as the first rock ‘n roll hit (but one with a lot of the Blues in it as well), Jackie Brenston and the Delta Cats’ “Rocket 88.” While there are important characteristics that distinguish and define particular genres, as the end of the day they all also intersect and cross-pollinate and evolve together, and perhaps no Blues artist better embodies those interconnections than B.B. King.

Special post this weekend,

Ben

PS. What do you think? Blues figures or contexts you’d highlight?

November 16, 2023: AmericanStudying the Blues: W.C. Handy

[150 years ago this week, the great W.C. Handy was born. So this week I’ll AmericanStudy Handy and other icons of the Blues, leading up to a special weekend post on some contemporary Blues greats!]

On three vital texts through which we can trace the legacy of the birthday boy and “Father of the Blues.”

1)      “The Memphis Blues” (1909/1912): I could easily highlight different influential Handy songs for all three of these, but wanted to include a couple other texts that reflect his truly multilayered work and legacy. “Memphis” was his first hit, initially written as a 1909 campaign song for Memphis mayoral candidate Edward “Boss” Crump and then released on its own (through the sheet music, how songs tended to be released in the early 20^th century) in 1912. It established some of Handy’s key characteristics, such as his incorporation of Black folk music alongside other forms like ragtime and classical and his hugely influential three-line stanzas, of which he later wrote, “I adopted the style of making a statement, repeating the statement in the second line, and then telling in the third line why the statement was made.” If that sounds like quintessential blues songwriting, that’s precisely the point—and a key layer of Handy’s legacy.

2)      Blues—An Anthology (1926): Again, I could easily dedicate all three of these entries to Handy songs, many of which were likewise named for cities (such as his even bigger follow-up hit, 1914’s “Saint Louis Blues”). But what made Handy so truly influential and so accurately the “Father of the Blues” was that he was as much a collector and compiler and advocate for this emerging genre as he was a founding practitioner of it, and we can see that clearly in his 1926 anthology, in which he published the “complete words and music of 53 great songs.” As Wall Street lawyer and ally and champion of Black artists Abbe Niles writes in the opening paragraph of his Introduction to the anthology, the Blues “is a subject as to which Handy remains the source and fountainhead of information,” and we’re very fortunate that he set down so much of that foundational info in this text.

3)      Unsung Americans Sung (1944): Handy’s multilayered career as both artist/songwriter/performer and archivist/advocate continued for his remaining three decades of life, but as time went on he also became more and more clearly a leader of and spokesperson for the African American community more broadly. That was never more apparent than in his unique and stunning 1944 edited collection Unsung Americans Sung, which like the anthology collected the music and lyrics to a number of important songs, but which in this case complemented those songs with extensive literary tributes to important African American figures from Crispus Attucks and Phillis Wheatley to Frederick Douglass and Harriet Tubman to Paul Laurence Dunbar and Langston Hughes. That I only learned about this book while researching this post is both frustrating and a reminder that there’s still so much to learn and share, about hugely influential individuals like W.C. Handy and about the whole of American history.

Last Blues icon tomorrow,

Ben

PS. What do you think? Blues figures or contexts you’d highlight?

PPS. On Twitter, Blues musician and writer Brien McMullen shares this excellent thread of thoughts on Handy!

November 15, 2023: AmericanStudying the Blues: Billie Holiday

[150 years ago this week, the great W.C. Handy was born. So this week I’ll AmericanStudy Handy and other icons of the Blues, leading up to a special weekend post on some contemporary Blues greats!]

On AmericanStudies takeaways from the two versions of Lady Sings the Blues, and one important additional layer to both of them.

Billie Holliday (1915-1959) was only 41 years old when she published her autobiography Lady Sings the Blues (ghost written by journalist William Dufty) in 1956, but she had already been performing and recording, living her fraught life in the public eye, for nearly three decades by that time. That can mean a couple very different things for an autobiography, I’d say: it can represent a chance to radically revise public perceptions; or it can offer an opportunity for the famous person to capitalize on that public interest by leaning into the more mythic images. Holliday and Dufty seem to have done more of the latter, at least as biographer John Szwed argues in his 2015 book Billie Holiday: The Musician and the Myth, leaving out a number of more complicated and potentially controversial stories (such as Holliday’s affair with Orson Welles) that would have certainly shifted public perceptions. If so, that puts Holiday squarely in the tradition of some of America’s foundational, mythmaking autobiographers, from Ben Franklin on down the line.

What neither Ben Franklin nor most of those other autobiographers did (nor were able to do of course) was put out an album with the same title to accompany their book, however. Also released in 1956, Holiday’s album Lady Sings the Blues featured four new songs (including a title track) and new recordings of eight prior hits, including my personal favorite (and a contender for the most important American song) “Strange Fruit.” In that new title track Holiday sings that “She tells her side/Nothing to hide/Now the world will know/Just what her blues is about,” and while that might seem to contradict what I said about her autobiography, I would argue something different: that this song makes clear that it is through her music, rather than her book or perhaps even her life, that Holliday has shared “her side” and “her blues,” the most meaningful layers to her perspective and life. If so, that would make Holiday a musical version of a confessional poet (much like Sylvia Plath, who was just beginning her own publishing career around this exact moment), an artist whose identity can be found in complex but crucial ways in their works.

Every part of those works and that career and life were Holiday’s own, and a reflection of her unique and prodigious talents. But it is interesting to add into the conversation the role of other artists in helping create many of these texts, from Dufty with the autobiography to songwriters like Abel Meeropol, the Jewish teacher from the Bronx who adapted his own poem about lynching into “Strange Fruit.” I’ve written a number of times in this space about the counter-cultural origins and influences on a genre like rock ‘n roll, and of course the blues itself was one of those influences. But blues likewise developed in a cross-cultural and combinatory way, with amazing African American artists like Holiday and the rest of this week’s focal figures at the heart but with important contributions from many others as well, including lots of white artists. Highlighting those histories doesn’t take anything away from Holiday, and instead makes clear how much she was an iconic part of longstanding and ongoing trends in American music, popular culture, and society.

Next Blues icon tomorrow,

Ben

PS. What do you think? Blues figures or contexts you’d highlight?

November 14, 2023: AmericanStudying the Blues: Robert Johnson

[150 years ago this week, the great W.C. Handy was born. So this week I’ll AmericanStudy Handy and other icons of the Blues, leading up to a special weekend post on some contemporary Blues greats!]

On one reason I really like the Robert Johnson & the Devil mythos, and one way I’d push back.

I wrote a bit about the story of Robert Johnson & the Devil as part of this post on the wonderful TV show Hap & Leonard’s fictionalized retelling, and in lieu of a first paragraph here would ask you to check out that post and then come on back for more on that folktale and its focal Blues icon. (You should check out that show as well, but maybe not before reading the rest of this post!)

Welcome back! I’m a big fan of the Johnson/Devil story, and particularly of the unique and vital work it does in creating a rooted American folklore (work that our artists have been trying to do since at least Washington Irving). No offense to the likes of Paul Bunyan and Pecos Bill, the stories of whom young AmericanStudier greatly enjoyed reading, but that’s precisely the problem: to my mind much of our folklore feels distinctly childish, aimed at youthful audiences and as a result without a lot of the multilayered darkness that the best folktales tend to include. Or there are American folktales like those featuring the Wendigo, which are purely supernatural and terrifying. Whereas I’d argue that the Robert Johnson & the Devil folktale really balances those various elements—able to appeal to young audiences but with some seriously adult complications, supernatural to be sure but connected to a very real historical and cultural figure (and to broader social issues of race and region as well, of course). Indeed, if I were to make the case for one American folktale as exemplifying that complex genre, I think this is the one I’d choose.

But nothing in American culture is simple (that could be a motto for this blog and my whole online public scholarly career), and there are also some real downsides to the prominence of this folktale version of Johnson. I don’t disagree with the arguments in the last hyperlinked article above, that the Devil story both demonizes Johnson and demeans the whole genre of the Blues. But even if we don’t go that far, there’s no doubt that the focus on the folktale can make it more difficult to remember and engage with the very human layers to Johnson’s life and story. For example, Johnson only took part in two recording sessions before his tragically early death in August 1938 at the age of 27, recording a total of 29 songs in those 1936 and 1937 sessions. Yet in that far too brief period he helped establish the genre of the Delta Blues, and he did so at least in part through precisely the element that is turned into something supernatural by the folktale: his unique guitar playing and sound. Apparently he did learn that craft remarkably quickly, since his mentor Son House noted that when they first met Johnson wasn’t much of a guitarist. But that’s a striking artistic and human success story, and one we shouldn’t allow a compelling folktale to minimize.

Next Blues icon tomorrow,

Ben

PS. What do you think? Blues figures or contexts you’d highlight?

November 13, 2023: AmericanStudying the Blues: Scott Joplin

[150 years ago this week, the great W.C. Handy was born. So this week I’ll AmericanStudy Handy and other icons of the Blues, leading up to a special weekend post on some contemporary Blues greats!]

On the musical and the cultural legacies of the hugely influential composer.

I’ve written before about the unavoidably cross-cultural origins of rock and roll in America, the ways in which the histories of even an individual hit song (much less artists, groups, recording studios, and so on) were connected to African American blues singers, Jewish American songwriters, European American guitarists and performers, and so on. When it comes to the origins and history of the blues and jazz in America, on the other hand, there’s a far more close relationship between the musical genres and a particular American community: African Americans, and specifically the artistic traditions and legacies present within that community as of the late 19^th and early 20^th centuries. Yet while a history of the blues and jazz thus cannot ignore or minimize these communal and cultural connections, neither should it focus on such cultural or historical issues at the expense of an engagement with the genres’ musical influences, innovations, and importance.

An excellent case in point is an analysis of Scott Joplin (1868-1917), the “King of Ragtime Writers” and perhaps the single most influential predecessor of 20^th century blues and jazz music in America. Joplin was without question an African American artist, one strongly influenced by his heritage, his North Texas family and late 19^th century upbringing, and contemporary African American artists such as Ben Harney. Yet I would argue that we don’t need to know any of that to appreciate Joplin’s titanic talent and the success and significance of his works: from the most famous, such as “The Maple Leaf Rag” (1899) and “The Entertainer” (1900); to his longer works, such as the opera A Guest of Honor (1903, inspired by Booker T. Washington’s 1901 dinner with Teddy Roosevelt!); and including works that have been almost entirely forgotten, such as the moving ragtime waltz “Bethena” (1904), written after the tragic death of his second wife only 10 weeks after their wedding. Indeed, I think Joplin and classical composer Aaron Copland make for a very compelling, complementary pair, highlighting the early 20^th century development of an American music that was both unique and in conversation with international traditions and trends.

Yet at the same time, an analysis of Joplin’s musical mastery and legacy doesn’t have to—and shouldn’t—mean an elision of his cultural and racial influences and themes. Take his final, never fully performed opera, Treemonisha (1910). Set in 1884, on a former slave plantation in the Texarkana/Red River region of Joplin’s childhood, the opera’s title character is a young African American woman who is taught to read and helps her community resist a band of wicked conjurers. If that story and its themes are in conversation with contemporary African American artists like Charles Chesnutt, Joplin’s musical choices in the opera were likewise among his most informed by African American traditions and styles, from spirituals and the blues to a call-and-response sequence. There are many possible reasons why the opera was never fully published or performed in its era (and was lost until a rediscovery in 1970), but among them might well be the fact that it links Joplin’s musical talents to his cultural and racial heritage and perspective far more fully than many of his other works. Understanding Joplin isn’t solely about such links, but we should certainly remember them as well.

Next Blues icon tomorrow,

Ben

PS. What do you think? Blues figures or contexts you’d highlight?

November 11-12, 2023: Kyle Lockwood’s Guest Post: Exploration and the Human Spirit

[I love the chance to share each and every Guest Post, but the opportunity to feature the writing and voice of a Fitchburg State English Studies alumnus is always extra special. Kyle Lockwood is a recent FSU graduate who has begun to move into a journalistic and professional writing career, and someone whose work and writing I highly recommend to anyone out there! He's also a veteran of our armed services, so I'm particularly proud to share his work here on Veterans Day weekend.]

Since the beginning of time man has left his home in search of something new. Early humans wandered the plains in search of food and shelter, now we spend billions of dollars in an effort to explore outer space. While our methods and efforts may have evolved, our drive and will to find new and better places has not.

The human experience is a unique concept. At our core we are not so far from those other primates with whom we share the Earth with, yet we have developed this heightened sense of consciousness. This state of awareness has allowed us to advance farther than other species and excel as a society into new living conditions. Though we each are surrounded by advanced technologies and comforts unknown before we constructed them, we have retained our most basic needs; food and shelter. 

Before apartment buildings and minivans we had to build our homes from the ground up with our bare hands. Although this task is quite difficult, it is still in our core. Many of us will still prefer to sleep on our fluffy mattresses and wash in hot showers, we cannot deny the thrill and enjoyment of outdoor activity. Many of us still enjoy camping and hiking as well as hunting and fishing. This connection us humans hold tightly with the outdoors should not be considered recreational, it remains necessary to who we are as a species. 

It is clear that some of these activities can be conducted alone; they are more enjoyable and effective with others, friends and family. Take hunting for example, many Americans hunt all across the United States each year. Most of them go at it alone, which against a whitetail deer or turkey is quite safe. However, our ancestors knew no such luxury. Hunting the beasts which roamed the Earth in their time was no easy task, they had no conservation land and high powered range finders. They had what they could fashion from the forests and carry in their hands. Their strength and safety was in their numbers. This element of trust is still important to us today, within tight circles of friends and family. 

However, the land cannot always provide for those who occupy it. Eventually overpopulation will lead to a lack of resources. Limited supply often leads to will to leave for more. For many thousands of years humans explored on foot and by sea in search of many things. Whether it was for treasure, food, an enemy or a new home, us humans have always craved more. Although it came out of necessity for many, some explored out of boredom. 

The old idea that the “grass is always greener” has convinced many humans to leave what they know for what they didn’t. Our state of consciousness seems to require a certain amount of stimulation to remain content. This stimulation used to be satisfied through hunting and tribal wars and adventure. It is a tale as old as time, the young bored man leaving home in search of adventure and excitement. 

In our modern time outer space is our last odyssey. While every man or woman may wish to feel the thrill of adventure, the pride of survival, the glory of exploration; not all of us can be astronauts. For most of us, our last frontier remains within us. How far can we push ourselves in the suffocation of our own self-created environment?

[Next series starts Monday,

Ben 

PS. What do you think?]