Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-gvvz8 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-25T15:23:26.982Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Really the ‘Walking Blues’: Son House, Muddy Waters, Robert Johnson and the development of a traditional blues

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 November 2008

John Cowley
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

On the surface, a study of the evolution of a particular regional Afro-American folk-music style does not appear to be directly connected with the development of popular music. Yet, in one way or another since the 1930s, Son House, Robert Johnson and Muddy Waters, aspects of whose music I discuss here, have all influenced both the development of black blues and, in a much wider context, American and European popular music in general. Johnson and then House became cult figures of the 1960s American folk-music ‘revival’; Waters's Chicago rhythm and blues, which he developed in the late 1940s, have sustained him with black and, subsequently, white audiences since that time, his early commercial recordings being absorbed and sometimes emulated by groups such as the Rolling Stones.

Type
Research Article
Information
Popular Music , Volume 1 , January 1981 , pp. 57 - 72
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1981

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Cowley, John H., ‘Walking Blues’, Blues Unlimited, 106 (02–03 1974), P. 13.Google Scholar
Cowley, John H., Insert notes for Walking Blues, Flyright FLY LP 541 (1979).Google Scholar
Evans, David, ‘The Fiddlin' Joe Martin story’, Blues World, 20 (07 1968), pp. 3–5.Google Scholar
Godrich, John, and Robert, M. W. Dixon (compilers), Blues & Gospel Records 1902–1942 (London, 1969).Google Scholar
Groom, Bob (transcriber), ‘Lyric transcript no. 3, “My Black Mama”, Son House, Paramount 13042’, Blues World, 14 (05 1967), pp. 19–20.Google Scholar
Groom, Bob ‘Standing at the Crossroads: Robert Johnson's recordings’, 2, Blues Unlimited, 119 (05–06 1976), pp. 11–14.Google Scholar
Guralnick, Peter, ‘Muddy Waters: gone to Main Street’, in Feel Like Going Home (New York, 1971), pp. 42–66.Google Scholar
Guralnick, Peter, ‘The search for Robert Johnson’, Rolling Stone (25 March 1976), p. 13.Google Scholar
House, Son (ed. Lester, Julius), ‘I can make my own songs’, Sing Out, 15:3 (07 1965), pp. 38–45.Google Scholar
Leadbitter, Mike, ‘Bring it on Home’, Blues Unlimited, 98 (01 1973), pp. 4–13.Google Scholar
Leadbitter, Mike, Insert notes for Genesis: The Beginnings of Rock, Chess 6641 047, n.d. [1973].Google Scholar
Leadbitter, Mike, and Neil, Slaven (compilers), Blues Records 1943–1966 (London, 1968).Google Scholar
Lomax, Alan, ‘The folk song survey in collaboration with Fisk University’ (Washington, DC, Archive of Folk Song file, n.d. [1941]).Google Scholar
Lomax, Alan, Insert notes for 78 rpm record AAFS 18, Washington, DC, n.d. [1942].Google Scholar
Morganfield, M. G. (‘Muddy Waters’), Letters to Alan Lomax, with replies; Library of Congress Archive of Folk Song file.Google Scholar
Oliver, Paul, ‘Muddy Waters–“Hoochie-Coochie Man”’, Jazz Monthly, 4:11 (01 1959), pp. 2–6.Google Scholar
Lomax, Alan, Conversation with the Blues (London, 1965).Google Scholar
Oliver, Paul, Report of the Librarian of Congress for the Fiscal Year Ending June 1942 (Washington, DC, 1942).Google Scholar
Rooney, James, Bossmen: Bill Monroe & Muddy Waters (New York, 1971).Google Scholar
Rowe, Mike, Chicago Breakdown (London, 1973).Google Scholar
Welding, Pete, Sleeve notes for Muddy Waters: Down on Stovall's Plantation, Testament T–2210, 1966.Google Scholar
Welding, Pete, ‘David “Honey Boy” Edwards’, Blues Unlimited, 54 (06 1968), pp. 3–12.Google Scholar
Welding, Pete, ‘Howlin' Wolf: an interview with bluesman Howling Wolf’, 3, Blues Unlimited, 61 (04 1969), pp. 7–8.Google Scholar
Welding, Pete, ‘An interview with Muddy Waters’ American Folk Music Occasional, 2 (New York, 1970), pp. 2–7.Google Scholar
Wilson, Al, ‘Son House’, Collector's Classics 14 (Bexhill-on-Sea, 1966).Google Scholar