Great
Recordings
Intro
The earliest
reproducible recorded sound was made in 1860. 18 fucking 60! Lincoln US Sicily
I wanted to think about recordings that were significant not
just because of any wider societal or artistic repercussions but were
interesting chiefly on account of the sound they make. It's a group of
recordings that reflect my own favouritism and knowledge, rather than an exhaustive
survey. I know little about classical music or non-Western musics - though
Honest Jon's are my current favourites and I have enjoyed these three... 
So
here are half-a-dozen or so recordings that I find gripping, exciting and
endlessly listenable. They all have some mystery about them too and a bit of
back story, natch.
The Shelor
Family record "Big Bend Gal"
Between 25 July and 5 August 1927, a man called Ralph Peer held a series of recording sessions on the third floor of a building owned by a company that made hats and gloves in Bristol, Tennessee. Peer was working for the Victor Talking Machine Company (later to become RCA Victor) and was on a tour throughout the Southern States of America looking to make recordings that the company could sell to a newly discovered audience. This new audience had opened up due to the popularity of wind-up gramophones that offered reproduced sound for consumption in the sorts of shacks that may not have had access to electricity or running water. And that offered better quality sound reproduction (i.e. you could actually hear what was going on) than the radio, especially in out of the way places like the Appalachian Mountains. It was found that this audience yearned not for the sophisticated, cosmopolitan vocal stylings of Enrico Caruso or Dame Nellie Melba. Nor did it care for King Oliver's Creole Jazz Band or Louis Armstrong's Hot Five or Seven. What this audience wanted was Vernon Dalhart singing "Wreck of the Old 97", A.C. (Eck) Robertson singing "Sallie Gooden" and Uncle Dave Macon singing anything. They also wanted to hear music that reflected what are now outdated and unacceptable social attitudes, and this will be relevant to the later discussion of "Big Bend Gal" (there is an excellent webpage on popular recordings between 1900 and 1919 at http://aceterrier.com/?page_id=1502).
What they really wanted was to hear themselves or people
like themselves. To experience the songs they knew using technology that
enabled them to hear those songs over and over, whenever they wanted and as
often as they liked. To see themselves reflected by the technology, to declare
that they existed and had importance and to have that recognised by a
commercial organisation. Greil Marcus pointed this out for me. It is the same
impetus that led record companies to travel far afield in the early twentieth
century to make commercial recordings in India, Persia, Afghanistan, Bali etc.
Because people were keen to experience what they were familiar with reflected
back at them.
In 1924, Peer had made a poor quality recording of
Fiddlin' John Carson playing "Cluck Old Hen" and managed to sell all
the records he produced of this recording in a short period of time. Peer was
motivated by commerce, not art. He was no John Lomax. But this was already
music that was out of date and its original title of Old Timey music reflects
this. In many ways, the world described in this music was already gone and what
was being marketed was nostalgia. But it was a nostalgia for a world that most
people did not even know existed. So Peer felt he could steal a march by
seeking out unknown surviving practitioners of this already archaic music and
sell it to people who did not yet know that they had a nostalgia for this gone
world (whether that nostalgia was real or imagined was not to matter).
The Bristol Sessions
Adverts were placed in newspapers encouraging performers
to attend the recording sessions in Bristol. But the response was disappointing
until a newspaper article about a recording made by Ernest Stoneman of
"Skip To Ma Lou, My Darling" stressed the $3,600 in royalties that
Stoneman had received in 1926 and the $100 a day he was receiving for recording
in Bristol, generated much more interest.
Dozens of performers travelled to Bristol, many for the
first time in their lives. A man called Jimmie Rodgers was in town with a group
of itinerant musicians when they heard about the recording sessions from a band
member's mother. Rodgers then quarrelled
with the other musicians which led to him recording some songs solo. Having
caught the recording bug, Rodgers later travelled to New York to make some
further recordings which were immediately very popular. Although he had only a
short time to live, Rodgers became the first country superstar, appearing in a
short film and taking up the role as spiritual forebear to Hank Williams. At
the time of his death, Rodgers' records accounted for 10% of all sales by RCA
Victor.
On 31 July 1927, a man called Alvin Pleasant (A.P.) Carter persuaded his wife, Sara, and his brother's wife, Maybelle, to travel to Bristol to see if they could make some money by making records. On 1 August they walked into the hat and shoe company building looking like hillbillies in their dusty overalls and smocks. Happily, Sara Carter had a distinctive voice and Maybelle was a musical genius, inventing a new way to use the guitar to accompany singers. A.P. meanwhile set about collecting every song he could from all around the Appalachians. By 1930, the Carter Family had sold 300,000 records and went on to establish the core of country standards as well as a dynasty stretching into the present day.
The street musician Blind Alfred Reed was invited by Peer to record in Bristol, travelling from Virginia. An angry but compassionate moralist and social commentator, Reed made only a small number of high quality recordings speaking up for the common man ("There'll Be No Distinction There") and offering plentiful advice to women ("Why Do You Bob Your Hair, Girls"). After recording "How Can a Poor Man Stand Such Times and Live" in 1929 Reed stopped recording and lived out the rest of his life in extreme poverty before starving to death.
These three examples are sufficient to make the Bristol
Sessions one of the most significant dates in popular music recording history
given the numbers of artists who have subsequently recorded versions of songs
by these three. However, the Bristol Sessions do not represent the best
recordings made by these. Instead, I want to focus on one recording made by a
group at what was to be their one and only recording session.
Dangerous Art
The Shelor
Family comprised Jesse Shelor and his brother (Pyrhus) together with Jesse's father-in-law
(Joe Blackard) and Jesse's wife (Clarice). They all came from musical
backgrounds and played music together in the home. It was suggested that they
travel to the Bristol Bristol 2 August 1927 .
The group had
rehearsed some material that they assumed would be popular but perhaps Peer had
heard enough versions of "Cluck Old Hen" and "Wreck of the Old
97". In any event, he asked if they could perform some more unusual songs.
They had not practised any but were keen to oblige. Probably they had some sort
of run through before recording but they were not overly familiar with the
material.
Jesse and Pyrhus
play fiddles, Joe is on banjo and Clarice on piano. Jesse and Clarice sing and
Joe had to write out the words for Clarice and place them on top of the piano.
They had to put a pillow under Pyrhus' foot as he was tapping it too loudly on
the floor. Little Joseph was playing on the floor and rolling around. Some
accounts say that Jesse plays rhythm on the low piano keys and Clarice the high
parts but I can hear two fiddles as well as a banjo in the recording so unless
Jesse had three hands, this is unlikely.
 |
| Jesse and Clarice Shelor |
Recording
finished, the family returned home never to record again.
The Sound
One microphone,
one group, one sound. Like Gary U.S. Bonds recording "Quarter to
Three " at
Frank Guida's non-studio. Although you can distinguish the different
instruments, they double up on each other's parts making it difficult to pick
each instrument out. Their timing is impressive if they were less familiar with
this song but is perhaps a result of them being familiar with each others'
playing.
A sawing,
wheezing, gasping tone punctuated by stabbing thumps on the piano and the banjo
like a river runs through it. They attack the tune with confidence and verve; it's
not tentative but confident like they are entertaining themselves in their own
front room. The fiddles make a slide into each part of the song before the
swirls take over. The music it reminds me of is "The Black Angel's Death
Song" by the Velvet Underground.
 |
| The Velvet Underground 1927 |
The combination
of two fiddles, piano and banjo can be presumed to make a fair old racket but
clever microphone placement means that the vocals are to the front and are
tonally clear. Unfortunately, owing to the singers' accents, diction and
delivery the words are incoherent. Happily, many years later Clarice was
persuaded to write the words down so we do have some idea what they are singing
and I will discuss this in the next section. The vocals do not follow each
other either rhythmically or harmonically and this is probably a consequence of
the group being unfamiliar with the material. It's also compounded by the song
having too many words in each line for the singers to sing. Given that the
Shelor Family were only aiming at connecting with people in their own walk of
life, this may be one of the last occasions when recorded performers present
themselves unedited and uncensored to the listener. The Shelors were not trying
to curry favour with cocktail sipping Cole Porter fans in New York
The Song
This song
contains both a mystery and a dark horror. The mystery comes right at the start
of the song. The song is a paean of praise, listing the qualities of a young
woman and why men like her. Presumably, it's the titular heroine of whom they
sing, the Big
Bend gal. But
the first line of the song is "There's
no use talking 'bout the Big Bend gal that live on the county line". So, if there's no use in talking about
the Big Bend gal, then who is the song about.
I think this is
resolvable by considering closely the actual lyrics as they are sung. It is not
grammatically correct to say that a girl singular "live" on the
county line. The correct way to phrase this would be to say that she "lives"
on the county line. Similarly, Betsy Jane should leave "her" behind
rather than the "them" as sung in the recording. It could be that
this is simply the result of uneducated, or primitively educated singers
getting their tenses mixed up. But this feels somewhat patronizing and there is
no indication that the Shelors were uneducated. The only way in which the
wording works is if the Big Bend gal is plural rather than singular, in other
words if the song is comparing Betsy Jane with all gals from Big Bend. In the
recording, it is not clear that the singers use the plural form of gal but the
sibilant "s" on the end of the word could be lost in the non-hi-fi
recording or missed in the speed with which the song is delivered. This, then,
makes sense as Betsy Jane leaves the Big Bend gals far behind.
But why then is
the song not called Betsy Jane from the prairie plain if that is what it is
about? And why are people from the Appalachians singing about the prairie plain? Big Bend National Park Texas Wisconsin Big Bend gal also "beats all the gals
from the Flat Creek Bottom". The Internet tells me that Big Bend and Flat Creek Bottom relate to somewhere
in southern Missouri Missouri
The rhythm of
the song is uptempo and jaunty and may have its origins in minstrel shows -
kind of the US equivalent to UK music hall only transitory and with a
pronounced racial bent, as we shall see. Having been asked to produce unusual
material, the Shelors may have called upon this song rather than something more
homespun and specific to their own background.
I do not know
who wrote the song but it is clearly composed rather than built up from
existing elements as with a lot of traditional material. There is poetry in the
verses and description of the gal and life on the plantation:
"The calf comes a-loping and
the old cow calls,
And the possum dog comes to the horn;
And the grape vine climbs up the tall oak tree,
And the morning glory wrap around the corn."
And the possum dog comes to the horn;
And the grape vine climbs up the tall oak tree,
And the morning glory wrap around the corn."
The gal "totes herself like a flying squirrel". The gal carries herself like a special animal, one that is a cut above others. This is a great image without, I think, much in the way of precedent. Woody Guthrie's "Talking Dust Bowl Blues" talks about a Ford taking off like a flying squirrel but this may refer to the Flying Squirrel motorcycle, although this was manufactured in Yorkshire - would Americans ride British bikes between the wars? I have no idea.
 |
| A Flying Squirrel, yesterday. |
"Her
eyes give light like a foxfire chunk". According to Wikipedia, foxfire is the bioluminescence
created by some species of fungi present in decaying wood. So, her eyes glow
like a natural phenomena. The gal is delicate, "she hangs on his arm
like a bird on a tree", but also vigorous, "she skippers up the
furrow in a cloud of dust as she busts them clods with a hoe". It's is
no wonder that she attracts the attention of the men on the plantation.
The Danger
Assuming that
the song does have its origins in minstrel shows, then it bears relation to
other contemporary songs that portray life on plantations as a bucolic idyll
and ignore the grim reality of slavery. There is a deeper horror within the
song in its frequent use of racial epithets. The men on the plantation are not
called men and the "N" word is used three times in the song. The Big Bend gal is herself described as
"yellow" meaning light or fair-skinned as in the song "Yellow
Gal" by Leadbelly.
Are the Shelors
being racist in their use of this language? They would think not, I suggest. I
imagine they would see the song as describing the realities of life in those
times (I imagine the song either comes from or describes life in the mid-19th
century) - Mark Twain does as much. Possibly they used these terms themselves,
possibly they did not. They show neither emphasis nor disapproval in their
delivery and the racist terms slip by unnoticed in the blur and slur of the
other words and their phrasing. The song does not otherwise describe its
participants in a derogatory or dismissive way but, of course, it does not need
to. The mere useage of these terms is sufficient to establish these peoples'
place in the order of things.
How does it
sound to modern ears? Herein lies the danger. Is it possible to enjoy this
performance? Is it possible to actively enjoy (rather than just understand or
appreciate) art which may have deplorable origins? Can we enjoy Gary Glitter
records (not a problem for me as I did not like him then and don't now)?
We are used to
rappers using the "N" word but this is a reclaiming of its previous
racist useage. We do not expect white artists to use it similarly. The victim
trying to assume power by seizing the language of the persecutor is a
legitimate tactic, although not everyone agrees on this point. It is one thing
for Bobby Thompson to make jokes about poverty in North East England, another
for Jimmy Carr to do the same.
There are
contemporary performances of "Big Bend Gal" on You Tube that
substitute for the racial epithets. Is this honest and true to the origins of
the song? If we must sing about plantation life, should we gloss over its
reality? Is this denial a worse thing than using racial language? It is not a
song that I would care to sing in public but what if a black artist were to do
so? Does that make it alright?
I do not know
the answers to these questions. I know that I do enjoy "Big Bend Gal"
while recognising that it could be taken as a sign of legitimising something
abhorrent. This is how art can be dangerous. In enjoying this song, am I
equating with the sort of people that collect paintings by Hitler? Or works by
Eric Gill? Are there degrees of questionability associated with this? Gill is a
better artist than Hitler and "Big Bend Gal" is better than Gary
Glitter. Does that make it alright?
Art need not be
comfortable and it can be upsetting. Some people might view "Big Bend
Gal" as material that should be left in the antebellum days along with
blackface and lynching. I thought long and hard about my response to this song.
I do think it wonderful and enjoyable and poetic and exuberant. And yet, look
what it is about and the language used. Perhaps there are other things that I
enjoy that cause offence, "Belsen was a Gas" by the Sex Pistols, for instance. Perhaps much of
what we enjoy can have hidden horrors for some.
Ultimately, I
think we need temper our response according to all the variables. How good is
the art that is created? Does it generate an intelligent or unintelligent
response? Does it provoke a critique or an acceptance? Eric Gill yes, Jimmy
Carr no. I can live without the "N" word in "The Sun has got his
hat on" but cannot listen to versions of "Big Bend Gal" without
the "proper" lyrics. It describes a world that is gone and I listen
to it as such. The danger lies in whether this gives succour to those who would
seek to revive those attitudes in the world we live in now.
Decide for yourself by listening here:
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