On the authenticity of folk or roots music

[Eva Broman <eva.bromanassouchidis...>]

Hi everyone,

Alex made some very interesting comments about ethnic music and "authenticity". 
It made me think of Bill C. Malone's concluding remarks in his brilliant study 
of the relations between country music and the southern working class, "Don't 
Get Above Your Raising". Although it may seem a tad off-topic, I think his 
thoughts on growing up "within" a tradition and recreating/reviving a tradition 
from "outside" are very pertinent to this discussion. 

One can even learn or imbibe "tradition" by watching instructional videos or by 
participating in the workshops, festivals, and goverment-sponsored folk 
apprentice programs that have flourished in the wake of the folk revival. While 
the apprentice programs place neophytes under the guidance of authentic rural 
musicians, many of the festival and workshop instructors come from neither 
southern, rural, nor working-class backgrounds. The phenomenon of "outsiders" 
encouraging the performance of "traditional" music has not only been present 
throughout country music's history, it in fact has been a defining paradox. 
While I have always liked to see myself as an "insider" who was preserving, 
commemorating, and documenting the music of my own culture, I now realize that 
these activities has made me an observer as well as participant and have 
perhaps so distanced me that I have inadvertedly become an outsider too.

After all, I couldn't wait to escape the social milieu into which I was born, 
even though I have spent most of my life writing about it. My refusal to be a 
farmer, a cowboy or a blue-collar worker, or even a small town office clerk, 
was as firm as my resistance to my mother's prayers that I become a Pentecostal 
preacher. I nevertheless preserved a love for the music that issued forth from 
that expressive faith. I still secretely rejoice when learning that a favourite 
singer came up in the Holiness tradition. ......Falling outside the two 
extremes of the "Saturday night/Sunday morning" syndrome, I found that my 
natural place lay in documenting the richly textured working-class that I fled 
both personally and professionally. In interpreting that world, I feel that I 
honor the dignity of my parents and others like them who have too long been 
ignored or held in disrespect.

And that's what I look for in country music today. I listen for singers and 
musicians who value the music's roots and traditions, and who honor the work, 
sacrifice, the blood, tears and sweat that went into the making. If I'm unable 
to believe that the performer has actually "lived" the life that is sung about, 
I want to believe that he or she respects the culture that surrounded the 
music. Consequently, I welcome the music of entertainers like Mike Seeger, Bill 
Clifton, ..Alice Gerrard...Jim Watson etc. (snipping a bit), middle-class city 
folks whose affection for old-time music mirrors a similar reverence for the 
people who originally created it.

Snipping..

Despite my respect for O'Brien and Green, and the music they make, my strongest 
affection, ideally, goes to those performers whose music does more than simply 
commemorate or represent working-class culture. I identify mostly with the 
music of those people who emerged from the southern working class and who still 
carry the imprint of that background in their styles. Not only do these singers 
evoke warm feelings, the sense that they could be brothers or cousins, but they 
also live out the personal fantasy that I never had the nerve to pursue-the 
decision to be a country singer (my closest friends know that I would have 
given up tenure for one night on the Opry). end of quote

I found Malone's remarks interesting because they show that concepts such as 
"honesty", "authenticity" often lay in the eyes of the beholder. "Nashville" 
country music is a style that has often been derided for it's sentimentality 
(maudlin "crying in your beer" songs) and maybe even affectation. In the past 
at least, country performers tended to favour flashy stage suits all the while 
they projected a "down home" simplicity in the way they communicated with their 
audiences, something which might feel somewhat "fake" or kitchy to some 
listeners. On the other hand, from the perspective of their core audiences, I'm 
sure their songs and their performance style  was perceived as moving and 
sincere. And when you think about, performers like George Jones, Johnny 
Paycheck or Loretta Lynn were/are probably closer to the "folk", both in terms 
of their own social background and their audience's, than many "folk" singers. 
Although Loretta Lynn is more heard in my household than Joan Baez that is by 
no means a judgment on the artistic worth of folk singers-but I do believe that 
in many ways, revivalist folk musicians and Nashville country and western 
artists moved in very different circuits, although their music came from 
similar roots.

I promise to come back with something related to Jewish music in my next 
posting!;-)

Eva

I'm not really sure what is meant by honesty in this context.  Much of the
music we seem to be thinking of as honest is often learned from 'fake
books'.  These days an awful lot of 'ethnic' music is performed by people
whose life circumstances are extremely different from the 'folks' to whom it
may be traced; that certainly includes younger generations of American
Jews.  But, as the neo-existentialist philosopher Jerry Seinfeld said, 'Not
that there's anything wrong with that.'



A lot of the music we seem not to be talking about--that folks on the list
don't value, at least for the reasons they value ethnic music--is laden with
gestures that have come to be identified with affectation and
ostentatiousness.  Some of these have to do with one kind of musical
'polish'.  Its opposite is what ethnomusicologist Charles Keil calls
'participatory discrepancies', which, in lesds affected and ostentatious
terms that Keil also uses, are what make music 'hot' or, broadly understood,
'swinging'.  If you can handle the academic language, his writings are worth
checking out and he's a very nice guy to boot.

Shalom,