Our stay in Santa Fe was supposed to be our first
rest stop but instead we were hassling with phones and car chargers. Nonetheless
it is a beautiful city that has become an arts center with incredible New
Mexican architecture, amazing New Mexican food and a few too many yuppies. Our
friend Joseph Day from the Hopi Mesas calls it "Fanta Se". . . I
don't think he means that as a compliment. We stayed an extra day when we heard
that there would be a fantastic concert with two African American musicians
that could best be described as American roots blues masters. I was unfamiliar
with their music and was surprised to learn that it was really a double bill
with each artist performing separately.
Eric Bibb was just at Yoshis last week with one of
the Bay Area’s most soulful vocalists Linda Tillery. I was totally impressed
with Bibb. He is an amazing guitarist with an understated, acoustic, delta
blues style and a wonder resonant singing voice. He sang a wide repertoire of
old and new songs that included some early rural blues classics and some
originals as well. He was accompanied by a wonderful harmonica player named
Grant Dermody who played like Little Walter. Guy Davis, son of Ozzie Davis and
Ruby Dee is a wonderful storyteller, singer and songwriter as well but Bibb’s
music really resonated for me on a deep level.
Ironically Bibb has lived much of his life in
Europe and I found myself reflecting on the long history of Black musicians who
have moved to Europe where they seem to be appreciated on a deeper level. Early
New Orleans saxophonist Sidney Bichet, trumpeter Art Farmer,
dancer/singer/actress Josephine Baker and many others left the US to find a
different level of respect across the Atlantic.
Bibb and Davis were both performing music that is truly American Roots
music and yet their audience was in this case largely white and upper middle
class. This is a story that has been repeated for a very long time with acoustic
blues in particular. I was struck by the irony of this being my first blues
experience on the trip and here we were in a beautiful historic theater in
Santa Fe surrounded by a wealthy, largely white audience, listening to stories
and songs of working class African American culture from the rural south. Folk
music and acoustic blues have been embraced and held in great reverence by
urban intelligencia for well over 50 years. I will skip the lecture on the
confusing and sometimes contradictory history of folk music but suffice it to
say that there is both a history of respect and reverence mixed with a
romanticization of the idiom and its alleged cultural purity. . . .but I
digress. I guess you will need to take my class for “the rest of the story”
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