Language of the Blues - Edmonton Blues Society

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Preface
--Alan Lomax, The Land Where The Blues Began
This book is an anecdotal dictionary of the language of the blues. In it, you can look up such
words as
what they mean and from where they came. There is some frankly sexual talk in here; there are
some tall tales and some funny ones. I interviewed many famous and not-so-famous blues
musicians for this book, and they all had something fascinating to contribute.
vast topic. But my first interview, with guitarist Hubert Sumlin, gave me my way in, much like
seeing Son Seals play guitar for the first time gave me my way in on the electric guitar. I expected
read anywhere.
After our chat, I thought perhaps I could make a unique contribution to the language of the blues:
I could ask the artists, directly, what these words mean to them. I did my best with research, too
(369 footnotes!), and had the book vetted by two ethnomusicologists, but it was the lengthy,
generous interviews given to me by such music legends as Dr. John, Little Milton, Robben Ford,
Henry Gray, John Hammond, Robert Jr. Lockwood, Bob Margolin, Bonnie Raitt, Howard
n and more that provided fresh insights into the
language of the blues.
I love the language of the blues, both musical and verbal. It leads us back, hand over hand,
gripping a rough rope, until we find ourselves looking up at a big creaking ship full of misery that
has traveled to the Americas all the way from Africa. It tells us how the people transported on
that ship dug deep in order to survive enslavement in an utterly strange and different land, further
from home than they had ever imagined they could go. The language of the blues tells us how
they did it--by singing to themselves and to their children, and by digging joy and sustenance out
of rare private moments the way a starving man might dig new potatoes and carrots out of the dirt
with his fingers.
These were people who had suffered a profound cultural dislocation comparable to being shipped
at warp speed to another planet. In Blues People
Romans, slaves were merely vulgar and conquered peoples who had not the rights of Roman
citizenship. The Greeks thought of their slaves as unfortunate people who had failed to cultivate
unfortunate enough to find himself on some fast clipper ship to the New World was not even
2
The first Africans to arrive in the Americas were from bustling towns along the Senegal and
Gambia rivers. They were far more urban and sophisticated than their depictions in Hollywood
movies would later indicate. The Senegambians lived in highly organized cities full of specialized
smiths, leather workers, butchers, and griot
The African Heritage of American
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