W8/W9

Studying good ole Leadbelly and Woody Guthrie together heightened my social awareness regarding both of their works.

Starting with Leadbelly, the popular image that was portrayed of him was slightly awful. He was Black ex-convict redeemed by his White superior, none other than Mr. Lomax, because of his wonderful talent of musical artistry.

First of all, the fact that his special musical talents could redeem him from his sentence (at the will of Lomax) explicitly says a lot about racial processes at work in this time.  Leadbelly comes across as docile even though physically mighty. His "character" reinforced many stereotypes and socio-racial orders in the Jim Crow South. Even through all this I could see all of Leadbelly's talent and personal character deep behind the filtered image. Yet and still much of what Leadbelly represented was not authentic and was beyond his control in most respects. I wish Leadbelly could have really and truly been exposed as Leadbelly not Lomax's Leadbelly or anyones else's Leadbelly crafted for an audience of others.

Woody Guthrie was a man of men. Guthrie was active in using his music to engage with a social agenda that was behind those who did not have the vehicles to popularize the misfortune that they lived. Guthrie as a musician was honest. Honest enough to make listeners, listen and engage. Singing about the dustbowl and America the Great in positive respects, promoting public works projects and otherwise as sung in This Land is Your Land, Guthrie's place as a popular artist walked a fine line but walked it well enough to successfully get his points noticed.

Guthrie's effective political activism and honest image even though sometimes distorted got his message across in ways that Leadbelly could never dreamt of employing music in. Largely because of racial divides but looking at these musicians together makes it possible to think about who is singing, for what reason and to who and ultimately why. Answering this set of questions makes a clear divide and shows us everything we should know about what we are listening to and what it is subliminally or consciously feeding into...which goes even further and starts to inform our personal positions not only related to the music but in society. 

Left images for Leadbelly, right Woody Guthrie