Robert Johnson, Love in Vain. Legacy, 92579, 1970.
The Rolling Stones, Love in Vain. Let It Bleed. ABKCO, 719004, 1969.
This playlist, evidently, will go in ideational rather than chronological order. This second song, for instance, is included for its taking in another direction of an original song; the fact that blues musicians (who can either be black or white) can master an original and remake that original proves that central to the blues is the driving force of creative rethinking of roots. Listen for exactly what the Rolling Stones do here—shifting from minor to major on the pentatonic scale, adding another guitar to the mix, even inflecting the vocals with the tinge of hillbilly yodeling. This music recognizes that no music is static, that the blues in particular have never been isolated from white music or the white audience. In keeping with what is, in fact, the most traditional about the blues, the Rolling Stones take an active artistic role in working out of roots and making something new and freshly meaningful.
Mississippi John Hurt, Nearer My God to Thee. Rediscovered. Vanguard, 79519, 1998.
What is most intriguing about Mississippi John Hurt is that, despite the fact that he lived deep in the hills above the Mississippi Delta, his music displays an incredible melding of disparate traditions. In this song, one can hear the lyrics and spiritualism of backwoods gospel played over the 12 strings and 12 chords of the most soulfully satanic sort of blues music. Even more so, this blues music is notable for an active role in instrumental technique; Mississippi John Hurt almost seems to be playing with four strong hands, as with an old ragtime duet. Two hands move away and toward the other two, and over the music the vocals ring out soft but clear: if even music from an outpost such as this can manifest the influence of ragtime, gospel, and Appalachia, then no blues or American music can wholly be considered “roots.” “Nearer My God to Thee” is, plainly, an example of the audacious innovation most often associated with later, white appropriators of original blues.
