Washington, D.C. and the surrounding area may not be the most famous traditional blues locality, but it is one of the richest. It is not as well known as other parts of the country as a center of the acoustic blues, but in D.C. there is still a lively acoustic blues scene, started by a core of African American blues musicians who created a wonderfully harmonious, nurturing acoustic blues community.
The acoustic blues in Washington, D.C., certainly did not start in 1975. It is merely a convenient starting point, a manageable period of time. This finite period of 40 years, is not some sort of anniversary. It is simply the period when Phil Wiggins was and is an integral part of the music scene
The title of this book, Sweet Bitter Blues, is also the title of a blues melody written by John Cephas with lyrics by Otis Williams, a former Professor at the University of Maryland, a musician and poet. The Washington, D.C. duo John Cephas and Phil Wiggins recorded it as the title cut of a 1994 album, to which University of Maryland Prof. Barry Lee Pearson wrote the liner notes. It’s a symbolic example of real home-grown, local blues – Washington, D.C. area blues in every way, what they used to call “old down home” blues.
The simple two words “sweet” and “bitter” could also be used to generally define the acoustic blues style played along the East coast, commonly referred to as Piedmont Blues. This gentle and melodic blues style native to the Carolinas and Virginia over to Tennessee, is practiced along the entire mid-Atlantic region. The rich folk tradition in the Piedmont country blues owes much to ragtime, traditional Appalachian Mountain music, African American string music, spirituals and gospel, rural African American dance music, and the early white country music of the 1930s. Dr. Julia Olin, Director of the National Council for the Traditional Arts, perhaps gave the cleanest definition as “the melodic, delicate, lyrical blues of this region. It’s not as percussive as other forms of blues. It’s not out of the cotton fields. There are no field holler moans. It even sounds fun.” This blues style features intricate fingerpicking with alternating bass and a simultaneous syncopated melody picked on the treble strings. Blind Blake, Blind Boy Fuller, Blind Willie McTell, Rev. Gary Davis, and many others along the East Coast made this folk music style famous. It has a certain sweetness in the guitar style, but the thematic of theses blues can be about the sacred, or the profane, about hardship, struggle, murder, pain, suffering, drinking, trouble with the opposite sex, and more. It’s the kind of blues where if you don’t understand the English, the singing and melody sounds so lovely and sweet, but if you hear and understand the words you can feel the bite:
Well. It’s sweet bitter blues
Walk all around my bed
Well, it’s sweet bitter blues
Walk all around me bed
Sometimes I wonder, am I alive or dead.
Piedmont Blues, East Coast blues, Mid-Atlantic blues, it has many names, but in its essence it is the pure, ethereal, original music of rural African-Americans that originated in the Eastern USA during the 1920s and 1930s. This music was brought to Washington, D.C. when rural African Americans moved to the city and brought their traditional musical styles with them. During the Great Migration of black Americans from the rural South to the cities of the North, from the early 20th Century to 1970, the population of Washington, D.C. exploded as many blacks headed north to seek economic opportunities and escape harsh Jim Crow segregationist laws. Like other large northern cities, the influx of southern rural folks brought along the blues musicians, but unlike Chicago, Memphis and St. Louis, the District of Columbia never developed a comparable electric blues scene and maintained its rural, country blues in the Songster and Piedmont blues traditions of the Mid-Atlantic region.
The acoustic blues scene is still going strong in and around Washington, D.C. today, but among the international blues audience, it hardly gets noticed. There are lots of books that analyze the folklore and ethnomusicology of the traditional blues. Much has been studied and written about the various musical styles and the musicians of the pre-WWII era. Yet, there is hardly any information published about the acoustic blues in our own time.
The Washington, D.C. blues scene may seem tame and lame to blues fans used to mythology and marketing fanfare. Nobody in D.C. sold their soul to the devil at the crossroads at midnight. In D.C. the musicians just hung out on Saturday afternoons at Archie’s barbershop. None of the old time DC musicians formed famous electric bands and played with the Rolling Stones. Eric Clapton never pointed to anyone in D.C. as his favorite inspiration. In D.C. they just played the old time music, quietly, just as they had always done in their home communities. There were no blues superstars, but true blues and folk musicians who loved to play and to share.
At its core the D.C. area blues scene was and is rooted in the African American community, with a small group of musicians, proud and beloved men and women, who saw it as their mission to carry on their respective musical traditions: Flora Molton, Archie Edwards, John Jackson, John Cephas & Phil Wiggins. Because of their love for the music and willingness to teach, these fine musicians created a harmonious environment, mostly centered around Archie’s famous barbershop where Archie Edwards opened his doors ever Saturday afternoon for jam sessions. In the barbershop, and in the whole D.C. area scene, issues that were pervasive in other places never came up. Nobody was judged by their skill level, their skin color, their age, or gender…everybody was welcomed, everybody was met with open arms and a spirit of friendship pervaded.
The musicians in Washington, D.C. who are no longer with us have left an important legacy: “Carry on this music. Keep it going.” This book aims to do just that. It documents the music community in and around D.C. as Phil lived and experienced it. It is about the generation that continued this musical legacy and the facilitating forces that helped shape the local scene. Who better to tell that story than a musician who lived the history, was part of it, and continues the legacy of this musical tradition to this day, as performer and educator?
We happily tell the story that the Washington, D.C. acoustic blues scene was and is a “living tradition” and we tip our hats to those who made it happen.
