By Frank Matheis
This important series of music festivals toured Europe beginning in 1962. Many Europeans had only been exposed to local blues musicians at that time. The audiences, enthralled by the blues they came to love as part of the international folk& blues revival traced their way back to the originators and were eager to hear the real deal, the true blues. The “British Invasion” had sparked the European blues revival and huge interest in the major artists whose careers suddenly had a new wind. People wanted to hear the authentic black performers instead of the facsimile who had been so highly touted as the influences of the mostly British blues players. Some of the leading performers were brought over by concert promoters and record producers Lippmann & Rau to Europe between 1962-1967, 1969-1970, 1972, 1980-1983, and 1985. For many Europeans it was an exciting, unforgettable series of concerts, the first time they met the blues.
Even though the series was called “folk blues” it was essentially a misnomer as all kinds of blues was featured, including urban Chicago blues. The concerts were among the first to bring the blues into serious listening room setting, where European audiences enjoyed concerts the way they were used to in their venue halls– quiet, polite, attentive listeners and serious musicians on stage. This was not always a comfortable environment for blues musicians used to a more raucous, lively performance where people could dance and have a good time. When comparing the concert recordings to other live albums by many of the same artists, it is startling to reflect how the European concerts, especially in the 1960s sounded subdued and tentative, almost timid. These same performers would normally deliver fiery and rocking shows, but here the overall result was gentle, almost coldly academic at times. Yet, the music was lovely and the audiences was exposed to the blues in a palatable, approachable way. To many in the audience the blues was an exotic, romantic and romantic musical expression that fed their imagination, not only of African Americans but also of their own views of what blues meant politically and socially. The audience could not fully understand the origins and history of the blues, but they were intrigued by their own, sometimes paternalistic interpretation: blues was the primitive precedent of jazz, and blues was the moan of slavery, and both points are of course only partially correct.[1]
The famous quote of the Martinican citizen of France, Frantz Fanon, comes to mind, from his book Black Skin, White Masks, “What is often called the black soul is a white man’s artifact.” This starts with the title of the concert series. In 1962, the first festival was called American Negro Folk Blues Festival, but the name was changed the following year. [2] Based on the written record of the time, the perspective of the reviewers and promoters was simple: “black blues is the real folkblues” and “white blues is just pale imitation.” This somewhat simplified interpretation obviously fails to understand the many variations, styles and sub-genres of the blues.What is “folk blues” beyond the skin color of the musicians? Did the electrified Chicago players of the 1950s and ‘60s still qualify as folk or country blues? When Muddy Waters made the famous field recordings for Allen Lomax on Stovall Plantation in Mississippi while he was McKinley Morganfield, the farm laborer, who played blues on an acoustic guitar in his community, he was a “folk blues” player. Once he moved to Chicago, wore fancy suits and amplified his full band to play the electric, urban blues we call “Chicago Blues” was he still a folk blues player?
Surely, the folk or country blues was present, but so were other forms of blues and it all ended up getting labeled as “folk blues” merely by the race of the African American performers.
The Washington, D.C. performers were invited to the festival tours in 1981 and 1982, twenty years after European audiences had been introduced to these great blues artists from America. Europeans were by then educated and often fervent blues fans. After the initial recordings made in Washington, D.C, by Axel Küstner and Ziggy Christmann for Lipmann & Rau as part of the Living Country Bluesalbum series, the duo of “Bowling Green John” and “Harmonica Phil Wiggins” joined the tour in 1981. Most of the time the actual acoustic country blues players opened the sets, followed by the larger electric ensembles. Archie Edwards joined them in 1982. During that tour James “Son” Thomas, Archie Edwards, John Cephas and Phil Wiggins prominently featured country or “folk” blues, along with an outstanding “Blues Harp Meetings” Tribute to Little Walter andBlues Harp by Three bringing together Carey Bell, Billy Branch and Phil Wiggins.
By the time the Washington, D.C. performers joined the tour the American Folk Blues Festivals were already at the end of their life cycle. There was one more in 1983, 1984 was skipped and the last tour was in 1984.
For Cephas & Wiggins and Archie Edwards the Festivals were major starting points of their international careers, a springboard for what was to follow. They delivered lively and confident performances with excellent musicality. The audience embraced them and brought them much encouragement and support. The significance of participating in these prominent and highly acclaimed tours, on the heels of their first albums, signified that they had arrived in the “big time”, on the international stage en par with well known blues stars. Phil Wiggins, at the time of the Festivals just 27 years old, said, “They loved us. We had a great reception by the audience. It was bigger than anything we had seen to date and it made it clear for us that we had launched our careers, and that this was out destiny. The adulation of the people over there was amazing.” Listening to Bye Bye Baby on the 1982 live concert album, with singer Margie Evan joining John Cephas and Phil Wiggins, it becomes clear that the duo was already at that time among the very best, a duo of artistic beauty, musical virtuosity and deeply sensitive feeling. Phil’s solo was both technically perfect and emotive and John’s warm voice and smooth guitar accompaniment was at a peak.
European audiences were treated to the “real deal” blues players:
1962 Memphis Slim, T-Bone Walker, Willie Dixon, Jump Jackson, Sonny Terry, Brownie McGhee, John Lee Hooker, Shakey Jake.
1963 Memphis Slim, Willie Dixon, Matt “Guitar” Murphy, Bill Stepney, Big Joe Williams, Victoria Spivey, Sonny Boy Williamson, Otis Span, Lonnie Johnson, Muddy Waters.
1964 Sonny Boy Williamson, Hubert Sumlin, Willie Dixon, Clifton James, Sunnyland Slim, Lightin Hopkins, Sleepy John Estes, Hammie Nixon, John Henry Barbee, Sugar Pie Desanto, Howlin Wolf.
1965 Fred McDowell, J. B Lenoir, Big Walter Horton, Buddy Guy, Lonesome Jimmie Lee, Freddie Below, Roosevelt Sykes, Eddie Boyd, John Lee Hooker, Big Mama Thornton, Dr. Ross.
1966 Roosevelt Sykes, Otis Rush, Little Bro. Montgomery, Yank Rachell, Junior Wells, Sippie Wallace, Robert Pete Williams, Big Joe Turner.
1967 Bukka White, Hound Dog Taylor, Sonny Terry/Brownie McGhee, Son House, Little Walter/Hound Dog Taylor, Koko Taylor, Skip James.
1969 Juke Boy Bonner, Earl Hooker, Carey Bell, John Jackson, Clifton Chenier, Earl Hooker, Magic Sam, Alex Moore.
1970 Willie Dixon, Walter Horton, Bukka White, Champion Jack Dupree, Sonny Terry, Brownie McGhee, Lee Jackson.
1972 Bukka White, Big Joe Williams, Memphis Slim, Big Mama Thornton, T-Bone Walker, Jimmy Rodgers, Lightin’ Slim, Jimmy Dawkins.
1980 Lousiana Red, Willie Mabon, Hubert Sumlin, Eddie Taylor, Sunnyland Slim, Carey Bell, Lucky &Flash, Robert Stroger, Washboard Doc, Odie Payne.
1981 Louisiana Red, Hubert Sumlin, Margie Evans, Bowling Green John Cephas, Harmonica Phil Wiggins, Archie Edwards, Carey Bell, Lurrie Bell, Sunnyland Slim, Bob Stroger, Odie Payne.
1982 James “Son” Thomas, Archie Edwards, Bowling Green John Cephas, Harmonica Phil Wiggins, Carey Bell, Margie Evans, Lurrie Bell, Billy Branch, Elisha Murray, J. W. Williams, Moses Rutues.
1983 Louisiana Red, Queen Sylvia, Jimmie Rodgers, Lovie Lee, Carey Bell, Honey Boy Otis, Larry Johnson, Lonnie Pitchford, Sparky Rucker.
1985 Sparky Rucker, Blind Joe Hill, Cash McCall, Eddie “Cleanhead” Vinson, James “Son” Thomas, Margie Evans, Lance Lee.
[1]Adelt, Ulrich, Black, White and Blue: Racial Politics of Blues Music in the 1960s. Doctor of Philosophy thesis in American Studies. The University of Iowa. 2007. Pg. 140-151
[2]Adelt, Ulrich, Black, White and Blue: Racial Politics of Blues Music in the 1960s. Doctor of Philosophy thesis in American Studies. The University of Iowa. 2007. Pg. 140-151