books to read if you wanna learn more about country, blues, and folk

Coal Miner's Daughter by Loretta Lynn
The highlight of this book is quite possibly Loretta Lynn's attempt to use her folksy, hillbilly style of talking to explain her drug problems. Y'see, the doctor gave her some special aspirin for her headaches, and she didn't realize she was allergic to it, which is why it made her sleepy and cranky. With that said, it's still a great read in a serious sense. Lynn has had a pretty amazing life, going from about as rural of an upbringing as you can get to an abusive marriage at 14, four children by the time she was 18, and then of course her long musical career. I really respect Lynn's honesty and individuality ... country music is and was notoriously conservative, so her openly pro-choice perspective, her controversial song celebrating "The Pill", and other songs that are empowering for women like "Don't Come Home A-Drinkin' (With Lovin' On Your Mind)" are a real testament to her gutsiness and independence.

Escaping The Delta: Robert Johnson and the Invention of the Blues by Elijah Wald
This book is so fucking amazing ... smart and funny and detailed and critical in all the right places. Wald is a blues fan who was raised during the era when all the hip white guys in college were catching on to blues as a classic but still relevant form of music. What makes him different is that he's spent the rest of his life to date as a blues musician, and developed a lot of knowledge and insight into blues history along the way. Ostensibly presented as an in depth look at Robert Johnson, one of the most lauded Delta blues musicians, Wald chronicles the history of blues, of popular music, of Delta history, of how dominant cultures rewrite history, and a lot more besides. The myth of Robert Johnson having gone to the crossroads one dark night to sell his soul to the devil in exchange for his guitar skills is accorded the last chapter, entitled "Afterthought: So What About The Devil?". Since almost any contemporary account of Johnson's life or review of his music mentions this inane myth, it's refreshing to see Wald pointing out that Johnson only mentioned the devil a few times in a handful of songs (often in a humourous context, which never seems to be mentioned), and that it shouldn't be taken literally any more than any other pop song should be. Through the whole book, Wald explains that blues was the popular music of its time, and should properly be viewed in this context, not seen as a romanticized view of a ragged old guy reclining on the porch of his shanty with a guitar, drivin' his blues away with a jar of 'shine and some sad, sad songs. Yes, there was obviously a lot of abject poverty in the rural south, and of course racism (whether institutional or on a personal level) made life unimaginably hard (well, unimaginably for me as a middle class white kid) for black people, but reducing this situation to a musical caricature is short sighted and insulting. Wald does an impressive amount of research to display information about various musicians, genres, and local scenes, and it's amazing to see how different the conclusions he yields are from popular stereotype. What surprised me most was reading information about jukebox hits, record sales, and interviews with people from that era who are still alive today, and seeing that the musicians most canonized from that time (Johnson, Skip James, etc.) are scarcely remembered compared to the slicker big-band type groups who are seen by white blues enthusiasts today as "inauthentic".

Woodie Guthrie: A Life by Joe Klein
A huge, comprehensive biography of Woodie Guthrie that traces his entire life in lots of detail. I seriously found this book impossible to stop reading once I got started on it. Guthrie's widow gave Klein access to every aspect of their lives, which is brave of her, given the level of personal information included. Her willingness to open up completely and to let Klein go through all their family memorabilia and papers is what makes this book so fascinating. Guthrie obviously had a crazy, varied, and interesting life, and he's presented in a really honest way ... as someone who was troubled and flawed yet still talented and driven. He watched his mother degenerate and die of a condition that basically locks the person afflicted inside their body and leaves them progressively less able to move and communicate. After going through this, he spent his entire life worrying that he had inherited it, and, as it turns out, he did. I can't imagine how terrifying and horrible it would be to have your worst dream realised in this way, and it seems like worrying about this happening to him is part of what drove him to be so prolific and accomplish so much.

I'd Rather be the Devil: Skip James and the Blues by Stephen Calt
Skip James lived from 1902 to 1969 and was one of the greatest of the Mississippi blues musicians. He pioneered a unique style of playing guitar and used a sad, high, falsetto as his singing voice that made his songs different and haunting. This book traces his own personal history through his times as an itinerant worker, a pimp, a bluesman, and eventually a respectable married man. The book is mostly drawn from countless hours of conversation with James himself, so it's a rare case of black blues history being told in something close to the first person, as opposed to being pieced together (and often outright fabricated) by some white dude who never met the musicians or lived through the era. As well as a personal history of James, this book talks a lot about the time when Mississippi bluesmen were "discovered" by white college kids. Collectors found and popularized old 78s, and the musicians who made them were tracked down by music enthusiasts who wanted to get them started touring again. This seems like a good idea and may have been genuinely well intentioned, but the lack of care and consideration shown to these men by their "managers" was deplorable. They were completely ripped off financially, and generally had their health and other pressing concerns ignored.

Will You Miss Me When I'm Gone: The Carter Family & Their Legacy in American Music by Mark Zwonitzer with Charles Hirshberg
A biography of the Carter Family, who basically created and popularized the sounds that became modern country and bluegrass. What makes this book particularly interesting is that it's not just a history of the Carter Family (who are fascinating in and of themselves), but a history of rural folks from Kentucky and Tennessee, as well as the progression of country/roots/folk music in America. There's lots of hillbilly folk wisdom about such topics as tooth jumping, which is worth quoting: "You take a cut nail (not one o' those round wire nails) and place its squar p'int agin the ridge of the tooth, jest under the edge of the gum. Then jump the tooth out with a hammer. [If it doesn't come out on the first try,] you might as well stick your head in a swarm o' bees and ferget who you are." Also, there's scandalous tales of country musicians in Nashville, including descriptions of Johnny Cash showing up at the Carters' house all the time in the middle of the night so wired on speed that "his eyes were as wide as flapjacks". Really fun stuff.

Blues Legacies and Black Feminism By Angela Davis
Awesome on numerous levels ... includes complete transcriptions of obscure blues lyrics, focuses on female musicians (for once), and, of course, since it's written by Angela Davis, there is insanely smart and insightful analysis based on race, class, and gender. Davis concentrates primarily on Gertrude "Ma" Rainey, Bessie Smith, and Billie Holiday, but the book serves as a history of blues and of African-American experience after slavery was abolished. I love that even other biographies are dissected in the analysis. For example, when Billie Holiday's song "Strange Fruit" is discussed, Davis lampoons a (white, male) biographer's description of how Holiday apparently didn't understand the song when the lyrics were presented to her, and just said "You wants me to sing it, I sings it." The obvious racist sterotypes at work in phrasing Holiday's supposed words, and the ridiculousness of saying that a woman of colour whose father had died because of racist violence and had spent time touring in the southern states wouldn't be able to comprehend a song about lynchings are dissected in super scathing, articulate ways. Davis also talks about the liberatory aspect of blues music, showing us that queer themes could be subtly (or even fairly overtly) be put across in songs when they would have been unacceptable in mainstream culture, and that travelling songs were especially significant given that slavery had not been long gone, and black people had only recently gained the choice to travel freely. Plus, it's just super rad to read lyrics about women deciding to leave town and go travelling because they're sick of their jerkass boyfriends, especially given that these were written at the same time as Jimmie Rodgers was singing "When a woman gets the blues, she hangs her little head and cries, but when a man gets the blues he grabs him a train and rides."