It's not what it was

People's musical tastes have changed over time and amid different social conditions. That has been the case with blues music in Boston over the past half-century.

By Bhuchung D. Sonam

Since its heyday in the 1940s and '50s, blues music in Boston shifted from being a social expression of the working class to an entertainment art form.

"[Blues music] has moved from a working class tradition, from poor blacks in the 1930s, '40s and '50s to a nearly all white, college or yuppie audience," said Karen Nugent, vice-president of Boston Blues Society. "Few can relate to old stories of sharecropping, mules, and violence."

But it is not blues music that has failed to keep up with the times, but rather the musicians who nowadays are less successful in expressing public feelings and opinions.

"Blues is an old music," said Roger House, who studies blues history. "It used to express people's feelings and sentiments of working class people, of black working class people who were living a certain experience. Now the music is entertainment. It does not have any direct connection to the fans. Fans look at it as a historic building," said House, an assistant professor at Emerson College.

The blues emerged in the 1890s as a musical style responding to the hardships endured by generations of black people. The songs served as a means of communication among plantation workers, and were used by slaves to keep time with work.

In the early 20th century, blues music became widespread in Boston as more blacks moved north and settled in the region. The music was then concentrated mainly around the South Shore, Roxbury and downtown where a large portion of the black population lived.

In the 1940s, '50s and '60s, white audiences discovered blues and followed it. Now the majority of both the audience and the blues musicians in Boston are white. They gather in cafés and lounges where blues jams take place. For Jane Stein from Weymouth, who is white, "it is pure entertainment." She danced, drank beer and laughed aloud when the band played music by bluesmen such as Muddy Waters, BB King and Bo Diddley, whose songs spoke of the plight and suffering of black people.

"I feel it's totally separated from its root, at least here in Boston," said Ryan Fardy, 23, a blues musician who is currently working on a pop rock album. "Blues was born out of slavery, racism and poverty. These are issues that very few in Boston have honestly dealt with," he noted.

This may be true, perhaps, as many people have said that blues music touches their soul and speaks their thoughts. But the number of people who listen to blues, however dedicated, is limited. This may be due, House said, to the fact that blues music is no longer an expression of social experiences. "It's a superficial form of music now... only entertainment. It lost its vitality, some of its meaning," he said.

Blues-influenced forms of popular entertainment have cut into the blues audience over time. "I think hip hop has replaced it as a sentiment of larger, working class population," Nugent said. As a result, no nightclubs or cafés in the city play blues five nights a week.

House, maintained that in the black community, which once was the biggest supporter of the blues "they mostly listen to popular music like that of Beyonce and not enough blues."

Some musicians, such as Rocco DeRosa, think the problems lies with the musicians and the audience who take it as a "simple music, thus completely missing its subtle complexities."

Some have argued that when younger city folk play blues music, it moves further away from its roots as a social voice. The problem gets aggravated, many said, when the audience happens to be mostly middle-aged whites who have no association with migration, racism, poverty and other social ills.

"They don't come from a life of struggle and repression that the early Afro-American Blues musicians did. I certainly don't. I grew up never wanting for food, clothing or shelter," said Bruce McGrath, who along with Fardy, hosts Tuesday Blues Jam at Paddy Os.

In spite of the fact that there is a small and thriving blues music scene in Boston, the future does not seem so bright. As Nugent said, "The blues audience has gotten older and thus shrinking attendance at clubs, and clubs closing. The young people don't seem to like it."