African Americans' Historical Contribution To Old Time Music

Written by Azizi Powell

This is Part II of a series of pancocojams posts that focus on the historical & cultural ties between so-called "Hillbillies" and African Americans.

Part I of this series, entitled "The Shared Steroptypes For Hillbillies & African Americans, Part I" explores the similarities between the stereotypes used for so-called "hillbillies" and for African Americans. The link to that post is http://pancocojams.blogspot.com/2011/10/shared-steroptypes-for-hillbillies.html

The purpose of this post is to raise awareness among Americans and others about Black contributions to the history of Old Time music.

Few White contemporary fans of old time music seem to be aware of African American contributions to the history of that music. Furthermore, in spite of the award winning African American performers such as the Carolina Chocolate Drops,it appears that few African Americans know anything about the history or current performances of old time music. However, documentation of African Americans' contribution to old time music are found online. Several online quotes on this subject are presented with minimal editorial comments.

From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old-time_music:

The term "old-time"

With its origins in traditional music of Europe and Africa, old-time music represents perhaps the oldest form of North American traditional music other than Native American music, and thus the term "old-time" is an appropriate one. As a label, however, it dates back only to 1923.

Fiddlin' John Carson made some of the first commercial recordings of traditional American country music for the Okeh label. The recordings became hits. Okeh, which had previously coined there [sic] terms "hillbilly music" to describe Appalachian and Southern fiddle-based and religious music and "race recording" to describe the music of African American recording artists, began using "old-time music" as a term to describe the music made by artists of Carson's style. The term, thus, originated as a euphemism, but proved a suitable replacement for other terms that were considered disparaging by many inhabitants of these regions. It remains the term preferred by performers and listeners of the music. It is sometimes referred to as "old-timey" or "mountain music" by long-time practitioners.

Note that the term "hillbilly" referred/refers only to White inhabitants of Appalachia in spite of the fact that there were/are numerous Black people and other People of Color who also resided/reside in Appalachia. Also note that the term "race music" was only used as a referent for music performed by Black people, in spite of the fact that there were/are other races besides "Black".

From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hillbilly:
"Hillbilly music was at one time considered an acceptable label for what is now known as country music. However, some artists and fans, notably Hank Williams Sr., found the term offensive even in its heyday. The label, coined in 1925 by country pianist Al Hopkins, persisted until the 1950s.

Now, the older name is widely deemed offensive, but the term hillbilly music is still used on occasion to refer to old-time music or bluegrass. An early tune that contained the word hillbilly was "Hillbilly Boogie" by the Delmore Brothers in 1946. Earlier, in the 1920s, there were records by a band called the Beverly Hillbillies. In 1927, the Gennett studios in Richmond, Indiana, made a recording of black fiddler Jim Booker with other instrumentalists; their recordings were labeled "made for Hillbilly" in the Gennett files, and were marketed to a white audiences.*...

Popular songs whose style bore characteristics of both hillbilly and African American music were referred to, in the late 1940s and early 1950s as hillbilly boogie, and in the mid-1950s as rockabilly…

Elvis Presley was a prominent player of the latter genre and was known early in his career as the "Hillbilly Cat". When the Country Music Association was founded in 1958, the term hillbilly music gradually fell out of use. However, the term rockabilly is still in common use. Later, the music industry merged hillbilly music, Western Swing, and Cowboy music, to form the current category C&W, Country and Western.

The famous bluegrass fiddler Vassar Clements described his style of music as "hillbilly jazz.""

*Italic font added by me to highlight that sentence.

From http://www.oldtimemusic.com/otdef.html

Most of the `old time' musicians were white rural agrarian Southerners…

Resonant in meaning and methodology, `old time music' had been the heartbeat of Anglo-Celtic Southern America for many generations…

Despite the European background of much of this music and of such instruments as the fiddle, the influence of African-American phrasing and syncopation profoundly affected old time music. (This influence becomes particularly striking when you compare American stringband music to that of Canada, a New World culture which lacked a significant African-American presence.) The banjo is the most obvious legacy of African-Americans in old time music, for the instrument itself is African in origin. It came to white Southerners via the nineteenth century minstrel show, vestiges of which echoed in such performers as Uncle Dave Macon, an early Opry star imitated [more recently] by his longtime accompanist, Sam McGee.

From http://sondahl.com/sammcgee.html
"The McGee brothers [Sam & Kirk] grew up in Franklin, Tennessee, where Sam learned to pick guitar from local black musicians. The use of alternating bass and playing the melody on the treble strings had more in common with black blues than local string band playing, where a guitar kept time with bass runs while backing the fiddle…

Besides guitar, Sam played the banjo and the Gibson banjo-guitar. He and Kirk were often billed as comedy acts, with Sam wearing a red wig to become a Toby character developed in minstrel shows. A lot of his songs show his comedic side (with lines like, "Met a little gypsy in a fortune telling place--she read my mind, and then she slapped my face..."), but were accompanied with masterful runs and bends on the guitar. Charles K. Wolfe's excellent book on the early Opry, A Good Natured Riot, tells how Uncle Dave taught showmanship to the McGee brothers, particularly playing up the hillbilly aspects for comedy."

*Italic font added by me for emphasis.

Here's information about the Toby shows from http://thetobyshow.typepad.com/the_toby_show/whats-a-toby-show.html:
"Toby Show is a classic American theatre form. They traveled the country in the 19th & early 20th centuries performing vaudeville style shows with music, dance and variety acts in tents like the circus.

The central figure of the Toby Show was Toby, a redheaded rube who, with homespun humor and smarts, always got it over on the big city folks."

****
Some banjo & fiddle tunes & verses have been traced to various European folk songs/ tunes while other old time tunes & verses have been traced to 19th century (or earlier) African American dance songs or African American children's play songs. Here's a quote about blackface minstrel songs, a precusor of a considerable portion of old time music:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackface
"Author [John] Strausbaugh summed up as follows: "Some minstrel songs started as Negro folk songs, were adapted by White minstrels, became widely popular, and were readopted by Black'...The question of whether minstrelsy was white or black music was moot. It was a mix, a mutt – that is, it was American music.'
John, Strausbaugh Black Like You: Blackface, Whiteface, Insult & Imitation in American Popular Culture"

****
Here are five video examples of Old Time Music:

Cluck Old Hen (1927) The Hillbillies



Uploaded by cabinbowman on Oct 8, 2009


Charlie Bowman(fiddle), Al Hopkins(vocal) and the Original Hillbillies from 1926.

Charles Thomas "Charlie" Bowman was the fiddler with the original Al Hopkin's Hill Billies, the first country string band to gain national notoriety on radio and records. The group is generally thought to be responsible for establishing the string band as an important part of country music. When the recording company asked for the group's name, one member mentioned that they were just an "old band of hill billies." The name stuck. Bowman is credited with bringing the Hill Billies their most popular song, "Nine Pound Hammer".

**
Blue Grass Appalachian Music Makers



Uploaded by BAYSIDEBOB on May 18, 2008

A tribute to the early Appalachian music people. That was the for runner to swing, bluegrass, jazz, blues, country blues, old time music, and American music. Hope you enjoy this little clip.

**
Blind James Campbell String Band - "John Henry"



uploaded by suprovalco on Oct 11, 2008
-snip-
Two commenters guessed the date for this film clip as "[19]55-60 somewhere in Tennessee, judging from the Type 2 Microbus and the ridge in the background" or "from the crinoline on the young girl dancing, maybe [19]57/58"

**
Uncle Dave Macon-"Sail Away Ladies"



Uploaded by BBYMRLCCOTN on Dec 8, 2009

**
Uncle John Scruggs - Little Log Cabin in the Lane



uploaded by madocseren on Oct 14, 2007

Times ain't like they used to be [video recording]: early rural and popular American music, 1928-1935

**
For more videos, lyrics, and comments about American Banjo & Fiddle Songs, visit this page on my cocojams website http://www.cocojams.com/content/american-banjo-fiddle-songs

****
Thanks for visiting pancocojams.

Visitor comments are welcome.

The Shared Steroptypes For Hillbillies & African Americans

Written by Azizi Powell

I applaud Occupy Wall Street and the other Occupy Movements for focusing attention on the huge economic disparities that exist in the United States and elsewhere in the world. But a lot of systemic changes would have to occur in order for those disparities to be greatly minimized or erased even for a time, let alone forever.

And in order for there to be real systemic changes, we have to change the societies' attitudes about and perception of people who are poor. I purposely use the term "poor people" instead of "the poor" because people who are poor aren't a monolith. Individuals who are poor aren't the same, don't always like each other, and don't necessarily see each other as allies. Furthermore, people who aren't poor may be stigmatized by those who actually are poor using the same negative characteristics mainstream society has conferred on "the poor". In the United States, automatic assumptions of poverty with its socialized attendent stereotypes are routinely conferred on African Americans and those people who are referred to as "hillbillies".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hillbilly gives this definition for 'hillbilly':
"Hillbilly is a term referring to certain people who dwell in rural, mountainous areas of the United States, primarily Appalachia but also the Ozarks. Owing to its strongly stereotypical connotations, the term is frequently considered derogatory, and so is usually offensive to those Americans of Appalachian heritage.

For the purposes of this post, I will continue to use the term "hillbilly" with apologies for its offensiveness.

With regard to the part of the above quote that indicate that the term 'hillbillies' refer to "certain people who dwell in rural, mountainous areas of the United States, primarily Appalachia", it's important to note that that same Wikipedia page indicates that "According to Anthony Harkins in Hillbilly: A Cultural History of an American Icon, the term first appeared in print in a 1900 New York Journal article, with the definition: "a Hill-Billie is a free and untrammeled white citizen of Alabama..." The emphasis on "white citizens" is also found in that "white trash" is given on that page as a synonym for "hillbillies". It's important to note that there is some disagreement about where "Appalachia" actually is. That said, historically and in the present, "Appalachia" referred/refers to American states and parts of states where there are lots of Black folks.

From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appalachia:
"The most commonly used modern definition of Appalachia is the one initially defined by the Appalachian Regional Commission in 1965 and expanded over subsequent decades. The region defined by the Commission currently includes 420 counties and eight independent cities in 13 states, including all of West Virginia and 14 counties in New York, 52 in Pennsylvania, 32 in Ohio, 3 in Maryland, 54 in Kentucky, 25 counties and 8 cities in Virginia,[3] 29 in North Carolina, 52 in Tennessee, 6 in South Carolina, 37 in Georgia, 37 in Alabama, and 24 in Mississippi."

The previously cited quote from the 1900 New York Journal article goes on to give this description of 'Hill-Billies':
"...a Hill-Billie is a free and untrammeled white citizen of Alabama, who lives in the hills, has no means to speak of, dresses as he can, talks as he pleases, drinks whiskey when he gets it, and fires off his revolver as the fancy takes him."

That same Wikipedia page also gives this information about the referent "hillbillie":
"The "classic" hillbilly stereotype - the poor, ignorant, feuding family with a huge brood of children tending the family moonshine still - reached its current characterization during the years of the Great Depression, when many mountaineers left their homes to find work in other areas of the country. It was during these years that comic strips such as Lil' Abner and films such as Ma and Pa Kettle made the "hillbilly" a common stereotype...

The term hillbilly is commonly used outside of Appalachia as a reference in describing socially backward people that fit certain "hillbilly" characteristics. In this context, it is often (though not always) derogatory."

The Wikipedia page http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redneck indicates that "Redneck is a historically derogatory slang term used in reference to poor white farmers, especially from the Southern United States. It is similar in meaning to cracker (especially regarding Georgia and Alabama), hillbilly (especially regarding Appalachia and the Ozarks),and white trash (but without the last term's suggestions of immorality.)

In recent decades, the term expanded its meaning to mean bigoted, loutish, and opposed to modern ways, and has often been used to attack Southern conservatives and racists. At the same time, some Southern whites have reclaimed the word, using it with pride and defiance as a self-identifier."

Negative depictions of hillbillies and of African Americans are deeply embedded in the literature, music, and mass media of the United States. What surprised me was how similar the stereotypes were for African Americans and hillbillies. For example, note this description for the once popular cartoon character "Snuffy Smith" from
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barney_Google_and_Snuffy_Smith:
"Snuffy is an ornery little cuss, sawed-off and shiftless. He lives in a shack, mangles the English language and has a propensity to shoot at those who displease him. He makes "corn-likker" moonshine in a homemade still and is in constant trouble with the sheriff. He wears a broad-brimmed felt hat almost as tall as he is, has a scraggly mustache and a pair of tattered, poorly patched overalls. He constantly cheats at poker and checkers. He also has some proclivity toward stealing chickens, which led to a brief but effective use of his character in a marketing campaign by the Tyson Foods corporation in the early 1980s."

Much of that description is exactly the same as the stereotypical Black "coon". I particularly note the parts about "mangl[ing] the English language, constantly cheat[ing] at poker and checkers, and having "some proclivity toward stealing chickens". Visit http://www.ferris.edu/jimcrow/coon/ for information on the coon stereotype.

Snuffy Smith was preceded in those cartoons by "Barney Google". Eventually, Snuffy would later replace Barney Google in those cartoons. From that same Wikipedia page:
"Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, originally Barney Google, is a long-running American comic strip created by cartoonist Billy DeBeck (1890–1942). Since its debut on June 17, 1919, the strip has gained a huge international readership, appearing in 900 newspapers in 21 countries. The initial appeal of the strip led to its adaptation to film, animation, popular song and television. It added several terms and phrases to the English language and inspired the 1923 hit tune "Barney Google (with the Goo-Goo-Googly Eyes)" with lyrics by Billy Rose."

Barney Google is described as "...a little fellow (although he would shrink in stature even more after the first year) with big "banjo" eyes, was an avid sportsman and ne'er-do-well involved in poker, horse racing and prize fights....Barney [was]relentlessly henpecked by "a wife three times his size" (as the song lyric goes). The formidable Mrs. Lizzie Google...[and is a member of] the mysterious hooded fraternity "The Order of the Brotherhood of Billy Goats", a parody of mystic secret societies."

In that comic strip Barney also has a Black jockey named "Sunshine". Regardless of the presence of a Black character, the descriptions of Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, Barney's wife, and the Order of the Brotherhood of Billy Goats certainly sounds a lot like the Amos & Andy characters. Visit http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amos_'n'_Andy for information about Amos & Andy.

It's my position that Barney Google, Snuffy Smith, and other hillbilly characters have many of the same negative stereotypes as Black coon characters. I'm not sure which came first, but maybe that's a chicken or the egg question.

****
Part II of this post will focus on the musical ties between African Americans and so-called "hillbillies".

Here are two video examples of "Barney Google":

The Buzz In Snuffy's Bonnet (Snuffy Smith)



SuperClassicToons, Uploaded on Feb 13, 2011

Snuffy and Barney are being driven 'clean' out of their minds by Loweezy's niece, Bizzy Buzz Buzz...

****
Barney's Blarney (Snuffy Smith)



Uploaded by SuperClassicToons on Feb 12, 2011
The little man goes off telling tall tales to Jughaid.

****
Thanks for visiting pancocojams.

Visitor comments are welcome.