[Harp-L] Re: Lightning In a Bottle not harp topic really

["samblancato" <samblancato@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Paul Writes:
 
"Probably half of the U.S. population audience would be disappointed
by this political diversion display, while the other half were made happy.
And how many additional Blues fans would be upset but the making Boom, Boom
into a rap number.  Why lose half or more of your audience. 100% of Blues
fans would love this up to the point of being disgusted by this
inappropriate interuption."
 
Hi Paul,
 
I found your comments (pasted above) very interesting.  You managed to make
your case for not having any songs with too strong political content without
revealing your sympathies one way or the other about the subject nature of
the song.  And I guess that's the point too, because if you did you might
disqualify your remarks in the eyes of many on the list here and that
wouldn't be fair. I'll admit that I liked guy's message, (protesting war of
any kind). But I think I have to agree with you in the end - for a couple of
reasons and since my reasons are more about the music than politics I'll go
on some.  Oh yeah, and there's question in the end too.
 
First of all as a rule, I've always found that using the blues musical idiom
to carry political content kind of clunky; the songs I've heard always
sounded forced. And since there's a message that calls you choose a side,
take a stand, agree or disagree, or what ever, it puts this burden of
agreement into the mix that I think really distracts the listener from
music.  At the same time the musical end of the thing also looses something
too, or it doesn't seem to be taken as seriously.   
 
Having said all that there is a great song by Michelle Shocked called
Grapheti Limbo which is a blues and has Rod Piazza on the harp the whole way
through and it's really pretty good. This leads me to my question:  Does
anybody know of blues songs with a decidedly political/social commentary
lyric that sounds cool and seems to really fit?  Later.
 
Sam Blancato, Pittsburgh  
  
 
First