[Harp-L] re: Review of Cadillac Records Movie

[martin oldsberg <martinoldsberg@xxxxxxxxx>]

James wrote: "First of all, in the 1950's there was no Blues Scene outside of the African American Commuity."
 
  The above is not true, I think. No big deal, perhaps, but: they called it "folk music" back then and it sure had a white audience in the US. Maybe "watered down" blues and so on, but still blues in a not negligible sense.
  Those names you mention are higly relevant -- excepting Lonnie Donegan, adding Sonny & Brownie i. a. -- and the fact that these guys had a white audience in, say NYC, in the 50s and 60s, was one of the reasons someone like Josh White could be very successfully exported to, for instance, Sweden and here -- to a Really white audience (some of us are pale to the point of transparency) -- became the very epitome of "Blues". 
  Political situation in the US helped, of course, as you also say.
  The blues underwent a demographic and stylistic shift in the US in the 40s and afterwards, but it didn´t "die", to be resurrected by Mike Bloomfield in 1964.
  Cheers,
  Martin (in Sweden)
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>There are severval inaccuracies with this passage:
>First of all, in the 1950's there was no Blues Scene outside of the African American >Commuity. There were some folks here and there. 
>In the UK, there was a huge craze called the "The Skiffle Movement" broght about by the >late Lonnie Donnegan, whose version of "Rock Island Line" became a million seller. For >years,  Josh White, Big Bill Broonzy and Leadbelly were touring Europe and many were >enjoyed the recption and did not have to deal with the baltant racism that still existed in >the states