Blues' Music as Protest

The University of Mississippi honored the seventh anniversary of September 11 with a variety of special lectures and events on campus. One unusual event mixed blues and politics at noon yesterday with a brown bag lecture at the John D. Williams Libary "Tell Every President to Listen to the Blues: Presidents, Politics, and the Blues. Greg Johnson, Ole Miss blues archivist, and Scott Barretta, producer and host of "Highway 61", a blues show broadcast on Mississippi Public Radio every Saturday night, played blues clips and discussed their relevance to the political scene.

"In a culture where blacks were ignored, blues said 'I am somebody'," Johnson said.

Prior to the civil rights movement, there were only four presidents that were explicitly referenced in blues recordings, Johnson said. According to Johnson, Teddy Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, J. Edgar Hoover, and Franklin D. Roosevelt were the only presidents referenced in recorded blues prior to the Civil Rights Movement.

Many of the clips Johnson and Barretta played mentioned FDR because, as Johnson said, FDR was the president with the predominant number of tributes.

According to Barretta, there were not as many blues protest recordings before the Civil Rights movement not necessarily out of fear, but also because of economics.

"It wasn't the government going out and censoring the music, but the music being censored by distributors based on what would sell," Barretta said.

"Even during the 60's, protests music did not receive a lot of airplay," Johnson said. "After the civil rights movement, there were more explicit...

Johnson and Baretta arranged all the soundbites they played into 4 basic categories:

direct pleas to the President, tributes, complaints and if-I-was-president type songs.

The audience favorite became apparent with laughs and increased top-tapping when Johnson and Barretta played a recording by contemporary artist Bobby Rush's "Leave Mr. Clinton Alone".

The lecture brought not only students and community members to the third floor of the John D. Williams Library, but one visiting scholar who listens to Scott Baretta "even in Germany".

"I became a fan of Scott Baretta's when I first came to Mississippi doing research years ago. Since first coming to Ole Miss, every sabbatical and semester break I have spent in Mississippi. When I heard about this, I decided to come over," Olaf Hansen said.

Local resident, Anne Percy, says it was a wonderful presentation. "They told me they had several laments about President George W. Bush, but they didn't have time to play them," she said.

"Most of the blues seem pro-Democrat, thinking FDR and Truman, Kennedy too, were trying to save them. If you look at [they're] actual career, that's a false hope," says Bob Hodges, a first year southern studies graduate student who was also in attendance at the lecture.