AUGUST WILSON’S INFLUENCES IN BLACK CULTURE continued
THE BLUES As a young man, Wilson haunted Pittsburgh’s thrift stores, buying stacks of old albums for a nickel each. One day, he came across a recording by Bessie Smith, one of the great blues singers of the 1920s and 30s. “I put that on, and it was unlike anything I’d ever heard before,” Wilson recalls. “Somehow, all that other music was different from that. And I go, ‘Wait a minute. This is mine… there’s a history here.’” The first song on the record was “Nobody in Town Can Bake a Sweet Jelly Roll Like Mine.” Listening to the song, over and over, Wilson realized he could write in the language he heard around him — Black street vernacular — rather than the English he admired in the works of such writers as Dylan Thomas. It was, he recalls, a defining moment: “The universe stuttered, and everything fell into place.” In Wilson’s Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, the title character calls the blues “life’s way of talking.” Wilson says the blues are life’s instructions: “Contrary to what most people think, it’s not defeatist, ‘Oh, woe is me.’ It’s very life-affirming, uplifting music. Because you can sing that song, that’s what enables you to survive.”
Blues songs generally repeat a 12-bar phrase of music and have a 3-line stanza that repeats the first line in the second line. A blues song usually contains several blue, or minor, notes in the melody and harmony. Fences is structured somewhat like a blues song, with certain phrases and scenes repeated different ways. For example, there are three scenes that take place on Friday, Troy’s payday, but each is different because of changes that have taken place in the lives of the characters. In addition, Troy sings two blues songs: in Act Two, scene three, “Please Mr. Engineer Let a Man Ride the Line,” and in Act Two, scene four, “Hear it Ring! Hear it Ring!” Rose also sings the song, “Jesus be a Fence all Around Me Every Day,” in Act One, scene two, but the song with its religious theme is likely in the gospel tradition. Troy’s song, “Hear it Ring! Hear it Ring!” was passed on to him by his father and in the last scene of the play, Cory and Raynell sing it together after Troy’s death. In this way, the blues are shown as a vehicle for connecting generations and keeping traditions alive beyond the grave. SOURCE: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=1700922
I n t h e Cla s s r o o m While showing art of Romare Beardon, play blues music like Bessie Smith’s “Nobody in Town Can Bake a Sweet Jelly Roll Like Mine.” (Found at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AQ5TelpSv50)
Ask students the following two questions: 1. Why would Wilson have been so excited to hear this blues music for the first time? Do you see the influence of blues music in the dialogue in Fences? Do you think the characters are better able to deal with life because of the ideas expressed in blues music? Why or why not? 2. Do you listen to certain types of music to feel creative, energized or peaceful? If so, what are they?
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