78 Blues: Folksongs and Phonographs in the American South

Chapter Four: Here’s One You Can All Sing Right with Us

77 How do! Well folks, you heard about the Farm Relief, read about it, heard them talk about it.” Uncle Dave Macon seems to have a pretty good idea what his listeners have been up to. Certainly he knows what they are doing at the moment: listening to him. “Well, it finally got here,” he continues. “They’ve just about relieved the farmer of everything he’s got, now I’m telling you right. Now I’ll sing you about it after I play you a pretty little prelude on the banjo.” It’s June 20, 1929, and Tennessee’s prolific David Harrison Macon—better known to his legion fans as Uncle Dave—is in the studio yet again, this time at the Brunswick label’s Chicago operation. His listeners might be forgiven for thinking Uncle Dave is right there in the room with them. He seems to think as much himself. While some old-time records are cast as remote, static, or stylized representations of traditional music-making, others are framed as functional equivalents of live performances, as near-enough presentations. Here recording artists extend their personal invitations to listeners, encouraging them to participate in records as immanent, eminently accessible events. Just replay the Skillet Lickers’“Soldier’s Joy,” where champion fiddler Clayton McMichen, “red hot and raring to go,” ready to “play you another little tune this morning,” enjoins listeners to “roll up that new carpet, grab that gal and shake a foot and moan!” Or take a listen to Mac’s similar comments on “Flatwoods” (Columbia 15472-D, 1929).With Riley Puckett once more strumming his guitar in the background , McMichen declares “Well, folks, here we are again, now, we’re gonna have a regular old shindig, a regular old country barn dance. We gonna play a Here’s One YOu Can all sing rigHt witH us Chapter Four “ 78 | Here’s One You Can all sing right with us little tune called ‘Flatwoods,’ so Riley, step on her and let’s go back, son!” As he and Riley step on her, Mac reinforces the regular old country barn dance atmosphere with traditional dance calls: “Lady ’round the lady and the gent also / Lady ’round the gent and the gents don’t go. . . .” How do such examples differ from dramas or narratives? Conceived as a distinct approach to cueing records, McMichen’s prefaces capture the basic thrust, particularly in his use of the imperative mood, the present progressive tense, and most importantly, in his direct appeals to his audience. Obviously, such elements—including direct address—occur in dramas. There, however, they are addressed by actors to one another, or to imaginary characters on a self-contained theatrical set. To address directly one’s actual audience, the record listeners; to demand their immediate involvement in the record; to include those listeners in the record’s unfolding action—these involve a much different idea of the 78 r.p.m. phonograph disc as a musical event. Granted, the distinction is sometimes subtle. While I have classed Burnett and Rutherford’s “Ladies on the Steamboat” with the dance dramas in the previous chapter, Blind Dick Burnett’s introductory remarks are little different from Mac’s on “Soldier’s Joy” or “Flatwoods.” “Now folks,” he begins, “we’re gonna play some good dance music, if you ain’t right, get right. Get ready now, let’s go.” Only a couple of errant dance calls and an aside to a make-believe dancer (“Go back there, Sam, and catch that gal”) suggest that Burnett’s intent uncle Dave Macon (right) with longtime partner, sam Mcghee. John edwards Memorial Foundation/ southern Folklife Collection, university of north Carolina at Chapel Hill. Here’s One You Can all sing right with us | 79 is primarily dramatic—that the “folks” he addresses are a dramatic contrivance and not the record’s listeners. Other items are still more ambiguous. Most of the Barn Dance with Calls records I have classed as dramas include no other overtly dramatic features. So why conclude that they are intended to dramatize dances rather than actively engage listeners? How do we know their imperatives—“hands up and circle to the left; break and swing; promenade”—are addressed to a make-believe cast, not the record’s audience? Actually we do not—which is kind of the point. Despite the 78 r.p.m. record’s obvious limitations—its three-minute...