Jim Crow's Counterculture: The Blues and Black Southerners, 1890-1945 by R. A. Lawson (review)

Periodization and labels present challenges to cultural historians, especially those considering art and music. Trying to shoehorn performances and activities into clear and distinct categories conflicts with the individuality and initiative shown by the artists. Moreover, because artists often do not label their own work, explanations, when provided, often seem fleeting or unconnected to individual performances.

Consequently, it is up to the musicologists or art historians, or in fact contemporary critics, promoters, and business people to create artistic categories. The blues poses quite a challenge, as its practitioners frequently combine a minimum of formal organization and rules with a maximum of creativity and resiliency in the face of oppression. Consequently, the term "blues," although it has significant consistency in its rhyming and musical formulae, covers a multitude of styles from its beginnings around the turn of the twentieth century into the present. Some indication of the malleability of the term may be indicated by the wide range of blues performances, from the soulful sounds of B. B. King to the roughly contemporary but harsher rhythms of white Jerry Lee Lewis.

In this formidable book, R. A. Lawson focuses on a slice—perhaps the main slice from Reconstruction through World War II—of the blues tradition. Very aware of the complexities and uncertainties that surround the definitions of this genre, the author remains reasonably clear about his strategy. In fact, Lawson basically argues that a broad array of songs in the field and church sung by African Americans gave rise to a distinctive music in the Mississippi Delta from New Orleans north through Memphis. The earliest memories of this music come from early practitioners such as W. C. Handy, who is usually credited with commercializing the sound and with penning some of its major hits, including both the "St. Louis Blues" and the "Memphis Blues." Lawson carries his analysis through several different time periods, ending at the close of World War II. The conclusion provides valuable insights regarding the advent of "rhythm and blues" and "rock and roll," as the blues genre became much more difficult to distinguish as a separate musical style.

Although Lawson identifies a particular beat and lyrical form for the historical phenomenon he defines, it is the content of the lyrics rather than the music that most interests him. Other scholars have argued over whether the blues was a cry of pain and acceptance of suffering or a form of rebellion against the suppression of black society and culture. After reviewing this literature, sorting it out into the categories of "accommodation" or "protest," Lawson decides that the answer is both. Most important, he resolves this historiographical and critical dilemma by examining the question over different time periods. Some specific examples seem a poor fit chronologically, but on the whole, Lawson successfully divides his analysis period by period.

Commencing with an overview of the blues in the "Jim Crow" era, Lawson first indicates the connection between the rise of the genre and the contraction in rights following the end of Reconstruction in 1877 which led to greater oppression of African Americans. This rather abrupt negative change in prospects from the hope engendered during Reconstruction correlated well with the invention of the blues and characterized the basic form of the music which was a lament and a cry of protest and resentment that somewhat embraced violence, sex, and drinking. Lawson asserts that "Over time, therefore, the blues musicians were planting the seeds of collective resistance...by maintaining a cultural coping mechanism and...valuing the self amid a dominant culture that demanded self-effacing and deferential behavior" (62). Nonetheless, concludes the overview chapter, blues musicians in later eras, with a changing dominant culture, chose to join the mainstream of American culture.

Succeeding chapters chart changes in the blues through the great migration of blacks to the North; World War I; the Mississippi River flood of 1927; and finally World War II...