{Sam Blancato asks: Does anybody know of blues songs with a decidedly political/social commentary lyric that sounds cool }
That got me thinking, so I did a little bit of research,and now I'm into it. (E.g., Broonzy's Black, Brown & White; Meeropol's Strange Fruit; Simone's Mississippi Goddamn, and Backlash, etc.; Guthrie's Mean Talking Blues.)
I will not burden the list with my current findings, (I'll send them, just ask me off-list) as it ain't entirely harp- related, altho I do have harp-content asserted below. I will say that there aren't many tunes that meet Sam's criteria: Of 3500 blues songs on my laptop, only about 24 seem to qualify at first review.
I'm now working on a research piece, Blues Songs With a Political Point. That is, existing blues songs which take a stance or provocative approach in support of or against some policy or politics or person/institution.
This is a request for your suggestions of such songs. I would really appreciate any info you have about the song, i.e., who played it, who wrote it, what album, what year, etc., but if you don't know all that, send what you have anyway.
To be included a song should be at least somewhat controversial when written, and have an element of challenge and risk in its words. And they don't have to be "good" musically, just published.
HARP CONTENT: This is to help me develop material for to play harp with. This research will hopefully advance my effort to create effectively provocative political blues material, with my harp playing, that's also entertaining. Well, I can hope, can't I?
Please respond off-list, to drfertig@xxxxxxxxx
Thanks!!
Dave Fertig _______________________________________________ Harp-L is sponsored by SPAH, http://www.spah.org Harp-L@xxxxxxxxxx http://harp-l.org/mailman/listinfo/harp-l