×
Greil Marcus’ weird old America stillflourished when photographers from a New Deal agency, the Farm SecurityAdministration, set forth to document everyday life in the 1930s and ‘40s. Editedby Rich Remsberg, Hard Luck Blues: RootsMusic Photographs from the GreatDepression(University of Illinois Press) culls the archives topresent a fascinating array of ordinary Americans making music. Many of thepictures are startling for being so in the moment. You can almost hear thesongs in the body language of the musicians and singers caught on camera.
The variety of subjects is remarkable. Picturedare marching bands on parade down Main Street, back country trios sitting on the porchlooking sober as the Carter Family, the music stages of traveling carnivals andinner city nightclubs along with swing orchestras at road houses and localfolks at the “community sing.”
Some of the images will strike contemporary eyesas bizarre. African-American convicts in striped prison suits are shown singingand dancing; white second graders are caught applying cork makeup for “theirNegro song and dance at May Day-Health Day Festivities.” Weird America,indeed.
