Stomping the Blues is a slender book that says a lot and says it beautifully. The author Albert Murray (1916-2013), a leading figure in the late 20th century African-American intelligentsia, proposed a definition not only of a form of music but the culture that nurtured it. For Murray, the blues was less about agony than ecstasy; its purpose was to hold the blues at bay; it was equipment for coping. Blues transmuted the struggles of black Americans of a certain era into the transcendence of the dance hall. It wasn’t usually sad music at all but represented “the direct opposite of resignation, retreat, or defeat.”
Stomping the Blues wasn’t a chronological history but a multi-faceted reflection on the music and its leading lights. Originally published in 1976, the book was pathfinding in academic circles for dispelling false conceptions that had clung to the music’s interpretive framework. The ideas also reached a popular audience. But despite his insights, Murray found himself on the receding side of the generation gap. He didn’t care for soul or rock, which he derided as “one-dimensional” and described as “a highly amplified tantrum of banging and crashing and screaming.”
In his intro to the 40th Anniversary Edition (University of Minnesota Press), musicologist Paul Devlin emphasizes “stomping” in Murray’s terms was a matter of “elegance, not force,” “technique, not power” and “joie de vivre, not rage.” Some soul and rock artists possessed just such attributes, but Murray never heard them. All of us see the world through our own lenses. Murray, despite blindspots, saw more than most.
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The Ballad in American Popular Music: From Elvis to Beyonce (University of Cambridge Press), by David Metzer
Over the centuries ballads have meant everything from songs that chronicled murder to professions of undying love. University of British Columbia music professor David Metzer defines terms early in The Ballad in American Popular Music. He focuses on “slow songs about love,” whether R&B, country, pop or rock. All are based on melody and, he adds, “so-so singers are usually afraid of ballads—or should be. Bad notes or weak breath control will be exposed.” Astutely, Metzer notices that ballads have grown more forceful in conception and sound in the decades since Elvis sang “Love Me Tender” and elsewhere notes that in the frenetic parade of today’s Top-40 radio, ballads are a sonic respite, almost a welcome anomaly. The Ballad in American Popular Music offers many trenchant observations on the evolution of pop.
Hit So Hard: A Memoir (Da Capo), by Patty Schemel
Women drummers were still considered unusual when Patty Schemel surfaced behind her kit in Washington State’s ’80s grunge scene. She stood out, and by the ‘90s found herself drumming for Hole. The title of her memoir, Hit So Hard, refers to both her musicianship (she calls drumming “a blood sport… not for wimps”) and her struggle with addiction. Her parents were recovering alcoholics, her hometown was rainy and dull and escape into punk rock brought her into a milieu where heroin use flourished. Well before being signed on by Courtney Love, she encountered most of the musicians who emerged out of grungy Seattle, including Kurt Cobain. “Kurt was easy to be around,” and they shared a background of broken homes and shared interests in bands and movies. “Kurt was often really lucid and hilarious on drugs,” she recalls—but after a while, “it was about maintenance, just using, even to function.”
Smithsonian Rock and Roll: Live and Unseen (Smithsonian Books), by Bill Bentley
Fans have been snapping photos at rock shows since rock began. Musician-music executive Bill Bentley took charge of a collection of such pictures, crowdsourced by the Smithsonian Institution from thousands of submissions, and curated a coffee table book. Smithsonian Rock and Roll: Live and Unseen covers Elvis and Chuck Berry through Amy Winehouse and Alabama Shakes, with stops along the way for a gamut of significant artists representing particular moments and genres in rock history. Some are concert shots of the sort that once accompanied reviews in the daily or alternative press. Others capture more unique situations, such as the Velvet Underground rehearsing at Andy Warhol’s Factory in 1966 with a toddler (Nico’s son) running about; and Nirvana shot from behind at an in-store gig in Seattle, 1991. Bentley provides the text for each artist represented in photos, putting their stories in context.
