Sticking Up for my Home State

The University of North Carolina's student newspaper, The Daily Tar Heel, recently published a story about Durham's role in the blues. It is an interesting read, but the article's main source, Tim Duffy, made a remark that set me aback.

He stated, "People think that the blues came out of Mississippi, but Durham has just as much of a claim as anyone. Blind Boy Fuller is arguably the biggest blues star of all time and he came right out of Durham," triggered a response from me.

Here is my comment on the article (you can read it at the bottom of the article, "Bull City Blues.")

While I can agree with the majority of this article's premise -- that Durham has a strong history in the blues -- the above two statements are a bit of a stretch.

Having lived the majority of my life in the Mississippi Delta, the birthplace of the blues, I find it hard to believe that Durham's tobacco industry did as much to inspire blues music as the hardships that sharecroppers experienced working in the Mississippi cotton fields at the turn of the twentieth century.

W.C. Handy, widely acclaimed as the "father of the blues" was an Alabama native who first brought blues music to the masses. But his "discovery" of blues music happened in Tutwiler, Miss. in 1903 when he heard a man playing a strange tune on his guitar, pressing a knife against his strings to produce a slide guitar effect.

The music that Handy discovered and eventually made popular was the music of the Mississippi Delta. The music migrated north to Memphis, and eventually Chicago, by way of the Illinois-Central railroad, but its roots remain firmly planted in the soil of the Delta. This is the first I've heard of anyone disputing that truth.

Secondly, while Blind Boy Fuller was indeed an accomplished blues musician, it is a stretch to assert that he is the "biggest blues star of all time" or even has more name recognition than Robert Johnson, B.B. King, Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf, etc, all native Mississippi Delta bluesmen.

The blues that Blind Boy Fuller was known for is often characterized as "Piedmont blues" and is a variation of then-popular ragtime music. Piedmont blues' emphasis on older ragtime rhythms prevented it from influencing the electric blues and eventually rock n' roll. On the other hand, the Mississippi Delta blues' 12-bar standard has greatly influenced modern popular music, including rock, jazz, and country.

On the whole, I thought this was a great article. It very thoroughly describes Durham's role in the evolution of blues music and the career of Blind Boy Fuller. As a native of Mississippi and an avid fan of the blues, I just took slight offense to Mr. Duffy's attempt to ignore my home state's pivotal contribution to this great American art form.

What do you think? Did I effectively stick up for Mississippi and her role in blues music? Or did I totally miss the mark? Comment below.