R. Crumb on the death of authentic American music

While I have friends who play in bands, and, on occasion, even make music myself, I rarely, if ever, listen to anything recorded after the start of World War II. Yes, every once in a while I pull out a record by the Ramones, Television or the Velvet Underground, but, for the most part, I just listen to pre-war jazz and blues 78s online. There’s something about the music of the 1920s and 30 that really resonates with me in a way that modern music just doesn’t. And, because of this interest, I’ve always had a soft spot in my heart for underground comix artist R. Crumb, who, in addition to probably being the best known artist of the 1960s counterculture, is likely the best known advocate for this music that I so love. So, when I saw yesterday that he’d given an interview on the death of authentic rural music, I was anxious to check it out. And, as almost everything that he said rang true to me, I wanted to share a few quotes with you today.

…Living in a culture like this, you have to make choices, and search out what has the most authentic content or substance. As a kid I became increasingly interested in earlier periods of culture…

With jazz and other pop forms it takes a sharp nosedive in the early 1930s. When it goes from the “jazz age” to the swing era – Duke Ellington, Benny Goodman, they get those smoother sounding “sophisticated” sounds. Everyone was supposed to sound sophisticated as an alternative to sounding naïve and country. “Country” was such a term of contempt. It sounds like you’re a hick from the sticks. You’re supposed to be embarrassed by that. It was the death of real, authentic rural music. Truly a cultural disaster.

…The difference between the stuff that I really like (the 1920s and early ‘30s) and that stuff is a whole different mood, a whole different… I don’t know what it is… a magic that’s not there. Maybe it’s a romantic thing. It conjures up visions of dirt roads and going deep into the back country. Even if they work in factories they still have that sound of something old and atavistic. Something that has been lost in the push to make music modern and commercial and slick. Something has been lost in this, this whole commercialisation of music.

It’s not discussed enough… someone should write a book on it – how we really lost how we make and listen to music with the onslaught of mass media. It’s changed so much – in 1933 there were 20,000 jukeboxes in America. By 1939 there were 400,000 jukeboxes! That immediately eliminates so many live musicians – a juke joint – which is where jukeboxes got their name from –would fire the barrelhouse pianist. “We don’t need you anymore! Got a jukebox!”

…To me, the buying and selling of music, what they’ve done to it is a disaster on the scale of cutting down the rainforest. It’s horrible what they’ve done… took it away from the people. You hear people say “I can’t sing, I don’t have a good voice.”

Who has a good voice? What they mean is they don’t sound like a slick professional they hear on the radio and on CD. It’s just professionalism and training, like opera singers. People have lost confidence in themselves to make music for their own pleasure. They can only see making music as a thing to be a star, to have a hit record. The mass media gods, strutting upon the stage… and people seem to need gods, I s’pose. That’s not going to go away [pauses] but let’s be clear, it isn’t really about music…

For the past several years, I’ve made the same suggestion here on the site come New Year’s Eve. I’ve encouraged people to tune into Radio Dismuke, and listen to a little pre-war jazz. (Trust me, there’s no better way to usher in the new year than with a fire in the fireplace, some champaign, and Radio Dismuke.) Well, this holiday season, I’d like to make one other suggestion. Buy someone on your list a copy of R. Crumb’s Heroes of Blues, Jazz & Country. It’s not only a beautifully illustrated book, but it comes with a 21-track CD, curated by Crumb, featuring songs by the likes of Charley Patton, “Dock” Boggs, and “Jelly Roll” Morton. You will not be disappointed. I promise.

Also, for what it’s worth, authentic rural music wasn’t the only genre pronounced dead this week. It’s also come to my attention that John Olson from Wolf Eyes made it official that noise music had officially died. (note: When I decide to retire from blogging, will someone remind me to have a press conference and pronounce blogging dead?)

update: This post has generated some good comments. One of my favorites is from our old friend in New York, Doug Skinner. Here’s what he had to say… “For some reason, Crumb seems to prefer comics and literature that are urban, smart, and iconoclastic (like Kurtzman and Bukowski), but music that is rural, anti-intellectual, and reactionary. It seems like an odd double standard to me. I love pre-war jazz and pop myself, but it was hardly rural. It was made by hard-working professional musicians in big cities.”