Recent Readings

Well, it's been over a year since I've made any posts to this cursed blog, so I'm vowing to get back on track. I've decided to use it to review recent music related books I've consumed, as well as continue to post about my music and recording activities.

In the last few months I've read the following:





In Search of the Blues by Marybeth Hamilton which is an interesting take on the usual story of where the blues came from, who played them, and why they matter. While the usual cast of characters are in here (Robert Johnson, Son House, Leadbelly, etc.) the book is really about the mostly white men who sought out the old, unloved jazz and blues performers and recordings and exposed them to new audiences.



John and Alan Lomax are perhaps the most well known of this group, thanks to their field recordings for the Library of Congress in the 1930's and 40's. For me, however, the most fascinating part of this book is the chapter on the eccentric and overlooked James McKune. A recluse living in a Brooklyn YMCA from the 1940's onward, he had an incredible focus on what he considered "quality", narrowing his collection to a few boxes of 78's:

If a record did not thrill him, he would not buy it (or if he had, inadvertently, he would not keep it long), even if it came recommended by the few collectors whose taste he respected. Owning a complete set of an artist's recordings, collecting master numbers in sequence, acquiring unissued pressings simply for their obscurity: such motives might compel other collectors, but none
appealed to him. What he was after were magical sounds, by their nature rare and elusive. He prided himself on tolerating no junk.

What I find interesting about poor James (who's naked body was found bound and gagged in a flophouse in 1971) is that he was drawn to the same ominous, alien, freaky, dark and dirty style of blues that I find so appealing. I'm talking about stuff like Charlie Patton's Some These Days I'll Be Gone.





I'm currently reading (on and off) The Rest Is Noise. More to come.