Fans of The Wire might appreciate this. So I've been preparing a little for a class I'll teach this fall called "Reading and Writing about The Blues," (see previous post), and part of my preparation includes listening to a lot of blues recordings. And in light of financial constraints, I've been checking out said recordings from the Richland County Public Library. Right now I've got a Lead Belly CD called "Gwine Dig A Hole To Put the Devil In." And the title track got me thinking about the theme song for The Wire, which was five different versions of "Down in the Hole," by Tom Waits, with each season's version performed by a different artist or group. Here's Waits' version. I can't find an online version of Lead Belly's "Gwine Dig a Hole," but it's worth checking out. Perhaps your library has the same CD! Haha. It's less holy than its repudiation of the devil might suggest. Anyway, I wonder if Tom Waits was riffing on Lead Belly when he wrote "Down in the Hole." You gotta know Tom Waits listens to some Lead Belly. But from what I know of Lead Belly (which is that he was doing time in Louisiana's Angola Prison Farm when the Lomaxes, father and son, were recording prison songs because they thought a genuine style of American music was dying and that prisons would have preserved it by virtue of their isolation), he may have been more retooling a song he heard elsewhere rather than writing it himself. But that's the nature of the blues anyway, from what I can tell. And while I'm on the subject, if you like raw blues, Seasick Steve is well-worth a listen.
Okay. I've got to go. Need to dig a hole to put the devil in.
4 comments:
I wish I could take this class. Is there any way you could post or email the syllabus?
you bet! i sort of want to take this class too, but from someone who knows what they're doing! haha. but thanks for your kind words, dave, and sure thing. i will be sure to make the syllabus available once i write it.
I luuuuv the Richland County Public Library like it was my hipster brother.
love this post because i've been listening to lead belly a lot lately on pandora. i've declared this the summer of lead belly, in fact. great minds. ;) anyhoo, you're so cool.
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