Commentary: America has the blues
By Marshall A. Mays
America has the blues. She has drunk to the dregs confusion, fear and doubt. A lot of the staggering intoxication came as a result of our first black president. This is the case, although it was wonderful and salutary that Barack Obama came and governed this nation. It left America disoriented, however. So many children grew up being taught the meaning of pride and American patriotism, and the idea that a black man could promote these ideas and ideals, seemed contradictory; so many children grew up being taught that black men, and women, were antithetical to the American Dream. They were seen as the mess that was left after the horrible travesty that was slavery. Americans found ways to marginalize them and convince themselves, their fellows, their children, and their grandchildren that African-Americans are responsible for the disease that is poverty. Then came along a black president. America was stunned. They were shocked. They were confused.
America couldn’t reconcile this man of color holding the highest office in the land with the idea that this office inferred power, honor and glory on the man who occupied it, and this occupant projected these sterling qualities onto his country.
America is suffering from the blues. In great fear she has turned to an extremist – President Donald Trump.
What we need now is a man of great sensitivity and compassion like Abraham Lincoln to arise again and show us the way forward. It is going to require great wisdom and rare moral character to set us right. For now we have the blues. For now we have Trump.
Men and women of color have had the blues since they arrived on these shores. They grasped whatever was solid and sound from the first to orient themselves – the first salvation was the Gospel. As I understand, it continues to be a compass for the African-American today. In later years men and women of color who were still disoriented from the blues, turned to musical instruments and songs of love, drink, work, hard times and good times. It was all blues. White men may have turned the African-Americans’ world upside down, but they steadied themselves, and settled into the blues.
I would like to continue with words of weight from a great bluesman who I have come to respect – the bluesman who appeared years after slavery. I would like to share some words from one of the greats who played and sang the blues.
Lightnin’ Hopkins was born on March 15, 1912 in Canterville, Texas. He sang and played the country blues. He spent sometime on a prison farm in the mid-1930s. In the 1940s and 1950s, Hopkins recorded prodigiously. In the 1960s and 1970s, Lightnin’ Hopkins was presented by blues researcher Mack McCormick to a much wider audience.
Lightnin’ Hopkins was not the rule. So many blues artists have been lost to time. Here’s what Hopkins had to say about the origin and integrity of the blues:
“There will always be the blues, as long as the world … As long as the world stands. They trying now to talk those rock-n-roll blues. And they can’t stand up. They can’t stand up. They got to fall back to that old … that old country town. You know the blues came out of the fields.”
Marshall A. Mays is a writer who is a lifelong resident of Winston-Salem. He is an avid fan of the blues.
