"Bad Luck Blues"
Friday, October 9, 2009 at 12:18 AM Listening to the voice of Bessie Smith while following the lyrics provided, it seems to me that everytime Bessie stresses a word she gives off a notion of sadness. I know the song is meant to be sad and all, but in the second verse (or stanza, I don’t know the exact difference) when she talks to the Lord I imagine a woman on her knees crying to the heavens. The expression does change from high to low pitch. The first two lines for example: “Hey people, listen while I spread my news” and “I wanna tell you people about my bad luck blues”. To me it went Hey (high) people (stressed and lower pitch), listen while I spread my (high) news (stressed and lower pitch). With the second line until the word ‘people’ everything was high while people was stressed and lower pitched. ‘blues’ was also lower pitched and stressed; ‘about my bad luck’ was higher pitched.
This is my personal opinion, but I don’t think the piano is a good addition to the song. I rather have just the saxophone play throughout the whole song. I don’t know why but it seems to me that the piano gives off an upbeat feeling in contrast to the sadness of the lyrics. Unless the upbeatness is meant to contrast the song. The saxophone given my minimal exposure to the blues, is the one instrument that is good for protraying emotions of sadness.
Reader Comments (5)
In your first paragraph, are you trying to say that you felt the stressing and pitch changes conveyed sadness or not? Did you feel the performance was successful in this? Also, the accompanying instrument is a muted trumpet, not a saxophone. The mute gives the trumpet a "reedy" sound like that of the saxophone. There are essentially two different roles that an accompanying instrument can play, the first being as a support to the voice. This type of instrument must be able to play multiple notes at once to provide harmony for the song. This instrument is usually a guitar or piano. In the blues, another instrument is often added in order to provide a response to the singer. You may want to think about the role of the trumpet in relation to the singer, and whether or not you think that adds to the song.
I think maybe the trumpet gives the song a call and response form. I’m not sure, but the trumpet could be someone responding or maybe even the Lord responding to her.
I definitely feel that the horn adds a lot of emotion to the song. It gives a sad feeling when her pitch is level and then when she goes high it's louder which in turn gives off even more emotion for us to really feel what she's feeling. I personally like the piano for the melody because it gives us something to tap our feet to. Her word usage is very strong in the sense that she picks words that are super descriptive so she's straight to the point.
The songs “Bad Luck Blues” and “Empty Bed Blues” both are in a AA’B verse form, and are accompanied by piano with one or two other instruments that “respond” to the singer. (In “Bad Luck Blues” there is a muted trumpet with a very faint clarinet in the background, and “Empty Bed Blues” has a trombone.) What is your reaction to the piano part? Does it it convey the same mood as the singer and instrument? How does the instrument (trumpet or trombone) respond to the singer? Lastly, you can talk about how the third line in each verse (the “knock-down” B line), works in the song. Is it effective or not? Here are two posts that address some of these questions well. Please comment on one of the two posts to add your thoughts to the discussion.
http://benleedscarson.com/ma-rainey-and-bessie-smith/bessie-smiths-empty-bed-blues.html
http://benleedscarson.com/ma-rainey-and-bessie-smith/ma-raineys-bad-luck-blues-1.html
So I like how you distinguished the pitch in your first paragraph but I'm still a little confused as to how each different tone pertains to the emotion the singer is trying to display. I think that the trumpet definitely adds to the overall song and gives it the feel of the blues that Angela Davis talked about in her article but I think that the pianos contrasting tempo emphasizes the story and gives an overall beat to the song. I also noticed that when Bessie sings about the good things about her relationship her tone changes a little and is not as sad as when she is giving her warnings.