A comparison between two pre-war country blues categories - John Hurts’ “Salty Dog” and Charlie Patton’s “Moon Goin’ Down” – depict an epic era of history where authentic blues were either characterized under Piedmont style or Delta style Blues.  These two categories refer more closely to the strumming of the guitar.  Mississippi John Hurts’ “Salty Dog” is a classic example of piedmont style, due to its layering of different syncopated rhythms with multiple strumming of strings.  On the other hand, Charlie Patton’s “Moon Goin’ Down” is a classic example of Delta Style Blues, due to its simpler one strumming guitar picking. 

Looking just at the singing style of these two men in different Blues categories, Hurts accompanies his layered guitar rhythms with a more complex tone of voice.  He emphasizes his words to suggest that the song is a more comical approach to the serious subject of adultery.  His emphasis on the word “dog”, which is accompanied by a timbre, suggests that this song is of a light nature (not to mention the humming, instead of singing that is present throughout the song).  In the song by Patton, he accompanies his simple one strumming rhythm guitar playing with deep, soulful lyrics and melody.  This particular song he also sings of adultery but in a more serious tone.  He wants to know if the women he is with was with another man when the “Moon Gone Down.”  In his rendition of a original Delta Style Blues song, he uses the simple strumming rhythms of the guitar to emphasize the serious matter of the song.  It comes together quite nicely, especially with the sliding of the guitar and his deep melodic voice.   

The background of both of these songs suggests that adultery and heartache are very common themes of the Blues.  Although the Delta Style Blues is credited with being the first commercial use of the Blues, the Piedmont Style Blues is just as worthy of recognition in the blues and the African American community.  Even though both styles are from different regions and have differing disporic cultures, they both want to convey a sense of what it means to be an African American.  This “race” music, which is categorized that way because of the lower power status that one group of people encompasses based on the periphery society, was a hit with the greater American society.  Once Okeh records started distributing this music, after much disdain among what kind of music should be played on this new technology called “the phonograph,” the American society as a whole could not get enough of it (even though the audio was not of great quality in the 1920’s and it was quite difficult to make out many of the lyrics, it was incomprehensible that the singer could be “in the room with you” without actually being there). 

Although each of the songs originates in either Mississippi or Louisiana, the diasporic nature of each song differs.  The song by Hurts embodies more of an American Folk country diaspora than the song by Patton.  Coming from Mississippi Hurts might have been influenced in a greater respect by the white Euro-American folk music.  It has a bit of a banjo feel to this song.  It also has a story telling aspect thrown into it, which can be attributed to the rhyming and comparisons within the song (i.e. women’s lips to honey).  It is also very short and catchy, which is also a white culture aspect (due to Americans always wanting to sing along to songs and play them in a parlor).  This might be one of the earlier instances where white society was exposed to the African American culture, which might be a reason why this song was so catchy (to be popular).  This is typical of the Piedmont Style Blues (due to its great influences from ragtime and music and American folk songs).  Through this song, white Americans can get a feeling that African Americans are light-hearted and do not take matters very seriously, even though they very well should (the women was caught cheating!).  In a sense, one can claim that Hurts is displaying a sense of minstrelsy toward his African American community.

In Patton’s song “Moon Goin’ Down” the larger American audience that has not been truly exposed to the Blues, especially Delta Style Blues would interpret this song as an authentic rendition of an “African American song.”  This shows, unlike the Piedmont Style Blues, what it’s really like to be a down-on-your-luck African American.  With his accusatory tone of voice, one can tell that he did in fact live through this.  The white society that hears this song might think this music is indeed “untouched” by Euro-American folk music, however, I would argue that the African American diaspora in this song is in fact influenced by the larger white community (due to one community cannot isolate itself from the periphery society).           

References:

Ferris, William Jr. Blues From the Delta. London: Studio Vista, 1970.

Wald,  Elijah. “What is Blues?” Chapter 1 of Escaping the Delta. New York: HarperCollins, 2004.