Jolie Holland and the rediscovery of tradition

The Groan's lack of brains has often been remarked upon. But the rag also lacks ears, judging by this review of Jolie Holland. David Peschek says:

Whatever it is that Jolie Holland is doing, it is certainly very odd. At some hazy point where country and torch singing bleed into each other, she seems to warm melodies until they melt a little, singing in a strange, half-swallowed half-gurgle that makes it very hard to discern what she's singing about.

This contrives to miss the entire point.
The "oddness" arises because Mr Peschek's mind has been fuzzed by the last 80 years. Jolie's music represents a return to that period, sometime in the 1920s, before jazz, blues and country went their separate ways. And she's not reviving old country blues as a quaint historic artefact, but rather as a living tradition to be built upon. Last night, songs written a week ago were combined seamlessly with ones 300 years old.
It's amazing that Mr Peschek can have missed this. In London, Jolie mentioned Blind Willie McTell several times, and covered a Washington Phillips song. And her first album Catalpa is obviously influenced by the Carter Family.
The complaint that her singing is "half gurgle" is just plain nonsense; listen for yourself here.
Mr Peshek is suffering from culture shock. He gives this away when he complains that "when suddenly she speaks to the crowd, it's a shock that she realises we're here."
He probably pitched up expecting some cute poppette showing off her half-octave vocal range singing ditties that were immediately accessible, and just as quickly forgotten. What he got was someone doing something rather profounder. Someone who's songs take time to appreciate, who's interested in music, not her own ego.
And this is why this post matters. Jolie reminds us that popular music isn't just an industry propped up by PR puffery. It's a living tradition that belongs to us all.
Did I mention that she's a genius?

Comments

[dearieme]

Timeless Records do a nice series of 3 CDs called (approx) "From Ragtime to Jazz". Odd and, I find, enjoyable. A bit later - 20s and 30s I think - there was "Western Swing", a jazz/C&W music that's less to my taste but obviously skilled music-making. Bessie Smith made many recordings with top-flight jazzmen. There's lots of lovely stuff available from before the era where popular music became mere toxic din for twelve-year-olds.

[chris]

Bessie Smith is precisely the type of singer I had in mind. Listen to her and Jimmie Rodgers - is there a big difference? Then listen to her and Billie Holliday - again a small difference. The blues, jazz and country have similar roots. It's these that Jolie is exploring.

[dearieme]

Aha, the Boswell sisters. New Orleans whites, with a childhood spent listening to Blues and Gospel: recorded with leading Jazzmen, very clever popular music/jazz. 1930s.

[Phil]

Thanks for the link. A 'strange, half-swallowed half-gurgle' indeed - speaking as a folkie, I wish I could gurgle like that.

Actually, I think part of what the guy is reacting against is a feature which her delivery shares with the really good unaccompanied folk singers - the words don't just hang off the melody like washing on a line, there's a constant rise and fall which is midway between conversational articulation and musical embellishment. (Needless to say, Billie Holliday and Bessie Smith had this quality too. Dylan had it too, but in a more emphatic, histrionic form, as if to say that the art was dead and he was the only person who could revive it.)

[dave heasman]

"as if to say that the art was dead and he was the only person who could revive it"

the only man, perhaps. Iris Dement & even Gillian Welch hark back over the years.

Actually, the review is even odder, because there really is a revival in all sorts of pre-WWII music at the moment. There are new vocal quartets doing old shaped-note arrangements, there are new technologies extracting real music off cylinders and old wax 80s, and it's being broadcast. Archeophon records is thriving.

(Western Swing, incidentally, really began with the rise of ampliification in the late 30s. Very difficult for a fiddle-led band to play to 2000 dancers unamplified)