Lies, tall tales and reinvention in the blues

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PERRYSBURG — From Mamie Smith’s “Crazy Blues” to David Bowie, Kimberly Mack, Ph.D. spoke at the Way
Public Library about the tall tales and conscious self-reinvention that are as much of the blues as the
distinctive chords that make the music.
“These blues people were not simply telling these stories that were these naturalized parts of
themselves, and sharing it with an audience and it was unself-conscious. People were making
self-conscious choices in how they were going to present themselves and what their personas were going
to be and what stories they were going to tell about their lives, and that was really cool,” Mack said.

She presented her new book, “Fictional Blues: Narrative Self-Invention from Bessie Smith to Jack White”
in a special conversation with M.L. Liebler on Jan. 12. It went to press just before Christmas.
Mack is an English professor at the University of Toledo and Liebler teaches at Wayne State University.

Through detailed research of the colorful stories presented by many of the artists Mack deconstructs many
of the stories and finds their real backgrounds. She also traces the concept from the blues origin to
rock music with the crossing over from “race records” to Elvis, the British invasion and into modern
musicians in the United States.
Mack demonstrates that the stories blues musicians construct about their lives (however factually
slippery) are inextricably linked to the “primary story” of the narrative blues tradition, in which
autobiography fuels musicians’ reclamation of power and agency.
During their talk, and the follow-up questions, she revealed two of her favorite artists – Mamie Smith
and Rhiannon Giddens.
She described Smith as the first black woman to record a blues song, with “Crazy Blues,” in 1920. She
called it “an unexpected hit.”
“She was one of the few I could find who kind of did press around her work,” Mack said. “In the classic
blues tradition she wore these wonderful gowns and was all decked out in this incredible finery. She
talked about it one of her interviews. She said she had a commitment to her audience to present herself
to her audience in the ways in which they had been accustomed. Right? They expected her to look a
certain way. …Who was she not to abide?”
In Giddens there was a connection Mack found with her as an educator.
“She’s someone who is quite a scholar,” Mack said. “She’s someone who takes seriously, very seriously,
her role as educator, in addition to her role as artist, in really helping her fans and audiences
finding the true history of American popular music, in particular roots music, and the interracial,
cross-racial underpinnings of the music that people may not know.”
Mack also discussed the Big Mama Thornton’s role in the creation story of the music. While she did not
actually write the song “Hound Dog,” it was written for her — a big part of her story is the ownership
she felt about the song which later became the huge hit for Elvis.
Part of the library presentation included a video clip of Thornton’s performance with Buddy Guy of her
song “Ball and Chain,” which was made a hit by Janis Joplin. In that performance the viewer gets a taste
of that self-invented persona.
Mack also wrote and spoke about the blues stories and talked about songs and the tales that grow up
around them — the most well known being blues singer and guitar virtuoso Robert Johnson’s selling of his
soul to the devil in exchange for his musical skills.
The impact of what she called the Black American folklore tradition enters into the concept in that
“primary story” in the artist’s autobiography.
“There is such a thing as lies, but there’s a difference between lies and tall tales. There’s also a
difference within that between this idea of objective truth and subjective truth,” Mack said.
Mack’s book can be checked out at the Way Public Library or purchased directly from the University of
Massachusetts Press https://www.umasspress.com/9781625345509/fictional-blues/

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