What kept him from hating whites, he said, was his mother. He says, “The black body is a dead body” (51), and discusses his anger and overwhelming emotions that he couldn’t, and never could, express, but had to keep secret. King’s autobiography, he describes watching a man lynched in front of the courthouse. How do you see gospel music and blues music as interrelated? Why is it important that we remember such other meanings behind the blues? How can we, as modern listeners, respect and remember this history as we listen and dance to the blues? I could see the blues was about survival” (8-9). The blues could warn you what was coming. And the woman had only two choices: Do what the master demands or kill herself. If he liked a woman, he could take her sexually. That was important for the women because the master could have anything he wanted. Maybe you’d want to get out of his way or hide. If the master was coming, you might sing a hidden warning to the other field hands. They were also delivering messages in musical code. But the blues hollerers shouted about more than being sad. Singing about your sadness unburdens your soul. She said that, sure, singing helped the day go by. She’d talk about the beginnings of the blues. In the second chapter, he covers what his great-grandmother told him the blues were for: “My great-grandmother, who’d also been a slave, talked about the old days. King will talk about what the blues are about or for.
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