 Josh White Josh White is to the blues what Nat "King" Cole is to jazz, meaning he was an enormously talented, vital performer for whom smoothness was somehow a flaw. Most people today either want to hear slick commercialized blues like Johnny Lang and B.B. King, or they want to hear very "real" folk blues like Mississippi Fred McDowell or Blind Willie McTell. I think most people in either camp would listen to a CD like Free and Equal Blues with a very similar blank stare. It's very good, well-performed blues, but it seems too professional, almost a dressing-up of what blues should be. But the fact that these recordings are over 50 years old would lead you to believe that these are great undiscovered performances. It's sort of confusing … old, fairly obscure stuff that was once as common and pat as a Seal album. White's singing and guitar playing are impeccable, but perhaps that's the problem. It's kind of like when a black soprano does her inevitable album of spirituals: it elevates the form to a place where it's just not as effective. On tracks like "Jim Crow," "In My Time of Dying," and "One Meat Ball," White is convincing and engaging, but some of this stuff just belongs in the 40s … the protest songs "Landlord" ("that disinfecting, rent-collecting landlord") and "Fuhrer" (a bizarre anti-war blues tune told from the perspective of a German soldier … sung by a black man) are hopelessly dated. Historical significance can be found in the presence of Lead Belly and Mary Lou Williams, but as I've said many times before, historical significance is the wrong reason to listen to an album, especially if the music doesn't really "grab" you. The recordings were produced by Folkways founder Moe Asch, but again, that may be FASCINATING but it's not compelling listening. In the final estimation, it just takes more than this for the blues to really kick your ass. I'm one of those people who loves the "authentic" stuff, the older the better, although I listen to my share of electrified pop blues as well. My main problem with Josh White is that I can't decide whether I'm listening to a folk singer, a blues singer, a protest singer, or a Broadway singer. He's one of those talented performers, like Gregory Hines, that you can never really say is your idol. Does anyone LOVE Gregory Hines? Even his own mother must look at him and sort of wish she was looking at Don Cheadle. I suppose I hear Free and Equal Blues as a good "fake blues" album, with Josh White masquerading as a blues singer when his talent encompasses a lot of different styles. It's not fair to criticize someone for being too talented, I know, but what the hall, he's long dead and I don't fear a large Internet backlash of Josh White fans taking me to task for my ill-informed opinioneering. In theory, I like this CD a lot. I like looking at the cover, and I like listening to a maximum of four songs at a crack. After twenty-six tracks you really end up feeling like you're leaving a mildly interesting history class at school, one of those where your "cool" teacher played music the whole time. Your mind is open for about fifteen seconds after the bell rings, until you hear the Justin Timberlake on someone's Walkman and shake yourself awake into the present day. Then, as always, you spend the passing period trying to look down people's shirts.
Review by John Scotch |