Embracing the more esoteric music blaring out of isolated hollers throughout rural America and coupling it with an intense back-beat, though, found Bob Dylan and the Band revolutionizing music. Again, the resultant Basement Tapes didn’t dethrone the Jefferson Airplane or any other ‘60s rock stuff, but it was one of the most important bootlegs to hit the market.

Over the course of one hundred and five songs, Dylan and the Band hunkered down in Woodstock to explore the myths of Partch’s boxed set. Recorded a few years after Dylan and his Canadian cohort mounted a tour as an electric band, the band leader was chastised by some for working towards folk music’s death. Dylan’s response to those accusations might not have been too substantive, but he believed it:

“There's nobody that's going to kill traditional music. All those songs about roses growing out of people's brains and lovers who are really geese and swans that turn into angels - they're not going to die⁴.”

As a result of the Band’s association with Dylan, the group would become one of the larger concert draws during the ‘70s. Appearing in Martin Scorsese’s The Last Waltz didn’t hurt too much. But while appreciating commercial success, the Band can easily be heard to increasingly incorporate mainstream rock styles into its music. The hillbilly influence didn’t disappear completely, in part thanks to Levon Helm’s country drawl, but the synthesizer never really factored in country or bluegrass music. The Band, however, moved to utilize the instrument seeing as Garth Hudson, who plied those keys, was the lone academically trained musician in the group.

Disregarding every aforementioned idea here, it’s just as likely that American popular music played out the way it did due to dumb luck. There’s no way that Ike Turner banked on finding a female singer with such a hearty voice, much like Sam Phillips had only hoped for a white guy who’d be able to appropriate the blues and showcase style of music most frequently relegated to race records. All of this, though, seems to be a part of the American experience and the country’s founding.

British expatriates never dreamed of disregarding the word of the crown and embarking on an experiment that’s lasted a bit over two hundred years. It’s the idea of the unknown serving to unite all of these things – the history, the music, the people and their seeking out various testing grounds for new ideas. There’ve unquestionably been a slew of failures, but even those have worked to inform future generations. Difficult for some to fathom, Lester Young’s soloing and unique conception of his instrument can easily be connected to Terry Riley, Jerry Garcia or anyone adventurous musician. The only problem is that it seems the American public, in the broadest of terms, doesn’t want anything to do with its history, instead occupying itself with what gets past off as new, but it’s really just slight variations on underground themes from a few years back.

 

Works Cited

1) Miller, Paul. “Harry Smith: American Media Artist.” Reality Sandwich (August 2007)

http://www.realitysandwich.com/harry_smith_american_media_artist (accessed May 5, 2010).

 

2) Holaway, Nathan. “1959: The Most Creative Year in Jazz.” All About Jazz (October 2004)

http://www.allaboutjazz.com/php/article.php?id=15306 (accessed May 5, 2010).

 

3) Unknown. “Bill Monroe: Bluegrass Innovator.” Folkways.

http://www.folkways.si.edu/explore_folkways/bill_monroe.aspx (accessed May 5, 2010).

 

4) Erlewine, Stephen. “Bill Monroe.” Allmusic

http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=11:gifyxq95ldse~T1 (accessed May 5, 2010).

 

5) Gaitskill, Mary. “Invisible Republic: Bob Dylan's Basement Tapes.” Artforum (June 1997).

http://www.thefreelibrary.com/Invisible+Republic:+Bob+Dylan's+Basement+Tapes.-a019677892 (accessed May 5, 2010).