The Blues Venue: An Evolving Relic
Forms in the crowded, dimly-lit venue move to scratchy music emitted from a vinyl record. Bessie Smith’s Midnight Special crackles its way from speakers, the melody infusing into upright bodies, sliding in a musical fusion across the floor. The bartender pours a cold beer for a man in a black suit jacket. Reclining against the bar, the man sips his drink, watching the dancers, chatting with friends, and tapping his feet. Across the room, one young woman dances barefoot, her hair long and loose, embodying the African movement at the base of the dance form. For a few minutes, the space is of another time, another place. However, with the DJ change comes new music: Barbara Morrison, Eric Clapton, and Keb Mo. The DJ’s face is illuminated by the computer from which he chooses each new song. From my place at the bar, I note the differences between the modern and original blues venue: the dress, the location, the dance style, and, of course, that almost everyone here is white.
During the week, Daniel Newsome and Mike Faltesek provided the low-down on the down home venues of yesteryear. With over ten years of experience on the national and international blues scenes, Newsome and Faltesek are well known for both their dancing and their knowledge of blues history. With their high level of involvement in the Seattle area, the two were not difficult to find. As with the earliest dancers, they were found at local venues, enjoying the music and often spinning it themselves.
As our interviews began, the murky details of the earliest blues venues came into focus. The first accounts of blues venues, Newsome and Faltesek agreed, were recorded in the early 1900s. Found in the Deep South of the United States, the venues were much more rustic. Sometimes, said Faltesek, a venue was someone’s yard or porch. Newsome added that the venues often doubled as makeshift churches or community centers, which helped sanctify the gathering as an appropriate social outlet in the eyes of prejudiced whites. According to Newsome, African-Americans had long been allowed the right to dance at social and religious gatherings in exchange for their acceptance of Christianity. The social and religious expectations of white society, on the other hand, ensured that no whites attended. The blues venue, held once a week, was considered a special event for African-Americans. The dancers would travel to the venue by foot, often walking several miles.
The typical dress in the early blues venues reflected the social circumstances under which the dance was held. The venue offered one of the only acceptable, formal social events where people could dance in the most popular style of the time. Attendees donned their Sunday best, giving the evening a more sophisticated atmosphere. Newsome and Faltesek agreed that “getting dressed up made it a really nice experience for everyone”. The tradition and expectation of formal attire continued well into the 1940s in both the rural south and, later, in ballrooms as far away as New York City. Commenting on the shift in dress code at modern day blues venues, Newsome said, “The way we dress is very casual. There is no longer a fashion that goes with the blues.” With so many different social events and fashions available, it is no wonder that attendees of modern blues venues dress in more casual attire. In the earliest blues venues, when dancing was a special privilege, those who attended wore the best fashion of the region and the era, most often sewn by their own hands.
Entering the early venues in their formal wear, dancers were most often greeted by live music, played by their friends and neighbors. Locals would hear blues-style music on the radio and learn the songs from sheet music or simply by ear. These songs, often adjusted or stylized by the local musicians, were played at blues venues on whatever instruments could be found. In the rural south, guitar blues was the most prevalent. W.C. Handy – one of the earliest blues artists – wrote of his firsthand experience with local blues musicians at a dance in Mississippi in 1905. As a visitor to the area, he had never heard the “native music.” After his performance, a local band, made up of “just three pieces, a battered guitar, a mandolin and a worn-out bass,” played a few numbers. Of the music, Handy said, there was “no very clear beginning and certainly no ending at all….It was …‘haunting’…. The dancers went wild.” Unsurprisingly, live music at the early blues venue depended on a high level of universal musical knowledge. If people in remote, rural communities wanted to dance, they also needed to know how to play an instrument. In the same way that many dancers in today’s blues venue DJ, most dancers in the first blues venues were also musicians.
According to Newsome, the homegrown bands playing locals’ favorite songs fostered a less structured dance form with “much less inhibition about it”. In the early blues venues, dancers were more open to move “how they felt.”
Said Newsome, “There was much less, ‘Oh, will you dance with me? Let’s dance two songs and then be done.’” Newsome believes that the difference stems from a distinction between blues dancing as “something that people did versus something that defined them”. With fewer dance venues available, dancers fully committed themselves to dancing when present. They were not concerned with technique; no “correct” way to dance had been established. On a dusty road in a rural southern town, modern inventions like digital cameras and cell phones did not exist. Likewise, neither did the distraction and self-consciousness that they often foster. At the venue, surrounded by equally-focused friends and family members, each dancer could relax and fully experience his or her unique interpretation of the music.
One favorite method of personal expression was solo dancing. Although rarely seen today, solo dancing was an integral part of the dance experience at early blues venues. Newsome explained, “Based on pictures that I have seen, it seems that half the people were dancing on their own; the other half were partnered.” Newsome’s theory is further supported by the documentation of blues dancing in The Spirit Moves, a documentary on dance from the turn of the century until the early 1950s. The blues dance forms documented therein were almost exclusively solo dances. The lack of partnering is perhaps explained by the social rules surrounding slow dancing. According to Faltesek, “Asking someone to slow dance with you was almost like asking them out on a date. [Slow dancing] was… saved for someone who you were romantically or sexually interested in. It wasn’t really a social dance, in that you would ask just anybody to dance.” Faltesek emphasized that the style of blues dancing today, which often involves a form of grinding, had no place at the earliest blues venue. It was saved by couples for after hours.
Although today’s blues venues are a far cry from their rural predecessors, some similarities remain. Ironically, one of the most notable is the venues’ evolving nature. In Newsome’s words, “Blues is a changing art form; it is still a living art form. When you look at big band swing, it’s frozen in time; it’s never going to progress beyond that. Blues has Keb-Mo and lots of different people that are still recording, working within that genre, and making the art new. It’s always going to appeal to people who are following the trends.” At blues venues, the type of music played, the fashion, and the way dancers move have never been stagnant. From makeshift churches in 1910 to the rent parties and cutting bars of the 1930s to the dance floor of a Haitian bar where dancers in Seattle meet every Tuesday, the blues venue has fostered a variety of different traditions.
In today’s blues venue, people eat, drink, dance, and catch up on the week. At the door, friends excitedly greet friends and hurry out to the dance floor. The energy at the entrance to the earliest blues venue could not have been much different. Clearly, timeless similarities also exist. Kevin Buster, who is now finishing his beer at the bar, says he still goes through the day fueled by the anticipation of attending the blues venue that night. Buster talks of his own experience: “Every night that there’s going to be a dance, I get all crazy and psyched up. I start twitching and my feet can’t not move. I want to do something. I practice beforehand to get some of that pent up energy out. When I go out, it makes me feel complete in a way that nothing else does.” Kevin’s words encompass why, for many in attendance, the modern blues venue holds the same energy and excitement of the original. The blues venue is still a place where locals come together after a week of hard work. They celebrate community and blues dancing, honoring whatever traditions the venue fosters at that moment. According to Buster, it is the timeless aspects of the blues venue that will ensure its success long into the future.
