BLUES-3

in the folk manner. And Midge Williams, of the Louis Armstrong
bands, sings them in slightly more polished, but effective way.
Of the men, Lonnie Johnson is perhaps the finest living male
singer of the blues, although there's a portly fellow Lonnie
Rushing with Count Basie's orchestra
XXXXXXXXXXXXX/ who is a runner-up. And Lead Belly must also be
mentioned among those who professionally keep the blues alive
Lonnie in the entertainment world.

The most famous of the blues, of course, is the St. Louis
Blues, that Mr. W. C. Handy put down one night on the corner of
a bar down on the levee in St. Louis, and which has since gone
all over the world, is sung more than any other song on the air,
is known in Tokyo and Moscow, Paris and Buenos Aires, and, in fact,
is head so often in Europe that a great many Europeans think if
is the American national anthem.

Less popular, but equally beautiful are the blues like
TROUBLED IN MIND, MEMPHIS BLUES, YELLOW DOG BLUES, and the never
surpassed GULF COAST BLUES, which begins to be beaten GULF COAST BLUES
beginning with one of the loneliest
lines in all the realm of song:

The mail man passed but he didn't leave no news...

One of the newest authentic blues to come up out of the
South, by way of the colored boys in the C.C.C. camps, is the
EMERGENCE DUPREE BLUES, that sad story of a man who wanted to
give his girl a diamond ring, but had none to give her, so he
took his gun and went to the jewelry store, but instead of getting
the diamond ring, he got the jewelry man, jail, and death...
only his blues live after him.

The real Negro folk blues are as fine as any folk music we
have, and I'm hoping the day will come when Marion Anderson and
Paul Robeson, famous concert singers, will include a groups of
blues on their programs as well as the Spirituals which they

WQXR

Thursday, June 9, 1938.

10:00 to 10:30 P.M.

MUSIC AND BALLET

Seventieth Programme

MUSIC CUE: MR. KINGSLEY -- "ST. LOUIS BLUES"

....... "I HATE TO SEE THAT EVENIN' SUN GO DOWN" etc.

(AFTER FIRST TWO LINES HOLD UNDER ANNOUNCER)

MR. BENWARE:

The Blues...the nostalgic Blues....

Their place in American dance and song.....This plaintive
melody tonight introduces another of those distinctive
programmes known as MUSIC AND BALLET, presenting the music
of and for the dance, of all peoples and all periods, arranged
and conducted by the well-known dance and music authority,
Irving Deakin, critic, commentator, and author of numerous
books, including the delightful BALLET PROFILE and TO THE
BALLET!

As guest artists on tonight's programme, Mr. Deakin will
present in this "Blues" symposium, the American dancer, Felicia
Sorel; Langston Hughes, distinguished dramatist and poet; and
at the piano, the talented American composer, Herbert Kingsley,
presenting "Blues" authentic and also of his own composition.

MUSIC CUE: SIGNAL MUSIC OUT

-2-

**MR. BENWARE:**

And now it is my pleasure to turn the programme over
to Irving Deakin.

**MR. DEAKIN:**

Thank you, Mr. Benware...

Authentic tang and flavour of our soil, the "Blues" spring from the soul of a people. And it is a source of particular gratification to me to have as collaborators tonight three leading exponents of this indigenous American song-and-dance form.

The feeling of the "Blues" is mainly nostalgic. What softly and infectiously moans in these "Blues" is, ultimately, homesickness, the perennial human longing for Eden and its vanished ease and warmth and peacefulness — unduly realistically, man's lost condition of animal freedom, gaiety, irresponsibility, and desire, unsatisfied by self-consciousness and pain. The American Negro first found the contemporary childish-primitive musical idiom voicing and stilling the ancient nostalgia with its sensuous paintiveness. But the whole world, never entirely free of the recessive yearning, and wearied, disappointed, and demoralized, promptly chimed in with him and joined him in some of his practical efforts to recapture the lost paradise. Harlem arose, a city such as vision could never have conceived.

So tonight we are concerned with the authentic, uncommercialized idiom of the "Blues", and in Felicia Sorel, Langston Hughes, and Herbert Kingsley, we have three people full of the universal nostalgia and possessed of the artists' power of developing the means necessary to the expression of their feeling and the realization of its object. They have

-3-

been deeply penetrated by the "Blues" idiom, impregnated with its
spirit, and they have moved to bring the "Blues" into the sustained
and waking dream that can satisfactorily retrovert men to their
primitive condition.

Tonight's programme is composed in equal portions of
authentic "Blues", and "Blues" composed by Herbert Kingsley to poems
by the distinguished American Negro poet and dramatist, Langston
Hughes. Mr. Hughes is a true poetic dramatist of our day and age.
Concerned with our present-day social scene, he is that rare
combination of poet and realist. One of the most vital and interest-
ing theatres in New York today is his Suit Case Theatre in Harlem,
where, with working folk, people otherwise engaged in earning a
living during the day, he presents in starkly simple fashion plays
that touch and sear by their very sincerity. He has plans for the
formation of a real Negro ballet in connection with his theatre.

Three of the "Blues" to be heard tonight are to Mr. Hughes's poems, and there is no one better qualified to discuss the "Blues" and Miss Sorel's and Mr. Kingsley's interpretation of them than Langston Hughes himself, whom it is my privilege now to present: Mr. Langston Hughes.

### MR. HUGHES:

Ladies and gentlemen, the Blues! They're songs folks
make up when their heart hurts. That's what the blues are. Sad
funny songs --- too sad to be funny and too funny to be sad.

Thus one of the characters in our play at the Harlem
Suitcase Theatre defines the Blues. Then he goes on to say that,
"Colored folks made up the Blues. Now, everybody sings 'em. We made
'em out of being poor and lonely. And homes bust ed up, and desperate,
and broke."

For the Blues are folk-songs born out of heartache.

-4-

Songs of the black South, particularly the city South. Songs of the
poor streets and back alleys of Memphis and Birmingham, Atlanta and
Galveston, out of black and beaten but unbeatable throats, from the
strings of pawn-shop guitars, from the chords of pianos with no
ivory on the keys.

The Blues and the Spirituals are the two great Negro
gifts to American music. The Spirituals are group songs, but the
Blues are songs you sing alone. The Spirituals are religious songs,
born in camp meetings and village churches, most alive today in the
backwoods and remote plantation districts. But the Blues are city
songs rising from the crowded streets of big towns, or beating against
the lonely walls of hall-bed-rooms where you can't sleep at night.
The Spirituals are escape songs, looking toward heaven, tomorrow,
and God. But the Blues are today-songs, here and now, broke and
broken-hearted, when you're troubled in mind and don't know what to
do, and nobody cares.

There are many kinds of Blues. There are the family
Blues, when a man and woman have quarrelled, and the quarrel can't
be patched up. Then there's the loveless Blues, when you haven't
even got anybody to quarrel with. And there's the left-lonesome
Blues, when the one you care for's gone away. Then there's the
broke-and-hungry Blues, a stranger in a strange town. And there's
the desperate going-down-to-the-river Blues that says:

I'm goin' down to de river
And take ma rockin' chair --
If the Blues overcome me,
I'm gonna rock on away from here!

But not always as bad as that, because there's another verse that says:

Goin' down to de railroad,
Lay my head on de track,

-5-

I'm goin' down to de railroad,
Lay my head on de track --
But if I see de train a-comin'
I'm gonna jerk it back!

For sad as the Blues may be, there's almost always something humorous about them — even if it's the kind of humor that laughs to keep from crying. You know

I went to de gypsy's
To get ma fortune told.
Went to de gypsy's
To get ma fortune told.
Gypsy said, dog-gone your
Un-hard-lucky soul.

During the last quarter of a century in America there have been many great singers of the Blues, but the finest of all were the three famous Smiths —no relation, one to another — Mamie Smith, Clara Smith, and the one and only Bessie Smith. Clara and Bessie are both dead now, and Mamie no longer sings, but thousands of Blues collectors here and abroad prize their records. Today a girl named Georgia White carries on the old tradition of the Blues in the folk manner. And Midge Williams, of the Louis Armstrong band, sings them in a slightly more polished, but effective way. Of the men, Lonnie Johnson is perhaps the finest living male singer of the Blues, although there's a portly fellow by the name of Jimmy Rushing with Count Basie's orchestra who is a runner-up. And Lead Belly must also be mentioned among those who keep the Blues alive in the entertainment world.

The most famous Blues, of course, is the ST. LOUIS BLUES, that Mr. W.C. Handy put down one night on the corner of a bar down on a levee street in St. Louis, and which has since gone all over the

-6-

world. The ST. LOUIS BLUES is sung more than any other song on the air, is known in Tokyo and Buenos Aires, Paris and Berlin - in fact, is heard so often in Europe that a great many Europeans think it is the American National Anthem.

Less popular, but equally beautiful are the Blues like TROUBLED IN MIND, MEMPHIS BLUES, YELLOW DOG BLUES, and the never to be surpassed GULF COAST BLUES which begins with one of the loneliest lines in all the realm of song:

> The mail man passed but

> He didn't leave no news.....

One of the newest authentic Blues to come up out of the South, by way of the colored boys in the O.O.O. camps, is the DUPREE BLUES, that sad sotyr of a man who wanted to give his girl a diamond ring, but had none to give her, so he took his gun and went to the jewelry store — but instead of getting the diamond ring, he got the jewelry man, jail, and the noose.

The real Negro folk Blues are as fine as any folk music we have, and I'm hoping the day will come when Marion Anderson and Paul Robeson, famous concert singers, will include a group of Blues on their programs as well as the Spirituals which they now sing so beautifully.

I am happy to see a dancer of the stature of Felicia Borel using the Blues as a background for the creation of dance forms. I see no reason why great dances could not be born of the Blues, great American dances containing all the laughter and pain, hunger and heartache, search and reality of the contemporary scene — for the Blues must have something that goes beyond race or sectional limits, that appeals to the ear and heart of people everywhere — otherwise, how could it be that in a Tokyo restaurant one night I heard a Louis Armstrong record of the ST. LOUIS BLUES played over

and over for the crowd of Japanese diners there? You don't
have to understand the words to know the meaning of the Blues,
or feel their sadness, or to hope their hope:

Troubled in mind, I'm blue,

But I won't be blue always:

The sun's gonna shine

In my backdoor someday.

Ladies and gentlemen, that's the Blues!

MR. DEAKIN:

Thank you, very much, Mr. Hughes.

Felicia Sorel should need no introduction. For
ten years, in association with Gluck-Sandor, she has made
striking contributions to the dance in our time, with their
joint Dance Center. After intervals devoted to study in Europe,
she is today seeking her own path as a solo concert dancer, having
given up the contributive Dance Center for the sound reasons that
backing is lacking, and because her researches into the fertile
field of native material for the dance has convinced her of
the necessity for developing along her own lines. For a long time
she has been fascinated by the immense fund of American material
for the dance, and together with the composer, Herbert Kingsley,
has developed a repertoire of Americana, into an expressive and
individual dance form.

Because of her rich feeling of respect and love and
admiration for the form of the "Blues" and for the material, it
took a good deal of urging for her to do these in public, preferring
to keep them for her intimate friends, as being of interest only
to them. But when she was at last persuaded to bring them into
the open, and performed Herbert Kingsley's "Blues Trilogy" at
Carnegie Hall, with Paul Whiteman, who was extremely interested

-8-

in them, the greater public was the beneficiary.

Tonight, here in the studio, unfortunately without benefit of television, Miss Sorel is dancing them for a few invited guests, and I shall try to epitomize them for you later on. But now, Miss Sorel herself has a few words to say about the "Blues" and her feeling for them. And I am grateful for the opportunity to introduce: Miss Felicia Sorel....

### MISS SOREL:

As Mr. Deakin has pointed out, I am vitally interested in the rich fields of American dance materials, as yet practically unexplored and untouched. I mean the folk dance; and more particularly, the folk song which can be used for Dance purposes. For instance, the wonderful songs to be found in our Appalachian mountains, in Kentucky, the Carolinas and Virginian; the songs of the ranches, in the Western states; the native songs of the Creoles in New Orleans; the very popular folk ballads, such as Frankie and Johnnie, Willy the Weeper, St. James' Infirmary, etc.; and perhaps the most stimulating and colourful of all these, to the imagination of the dancer, the Spirituals and Blues of the American Negro.

In working out the choreographic structure of my various dances with folk-song accompaniment, by which I mean also with voice accompaniment, I found that I was by no means doing something completely new — although I believe it is fairly new to this day and age. The very first dance-songs, as they were called, were the first songs of every nation; just as dance-music was the first music, and is the stuff and structure upon which our present highly developed music is built; the sonata, the symphony, etc.

The earliest dance-songs were songs sung as accompaniment

-9-

to the dancer -- either as purely rhythmic background, as in folk
dances; or, as in the Ballad, or epic poem-dance, as dramatic or
thematic accompaniment. The dance as an active factor in the
history of the Ballad, cannot be left out. The oldest epic poems
were sung to dancing, in which the singer told a story and the
dancer danced and acted it out. In other words, the poems were
the subject of the dances, and the dance, as a matter of fact, has
given them their name; ballo, meaning dance; ballata, ballad.
These are in direct contrast to the use of the voice in folk
dancing -- in which rhythms and mood are the singer's contribution
to a simple folk dance.

Some outstanding examples of the welding of song
accompaniment with dance, although they are comparatively few,
are most striking and unusual, and gain considerably by the use of
the voice. For instance, Daphnis and Chloe, by Maurice Ravel, in
its original, has choral accompaniment. One of Massine's first
ballets, composed when he was nineteen, and called "The Midnight
Sun", used a singer in the orchestra pit; this ballet was composed
of an aggregate of Russian Folk songs, slightly theatricalized.
Stravinsky's beautiful ballet, "Les Noces", uses the chorus as part
of the orchestral accompaniment. "Prince Igor", in the original,
is a choral ballet. In short, the necessity and the beauty of the
voice, of song, in some dancing, has been realized alike by peasant
and the creative artist. By the peasant in his folk dances, tribal
dances, in sacrificial dances, in the religious ceremonies of
the Orientals. By the creative artist, in the aforementioned
instances of Choral ballets, and in certain theatre and concert
pieces.

In regard to the epic-poem dances, Mr. Deakin has a
most interesting theory. He says the dancer began by being both

-10-

minstrel and mime, both telling his story in words and acting it
out. But, bye and bye it realized, as the dance became more and
more complicated that he was too out of breath to sing his own words
--- therefore, the singing accompaniment to the dance, and the
dancer quite content to do only his own share.

Of course, in late years, this form has become almost
absolte, except perhaps in certain ritual and folk dances. However,
in my work with American folk song materials, I employ this dance-
song form; and I use two different methods of choreography and
performance. One, is the use of the song as rhythmic background;
as mood and color, rather than of idea. In these I dance rather
than mime. The second, is the use of the actual drama of the story
as thematic material; in these I mime, or act the story being sung, --
rhythmically of course, and in a certain sense formalized rather
than realistic.

The dances I will do tonight employ this method. In
the first group of dances, I will do three Authentic American
Negro Blues -- which are in the collection of Mr. W.O. Handy. The
second section is composed of three Blues, written by Mr. Langston
Hughes, and which are to be found in his books called "The Weary
Blues" and "The Dream Keeper". In doing research last year for some
contemporary folk material, I searched through most of the works of
our Negro poets, and was completely surprised and pleased when I
found these beautiful poems of Mr. Hughes, written in the authentic
Blues form, and which lend themselves so well both to music and dance,

So I asked Mr. Kingsley to write the musical settings,
and meantime, in fear and trembling, waited for the answer to my
request to Mr. Hughes, asking for permission to dance them. He was
most gravious, and most generous.

-11-

But now I see that Mr. Deakin signals my time is up --
on with the dance -- so I will stop what threatens to become a
lecture on the Dance, and I will go and <u>do</u> the dances I have tried
to tell you about, and give Mr. Kingsley now a chance to speak, in
musical form.

MR. DEAKIN:

Thank you, Felicia Sorel.....

A few weeks ago, one of the MUSIC AND BALLET programmes
presented the American composer, Herbert Kingsley, playing and
commenting on the score of his ballet, TERMINAL. Tonight, Mr.
Kingsley has joined his collaborators as performer and composer.
Turning from the world of pure ballet, but adapting the "Blues" to
Miss Sorel's choreographic interpretation, we hear now, as Miss Sorel
dances, the "SING-SING PRISON BLUES", an authentic Negro "Blues" --
the song and dance of a woman in jail awaiting trial, as she thinks
of events past and to come. In the dance, there is never a super-
fluous movement or gesture...

MUSIC CUE: "SING-SING PRISON BLUES"

MR. DEAKIN:

And now "RAINY WEATHER BLUES", wherein a homeless waif
seeking a precarious existence on the streets, trods her unroseate
way. In her mind it is always raining. She finds no rest, no peace,
no abiding place.... The general mood of the dance is that of steadily
falling rain......

MUSIC CUE: "RAINY WEATHER BLUES"

MR. DEAKIN:

Now the third of the authentic "Blues" -- "CARELESS LOVE",

-13-

authentic despite the many popular arrangements that have been made. Tonight Miss Sorel dances it in the original version, as collected by Mr. W.C. Handy, whom we are honored to have with us in the studio this evening... It is the gay song and dance of a young girl. While she is straight-laced, she is a wall-flower. But when she unbends a bit, she never lacks for beaux...

MUSIC CUE: "CARELESS LOVE BLUES"

MR. DEAKIN:

There follows the first of the Langston Hughes "Blues"--- the "YOUNG GAL BLUES" --- wherein a young girl, who has lost her best friend, terrifiedly lets her imagination play with the idea of death. Her obsessions with death and poverty become a waking nightmare, until she realizes that youth and beauty are still hers --- and she must make the most of them... And in the last bars, where there are no words, the Young Gal in the dance goes to town a-flirting...

MUSIC CUE: "YOUNG GAL BLUES"

MR. DEAKIN:

The second "Blues" in the Langston Hughes group is "HARD LUCK BLUES", one of the highlights. Here we have a young man, down and out, flat broke, not knowing what to do. So he pawns his clothes, and the dollar and a half provides a bottle of gin to drive the blues away. In the last few bars of the dance, after the music has ceased, Miss Sorel imagines the gin to have been effective, and the dance itself on a little dance

-13-

discreet and delicate hiccough......

MUSIC CUE: "HARD LUCK BLUES"

MR. DEAKIN:

Now the third of the Hughes trio, "HARD DADDY BLUES".
A young girl has a sweet daddy who refuses to take her "blues"
seriously; so, after he is gone, she lets her imagination ride
free over what she'd like to do to him. And as the music ends,
Miss Sorel pantomimes the pokes and kicks and all she'd like
to do to that hard daddy of hers....Then she puts on her best
hat, and goes out to leave him with those "Left Lone some Blues"...

MUSIC CUE: "HARD DADDY BLUES"

MR. DEAKIN:

Authentic tang and flavour of our soil, one can truly
feel the "Blues" in American dance and song are in excellent
hands with Miss Sorel, Mr. Hughes, and Mr. Kingsley.

MUSIC CUE: MR. KINGSLEY --- "ST. LOUIS BLUES (croon)

CONTROL ENGINEER: (HOLD PIANO AND VOICE UNDERNEATH ANNOUNCER)

MR. BENWARE:

The Interstate Broadcasting Company desires to extend
its sincere thanks to Irving Deakin and his guest artists, the
well-known American dancer, Felicia Sorel; the distinguished
dramatist and poet, Langston Hughes; and Herbert Kingsley, the
talented American composer-pianist, for their collaboration in this

-14-

programme devoted to "The Place of the Blues in American Dance,"
a special feature of the regular MUSIC AND BALLET programme.

MUSIC CUE: (SIGNAL MUSIC OUT)

MR. BENWARE:

Next Thursday evening at 10:00 o'clock, MUSIC AND BALLET programme, under Mr. Deakin's direction will concern itself with "theatricalized folk forms in the dance", and all the works to be heard, including Darius Milhaud's COMMISAGRIL POLKA, the Soviet ballet, THE AGE OF GOLD, by Dmitri Shostakovich, the Russian dances, THE WHITE WHIRLWIND and DANCE OF THE PLAINS, and the American CREOLE LOVE SONG, will be heard for the first time in American radio.

This has been a studio presentation of the Interstate Broadcasting Company.