Langston Hughes' "The Weary Blues" depicts a great picture of what it was like for black musicians in his time period. The speaker in this poem describes the sadness of a blues singer that he saw in a night club in Harlem (We know it is in Harlem because he references Lenox Avenue).
The singer in the video is Cab Calloway. He was a lively, energetic, scat singing, jazz musician in the 1930's and 1940's. He also came from a middle-class family, from New York (and later Baltimore). I, personally, did not think that he was a good choice for the person to be in the video for this poem.
The blues originated in the south, more specifically the Mississippi Delta. It spread in popularity because many of the suppressed people migrated north, along with their sad experiences. Due to the fact that many of them traveled alone, and were extremely poor, this sad music, or the blues, came about. I feel that a more appropriate person to be shown in this video would have been someone who fit that music better, such as B.B. King or Muddy Waters.
Here is a link for a song by B.B. King called "Three O'Clock Blues."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W6xSpIRYa7I
Why is BBKing a better representative than Cab Calloway? That's an interesting idea that no one has ever brought up about this video, but I think you are definitely onto something that you have almost spelled out here.
ReplyDeleteThe reason I think BB King is a better representative than Cab Calloway is because Cab Calloway doesn't represent the tone, or the meaning, of the poem. The poem is filled with sadness and depression, jazz music, and Cab Calloway, were far from that. His music was lively and energetic, not sad.
ReplyDeleteBB King came from a lifestyle that is depicted in the poem also. He grew up in Mississippi, his father abandoned he and his mother when he was 12, and he was raised by his grandmother because his mother was too poor to raise him. The idea of that kind of childhood represents the blues far better than the middle class lifestyle of Cab Calloway's youth.