Project 1- Final Draft

Finding Region while Lost on the River

“About an hour away from the city.”  When people describe where they are from, they often boil it down to an arbitrary time to a nearby city.  Yet a place is more complex than “40 minutes on I-91”, it is not a set of coordinates or a zip code, it is a collection of traditions and a cultural history.  A place is defined by the discourse associated with the shared folklore and practices that residents choose to perpetuate.  Identifying differing opinions about shared culture can shed light on social movements that define a region.   In Kansas City, Missouri, the KC blues are one of these factors that offer a rich discussion that provides a lens to study the progress and history of the city.  When The New Basement Tapes released their album, Lost on the River, they used lyrics written 40 years ago by Bob Dylan, a man with little connection to Kansas City.  An interesting aspect of the album is its motif of Kansas City, a place form where none of the artists hail or have noteworthy history. Lost on the River by The New Basement Tapes appears to avoid a regionalist connection, there is not a significant tie between Kansas City and any of the artists involved in the project, however the songs “Six Months in Kansas City” and “Liberty Street”, comment on and further interpret a narrative history from Kansas City that warrants regionalist analysis.

According to certain critics, the origin of an artist whose work is being analyzed must first be questioned before their interpretation of a regional aspect can be counted.  This is true of Keith Eggener who writes “when one individual’s image of identity is projected onto the nation, it is necessary to scrutinize the background, beliefs, and aspirations of that individual and his or her advocates,” (Eggener 232).  Eggener is concerned with rejecting outside interpretations that romanticize the region and promote globalization and cultural appropriation.  He believes that the only way to synthesize authenticity is picking the consciences of the true residents in a region. For example, if a country artist writes a song about “the big city,” Eggener is going to be compelled to not take that account of the region seriously, he doesn’t believe that anything authentic could be fabricated from an outsider perspective.  Even if an artist does hail from the region they create for, he suggests that more information is needed.  Who was the art created for and why?  If it was created for wealthy tourists to turn a profit, Eggener would oppose its regional value.  Douglas Powell is less concerned with “whether a particular version of region is valid or invalid, authentic or not,” but rather “whose interests are served by a given version of region,” (Powell 7).  He is interested in what an interpretation says about a particular region and why it says that, based on the cultural history of the region.

The debate between the validity of outsider and insider interpretation offers a debate about The New Basement Tapes’ capacity for authenticity.  The key players in The New Basement Tapes are: Marcus Mumford, a folk rocker from California; Jim James, a psychedelic rocker from Kentucky; Rhiannon Giddens, an R&B, folk, soul and country singer from North Carolina; Taylor Goldstein, an indie rocker from LA; and Elvis Costello, a pub and punk rocker from London, England.  The producer of the album, Texas raised T Bone Burnett assembled the group to record an album of music using lost Bob Dylan lyrics from the 1960s, written in Woodstock, NY by a folk and rock legend whose roots lay in Minnesota.  Lost on the River holds no footing in Kansas City. It holds no footing anywhere, both geographically and stylistically.  To Eggener, this would be a red flag unless Dylan or any of the other artists examined Kansas City with enough detail to “understand the richness of internal, local discourses in their full range and complexity,” (Eggener 235).  Rather than determining whether this base of knowledge exists to support an authentic interpretation, there are two songs on the record that offer an interpretation of a KC narrative, and using the ideas of Powell, this narrative’s translation through history can act as a lens to interpret the city.

Douglas Powell defines region as, “not a thing so much as a cultural history and ongoing rhetorical and poetic construction,” (Powell 6).  In other words, the cultural history of a place must be researched and examined in order to allocate something as a region, although stopping there is not enough.  In order to make meaningful assertions, the interaction between regional narratives and cultural artifacts must be considered, thus providing a lens to look at larger social movements.  As Powell puts it, “critical regionalism can link individual moments of cultural struggle to larger patterns of history, politics, and culture” (Powell 20).  This technique can be applied to Kansas City, a metropolis located on the Missouri River, which separates its namesake state and Kansas. It has a rich history of jazz and blues, and the glory days of this music scene transpired during the Great Depression.  While almost every other American city struggled in the 1930’s, Kansas City became a destination for musicians due to the city-wide disregard for liquor laws and curfews. The blues excited people and many would spend the last of their pennies at jazz clubs during the weekend (Burns). Kansas City was a beacon of light during the Depression, and this history has propagated through its residents to become a shared narrative, a part of their cultural history.  Through Powell’s theory, Lost on the River begins to develop regional importance.

Lost on the River includes two songs that tell a cultural narrative about Kansas City, “Six Months in Kansas” and “Liberty Street”.  When the blues thrived in Kansas City, they did so late at night in the countless jazz clubs that sprung up near the iconic neighborhood of 18th and Vine Street.  The most talented jazz artists from all over the country headed to Kansas City for the vibrant club scene and large base of fans, and every artist shared one thing, the blues.  When musicians played jazz clubs night after night, they would not bother to bring sheet music, rather they would play “head arrangements”, loosely memorized songs with semi-consistent riffs that were passed down through the history of Kansas City (Schoenberg).  This repetitive background structure allowed artists to solo long into the early morning hours, extending songs for hours at a time.  The combination of these intense solos and lengthy sessions promoted fierce competition and Mary Lou Williams said that no matter how much experience a player had,  “when they came to Kansas City they found out how little they were playing” (Schoenberg).  Competition for musical venues and the severe economic state of the United States during the Great Depression created a fertile foundation for the blues, music that is inherently sorrowful.

“Six Months in Kansas City” tells the narrative of a man trying to catch a break during the Great Depression in Kansas City.  What drew musicians to the city could also be their demise. As Claude Williams put it, “Kansas City was different from all other places because we’d be jamming all night. And [if] you come up here … playing the wrong thing, we’d straighten you out” (Schoenberg). The lyrics follow a man who descends on the streets from “the old religion” but who “possessed no magic skill.”  This man is a new artist in Kansas City, trying to survive and find fame with a subpar musical background when compared to the multitude of others who know the style and scene better than him.  The song finds its context with the line “Crops are failing, women are wailing,” which references the Dust Bowl, an agricultural epidemic in which a severe drought and erosion destroyed farms all over the Midwest, close to Kansas City.  The narrative becomes part of the region, farmers could relate to this song just as middling jazz musicians did, and this mutual shared experience of being jobless becomes ubiquitous in the region.  The chorus of the song is the repeated line “Six Months in Kansas City,” sung in a harmonized gospel-like way, followed by shouted interjections from each member of the band.  These interjections are the pains of a homeless worker in the depression, “Can’t find no room and board…cause a man to rob and steal…are you ready to admit defeat” and this down-on-your-luck narrative is a repeating story that is vital to the culture of Kansas City.

The chronicle that tells of the starving artist in Kansas City is a pervasive one, and The New Basement Tapes prove this.  Although the song relates to the Great Depression in the 30s, Dylan wrote the lyrics in the late 60s, showing that its message still applied, and the fact that The New Basement Tapes recorded the song twice in 2014 demonstrates its modern relevance.  The re-telling and re-interpreting of a cultural archive is a key component of the critical regionalism that Powell defends.  The reason that there are two versions of the lyrics on the album stems from the recording process that The New Basement Tapes used, which connects to the cultural history of Kansas City.  The collaborations between artists that lasted all night during the peak of the KC blues were of utmost importance to the music and traditions that passed down the line.  As the bassist Gene Ramey put it, artists “didn’t just have to learn how to play a solo, but had to learn how to team” (Schoenberg).  Instead of a dimly lit jazz club at three o’clock in the morning with a pattern of chords, the New Basement Tape’s jam sessions took place in a recording studio with a set of lyrics and the ideas of five accomplished songwriters. Goldstein, one of the musicians on the album said “I thought we would all show each other our different versions of the same songs with the same lyrics and then we would all pick certain versions to chase down” (Jones).  In this way, the recording of Lost on the River re-tells the story of jazz musicians meeting in a club, none of whom had worked together prior, and jamming all night.  In their case however, the artists met in a studio for 2 weeks, thus modernizing and re-commenting on the regional narrative.

The second version of the song on the album is Taylor Goldstein’s interpretation of the lyrics, “Liberty Street,” and compared to “Six Months in Kansas City” it is laid back and reflective.  Costello’s version features a saturation of noise: pianos, guitars, drums, many background singers and a raspy lead singer.  It switches tempo and holds its chorus section much longer than its verses. “Liberty Street,” on the other hand, strolls along at a melancholy pace, assisted by a piano and violin.  The single break features background singers harmonizing while a single blues guitar wistfully solos with restrained energy.  It is calmer and sadder than its counterpart.  The nuances in the lyrical choices of the two versions are also interesting to look at in order to gain regional perspective through critical regionalism.  One line omitted from “Liberty Street,” reveals a distinction in interpretations of the two songs.  The lyrics in the bridge of “Six Months of Kansas City” are “Thank you for not helping me out, for not treating me like a fool, if you didn’t lay me on a cold mattress at night, I might be kicking more than your mule.”  This offers an optimistic caveat to the narrative presented in both songs.  The verse emphasizes a latent positive aspect of the negative experiences of some musicians. If an artist couldn’t find work, they could still find life and community in Kansas City.  The intense competition in the city brought out the best in people and this tough, yet supportive community is what made Kansas City so special during the Great Depression. By omitting the line, “Liberty Street,” airs toward the woeful interpretation and that is reflected in its subdued blues style.  This difference is one that distinguishes region by focusing on the varied reaction and versions of a shared narrative.

When the New Basement Tapes first met at the recording studio there existed only a box of scribbled musings from one of the greatest musicians in modern recollection.  This group of artists with a wide variety of backgrounds set out to create a new vision that both deviates and stands out from the breadth of Bob Dylan’s work, and in doing so they recorded two songs about Kansas City that re-tell a cultural narrative.  Six Months in Kansas City” and “Liberty Street” take the night-long jam session that became the cornerstone of KC blues and transform it into a collaborative and immersive process that results in new interpretations of a Kansas City history, despite the lack of authentic origin.  The New Basement Tapes take their guitars and mandolins and electrify them in a modern attempt to bring renewed energy to the streets of Kansas City.  Dylan’s lyrics poetically describe the hardships of a musician trying to make it in KC and reinforce the hardworking values of people that live there.  Through critical regionalism Lost on the River finds its home right on the banks of the Missouri in Kansas City.

Works Cited

Costello, Elvis, Rhiannon Giddens, Jim James, Taylor Goldsmith, and Marcus Mumford. Lost on      the River: The New Basement Tapes. The New Basement Tapes. Rec. 2014. T Bone     Burnett, 2014. MP3.

Eggener, Keith L. “Placing Resistance: A Critique of Critical Regionalism.” – Eggener. Taylor       & Francis, May 2002. Web. 21 Jan. 2016.

Lost Songs: The Basement Tapes Continued on Showtime. Dir. Sam Jones. Perf. Taylor      Goldstein, Marcus Mumford, Elvis Costello. Showtime Networks, n.d. Showtime Networks, 2014. Web. 18 Jan. 2016.

Powell, Douglas Reichart. “Critical Regionalism: Connecting Politics and Culture in the       American Landscape.” Critical Regionalism: Connecting Politics and Culture in the          American Landscape. UNC Press, 2007. Web. 18 Jan. 2016.

Schoenberg, Loren. “Kansas City, A Wide Open Town.” PBS. PBS, n.d. Web. 18 Jan. 2016.

Swing: The Velocity of Celebration. Dir. Ken Burns. Perf. Wynton Marsalis. Jazz. PBS, n.d.        Web. 23 Jan.


 

WRITING 05.028 (w16) Project 1 Feedback and Evaluation

 

Formative Response:

This project demonstrates really significant growth from the early draft. While there are still some confusing features, you’ve found ways to address most of the concerns we raised about matching claims to evidence. Our solution in conference was to re-shape claims to be in line with the evidence you really had access to. In most cases here, I think those claims reflect the scope of evidence. While there’s still room for improvement, you’ve made strides in just about every area of the document. Nice work.

For future projects, there are a few things you should focus on:

  • Transitions and topic sentences should continue to be focuses for your moving forward. Those features of this document are largely successful, but there’s still room for improvement. And, of course, each new project brings new challenges as you work your way toward clarity about what you’re trying to say and how it needs to be ordered.
  • In project 2, you’ll be held to a very high standard of evidence. Work to ensure that the claims you advance don’t exceed the scope of your evidence.
  • .Much of your challenge in this project stemmed from the topic, I think. It made the connection between the debate and the case difficult to produce. I think you have a far more obviously viable topic for the second project. Moving forward, you may want to spend a bit more time exploring topics’ viability before committing time and energy to drafting.

I want to encourage you to focus on this feedback (and the marginal notes in the essay itself) at least as much as you do on that forthcoming evaluation and grade. Those latter features of my response are important only if you are able to use them to motivate and structure your learning process moving forward. They can be disruptive to learning if they end up silencing your own self-evaluation and undermining your engagement and self-regulation.

If you’d like to talk to me about any feature of Project 1 or about any element of this response, please don’t hesitate to contact me.

-Nick