Paul Garon is an author, writer, and editor, noted for his meditations on surrealist works, and also a noted scholar on blues as a musical and cultural movement.
Works, Books, and References
Woman With Guitar: Memphis Minnie's Blues, with Beth Garon
Blues and the Poetic Spirit
The Forecast Is Hot: Tracts & Other Collective Declarations of the Surrealist Movement in the United States 1966-1976, with Franklin Rosemont and Penelope Rosemont
The Devil's Son-In-Law: The Story of Peetie Wheatstraw and His Songs
Rana Mozelle: Surrealist Texts
The Charles H. Kerr Company Archives 1885-1985: A Century of Socialist and Labor Publishing
The Forecast is Hot: Collective Statements of the Surrealist Movement in the U. S. with Franklin Rosemont
Garon sees Wheatstraw — who was born William Bunch in either 1902 or 1904 and who died in a car crash in 1941 — as a seminal influence in the development of the blues and he presents his case convincingly.
Garon places Wheatstraw in the context of his time and place, describing the 1917 East St. Louis race riot (the worst of the century, he says), the folly of Prohibition and the corrosiveness of the Depression — and sees in the singer’s often aggressively defiant songs a more positive than downtrodden reaction.
Garon quotes a lot of lyrics — in fact, if you take away the lyric quotes, the archival photos, the newspaper clippings and the surrealistic illustrations, the already short book would be about a quarter of its present length — and he’s well aware that these quotes are diminished versions of the actual songs.
For example, Garon writes, "What many of the critics of magazine coverage are driving at is that they and their accomplices would like to receive coverage in Living Blues, principally because it is the pioneering magazine that covers fl artists, i.e.
Garon argues from his own personal bias (or guilt) that people who suggest Living Blues and Garon have a racist (or, let's say, ignorant) policy are somehow thus proving his point merely by raising the issue and are admitting so-called white blues isn't valid when, in reality, they are simply pointing out his errors.
Garon's extrapolation that if music was all that mattered, we'd never go to concerts makes you want to lie down and put a cold towel on your forehead.
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