The Blues: A Deal with the Devil

 

Without a doubt, a cornerstone of rock music is the blues. The origin of blues is not well documented; the Southern African-American art form emerged from the post-Civil War era. The genre is believed to have developed from a combination of African musical traditions, such as call-and-response vocals, and European musical styles, such as folk and ballad music. Simple chords characterized early blues music. In the 1920s and 1930s, blues music gained popularity outside of its traditional Black audience due in part to the growth of recorded music and the migration of Southern African-Americans to northern cities.

By the 1950s, blues music became mainstream in the USA and Europe, with artists like B.B. King and Muddy Waters (pictured above) achieving commercial success. A case could be made that the blues evolved into rhythm and blues (or “race music” as it was called) and then early rock ‘n’ roll. However, whether blues or jazz came earlier will remain a chicken-or-egg deliberation.

The devil is in the details when it comes to blues, literally and figuratively, with much of its early days shrouded in mystery, but we’ll not lose eyes on the devil — or more like on a specific myth of the devil.

Musician and writer Matthew Frederick explains that it “can be said that the blues came out of Africa, but was not born in Africa.” Frederick states that the blues can be traced in much of African music, from the Xalam of Mali to the ngoni harp of Western Africa. The genesis of blues comes from the migration of enslaved people to the New World in colonial times. Records are incomplete, yet it has been estimated that between six and seven million people were brought from Africa, either directly or via the Caribbean, and brutally treated until the slave trade was outlawed in 1818 and then totally abolished in 1865 with the conclusion of the American Civil War.

The blues was an ocean where many tributaries of African art, storytelling, spirituality, and mythmaking flowed in. As Frederick writes:

The blues comes out of pain and sorrow, but also immense joy. Blues is a feeling, as the song goes, but it is also so much more than that. It is the story of a culture, a musical form. It can be a way of talking, a way of dressing, a way of being. It comes from within African American culture; it can’t be understood without reference to this culture, yet, as we shall see, it belongs to a subset who sit apart from this culture, who are defined by their separation. The bluesman is defined as much by who he is not as by who he is.

The blues is an emotional state of melancholy, almost an altered state of mind that draws from a tragic past and eternal pride. Frederick brings up an apocryphal quote by Jimi Hendrix: “The blues are easy to play but hard to feel.”

Elvis Pressley agreed with all of this, one time saying in response to an assumption that he invented rock ‘n’ roll:

No way man, no way. It all goes way, way back to the days in the old Deep South when the slaves were working and slaving their lives away. I mean those poor old people knew what real pain an’ suffering was all about. They used to sing and pour out their hearts to God just to make it through the day.

This fusion of African traditions in the colonial South also included its animistic spirituality, and it mated with Christianity in time. Voodoo, Hoodoo, and Conjure are perfect examples—magical, ecstatic faiths that linger in the American South even today. As Roman Catholic saints replaced pagan gods, African spirits took on Christian overtones. One of these was the Devil, who became a patron muse for the blues. We are not talking about the “Prince of Hell” aspect of Satan, but a more syncretic figure, combining the attributes of the Biblical Satan with African spirits and gods. This character is not the sadistic bastard of orthodox Christianity nor the debonair anti-hero of Milton, enlightenment occultists, and modern Satanists. He is more like the trickster deity found in various mythologies worldwide. This “Trickster Devil” is more ambiguous, at times good but often evil, sometimes succeeding in his schemes but at other times outwitted by astute humans. In one story, he can assume the role of a cruel white landlord; in another yarn, he manifests as the cheeky African-American hero. For mortals that he takes a liking to, he is an almost omnipotent ally, but one must always read between the lines of his assurances and expect a plot twist or trick here and there.

In prewar blues, Old Nick was frequently portrayed as a playful mischief-maker who defied social norms. Clara Smith’s classic song from 1924, “Done Sold My Soul to the Devil,” exemplified this conception by portraying a contract with Satan as an analogy for her place in the blues world, set apart from what was deemed respectable in “polite society.”

The themes of sorrow, loss, and social justice are central to the “Trickster Devil” in Black Southern folklore and blues. He was crucial in navigating the American diaspora with wit and guile. But one had to watch out, for this magical force could doom you as much as he could liberate you, perhaps serving as a symbol of the white man and his machinations during the nineteenth century.

One of the most famous accounts of the African-American Devil was that of Robert Johnson, legendary musician and the “last of the great Delta bluesman and America’s first rock star.” One day, Robert was walking alone in the forest when he came upon a crossroads. There, he encountered a mysterious man garbed in black who offered to make him a deal—to teach him how to play guitar like no other mortal in exchange for his soul. Robert agreed to the deal, and the Devil taught him how to play the blues like a god. Soon after, Robert became a renowned blues musician, and his haunting melodies were said to have the power to move people to tears. The story was a way to explain how, after a period of vanishing from society, he reappeared with celestial talent.

Any deal with the Devil is a monkey’s paw, of course. Johnson dealt with personal demons, including substance abuse and periods of depression. His death is almost as strange as his business with Lucifer. The official cause of death listed on his death certificate is “no doctor,” which indicates no medical professional was present at the time of his passing. However, there are several speculations as to how he died. One theory is that Johnson was poisoned by a jealous husband of a woman with whom he had an affair. Another theory suggests that he died from syphilis, a sexually transmitted disease he is believed to have contracted earlier in his life. No record in this world talks about Satan coming to collect a soul.

The Crossroads and the Devil became central themes for the blues. In many cultures, trickster deities like Hermes or Hekate can be found at the Crossroads—that uncanny place where morality and opportunity, tradition and innovation, blur together, where it seems a person may be lost forever. The only way to be found is to transform permanently, in both this existence and sometimes the afterlife. As Frederick states, the Crossroads is not an event or place but a “way of being” for the bluesman and “a way of becoming.”

from The Occult Elvis by Miguel Conner, pp. 65-69