Jake Blount's Spider Tales has come at the perfect time. Exploring historical black string band music and its antecedents and performed by mostly queer musicians, Blount's latest full-length album on Free Dirt Records is an expression of the zeitgeist amid the mass protests in response to George Floyd's killing by Minneapolis police, systemic racism and aggression toward the LGBTQ+ community, and the continued fight for equal rights in the United States.
As a gay black man playing traditional banjo and fiddle music, Blount uses his music and voice to bring recognition to the role of people of color, queer people and other marginalized communities in American roots music.
In the liner notes to Spider Tales, Blount explains that the album title stems from "Anansesem," the stories of Anansi the Spider, a figure in the folklore and religion of the Akan people of West Africa, who was known for "his wit and wisdom — and his aptitude for weaponizing them against oppressors more powerful than himself." These stories survived the Middle Passage and were passed down through the centuries by enslaved Africans and their descendants in the United States.
"In this new decade, we will face escalating patterns of violence and ecological crises that threaten the survival of our species," Blount writes. "We must remember that we are not the first to fear the loss of our loved ones, the erasure of our legacies or the destruction of what we have made."
Like the telling of "Spider Tales" before it, this album serves as an act of rebellion against the status quo and a call to arms to "do what is needed" to find the strength to survive. As such, the tunes and songs on Spider Tales carry a weight and power that demands close listening.
While the music on Spider Tales is full of potent energy and heavy on the groove, he rejects the notion of it being cheerful or happy. In a recent interview with Country Queer, an online publication dedicated to lifting up LGBTQ+ voices in the country and Americana community, Blount explained the "subtle rage and grief" inherent in his music.
In the liner notes to Spider Tales, Blount explains that the album title stems from "Anansesem," the stories of Anansi the Spider, a figure in the folklore and religion of the Akan people of West Africa, who was known for "his wit and wisdom — and his aptitude for weaponizing them against oppressors more powerful than himself." These stories survived the Middle Passage and were passed down through the centuries by enslaved Africans and their descendants in the United States.
"In this new decade, we will face escalating patterns of violence and ecological crises that threaten the survival of our species," Blount writes. "We must remember that we are not the first to fear the loss of our loved ones, the erasure of our legacies or the destruction of what we have made."
Like the telling of "Spider Tales" before it, this album serves as an act of rebellion against the status quo and a call to arms to "do what is needed" to find the strength to survive. As such, the tunes and songs on Spider Tales carry a weight and power that demands close listening.
While the music on Spider Tales is full of potent energy and heavy on the groove, he rejects the notion of it being cheerful or happy. In a recent interview with Country Queer, an online publication dedicated to lifting up LGBTQ+ voices in the country and Americana community, Blount explained the "subtle rage and grief" inherent in his music.
"This album came out of a desire to tease out the sort of anger and demands for justice and resentment that I see simmering in the black traditional music canon throughout history," he said in the interview. "There is a really long history there of expressing anger and expressing vengefulness and fury in ways that were somewhat covert because if you stated those things outright, you would have been killed for it."
Blount also isn't shy about his intent to bring his own interpretations to the music, which he describes as "genrequeer." It's a rejection of the terms "old-time," "bluegrass," "blues" and other labels that were created by record companies and served as a veiled racial barrier between what was deemed "white" and "black" music in the past.
The liner notes provide detailed descriptions of the source musicians, including Lead Belly, Manco Sneed, Lucious Smith, Dink Roberts, Nathan Frazier and Frank Patterson, as well as John W. Work Jr.'s seminal American Negro Songs and others. The backing musicians include Tatiana Hargreaves (fiddle), Nic Gareiss (feet), Rachel Eddy (guitar) and Haselden Ciaccio (bass), as well as Judy Hyman (fiddle) and Jeff Claus (banjo uke) of the infamous Horse Flies, who also produced the album.
Spider Tales was released at the end of May and is available on vinyl, CD and digital formats through Blount's Bandcamp page. I pre-ordered the LP version through Free Dirt in April, but COVID-19 caused delays in shipping, so I only just received my copy last week. In the meantime, the album has received rave reviews from the likes of The Guardian, Rolling Stone, No Depression, The Bluegrass Situation, Paste, The AV Club and more. The cover art by Abbey Pechman is gorgeous, and the vinyl pressing is excellent. I highly recommend this album.
Blount also isn't shy about his intent to bring his own interpretations to the music, which he describes as "genrequeer." It's a rejection of the terms "old-time," "bluegrass," "blues" and other labels that were created by record companies and served as a veiled racial barrier between what was deemed "white" and "black" music in the past.
The liner notes provide detailed descriptions of the source musicians, including Lead Belly, Manco Sneed, Lucious Smith, Dink Roberts, Nathan Frazier and Frank Patterson, as well as John W. Work Jr.'s seminal American Negro Songs and others. The backing musicians include Tatiana Hargreaves (fiddle), Nic Gareiss (feet), Rachel Eddy (guitar) and Haselden Ciaccio (bass), as well as Judy Hyman (fiddle) and Jeff Claus (banjo uke) of the infamous Horse Flies, who also produced the album.
Spider Tales was released at the end of May and is available on vinyl, CD and digital formats through Blount's Bandcamp page. I pre-ordered the LP version through Free Dirt in April, but COVID-19 caused delays in shipping, so I only just received my copy last week. In the meantime, the album has received rave reviews from the likes of The Guardian, Rolling Stone, No Depression, The Bluegrass Situation, Paste, The AV Club and more. The cover art by Abbey Pechman is gorgeous, and the vinyl pressing is excellent. I highly recommend this album.
Comments
Post a Comment