The Influences of Hispanic Music Cultures on African-American Blues Musicians

Author(s): Peter Narváez

Source: Black Music Research Journal , 2002, Vol. 22, Supplement: Best of BMRJ (2002),
pp. 175-196
Published by: Center for Black Music Research - Columbia College Chicago and
University of Illinois Press

Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/1519948

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 THE INFLUENCES OF HISPANIC MUSIC CULTURES
ON AFRICAN-AMERICAN BLUES MUSICIANS

PETER NARVAEZ

Egalitarian quests for multiculturalism can be offset by the linger

legacy of "melting pot" ideology. Cultural examinations of ethnic
exemplify this, for they frequently focus on minority-dominant relations
that is, the "contributions" of an ethnic group to the "majority" cultu
Unless the linear, vertical focus of such scholarship is balanced by grea
breadth, our perceptions will remain oversimplified and skewed. Rec
work by Portia Maultsby has examined the role that ethnicity plays
the interactions between African-Americans and mainstream society
and how such "interactions affect musical creativity and musical ide
ty" (Maultsby 1993). These broad questions should continue to b
addressed, but they also need to be supplemented with queries conce
ing intersubcultural developments among African-Americans and oth
ethnic groups apart from the mainstream (see Slobin 1993).
This is my perspective in examining the influences of Hispanic mu
cultures on African-American blues musicians. I will argue that so
history, blues lyrics, musical evidence, and the life histories of b
entertainers reveal that musical interaction between African-American
blues musicians and Hispanic musicians has taken place in at least two
primary areas: the Texas-Mexico border region, where downhome blues
guitarists were influenced by the lifestyle of Mexican street singers and
their chordophonic musical traditions; and New Orleans, where Cuban

Originally published in BMRJ vol. 14, no. 2 (1994)

PETER NARVAEZ has published articles on a variety of cultural topics, including African-
American music, vernacular song, and folk narrative and belief. He is the editor of Of
Corpse: Death and Humor in Folklore and Popular Culture (Utah State University Press, 2003)
and The Good People: New Fairylore Essays (Gaylord, 1991).

175

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 176 BMR Journal

rhythms particularl
the New Orleans "so
ever, these Hispani
been masked by ma
critics and blues rev
the "bluesman."

The "Blues Musician" and Localities

In a recent article, Samuel A. Floyd Jr. has called for a "culture-de

approach" to the study of black music, drawn on, among other thin
system of referencing . . . from Afro-American folk music" (Floyd
1). With regard to various forms of popular and vernacular music,
admirable goal can be difficult to achieve because "emic" folk catego
"etic" analytic categories, and the marketing categories of the m
industry often blur. Students and critics of popular music have
often pursued standout commercial successes within mass cultural
texts, an approach that has been largely determined by the music in
try. They have accepted commercial mediation and have neglected
realities of living music in small places. The result is that accurate
trayals of local music cultures, that is, the music that performers
audiences have actually shared in small group contexts, are few and
between.
Contemporary views of the blues musician illustrate this problem.
African-American blues originated in localities, but the directions of it
developments and the larger public perception of its identity have been
shaped by the commercial forces of popular culture. We often erroneous-
ly equate, for instance, a performer's repertoire with her or his list of
commercially released audio recordings, which in many instances are not
representative of an artist's actual inventory of performed song. Thus, a
folklorist-ethnomusicologist David Evans (1985, 109) has observed,
Mississippi singer Johnny Temple "recorded sixty-two issued blues
between 1935 and 1949, yet in his live performances in Chicago he could
usually be heard playing polkas and Italian music for underworld king-
pins." Temple's polkas are not on wax, and his case is hardly unique. For
marketing and promotional purposes, the music industry has conven-
tionally delimited musical styles. Jeff Titon (1977, 55) reports that from
the 1920s into the 1940s black musicians who sang blues and hillbilly
music were rarely recorded performing the latter genre because "record
companies wanted blues, for blues sold; if they needed hillbilly music,
they might as well turn to hillbillies." In the 1950s, it was unusual that
Prestige Bluesville issued "blues" LPs by Lonnie Johnson that contained

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Narvwez * Influence of Hispanic Music Cultures on Blues 177

nonblues ballads such as "What a Difference a Day Makes," and even

then the company had to defend its decision against the "grumbling from
some reviewers" (Williams 1960).
The "blues musician" is largely an invention of commercial culture.
Today, an international blues industry continues to foster stereotypes of
blues musicians as being nonliterate, hedonistic, rough-living, down-
and-out, alcoholic creative geniuses who play and sing one musical
genre. Ostensibly, these performers die young, often as a result of treach-
ery, a heroic image that has received additional support in recent years
through the commercially successful promotion of the myth of Robert
Johnson (see Narvaez 1993; Titon 1993).
Blues scholarship has also contributed to this image. Although the ear-
lier, unilineal evolutionary understanding of the blues, as an essential but
crude stepping-stone in the historical development of jazz, has been dis-
carded by scholars in favor of a view that emphasizes the blues as a music
with a distinct, multifaceted development, the "purity" of the form has
rarely been questioned. Thus, in developing their own lines of blues evo-
lution, blues commentators have sometimes neglected the existence of
performance and repertory variations by overlooking fieldwork data
gathered in localities. For example, it has been convenient for academics
and music historians to describe certain early African-American singers
who sang a variety of song types as having been "songsters," transition-
al, sihger-musicians who were precursors to "real" bluesmen who sing
nothing but the blues. Yet on the basis of his extensive fieldwork among
African-American singers, Evans has confirmed an earlier 1911 report by
Howard Odum that the term "songster" has a much broader usage in the
South, observing that "those who perform blues exclusively are called
'songsters,' as are all other people who have a reputation for being good
singers, no matter what kinds of songs they sing." In his landmark study,
Big Road Blues, therefore, Evans used the phrase "blues singer" to refer to
"anyone who sings blues, regardless of what other songs he might sing"
(Evans 1985, 108-109). "Blues musician" here will be used in similar fash-
ion, meaning anyone who is acknowledged as being a player and/or
singer of blues.
In at least two areas, Texas and New Orleans, Hispanic influences on
African-American blues musicians have been apparent. Despite barriers
of ethnicity, race, and language, African-Americans and Hispanics in
these regions have selectively adopted and syncretized occupational
ideas and musical styles.

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 178 BMR Journal

Texas

Historical conditions in Texas and Mexico have been conducive to the

development of musical syncretisms between African Americans
Hispanics. In those areas where Spain utilized large numbers of slave
especially the West Indies and northern portions of South America, s
and cultural integration among blacks and Spanish colonists occurred
much faster rate than it did in the British colonies. In the North American
Southwest, Estevanico, a free black Spaniard, played a key role in the
exploration of New Mexico and Arizona (Bennett 1966, 35). The
unplanned growth in the huge area of Nueva Espafia of a new racial stock,
the mestizo, was the result of the lack of miscegenational stigma involving
the Spanish, Native Americans, and Africans. As historian Frank
Tannenbaum (1968, 36) observed, in certain parts of Mexico blacks have
been "in sufficient numbers to leave their mark upon the population."
Sympathetic interracial attitudes have been reflected in the history of
border relations. The border's role as a symbol of economic, social, and
cultural freedom for African Americans goes back to the 1830s when
"fairly large numbers of Negro slaves had escaped from their Texas own-
ers by crossing the Rio Grande and a sizeable colony of ex-slaves had
sprung up in Matamoros" (McWilliams 1968, 105). One Colonel Ford
wrote in this regard: "The possession of slaves in Western Texas was ren-
dered insecure owing to the contiguity of Mexico, and to the efforts of
Mexicans to induce them to run away. They assisted them in every way
they could" (quoted in McWilliams 1968, 105). It is not surprising, there-
fore, that in the 1848 Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, Mexico made a vain
attempt to have slavery permanently abolished in the territories it was
forced to cede to the United States. Similarly, in 1856 an abortive insur-
rectionary plot in Colorado County, Texas, in which Mexicans were to aid
a large number of slaves in fighting their way across the border, led to the
immediate banishment of Mexicans in Colorado and Matagorda coun-
ties, the enforced use of a pass system for Mexicans in Uvalde, and a
wave of general anti-Mexican sentiment. Writing in the mid-1930s, histo-
rian Paul S. Taylor has maintained that these actions were catalyzed by
"the belief that the [Mexican] peons imperilled the institution of slavery"
(quoted in McWilliams 1968, 105-106). The forced or free association of
African Americans and Mexicans may also be seen in twentieth-century
accounts concerning the proxemics of settlement. Arthur J. Rubel's study
of a Texas city, pseudonymously identified as "New Lots," revealed that,
through the 1940s, Mexican Americans lived on the north side of the rail-
road tracks and Anglo-Americans lived on the south side, but a small
black enclave co-existed with the Mexicans on the north. While the his-

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Narvaez * Influence of Hispanic Music Cultures on Blues 179

torical juxtaposition of the two groups was not a matter of free choice,
Mexicans in the area were inclined to view any discrimination as coming
from the Anglos' rejection of blacks (Rubel 1966, 4, 20).
Coinciding with the foregoing historical developments, the social and
miscegenational attitudes of Mexicans and blacks have oftentimes result-
ed in a familiarity that has found expression in blues lyrics. In 1926, for
instance, Texas bluesman Blind Lemon Jefferson sang:

Well my mind leads me to take a trip down south,

Take a trip down south, it's tough to spend my round.

The fact that Jefferson is thinking of Latin women is made explicit.

I got a girl in Cuba, I got a girl in Spain,

I got a brown yonder in Dallas,
I's afraid to call her name....
Tell me them good looking womens is on the border raising sand.

The border as an image of sexual freedom for African Americans i

alluded to in well-known formulaic lyrics. Just as Six Cylinder Smit
lamented in 1930 that "She left this momin', she's border bound toda
Memphis Slim in 1940 grieved

I asked my next door neighbor,

"Which way did my baby go?"
She said, "She left for the border,
Down in Mexico."

Likewise, Charlie Segar (1940), Jazz Gillum (1940), Big Bill Broon
(1941), and many others have sung the words of the blues classic "Key
the Highway":

I'm goin' back to the border

Where I'm better known,
'Cause you haven't done nothin'
But drive a good man away from home.

Perhaps there is no blues lyric concerning Mexican involvement tha

can upstage New Orleans-born, Texas blues singer Frankie Lee Simms's
"Rhumba My Boogie," a 1954 macaronic reworking of Jimmy Kenned
and Michael Carr's 1939 "South of the Border (Down Mexico Way)":
You know south of the border, down Mexico way,
There was a picture of old Spanish lace,
I had no dinera, por my mujera,
But my [ ] esta [ ] pormi,
Pero mi amiga catch a loco, drank a too much vino,

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 180 BMR Journal

South of the border,

I'll tell you I love you
South of that border
We do the rhumba bo
Down south of the bo

I love my baby, she d

But your name is [sen

The life histories of

the acculturative con
reported his enjoym
Laredo, Mexico (quote
cuit, Al Wynn menti
to join the Ma Rainey
in about '23 or '24. Sh
Mexico for some tim
While "down in Texa
Gordon "used to go
151) reported that "
Helena in 1909,... wa
Memphis and took ba
Johnny Watson, who
as "Daddy Stovepipe,"
cities along the Gulf
former Earl King "w
(Broven 1977, 119). L
Houston blues pianist
Mexican audiences acr
(1969, 13) has depic
"Spider" Kilpatrick
Pentecostal church, a
a site near where Lat
Such examples from
entertainers point t
Mexican and African-American interaction. Whenever and wherever
such interactions have taken place, African Americans have been con
fronted with a vigorous chordophonic tradition. Since the introduction
the vihuela de mano (the antecedent of the modern guitar) by the conq
tadores, all classes in Mexican society have exhibited a widespread us
this and related chordophones. Bernal Diaz del Castillo ([1632] 1916, 2
mentions one Ortiz, a vihuela player, as being a member of the Cort
expedition to Mexico in 1519. Ger6nimo de Mendieta ([1604] 1973, 39-
notes the ease with which Native Mexicans became proficient on vih

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Narvwez * Influence of Hispanic Music Cultures on Blues 181

las and guitars in the later sixteenth century. Thomas Gage ([1648] 1958,
34-35, 51) cites the guitar's use by Franciscan monks in the seventeenth
century. The nineteenth-century research of folklorist Charles F. Lummis
revealed guitar playing in the Southwest (Lummis 1892, 1893). Americo
Paredes has shown that unlike the a cappella traditions of so much
Anglo-American ballad singing, the late eighteenth, nineteenth, and early
twentieth centuries along the border were a time when

On most occasions the common amusement was singing to the accompani-

ment of the guitar: in the informal community gatherings, where the songs
alternated with the tale; at weddings, which had their own special songs, the
golondrinas; at Christmastime, with its pastorelas and aquinaldos; and even at
some kinds of funerals; those of infants, at which special songs were sung to
the guitar. (Paredes 1958, 14-15)

In what sociocultural contexts, however, did blacks meet guitar-play-

ing Mexicans? Some encounters undoubtedly took place on prison work
gangs, for as Texas Alexander sang in "Section Gang Blues" in 1927,
One nigger licked molasses and the white man licked them too,
I wonder what in the world is the Mexican going to do?

More commonly, African Americans in Texas came into contact with an

obvious occupational role model for musicians, the wandering Mexican
street singer, the itinerant trovador, cantador, ciego, or guitarerro.
As the traditional descendants of Spanish medieval and renaissance
juglares and trovadores, the Mexican trovadores populares or cantadores were,
according to Vincente T. Mendoza, those "men of the world" who "as
lone individuals, accompanying themselves on the guitar, [sang] with the
object of having a monetary collection made among the listeners"
Mendoza 1939, 143; see also Merwin 1961, 12-15). As the works of
Mendoza, Paredes, and Merle E. Simmons have pointed out, these folk
professionals were engaged in the creation and propagation of Mexican
ballads, or corridos, in oral or broadside form (Simmons 1957). The itiner-
ant nature of these singers is clear. "They travelled the entire country and
from town to town, three days here, three days there" (Mendoza 1939,
143). Similarly, Arthur L. Campa (1933, 9) wrote of the trovador:
"Following the path of the trader and of the freighter, the trovador sang as
he went-chanting the charms of a sefiorita left behind, or the prowess of
the Indian fighter. At the bailes (dances) and fiestas also, this same
trovador was paid to compose, recite, and sing. The community took up
his song and gave it her own interpretation; many variants of that song
were sung everywhere, but the author was soon forgotten."' Such
1. Robb (1952) has reported that at least one legendary Southwestern trovador, "El

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 182 BMR Journal

descriptions of the r
accounts of their A
(1963, 186) has expla

Ballads and other ente

streets and in establis
ple gathered together
cities and towns were
many kinds, includin
rendered in his own s
had been favorites fo
ment was the coins t
found that he wasn'
another town and try

And John and Alan

type of Negro men w

today and there tomo
Civil War ... these sin
naded their white fri
when everyone comes
their white listeners
butions; their Negro b
down. ... A courageou
leading a semi-vagran
blind, still wander th

The Lomaxes' refer

here. The plethora o
blues musicians who
discussed by such k
of the legendary Bl
explanation that sig
economic options oth
tainers and bluesme
severe social and eco
lends itself to such
historical existence
Spanish painter Fran
centuries to the testimonies of fieldworkers in folklore in the twentieth
century, it is evident that many peripatetic guitar-playing cantadores have
been afflicted with the stigma of blindness and might, therefore, have

Negrito," was black.

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Narvwez * Influence of Hispanic Music Cultures on Blues 183

provided such a role model. Mexican sources reveal the singing of nine-
teenth-century corridos by blind minstrels, or ciegos (Paredes 1958, 176).
Similarly, Alan Lomax in the 1930s collected border ballads in
Brownsville, Texas, from Jose Suarez whom he described as "the town
minstrel."

He has been blind since childhood, but his cane guides him everywhere
through the city, to bars, to dances, to family parties, and everywhere his
guitar and his ballads make him welcome. He says that he does not know
how many songs he can sing, since new ones that he has not thought of in
years come into his mind everyday. He knows all the popular songs of the
day, all the old border ballads, and, whenever anything of excitement and
import occurs, he makes a new historia for the information of his people. His
songs concern the bandits of the border country, the troubles of the migrato-
ry cotton pickers, the disasters of the train wrecks, storms and wars and the
pleasures of mescal. (Lomax 1942, ii)

Blind Mexican-American street musicians in the Southwest have also

been noted by Manuel Pefia (1985, 51) and Alice Corbin (1928,
Aurora Lucero-White (1953, 117) comments: "It is not uncommon f
blind or other street singer to appear on a street corner and, eithe
himself, or together with a companion, to ask for the indulgence of
public in an introductory verse and to proceed forthwith with the sin
of a new corrido; or the cantador may appear at the opening of a n
store, meat market or pulqueria; perhaps at some small cafe, in the
skirts of a village."
Given the proximity of such cultural models, it might be argued
language has acted as a barrier between black and Mexican. The
guage of music, however, often strikes a common cultural note. Bl
songster Horace Sprott's statement, "I used to follow guitars all the t
is understandable since players of a given musical instrument often t
of that instrument as a shared expressive vehicle (quoted in Ramsey
49). Thus, the well-known virtuosity of many Mexican guitarist
often aroused the interest of black musicians. Charters (1973, 15) rep
ed, "I was standing in a club with Lightning Hopkins in Houston an
listened to some Mexican music over the juke box, swallowed some
and shook his head. 'Always watch out for them Mexicans with the
string guitar. They can do so much on it they'll kill you with it."' It
have been this ambivalent sense of respect for and fear of expertise
prompted Robert Johnson to hide his performance from Mexican g
tarists at his ARC sessions in San Antonio: "[Don Law] asked him to
guitar for a group of Mexican musicians gathered in a hotel room wh
the recording equipment had been set up. Embarrassed and suff

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184 BMR Journal

from a bad case of s

back to the Mexican
to play, but he neve
more than stage frigh
ities could not have
often recorded "disc
It is probable, howev
contact with the gu
they were mentione
also notes that M
musical" (Arnold 19
With regard to Af
musical styles, the
grew up on the Mex
Mexican "browns," a
tion to countless m
recorded repertoire
dores, a European-A
"Knocky" Parker, r

Down there in the Sou

the same roots. Now,
had guitars and we al
stronger in the South
blacks played nice pr
which ones. (quoted in

If Parker is correc
Mexican material th
of record company
couraged blacks an
music since they ha
Certainly other blu
no qualms about p
Texas blacks playin
Mexico (McCormick
Crystal Springs, Mis
waltzes, including
"learned in Mexico o
musician Tampa Red
But musical style,
sound, transcends re
that of Mexican cant

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Narvaez * Influence of Hispanic Music Cultures on Blues 185

used in a complex fashion as an accompanying rhythmic device but also

as a complementary and independent voice; finger-style guitar picking
was employed; instrumental introductions and instrumental breaks
between sung stanzas were common; breaks often began with high treble
notes, sometimes in harmony, and then descended a scale into final, full
chord strums, struck several times and often punctuated with rapid
attacks on the bass strings.
More immediate musical links with Mexican players can be heard in
the music of Blind Lemon Jefferson's partner, Huddie Ledbetter
(1888-1949), a.k.a. "Leadbelly," who migrated to Dallas from Louisiana,
met Jefferson in 1912 and played regularly with him for five years. A tal-
ented singer and multi-instrumentalist (guitar, mandolin, accordion, and
harmonica), at some point Leadbelly encountered Mexican-made bajo sex-
tos and twelve-string guitars, instruments originally from central Mexico
which at the time were emerging, along with the accordion, as core
instruments of border conjuntos (Pefia 1985, 38-39, 54). When he first
played these instruments, "his fingers got to 'mashing too hard"' (Wolfe
and Lornell 1992, 51), but he soon mastered a technique that, as Texas
blues historian Alan Govenar (1988, 19) has noted, was "learned from the
bass figures of barrelhouse pianists and from the Mexicans who sold him
a twelve-string guitar." A comparison of Leadbelly's twelve-string bass
runs with those of accomplished Mexican-American singer-guitarist
Lydia Mendoza reveals startling similarities in rhythms and marcato
attack; for example, consider her "El lirio" ("The Lily"; 1934) and
Leadbelly's rendition of "Sweet Jenny Lee" (1948). Given the popularity
of waltz rhythm among cantadores, it is noteworthy that one of the first
songs Leadbelly adapted to the twelve-string guitar was "Irene," a waltz
he learned from his uncle Bob Ledbetter (Wolfe and Lornell 1992, 52-53).
The one-man-band idea of playing the guitar in conjunction with other
musical instruments, in the manner performed by African-American
singer-guitarist "Ragtime Texas" Henry Thomas (1874-?) with "quills,"
or panpipes, represents yet another form of street performance that might
be traced to Mexican antecedents. In 1917, one of Eleanor Hague's
Mexican informants, Maximilian Salinas, reminded her of "the men one
sometimes sees in city streets, playing three or four different instruments,
with their hands, head, and feet; for he played a melody and its second
on a mouth-organ, which was fastened to the upper side of a guitar on
which he played a really sonorous accompaniment" (Hague 1917, 19).

New Orleans

Hispanic influences on African-American blues musicians in

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 186 BMR Journal

Orleans are intricat

that features a com
Interestingly, this
only reached the atte
so through the pers
as "Professor Longh
Mike Leadbitter (198
mercial recording,"
the city." The recol
several obscure re
European blues ent
April 9, guided by a
tered Professor Lo
Leadbitter later recalled:

He was down and out, and very sad, as neglect, frustration and poor health
had taken their toll. The man we met was no longer the big recording artist,
but an old man, forgotten by friends, the public, and the music industry....
The arrival of three Englishmen on his door-step quite shattered him and it
was great to see a smile return to his face as we talked about those old
records he made. (Leadbitter 1989)

This meeting and the ensuing international publicity among blue

enthusiasts along with a triumphant appearance at the 1971 New Orleans
Jazz and Heritage Festival sparked a resurgence of Professor Longhair's
career and a popularity that continued to escalate until his death in 1980
A musician's musician, Longhair was the local mentor of many postwar
blues, rhythm and blues, and rock and roll artists, including Huey Smith
Dave Bartholomew, Fats Domino, Alan Toussaint, James Booker, and Ma
Rebennack. His moniker came from a club owner in 1948, but Longhair
was not a piano "professor" in the usual New Orleans sense of having a
sophisticated, musically literate mastery of a variety of piano styles, suc
as was exhibited by Jelly Roll Morton or Clarence Williams, persons who
were associated with the famed jazz bands of the area. Longhair wa
more representative of the loud, hard driving, pounding bass, traditiona
blues playing of the barrelhouse circuit in work camps and of the broth
els of New Orleans's Storyville, where lone pianists who had learne
their craft through aural tradition provided all the musical entertainmen
It has been reported that his song "Mardi Gras in New Orleans," first
recorded in 1949, still sells about fifteen thousand copies a year; it has
been appropriately called an "anthem" of the Crescent City (Dawson and
Propes 1992, 58-61).
But it was Professor Longhair's use of Hispanic and Afro-Cuban

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Narvaez * Influence of Hispanic Music Cultures on Blues 187

sounds that makes his piano blues a stylistic standout. One does not have
to be an ethnomusicologist to sense the Latin rhythms of his music. Byrd
himself described his style as incorporating "rhumba, mambo, and
Calypso" (Leadbitter 1989). Calling his style "one of the miracles of
American music," Tad Jones (1976, 17) has interpreted his piano playing
as a superimposition "of very fast triplets on a syncopated I rhumba
beat." When asked where he obtained this Latin influence, Longhair
often attributed it to his stint with the Civilian Conservation Corps in
1937, a time when he "played with a lot of West Indians, Puerto Ricans,
Jamaicans, Spanish boys, Hungarians" (Palmer 1991, 169). He also main-
tained that he heard Latin rhythms on Mexican radio stations while
working with the Corps in Brownsville, Texas (quoted in Roberts 1993).
Robert Palmer has maintained that Longhair's bass runs are direct adop-
tions from the Cuban son, and a statement by Al Angeloro seems to veri-
fy this:

There's a classical piece of Cuban music called "Son de la Loma" which

every band does. It's a particular jam piece written by Miguel Matamoros
and Professor Longhair did it. There's no question that it's "Son de la
Loma." He changed it and made it more of a New Orleans piece. In fact, I
don't even know if he knew that it was "Son de la Loma," because New
Orleans is America's Caribbean city. And the music that has always been
flooding into that city has become part of the culture. (Quoted in Boggs 1992,
256)2

Whatever direct influences Longhair may have had, my inclination is

to agree with John Storm Roberts's assessment that "given that the Latin
component in earlier New Orleans music seems to have been a good deal
stronger than has been generally recognized, Byrd's style probably rep-
resented a refocusing of more widespread elements" (Roberts 1985, 136).
While obviously some musicians are more influential than others, the
"great man" approach to African-American local blues is not effective, for
it does not sufficiently take into account community aesthetics. The best
folklore studies dealing with blues that have been based on fieldwork,
such as those of David Evans (1985) in Mississippi and Barry Lee Pearson
(1990) in the Virginia Piedmont, have revealed that regional blues styles
have traditionally developed among networks of musicians. Elements of
music culture have united these groups of musicians with their audi-
ences. It was commonality rather than idiosyncrasy that made Longhair's
music regionally appealing. As Arnold Shaw (1978, 496) has conjectured,
"had [Professor Longhair] grown up in Memphis,... he would not have
2. Another well-known Caribbean song played by Professor Longhair is "Rum and Coca
Cola." On the fascinating history of this piece, see Cowley (1993).

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 188 BMR Journal

developed the Latin-i

New Orleans was a m
The Latin inflection
the remarkable rhyth
tures that evolved in
in New Orleans since
with Cubans and thr
other Latin American
ditional Cuban poly
sometimes 2+3 patter
terns, the habanera w
impact on New Orle
immigrants or throu
cuses active in Cuba
bandsmen during th
music attests to a Me
gained great populari
were played in New O
performed at the Wo
1884. The enthusiasm
lication of sheet mus
35-36). Recent resear
indicating that a su
Orquesta Tipica Mex
and the Mexican National Band (1920)-continued to infuse New
Orleans with various kinds of Hispanic music.
Biographical accounts provide more detailed accounts of
Mexican/African-American interchange during the pre-blues and early
blues period. According to Stewart (1991, 5), jazz tuba player Chink
Martin recalled that there were

large numbers of Mexicans in the Northeastern section of the French Quarter

at the turn of the century. Apparently they were musical groups that had
members who were Mexicans, Spaniards, and Puerto Ricans, mixed with
local musicians of all descriptions. Martin also recalls playing guitar-his
first instrument-with many such groups, and his vivid recollection extend-
ed to singing two of the songs which were played by these bands.

3. Pianist Charlie Otwell explains that each of these two basic claves are played with
Latin or African variations. When played Latin style, 3+2, which is called forward clave, it
"has a note on 1, a note on 2 /2, a note on 4, and then, in the next bar, a note on 2 and a note
on 3." For the African variation of forward clave, "it's 1, 2 1/, 4 V2, and then 2 and 3" (quot-
ed in Doerschuk 1992, 315). Beatrice Rodriguez Owsley is currently investigating the
Hispanic influences on New Orleans rhythms (see Owsley 1992).

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Narv iez * Influence of Hispanic Music Cultures on Blues 189

Similarly, Charles E. Kinzer's fascinating account of the musically influ-

ential, Creole-of-color Tio family provides more evidence for New
Orleans-Mexican ties, for this Spanish-African-American family migrat-
ed to Mexico from New Orleans and resided in and around Tampico from
1859 to 1877. Lorenzo Tio, who was born in Mexico (1867-1908) and spent
his youth there, "rose to prominence in New Orleans' Creole-of-color
music circles in the late 1880s" as a composer for marching bands.
Lorenzo's son, Lorenzo Tio Jr. (1893-1933), carried on the musical tradi-
tions of the family and as an early jazz clarinetist "developed the ability
to improvise fluently" (Kinzer 1991, 24). Of particular interest here is that
one of the jazz bands in which Tio played was that of Jelly Roll Morton,
the multitalented New Orleans composer-musician and self-proclaimed
"inventor of jazz," whose work often reflected what he called the
"Spanish tinge." Morton, who like Martin first took "lessons on the gui-
tar with a Spanish gentleman in the neighborhood," was familiar enough
with the blues idiom at the beginning of the century to compose a region-
al piece that syncretized a blues progression with a Latin beat (Lomax
1993, 78, 5).

Then we had Spanish people there. I heard a lot of Spanish tunes and I tried
to play them in correct tempo .... Now in one of my earliest tunes, New
Orleans Blues, you can notice the Spanish tinge. In fact, if you can't manage
to put tinges of Spanish in your tunes, you will never be able to get the right
seasoning, I call it, for jazz. This New Orleans Blues comes from around 1902.
I wrote it with the help of Frank Richards, a great piano player in the rag-
time style. All the bands in the city played it at that time. (Morton, quoted in
Lomax 1993, 78)

While Morton's fame generally rests on his jazz and ragtime composi-
tions, he went on to compose and record many other blues, including
"Jungle Blues," "Winin' Boy Blues," "Buddy Bolden's Blues," "Mamie's
Blues," "Michigan Water Blues," "Cannon Ball Blues," "Futuristic Blues,"
and "Tom Cat Blues." Although he was certainly one of the most sophis-
ticated New Orleans piano "professors," Morton's familiarity and mas-
tery of the more downhome blues idiom reflected his close association
with New Orleans blues musicians of the barrelhouse circuit.
By 1914, the New Orleans fusions of Hispanic beats and blues received
further support through a national craze for vaudeville blues spawned by
the success of W. C. Handy's publication of "Memphis Blues" in 1912 and
"St. Louis Blues" in 1914. It is interesting to note that these highly
arranged pieces based on downhome blues included sections with
habanera, "tango" beats. Handy had firsthand experience with the
habanera, for he had encountered it while touring in Cuba with Mahara's

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 190 BMR Journal

Minstrels in the early

habanera-derived Arg
al recognition at the
Handy's decision to
based on current danc
Cuban music. Rather,
public reactions to his
at Dixie Park, an amu

During these nights at

a racial trait, and I imm
response of the dancers
ber and came to the Ha
observed that there w
rhythm. Was it an accid
den cause? I wondered. White dancers, as I had observed them, took the
number in stride .... Well, there was a way to test it. If my suspicions were
grounded, the same reaction should be manifest during the playing of La
Paloma. We used that piece and sure enough, there it was, that same calm yet
ecstatic movement. I felt convinced. Later, because of this conviction, I intro-
duced the rhythm into my own compositions. It may be noted in the intro-
duction to the St. Louis Blues, the instrumental piano copy of Memphis Blues,
the chorus of Beale Street Blues and other compositions. (Handy 1941,
101-102)

The more rugged blues compositions of pioneer Chicago boogie pianist

Jimmy "Papa" Yancey (1898-1951), described by Palmer (1991, 169), as
exhibiting "the 'Spanish' basses almost exclusively," may have incorpo-
rated the influences of vaudeville tangos as well as the New Orleans
piano tradition. Roberts has speculated that Yancey's "strong Latin tinge"
was an archaism based on his extensive vaudeville experience which
only ended in 1925 when Yancey took on a full-time job as a Chicago
White Sox groundskeeper at Comiskey Park. Roberts further observes,
"This means that [Yancey] was playing professionally during the period
when the habanera was at its peak in black music-the period of
'Memphis blues"' (Roberts 1985, 94). In addition, however, Peter J.
Silvester has convincingly argued that Yancey probably had a New
Orleans influence in the person of Jelly Roll Morton. Having lived in
Chicago from 1914 to 1917, and again in 1923, Morton became "one of the
most visible models for all up-and-coming pianists in the city." While
Yancey's pieces do not have the "broken and staccato rhythms" of
Morton's Spanish-tinged compositions, Silvester (1989, 14-15) conjec-
tures that Yancey "may have heard Morton playing and been influenced

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Narvaez * Influence of Hispanic Music Cultures on Blues 191

by the experience to the extent that he experimented with similar

rhythms in his own playing."
Whatever Hispanic influences there might have been in Yancey's
Chicago, he has been considered something of an anomaly in the devel-
opment of boogie woogie; perhaps this is because his kind of "red" blues
flourished best in the Crescent City. Clearly, the unique history, particu-
lar ethnic mix, and geographic position of New Orleans predisposed it to
continuous infusions of Latin and African cultural ideas. New Orleans
was a gateway to the Caribbean and Latin America where barrelho
and honky tonk blues pianists coexisted with their jazz and ragti
counterparts; its cosmopolitan milieu nurtured cultural distinctivene
that emerged in musical styles-one of these was a form of blues with
rhythmic underlay of clave. And this musical tradition is a time-hono
one. As Bruce Boyd Raeburn (1993a) has observed, "Many New Orlean
pianists, such as Manuel Manetta, will play a blues with a kind of rhum
baesque time signature-Manetta does so in demonstrating a 'blue
played by Louis Armstrong with the Ory-Oliver band circa 1917."
Another pianist with blues-rhumba inflections, and one of Profess
Longhair's teachers, was Isidore "Tuts" Washington (1907-1984). As
told his story to Jeff Hannusch, Tuts learned his craft by spending
time as a youth with a sizable group of barrelhouse pianists, includin
"'Black' Merineaux, Fats Pichon, Little Brother Montgomery, Bur
Santiago, Kid Stormy Weather, [and] Hezakiah" (quoted in Hannu
1985, 8). Washington's great inspiration, however, was Joseph Lo
"Red" Cayou whose mentor, Jelly Roll Morton, apparently regularly v
ited his home. Although he recorded extensively with Smiley Lewis i
the 1940s and 1950s, Washington's only solo recording effort was for
Rounder Records in 1983 at the age of seventy-six. The eclectic selectio
on that disc reveal that he was truly a New Orleans piano "professor"
and working pianist. He was proud of his musical versatility and f
sorry for the barrelhouse pianists who could only play blues; they had
difficult time making a living in music. Thus, mainstays such as "Mist
"Stardust," and "Blue Moon" anchored his offerings; but the CD also co
tains a number of blues, and several exhibit the Spanish tinge. It is int
esting in this regard that his pride in his rhythm for such pieces led h
to criticize the internationally acclaimed Fats Domino: "Fats can't play
nothin' but that 9 time [i = 2 triplets = 9 in Tuts's interpretation]. He
lucky and came along with that 'Blueberry Hill' in these teenaged tim
He needed that band behind him to sound good" (12). Tuts's origi
"Tee Nah Nah," which Smiley Lewis recorded to great regional succes
is highly reminiscent of Professor Longhair's classic "Tipitina."
The Crescent City blues sound and its derivatives are so much a part

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 192 BMR Journal

the international blue

not appear beyond re
played by Louisiana
Rhumbo"), Lazy Les
("Blues Cha-Cha") as a
for blues pianists and
blues rhumbas. Thus
(a.k.a. Boogie Woogie
formed their own r
Mississippi's great A
Get Evil" and "Cross
simultaneous develop
fusions in this centu
Charles ("What'd I Sa
might appear to mud
is so remarkable abou
place. From the title o
the original recording
Longhair's "Mardi G
Bartholomew's "Carn
it is clear that New Orleans blues musicians have often been inclined to
use the Spanish tinge when musically identifying their home city.

Conclusion

While this discussion has emphasized the influences of Hispanic m

cultures on African-American blues musicians in Texas and New Orlea
the other side of this coin remains unexplored. To what extent did
music cultures of African-American blues musicians affect their Hisp
counterparts? Strachwitz (1970) has reported that pioneer mariachi ac
dionist Narciso Martinez recorded blues for Victor and Bluebird in the
1930s, and Max Salazar has indicated that "you always had blues in Cuba
and you had Cuban singers singing in rumba bands with blues licks
(quoted in Boggs 1992, 258). Thus, a total picture of the musical syn
cretisms of African-American blues musicians and Hispanic musicians
remains far off, but there are sufficient signs of such developments in the
vital vernacular musical traditions of Texas and Mexico and New Orleans
and Cuba to remind us of the need to research the localities of these
regions without ethnocentric, "mainstream" preconceptions.

A shorter version of this article was presented at the 1993 National Conference on Blac
Music Research, New Orleans, Louisiana, September 30-October 3, 1993. I am grateful

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Narvaez * Influence of Hispanic Music Cultures on Blues 193

Samuel A. Floyd Jr., Director of the Center for Black Music Research, Columbia College, for
encouraging this expansion of a previous study (Narvaez 1978). In addition, I would like to
express my appreciation to David Evans (Memphis State University) and Bruce Boyd
Raeburn (Curator, Hogan Jazz Archive, Tulane University) for providing me with valuable
data.

DISCOGRAPHY

Alexander, Texas. 1927. Section gang blues. Okeh 8498.

Bartholomew, Dave. 1950. Carnival day. Imperial 5064.
Blanchard, Edgar. 1988. Blues cha-cha. Troubles, troubles: New Orleans blues from the vau
Ric & Ron. Recorded 1959. Rounder 2080. Compact disc.
Boogie Woogie Red [Vernon Harrison]. 1991. Red's rhumba. Blue ivory. Blind Pig BP7
Compact disc. (Original release on Red hot, Blind Pig BP-003.)
Broonzy, Big Bill. 1941. Key to the highway. Okeh 06242.
Gillum, Jazz. 1940. Key to the highway. Bluebird B8529.
Glenn, Lloyd. 1990. Conga rhumba. Old time shuffle. Black & Blue 59.077 2. Compact d
Guitar Gable [Gabriel Perrodin]. 1956. Guitar rhumbo. Excello 2094.
The Hawketts. 1987. Mardi Gras mambo. Chess 1591, 1955. Reissued on Mardi Gras in
Orleans. Mardi Gras Records MG1001. Compact disc.
Jefferson, Blind Lemon. 1926. Dry southern blues. Paramount 12347.
King, Albert. 1961. I get evil. Bobbin 135.
. 1966. Crosscut saw. Stax 201.

Lazy Lester [Leslie Johnson]. 1987. Blowin' a rhumba. Lazy Lester rides again. King Snak
007.

Leadbelly [Huddie Ledbetter]. 1953. Sweet Jenny Lee. Leadbelly's last sessions. Folkways
2942 D.

Memphis Slim [Peter Chatman]. 1940. Empty room blues. Bluebird B8615.
Mendoza, Lydia. 1992. El lirio. Bluebird BVE-87821-1, 1935. Reissued on Lydia Mendoza: Ma
hombre. Arhoolie 7002. Compact disc.
Professor Longhair [Henry Roland Byrd]. 1985. Rum and coke. Rock 'n' roll gumbo. Dancin
Cat DC 3006, 1974. Reissued, Dancing Cat Records DC-3006.
-~. 1987a. Big chief, parts 1 and 2. Watch 45-1900, 1964. Reissued on Mardi Gras in Ne
Orleans. Mardi Gras Records MG1001. Compact disc.
-- . 1987b. Mardi Gras in New Orleans. Star Talent 808, 1949. Reissued on Mardi Gras i
New Orleans. Mardi Gras Records MG1001. Compact disc.
-~ . 1990. Tipitina. Atlantic 1020, 1953. Reissued on Mardi Gras in New Orleans: Professor
Longhair. Nighthawk Records NHCD-108. Compact disc.
Segar, Charlie. 1940. Key to the highway. Vocalion 05441.
Simms, Frankie Lee. 1954. Rhumba my boogie. Specialty 487.
Smith, Six Cylinder. 1930. Oh oh lonesome blues. Paramount 12968.
Washington, Tuts. 1986. New Orleans piano professor. Rounder 11501. Compact disc.

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