It seems there were 25 or 30 records by blues artists on or related to the 1927 flood. The songs present a variety of commentary on the flood. The ones by the few artists that were from the area, who might have actually experienced the flood, like Charlie Patton or Alice Pearson, tend to be the most realistic in their descriptions, the most accurate in their details. Some of the others are inaccurate, based on hearsay, some sentimentalize the flood, some even trivialize it, or find some way to connect it to the man woman theme, or sexual double entendre, getting back to more standard blues themes.
There had been generic flood songs in the 1920s... On the religious side, in gospel music, there were some recordings that saw greater significance in this flood... A black preacher in Memphis, the Reverend Sutton E. Griggs, saw the flood as a metaphor of black white cooperation, the people trying to shore up the levees, something that led to better race relations, although the historical fact about it was that there were some major race related problems related to the relief effort.
Blues is a music that's highly personalized, that deals with fairly intimate personal relationships, so you have to read through the songs to see broader social issues. But the personal relationships described in the blues are affected by social conditions of poverty, racism, the nature of work, rural life, and so on, and these shape how people relate to each other. You have to do a little bit of projection from those lyrics, blues are not usually songs of ideology or protest. But you can detect an overriding aura of dissatisfaction in the blues. They deal with the changes and fluctuations of life, and the possibilities of change, too, on a very personal level.
Anita O'Day - Green Eyes
- Written by: Nilo Menéndez, Eddie Woods, Eddie Rivera, Adolfo Utrera
- Released in: 1965
- Duration: 2:36
"Anita O'Day career spanned the late swing and bebop eras, inspiring many singers who followed her. She began her performing career as a ballroom dance contest winner in the 1930s, which is when she adopted the stage name O’Day."
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