Mystery Train.

 I've been re-reading my copy of Greil Marcus' "Mystery Train". I first read it in the late 80s, when I was interested in the Old Weird Americana, and Marcus fairly ladles on the mythos. What's amazing about the book, reading it again, is how irrelevant it is. Elvis is over, baby. He's no longer culturally significant. He's like a historical glyph, a fat meme in tight pyjamas. Sam Phillips' search for a "white man who sounded black", seems horrifically short-sighted in a country full of black men (and women) who sounded black. This is, in a sense, Marcus' thesis: the volcanic power of rock and roll was built along racial fault-lines. It exploited black culture for its sex and fire and mystery, for its dread and joy. It made a virtue of its own racism, and earned millions of dollars for white people in the process. Doesn't sound like a very cool start to a viable pop culture. 

Then there's the book's section on Randy Newman. The idea of Randy Newman writing a song like "Sail Away" or "Rednecks" is impossible now, for a couple of reasons. Firstly, in an era where art is  increasingly about lived experiences, and people's right to their own stories, and where concepts like irony, nuance, and a-place-in-time are alien and outmoded concepts, an affluent, educated white guy writing songs from the perspective of a poor, ignorant white guy, looks snide and condescending. The fact that he would pepper these songs with the "n" word or, on "Sail Away", the "w" word, is unthinkable. Instantly cancelled. No special pleading - just gone. Smoke. Even Randy's made up singing voice is problematic. The other reason it's impossible for Randy Newman to write a song like "Rednecks" now, is Randy Newman is a rich and beloved writer of songs for children's films. Grail could never have imagined this fate for him. 

The book does do what all good music books should do, and that's get you to go and listen to the music. I'm listening to Harmonica Frank while I'm writing this, and pretty good it is, especially when he starts doing impressions of cats. I listened to The Band's "Music from Big Pink" and discovered something pretty astonishing - I don't really like The Band. I like a couple of the famous ones - The Weight, whatever - but generally, nah, can't be bothered. And I thought I liked them. I like "Somewhere Down the Crazy River" by Robbie Robertson, though. So that shows you where I'm at. I'm no longer "cool". I just like what I like. 

Mystery Train really sells the mythos of Rock and Roll: the wayfaring stranger, meeting the devil at the crossroads, the crucible of the American South. Raucous Juke Joints and the unquiet dread that follows every man, poisons every man, condemning him to a restless  Van der Decken existence of unceasing wandering, till he ends up dead in the back of a Cadillac in a snow storm, poisoned by a jealous husband. It's odd then, to realise Robert Johnson was a year older than my Grandmother and died the year before my Dad was born. This wasn't a million years ago - this was within the living memory of people I knew. I expect I must have known this on some unconscious level - but I got caught up in the post-bellum romance of  the American South. Robert Johnson could have been my Granddad! Or rather he could have had a Grandson who is now fifty, and grew up with Mad magazine and Marvel comics, who listened to the Pixies and Eric B and Rakim, and who is tapping away at a laptop in his office, having a conversation about a bass pre-amp pedal on Facebook, and drinking a store-bought skinny latte. The legacy of the blues. The old weird Americana.