Clyde Foster Quotes

The blues emerge immediately after the overthrow of Reconstruction. During this period, unmediated African American voices were routinely silenced through the imposition of a new regime of censorship based on exile, assassination and massacre. The blues became an alternative form of communication, analysis, moral intervention, observation, celebration for a new generation that had witnessed slavery, freedom, and unfreedom in rapid succession between 1860 and 1875. Perhaps no other generation of a single ethnic group in the United States, except for Native Americans, witnessed such a tremendous tragedy in such a short period of time. Performer Cash McCall described the blues as the almost magical uncorking of the censored histories of countless people, places and events: Well, in the old days, you see, you weren’t allowed to express your feelings all that much. A lot of stuff was bottled up inside. Coming up from the old days until now … You can’t explain it in a conversation so the best way to do it is to sing.33 On the other hand, guitarist Willie Foster described them as the irrepressible voice of daily anguish: The black folks got the blues from working … You work all day long, you come home sometimes you didn’t have