{"id":390,"date":"2015-03-02T22:10:59","date_gmt":"2015-03-03T04:10:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/americanmusic\/?p=390"},"modified":"2015-03-09T00:14:48","modified_gmt":"2015-03-09T05:14:48","slug":"double-appropriation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/americanmusic\/2015\/03\/02\/double-appropriation\/","title":{"rendered":"Double Appropriation"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cChinaman, Chinaman
\nwash \u2018em laundry all day
\nChinaman, Chinaman
\nsmoke \u2018em pipe they say OR Wants his freedom that way
\nHe\u2019s got a little China gal
\nShe love him all right,
\nHe love little China gal, too,
\nSo he sings to her ev\u2019ry night
\nSung Fong Lou, Sung Fong Lou
\nListen to those chinese blues;
\nHoney gal, I\u2019m crying to you
\nWon\u2019t you open that door and let me in?
\nChina man cries, baby, won\u2019t you let me in
\nChinaman feels his habit (OR lovin\u2019) coming on again.
\nShe cries to him \u201cwhat\u2019s the matter with you
\nI got those Ipshing, Hong Kong Ockaway Chinese Blues”<\/p>\n

 <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Recording of Irving Kaufman\u00a0singing the Chinese Blues<\/a><\/p>\n

Recording of Sousa’s Band playing the Chinese Blues<\/a><\/p>\n

Written by Oscar Gardner, this song was not only published in a Treasury of the Blues <\/em>by the \u201cfather of the blues,\u201d W.C. Handy and recorded by George Gershwin, but also was, according to the critical notes by Abbe Niles, \u201cthe first and best by a white man, and had wide popularity in 1915.\u201d [1]<\/a> Niles\u2019 notes also clarify that \u201cChinese Blues\u201d falls under the category \u201cblues-songs,\u201d which do not follow the classical 12-bar blues form, but include songs that have any relation to the blues. \u201cChinese Blues\u201d only fits the blues category in that it tells the story and emotion of the unrequited lover and there are a couple blue, or flatted notes, to the melody. We know that the early 20th century saw a\u00a0trend of appropriating the blues to label any song that had ragtime rhythms, blue notes, and the longing emotion, even though the blues specifically came out of African American oppression.[2]<\/a> In other words, Oscar Gardner, a white composer, tapped into the commercial blues genre in anyway he\u00a0could\u00a0to make money, and W.C. Handy benefitted by publishing\u00a0it in his anthology of the blues.<\/p>\n

As if this level of mis-labeling isn\u2019t enough, the song also reflects racist stereotypes about the Chinese and their music. While the published music looks like an average ragtime or jazz arrangement, both period performances of it from the Library of Congress (Sousa\u2019s band and Irving Kaufman) recordings emphasize an \u201coriental sound,\u201d namely flutes slurring up to their notes and percussion including a gong and woodblocks. The lyrics \u201cSung, Fong, Lou,\u201d though they don\u2019t actually have a real translation in Chinese, also try to evoke the Orient. Additionally, in the lyrics depending on which version you look at, the Chinese are either washing laundry all day in order to get their freedom or suffering from an opium\/other drug addiction. So, in sum \u201cChinese Blues\u201d presents an example of a white composer using a genre traditional to African American oppression to subjugate the Chinese.<\/p>\n

[1]<\/a> Oscar Gardner, \u201cChinese Blues,\u201d A Treasury of the Blues, <\/em>ed. W.C. Handy, (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1926), 184.<\/p>\n

[2]<\/a> Elijah Wald, Escaping the Delta: Robert Johnson and the Invention of the Blues<\/em> (New York: Harper Collins, 2004), Ch. 1, \u201cWhat is Blues?\u201d 1-13.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cChinaman, Chinaman wash \u2018em laundry all day Chinaman, Chinaman smoke \u2018em pipe they say OR Wants his freedom that way He\u2019s got a little China gal She love him all right, He love little China gal, too, So he sings … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1292,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[98,33,32,40],"class_list":["post-390","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-chinese-blues","tag-blues","tag-library-of-congress","tag-w-c-handy"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7jEhR-6i","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/americanmusic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/390","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/americanmusic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/americanmusic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/americanmusic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1292"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/americanmusic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=390"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/americanmusic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/390\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":446,"href":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/americanmusic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/390\/revisions\/446"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/americanmusic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=390"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/americanmusic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=390"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/americanmusic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=390"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}