It aint hard

The difficulties involving a blues ethnomusicography can probably be counted on one hand.

I had no trouble in conducting research or field work on the blues music of The Goat. To give you an example, on my 3rd trip to The Goat ever, I walked in looking to interview a knowledgeable person well versed in the culture. As soon as I ordered my first beer, one of the blues performers, Perry Jones, came up to me.

Wow, that was easy.

From there my interview process just boomed. Maybe this is due to the nature of the music community of the Goat; every knows each other. As soon as it got out that I was researching Dallas blues at this specific bar, I don't think I had enough paper or wit about me to record everything that got thrown at me. Honestly, I felt a bit like Cameron Crowe's character in 'Almost Famous'. Besides being highly useful, it was a blast. Really, one of the most difficult parts of the interview portion of my research was when to call it a night!

Quite literally, after I finished a line of questioning, some other random person would amble up, find out the topic of my discussion, and start answering my questions. While I took the willingness to inform with the grain of salt, I suddenly realized that the random people helping me out were the blues performers I was studying in the first place. On two occasions, my conversation with my interviewees were cut short because they had been called to the stage to perform!

I couldn't have asked for a music culture more conducive to questioning, but some of the other small problems I encountered were the sheer number of perspectives and ideas about this music culture, actually hearing these accounts over live music, and feeling like a weirdo with a pen and paper sitting at a bar on a weekday night. Another little obstacle was explaining to the wife that I was actually doing a schoolwork at a bar until 1 O'clock in the morning. You can imagine the 'yeah, right' facial expressions I was subjected to.

The biggest challenge I now face is how to synthesize my research of the culture, interviews and field work into something resembling a musical ethnography. I'll be giving it my best to represent the good people down at the Goat. I owe them that at the very least for their hospitality.