Captivated Performance

Abstract

Anyone who has had the good fortune to see and hear B.B. King knows that blues is a performance art, distinct not only in form but also in the dynamic interaction between singer, song, and audience. King’s work uses, revises, and updates the language and conventions of pre-World War II blues, which were performed live in various informal settings. The art of blues is what we like to call an “oral tradition,” created by and for a particular people to speak a unique experience. Of the Old English lament, it remains a mystery as to whether the poetry was actually performed, yet many readers interpret the recurrence of formulas in the poetry as evidence of a prior existence within an oral tradition. This oral trace—this vocality—this intense need to communicate is central to both the Old English lament and the African American blues song. In each exists the seeming contradiction of private anguish and public expression: both poetries employ the private and personal meditative techniques of the lyric but with the purpose of establishing communal experience with a public audience.