CW Stoneking @ The Prince

Went to see CW Stoneking at the Prince of Wales Friday night. He plays blues and calypso on a resonator guitar and banjo, backed by his Primitive Horn Orchestra. His songs could be straight out of the 1920s and his voice sounds like a 70 year old black man from Mississippi. http://www.myspace.com/cwstoneking

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hmuOifiX0F8


There’s been a bit of debate about how appropriate it is for a middle class white guy to be making a career out of mimicking the music born from of the poverty of African Americans.

Critic Emma Hennings writes:

"It’s Stoneking’s voice that disturbs me more and more as this evening’s (very long) set wears on. More than his note-perfect guitar playing, or the commendable enthusiasm of his three-person horn section, it’s his eerie Xerox of a black man’s voice that leaves me doubting the veracity and the much-lauded ‘authenticity’ of his blues revivalism. Taking on a voice the very timbre of which denotes isolated, rural, African-American poverty – everything that Stoneking is so patently not – does not make for ‘authenticity’ any more than would painting your face with boot polish. His shtick is within half a centimetre of a Black & White Minstrel Show."

Read the full article here
http://www.messandnoise.com/events/9848

The Courier Mail also tackled the subject.

http://www.couriermail.com.au/entertainment/music/stoneking-plays-with-the-blues/story-e6freqgx-1111118015742



Stoneking has absorbed a range of different influences and melded them into his own style. I guess the musicians that he's influenced by are all dead. There is a bit of separation there and the show has a more of a feeling of reverence than the mimicry of the black and white mistrel show.

Comments

loz said…
love C.W. Stoneking! he is fantastic!