ARTS

Page 7

The Michigan Daily

Thursday, October 16, 1986



Blues

By Joseph Kraus
Primitive is a word that's been
used, but it's not so primitive as it
is powerful.
John Hammond on John
Lee Hooker's style of blues
Unlike most of the rest of the
country, Ann Arbor is no stranger
to good blues. Even so, Thursday's
blues festival at the Power Center
promises to be the sort of event
they talk about years later.
Featuring the legendary John Lee
Hooker, John Hammond, Elvin
Bishop, and Pinetop Perkins, it's a
travelling show of. some of the
finest blues of the last forty years.
Anyway you slice it, Hooker
comes up a legend. A contemporary
of Muddy Waters, he was amongst
the prime developers of what came
to be known as the "Chicago bar
blues." That raw electric sound
percolated throughout the musical
underworld until it burst forth to
popular acclaim with the wave of
British blues-rockers that included
the Animals, the Rolling Stones,
and the Yardbirds.

lege
But Hooker had the sound first,
and he's an indisputable link in the
chain that runs from Blind Lemon
Jefferson to Eric Clapton.
Born in Mississippi in 1917, he
moved to Detroit during World War
II. Confronted with noisier clubs,
he began to play the electric guitar
to make himself heard. Through an
amplifier the old Delta blues took
on a different sort of power and
Hooker became an early master
noted for his powerful, crude-
looking chord work.

ends

Since then he's been at the top
of the blues world, riding its crests
of popularity into the national
spotlight and disappearing behind
the waves of his flashier des -
cendants during the all too frequent
lulls in blues popularity.
Hammond, even though he's a
quarter century younger than
Hooker, comes across as the more
traditional of the two. Although
he's dabbled in electric blues
(including some notable early
experiments in folk-rock), he's best
known for his solo acoustic work.
He first came crashing onto the
national scene at the 1963 Newport

h

Folk Festival (where Hooker also
made an appearance), but
throughout his early life he was
exposed to the blues in ways few
other New York children could have
been. His father, a Columbia
Records executive, is credited with
signing Benny Goodman, Billie
Holiday, Bob Dylan, Bruce
Springsteer, and Stevie Ray
Vaughn.
He made his first stop in Ann
Arbor in 1963, and he says he's
been back here every year since.
Every trip is an event, though: last
year he was one of the Ark's big
summer shows, the year before he
opened the remodeled Blind Pig.
Bishop, another guitarist, got
his start with the Paul Butterfield
Blues Band in the early '60s.
Known for a zany oerforming style,
he's had a few solo hits including
"Fooled Around and Fell in Love"
that climbed as high as number
three on the charts.
Perkins is perhaps the purest
descendant of Hooker. A
keyboardist with the late Muddy
Waters, he's known as one of the
foremost living stylists of the bar
blues.

itA 2
According to Hammond, each of
tonight's headliners comes on
separately, backed by an electric
band. Hammond himself is the sole
exception: it's just him, an acoustic
guitar, and a harmonica. At other
shows, Hammond said,gall four
have come out on stage at the end
of Hooker's set. The possibilities
of that jam session are mind-
boggling.
If you aren't familiar with the
blues, you won't find a better
introduction than tonight. If you're
already a fan, this show is as good a
refresher class as you'll find
anywhere. Blues crops up in a lot
of forms, but there's nothing quite
like the power and simplicity of the
real thing.
When asked why he always goes
back to playing the blues, John
Hammond says, "Well it's just the
best there is...to me it's the most
dramatic, intensely personal, sexy,
profound...words just' aren't
adequate to describe a truly classic
American sound."
Tickets are $13.50 and available
at the Union and other Ticket World
Outlets. Showtime is 7:30 tonight.
at the Power Center.

John Hammond, John Lee Hooker, Elvin Bishop, and Pinetop Perkins
will be appearing at the Blues Festival tonight. Pictured above is John
Hammond.


'Parade' showcases
women and war

By P.C. Russell Ginns
This weekend, the undergraduate
acting students of the Department
of Theater and Drama, who are
otherwise known as the University
Players, will present Waiting
For The Parade, a drama by
John Murrell about women who
struggle at home during World War
II.
The play follows the lives of
five Canadian women as they battle
loneliness and concern for their men
who are away at war, and eventually
learn to manage by themselves in
the process. After five years of
separation (Canada entered the war
one year earlier than the United
States) the women are then faced
with the difficulty of trying to
return to their old lifestyles in a
world that has permanently
changed.
"The play re-examines the
ancient theme of women waiting at
home while their men are away at
war," says director Patricia Boyette.
"It speaks to the changes caused by
* World War II on the lives of that
generation: There was a great
propaganda effort during the war to
get women out of the homes and
into the factories in order to keep
the war machine going. Women

had to develop an enormous amount
of self-reliance to operate industries
that had previously been operated
by men. When the war, ended,
however, the men returned to their
old jobs and there was a reverse
effort to convince women that their
place was in the homes."
Included in the cast are Mary
Beth Scallen, who was Flo Marconi
in last season's Marathon 33;
Jane Gire, Mother Ubu in Ubu
Roi; and Sue Kenny, who was
recently seen as the Band Vocalist
in the Musical Theater
Department's production of A
Wonderful Life.
"Our challenge," says Boyette
"will be to extend the imaginations
of young actresses to make them
portray feelings very foreign to
them, as they have never directly
experienced the war. These
feelings, of course, were felt deeply
by people who are now in their
fifties, sixties, and seventies."
Waiting For The Parade
will be performed in the Trueblood
Theatre onOctober 16 and 17 at 8
p.m., October 18 at S p.m. and 9
p.m., and October 19 at ,2 p.m.
Tickets are $5 general admission
and $3 for students with I.D. For
more information, call 764-0450.

Records
The Housemartins
LONDON O HULL 4
Elektra records
The Housemartins do not have
extravagant haircuts. And they
wear no make-up. In England,
where glamour and style go hand in
hand with chart success, London
O Hull 4 is an exception-for a
good reason. The Housemartins
play lightweight pop that is
positively uplifting when they hit
it right.
Examples of the Housemartins'
whimsical craft are, found through -
out. The best are "Happy Hour," a
hit single in the U.K., "Sitting on

a Fence," and "Over There." The
three of these in particular showcase
an outstanding new vocalist, P.d.
Heaton. Remarkable clarity and
soulful tone bring to mind Otis
Redding singing with a British
accent. The rest of the band cranks
out the jocularity in a way like.
Katrina's Waves. It is a chemistry
that works consistently .
Surprisingly, these two and three
mi-nute bursts of joy are
thematically linked. Song titles
"Flag Day," "Think for a Minute,"
and "Freedom" reveal their attempts
at serious "message" broadcasting.
See RECORDS, Page 8

Practicing Pharm. D.'s discuss
Career Options
for
Doctor of Pharmacy Graduates
A U-M College of Pharmacy seminar
open to all students
Tuesday, Oct. 21-7-9 pm.
3554 C. C. Little Bldg.
(corner or Church & Geddes)
College staff members will be present to answer questions about
admissions to U-M Doctor of Pharmacy program.

Sue Kenny and Amy Lapin portray women who are left at home in
Canada while their men go off to fight in W.W. II in University Player's
production of 'Waiting for the Parade.'


Books


The Media Elite:
America's New
Powerbrokers
BY S. ROBERT LICHTER &
STANLEY ROTHMAN &
LINDA S. LICHTER
Adler & Adler
$19.95
305pp.
"The extent to which the tables
are turned is expressed by an

encounterbetween Senator (and pres -
idential candidate) Alan Cranston
and CBS's Dan Rather during the
1984 New Hampshire primary.
The two were having lunch when a
CBS aide approached Cranston to
say, 'Senator, Mr. Rather will only
have time fof one more question."'
In recent years, the media turned
on itself, making newsmen
newsworthy and reporters
celebrities. Highly visible,
journalists have come to wield a lot

of power. Why has the change
come about? How do their personal
beliefs influence the news?
Lichter, Rothman, and Lichter
thoroughly analyze the concept of
media bias by exploring journalists
beliefs. In their well-researched
book, they began- with a broad
overview of media history. They
raise a good point in comparing
American media to European.
America lacked aristocracy,
ideological consensus, and a

national press. The authors seem
misguided on some points ,
however, especially in arguing that
Europeans better understand that
facts are determined by one'sl
perspective and are highly
subjective. This contention is
weakly supported and lacks real
coherence.
The study itself surveyed the
backgrounds of 238 journalists.
See BOOKS, Page 7

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