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Seems Like Murder Here: Southern Violence and the Blues Tradition
Winner of the 2004 C. Hugh Holman Award from the Society for the Study of Southern Literature.
Seems Like Murder Here offers a revealing new account of the blues tradition. Far from mere laments about lost loves and hard times, the blues emerge in this provocative study as vital responses to spectacle lynchings and the violent realities of African American life in the Jim Crow South. With brilliant interpretations of both classic songs and literary works, from the autobiographies of W. C. Handy, David Honeyboy Edwards, and B. B. King to the poetry of Langston Hughes and the novels of Zora Neale Hurston, Seems Like Murder Here will transform our understanding of the blues and its enduring power.
Seems Like Murder Here offers a revealing new account of the blues tradition. Far from mere laments about lost loves and hard times, the blues emerge in this provocative study as vital responses to spectacle lynchings and the violent realities of African American life in the Jim Crow South. With brilliant interpretations of both classic songs and literary works, from the autobiographies of W. C. Handy, David Honeyboy Edwards, and B. B. King to the poetry of Langston Hughes and the novels of Zora Neale Hurston, Seems Like Murder Here will transform our understanding of the blues and its enduring power.
- GenresMusicNonfictionHistory
360 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2002
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About the author
Adam Gussow
12 books18 followersA professor of English and Southern Studies at the University of Mississippi, Gussow is also a blues harmonica player and teacher. He has published a number of books on the blues, including Mister Satan’s Apprentice: A Blues Memoir (1998), Seems Like Murder Here: Southern Violence and the Blues Tradition (2002), Beyond the Crossroads: The Devil and the Blues Tradition (2017), and Whose Blues? Facing Up to Race and the Future of the Music (2020). His longtime musical partnership with Sterling "Mr. Satan" Magee is the subject of an award-winning documentary, Satan & Adam (2018), which screened on Netflix for two years. These days Gussow performs with his trio, Sir Rod & The Blues Doctors, which features Magee’s nephew, singer Rod Patterson. Gussow's newest book is My Family and I: A Mississippi Memoir (2025)
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
April 3, 2013
Seems like Murder Here: is a rare book amongst books about blues. It manages not to repeat everything that has already been said before and offer new and well-researched insights of the times, culture and vernacular language of Southern blues. It is an extremely difficult book to read as it is graphically violent for the most part. The sufferings of the oppressed people are palpable, especially as many of the anecdotes of the worst sorts of violence are quoted by the eyewitnesses, or neighbors, friends and family members of the victims.
Probably the most important point that the author emphasizes is that "in their earlier lives down south, the 'love and loss stories' of blues song were the only cultural arena in which these men could safely confess the “yearning and mourning” bred by their daily subjection to lynch-law." What he means is that there are references to the terror and violence that African Americans faced and the author goes on to demonstrate through all the chapters these coded messages. It is a major epiphany to view the world through this author's lenses. Suddenly, the whole world of the South opens up and a reader can finally see the events of the times and true affliction of African Americans. The most startling example he illustrates that I haven't seen in any other text so far is his connection of Mamie Smith's "Crazy Blues" to the Red Summer period where less and less African American police were being hired (or were being fired) to the increased racial violence of police officers towards African Americans. "Crazy Blues" was released just a few months after the major violence of that year and it contains the lyrics "I'm gonna do like a Chinaman, go and get some hop, Get myself a gun, and shoot myself a cop" an obvious connection to Robert Charles supposedly drug-fueled killing crusade of policemen. Other major verbal points he illuminates are the many songs where the female voice wonders and worries where her man is which can be seen as a woman's wondering in terror if her man has been lynched, the fact that many of men's blues contain lyrics and metaphors which are graphically violent in terms that can be ascribed to lynching or domestic or intimate violence.
The weakest point of the book is that the author does not adequately explain why there was so much violence in Southern culture. By reading the book, the reader can kind of guess at the reasons, but the psychology is not well-delved into. The book is mostly one violent anecdote after another. However, the author has two small passages from the beginning and ending of the book that offer a little explanation: intimate violence "was an essential, if sometimes destructive, way in which black southern blues people articulated their somebody-ness, insisted on their indelible individuality," and "Intimate violence was a way of saving face in a panracial southern culture of honor and vengeance where self-respect could only be preserved through swift, brutal, hands-on reprisal." He describes "cutting one's ABC's" as a way of inflicting humiliation on a victim as well as a way to express one's own anger and frustration at one's own affliction at the hands of whites.
The writing style of the book is reflective and meandering. Each chapter contains a topic that is discussed in details without a specific direction. This can be a little frustrating depending on the mood or disposition of the reader. It also makes the reading more difficult because it leaves the reader wondering, "when does the violence ever stop." But changes to the text would not be necessary, the book is just a difficult book to read for its violent content.
Probably the most important point that the author emphasizes is that "in their earlier lives down south, the 'love and loss stories' of blues song were the only cultural arena in which these men could safely confess the “yearning and mourning” bred by their daily subjection to lynch-law." What he means is that there are references to the terror and violence that African Americans faced and the author goes on to demonstrate through all the chapters these coded messages. It is a major epiphany to view the world through this author's lenses. Suddenly, the whole world of the South opens up and a reader can finally see the events of the times and true affliction of African Americans. The most startling example he illustrates that I haven't seen in any other text so far is his connection of Mamie Smith's "Crazy Blues" to the Red Summer period where less and less African American police were being hired (or were being fired) to the increased racial violence of police officers towards African Americans. "Crazy Blues" was released just a few months after the major violence of that year and it contains the lyrics "I'm gonna do like a Chinaman, go and get some hop, Get myself a gun, and shoot myself a cop" an obvious connection to Robert Charles supposedly drug-fueled killing crusade of policemen. Other major verbal points he illuminates are the many songs where the female voice wonders and worries where her man is which can be seen as a woman's wondering in terror if her man has been lynched, the fact that many of men's blues contain lyrics and metaphors which are graphically violent in terms that can be ascribed to lynching or domestic or intimate violence.
The weakest point of the book is that the author does not adequately explain why there was so much violence in Southern culture. By reading the book, the reader can kind of guess at the reasons, but the psychology is not well-delved into. The book is mostly one violent anecdote after another. However, the author has two small passages from the beginning and ending of the book that offer a little explanation: intimate violence "was an essential, if sometimes destructive, way in which black southern blues people articulated their somebody-ness, insisted on their indelible individuality," and "Intimate violence was a way of saving face in a panracial southern culture of honor and vengeance where self-respect could only be preserved through swift, brutal, hands-on reprisal." He describes "cutting one's ABC's" as a way of inflicting humiliation on a victim as well as a way to express one's own anger and frustration at one's own affliction at the hands of whites.
The writing style of the book is reflective and meandering. Each chapter contains a topic that is discussed in details without a specific direction. This can be a little frustrating depending on the mood or disposition of the reader. It also makes the reading more difficult because it leaves the reader wondering, "when does the violence ever stop." But changes to the text would not be necessary, the book is just a difficult book to read for its violent content.
September 19, 2014
This is my second reading of this one, having first discovered it in the context of the research for my book on John Coltrane. It was the theologian James Cone (the first voice in black liberation theology, and a serious blues man...) who recommended it to me. In fact, he said it was one clear instance of a white blues scholar (and musician, by the way) who really "gets" it.
The material on the spectacle lynchings of the late 19th and early 20th centuries is disturbing, but so illuminating in understanding the birth of the blues genre. A carefully researched yet very readable book.
The material on the spectacle lynchings of the late 19th and early 20th centuries is disturbing, but so illuminating in understanding the birth of the blues genre. A carefully researched yet very readable book.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews