Students to Explore Link between Blues, Literature

I say Blues. You say . . . ? Whatever you did say, it's probably not "schools." But if River City Blues Society member Gregg Kimball has his way, the blending of blues and schools will become a regular event in Richmond-area classrooms. In fact, Kimball already has been responsible for some isolated but successful collaborations between the blues society and area public schools as part of the group's "Blues in the Schools" project.

The maiden voyage took place in 2003 at Richmond's Mary Munford Elementary School. In partnership with the school's faculty and the Richmond Arts and Humanities Center, Kimball introduced fourth- and fifth-grade students to the origins and social geography of the blues.

"We did some basic historical background, some analysis of the music and its rhythms," Kimball explained. "We had a session where we made some handmade instruments since so many of these people started playing on such things. And then we got them to write a couple songs with their instruments."

In 2004, the project went in a different direction with a different group of students. Working at Hanover County's Patrick Henry High School with 11th- and 12th-graders, Kimball conducted acoustic blues guitar workshops with an emphasis on early traditional styles and their relation to contemporary blues and rock'n'roll music.

"It included looking at film footage of some of the great blues players and then literally working at some of those tunes pretty intensively. I concentrated on the really basic kinds of techniques and chord patterns. Two of the kids played at the Bobby Olive Memorial Bash."

Kimball borrowed the best of both of those projects in designing this year's activity. Over the next several weeks, Kimball will team up with blues society member and Lee-Davis High School English teacher Kemp Clark for a blues-enhanced study of American literature. As Clark's students read Zora Neale Hurston's "Their Eyes Were Watching God," Kimball and Clark will connect the blues with the study of black life in the Jim Crow era.

In addition, they will use music as a tool to examine topics related to the novel, such as black folklore and the labor issues and health-care issues of the day. The unit will conclude with an examination of blues as poetry and a guitar workshop.

"It's really going to be literary-oriented with a historical element to it. From reading the book and some of the other authors of the time, there are some great tie-ins."

Kimball is well aware of the necessity of using his expertise to enhance the instruction of content that students will see on this spring's SOL tests. "Looking over the SOLs, there are a number of them that are very specifically not only looking at close analysis of literary styles and themes, but also the historical context. I think it will be an interesting combination of things . . . .We'll look at black life in the Jim Crow South as reflected in the blues and . . . how the blues reflects a series of different black worlds that existed in the American South."

The obvious question is: What next? Kimball hopes to add some personnel to what is currently pretty much a one-man show. "I'd really like some people to help. It's obviously great to concentrate with a specific group of kids so intensively. Unless I do get some help, though, there's no way we can replicate this thing. There may be elements that can be boiled down and used just by teachers. But I think there are people who can help do this. . . . Hopefully, I can expand it." Some extra helping hands would also allow "Blues in the Schools" to expand its current one-school-at-a-time limit. I'm not unhappy doing it school by school," Kimball said. "But if we had other people who were willing and able to do the content parts, we could potentially do a number of different schools over the course of a school year. "This is something that could fit in not only to an English curriculum but obviously a history curriculum, too."