John Cephas, Piedmont Blues Musician: Teaching Tools
Interview | Introduction | Regional Background | Music Sample

Language Arts | Social Studies | Visual Arts | Folklife Studies | Music Activities | Booking Information | Bibliography

by Leslie Spitz-Edson, with Paddy Bowman & Gail Matthews-DeNatale
Adapted from Folk Masters curriculum guide, courtesy Wolf Trap Performing Arts Center

John Cephas is a master of the Piedmont blues, one of the main regional styles of blues music. Other regional blues styles include the blues of the Mississippi River Delta region, St. Louis, Chicago, and Texas. The distinguishing characteristics of the Piedmont blues style are its finger-picking and a bouncy rhythm, which demonstrates the influences of ragtime, stringband, and other popular styles.

To enhance classroom learning potential this Featured Artist Profile, CARTS offers the following interdisciplinary activities, music activities, booking information, and bibliography.

Langauge Arts Activity
"John Henry" is one of our country's best known traditional songs. Research the song by reading about it and by collecting different versions from songbooks, recordings, and interviews with other people. You might want to tape record some versions. What kinds of people know the song? From whom did they learn about the song? What do they think about the song's hero? Display your findings on a graph, poster, or mock radio show, or write an essay on the meaning the song has for others and for yourself. You might also investigate local folk legends or heros and write a ballad about them. Or research work songs such as chanteys, labor movement songs, field hollers, and track-lining songs. Write a work song about some contemporary occupation. Geography:
Find the Piedmont region on a map and compare the landscape, economy, and population density of the Piedmont with the Appalachians or the Coastal Plain. Show your findings by making a relief map, graphs, or a scrapbook. Based on this information, describe how you think the culture of the Piedmont might compare with that of the Appalachians or the Coastal Plain in an oral presentation or essay.

Social Studies
Research U.S. working conditions, labor history, or industrial inventions of the 19th century and compare your findings with contemporary problems and advances. Interview people about how technology is changing occupations today. You might also ask about any occupational lore they know such as legendary people and events, tricks of the trade, or special language.

Visual Arts
While listening to various versions of "John Henry," draw or paint a portrait of this folk hero or of someone hard at work.

Folklife Studies
Folk artist John Cephas recalls many house parties with live music, dancing, and good food from his childhood visits in the Piedmont region of Virginia. House parties were common and sometimes helped pay the rent. Describe the parties you go to-music, dress, unspoken rules, dance styles, behavior of boys and girls, etc. Then interview older people about the parties they attended when they were your age. Compare results in class in oral presentations. Play recordings of the music of both age groups.

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Music Activities
Terms to Teach: arrangement, free tempo, verse form, mood, program music, avant garde, extra-musical sounds

Texture, Instrumentation. Listen to "John Henry." What instruments do you hear? Are there vocals? If so, how many singers do you hear? What kinds of sounds do the instruments make? Some of the sounds that Cephas and Wiggins coax out of their instruments are somewhat unusual. Which of the sounds you hear are different from the "usual" sounds that instrument makes? Though John Henry isn't, strictly speaking, a blues tune, this performance does fall within the Piedmont blues tradition. Piedmont blues are characterized by a layering of different sounds, rhythms, and textures--each layer is distinct, yet the music always seems to work well as a whole. Read John Cephas' general description of the Piedmont guitar style. What two textural layers does he pinpoint?

Now listen to "John Henry" focusing on the more upbeat, second section of the piece. How well do you think Cephas' statement describes his guitar playing during this part? Listen again, focusing on the harmonica playing in the second section. It also contributes two layers to the texture of the piece, although not at the same time. Can you describe them? (Hint: One, more in the background, is fairly constant throughout the piece. The other, more in the foreground, happens intermittently, between the vocal lines.) How does each layer help dramatize the story?

Create a diagram showing the different instrumental and vocal layers that make up the texture of this piece. Your diagram doesn't have to be all in black and white. You may want to use descriptive language, rub some sections with crayons over varying textures of paper, and use different colors to visually illustrate how the instruments and their sounds change and interact during the course of a verse. Sometimes music has the power to evoke other senses, such as the visual sense of color or the tactile sense of texture--a song may express "blue" feelings, sound "rough," or even seem "sweet." Listen carefully to the song, making sure that your diagram accurately depicts the sequence of instrumentation, vocals, and sensory impression that each section of the recording has to offer.

Form, Mood. This arrangement of "John Henry" has a three-part form. First, a slow section with a rather free tempo and no vocals; second, a faster section with a steady tempo, with vocals in verse form; third (unavailable online), a slow section that mirrors the first section. After listening to the music and reading the words, discuss why you think Cephas and Wiggins used this three-part form to tell the story of John Henry. How does the mood of the opening section enhance the story? Use your imagination to think about the similar closing section at the end. How does it enhance the story? Pick out another song--one that's not sung by a blues musician--and listen to it. In what way is the form and mood of this second recording different from the audio clip of Cephas and Wiggins performing John Henry? How might you change the arrangement and performance of the second piece to represent the Piedmont Blues style? Use elements of form and mood to create your own Piedmont Blues arrangement of the second piece. Perform your arrangement for the class.

Musical Materials. In this performance of "John Henry," Phil Wiggins' harmonica seems to be imitating train sounds--sometimes a mournful train whistle, and other times the chugging of the wheels going around and around along the tracks. In many traditions, musicians look to ordinary sounds for inspiration and material. If you have studied the European classical tradition, you may have learned about program music, which uses this idea. Some avant garde composers, such as John Cage, believe that all types of sounds are "music." In some African musical traditions, drums can be made to talk, very literally, so that their "words" can be actually be understood. In John Cephas' comments about the Piedmont guitar style (above), he says, "It's almost like the guitar is talking, mimicking your feelings or the words to the songs." This latter idea is echoed by many other bluesmen, but probably reflects the musician's sense of intimacy with the instrument and the music more than a belief that the guitar is "talking" in a literal sense. It also reflects the closeness of music and music-making to everyday life in the African tradition and other folk music. How might extra-musical sounds (sounds not commonly thought of as music) inspire your own music-making? Use a tape recorder to document various sounds in your environment--including sounds of people, animals, and objects. Try imitating these sounds using instruments that you play. Can you find appropriate ways to incorporate some of these into songs that you know? Perform some of these with a group or with your class. You might also want to listen to other music that imitates sounds. For example, another piece that imitates trains is the bluegrass fiddle tune "Orange Blossom Special." If you can find a recording of this tune, listen to how the fiddle interprets the locomotive's sounds, and compare with the harmonica in "John Henry."

To read more about Virginia's Piedmont Guitar tradition and musicians, visit the The Piedmont Guitarists Tour sponsored by the Virginia Folklife Program, located at the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities and Public Policy.

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Booking Information

John Cephas & Phil Wiggins tour nationally and internationally and conduct school residencies. Contact Traditional Arts Services for booking information, 206/367-9044.

Bibliography

Information on John Cephas

Books

Bastin, Bruce. Red River Blues: The Blues Tradition in the Southeast. University of Illinois Press, 1986.
Epstein, Dena. Sinful Tunes and Spirituals: Black Folk Music to the Civil War. University of Illinois Press, 1977.
Pearson, Barry Lee. Virginia Piedmont Blues: The Lives and Art of Two Virginia Bluesmen. University of Pennsylvania Press, 1990.

Videos:

"Blues House Party," featuring Piedmont musicians playing during a house party at the home of bluesman John Jackson, $30, available from House Party Productions, P.O. Box 5466, Takoma Park, MD 20913.

"John Cephas Teaches the Piedmont Blues," instructional video, $25, available from John Cephas, 12375 Paige Road, Woodford, VA 22580.

Recordings:

Let It Roll. Marrimac Recordings 8001 (1985)
Dog Days of August. Flying Fish FF394 (1986)
Walking Blues. 8004 (1988)
Guitar Man. Flying Fish FF 470 (1989)
Flip, Flop, and Fly. Flying Fish. distributed by Rounder Records, 70580 (1992)
Cool Down. Alligator ALCD 4838 (1996)

Information on John Henry

Cohn, Amy L. From Sea to Shining Sea: A Treasury of American Folklore and Folk Songs. Scholastic Inc., 1993.

Johnson, Guy Benton. John Henry: Tracking Down Negro Legend. 1929.

Lester, Julius. John Henry. Illustrated by Jerry Pinkney, Dial, 1994.

Levine, Lawrence. Black Culture and Black Consciousness. Oxford University Press, 1977.

Lomax, Alan. The Folk Songs of North America. Doubleday, 1975.

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