“It tells the story of where the blues came from and some of the things that surrounded the music,” artist Solomon Thurman said about his latest exhibit. “I wanted to do that visually – to have something where people can see the landscape of the blues and where it was born.”
Solomon Thurman’s latest creative contribution, Blues Style: Imagining Improvisation, opens at the Chesterfield Arts Center on Friday evening (Oct. 1). It is more than just a landscape of the blues. Through the paintings he is offering an illustration of a personal journey through his roots and the music that has kept him connected to it.
A St. Louis native, Thurman is one generation removed from his Mississippi ancestry. Thurman’s father, Solomon Thurman Sr., was a “blues harp” (harmonica) player who pursued a career in music until family life and the responsibility of being a provider took precedence. Though he gave up playing professionally when he started having children, the elder Solomon Thurman passed along an appreciation for the music in his household – in particular to his namesake.
“‘Evil’ by Howlin’ Wolf, that’s one of my top five favorites,” Thurman said. “‘Hard Hearted Hannah’ by Ray Charles is another great one. “‘Hard Hearted Hannah … the vamp of Savannah …’” He recited the song’s lyrics from memory similar to the way a person strolls down memory lane.
Thurman also had a special bond with his grandmother, who passed away when he was a boy.
The lasting impression of his father’s music and his grandmother’s influence eventually led him to return to his roots as an adult.
“We weren’t allowed to go as children,” Thurman said. He was a child during the era just before the Civil Rights Movement – i.e. the age of Emmitt Till. “My parents feared something would happen to us because we were not trained to be around white people in the South.”
So as a grown man, Thurman went on the journey that was denied to him earlier in life because of the tumultuous times. He explored the experiences of his father, his grandmother as well as Mississippi’s rich musical heritage. Thurman was overwhelmed to express his experience creatively.
“That’s what this is about,” Thurman said. “Reliving their lives and celebrating the heritage. I thought to myself, ‘How could I do that in a new way?’”
So instead of simply paying homage to men and women who put their sadness into song and forever changed the landscape of music, he wanted to illustrate the experiences that inspired the music as well.
In his 29 paintings, Thurman shows a range of Mississippi life in addition to the music. Through the set of paintings he calls Son House, Riley King and Muddy Waters, men all but break their backs plowing in the field with mules. In another, he illustrates the voyage of black people from Africa into slavery to ‘up north’ during the Great Migration.
“It goes from our beginnings in this continent to people in the field picking cotton,” Thurman said.
Complimentary to the African-American experience, there has always been a soundtrack. Thurman wanted to pay homage to the genre to which all other forms of music created in the U.S.
“This exhibition is about education of American music the blues and where the heart of the music came from,” Thurman said.
“I wanted to make the connection between the birth of the blues and what’s going on today. In hip-hop, all they are doing is inheriting what we have as a people. That’s my point exactly. I wanted to show where music like rap, R&B, rock and roll – all of those styles got their origins through the blues. As a matter of fact, Jimi Hendrix started out as a blues performer before he developed his own style and sound.”
He hopes that the fluidness of the paintings he presents will further illustrate how the blues still blends perfectly with modern music and everyday life in America –not just black America.
“When blues is being played today, the audience is overwhelmingly non-African American,” Thurman said. “What an irony, but the music that we created has been carried on by people who love it. It breaks the racial barriers when it comes to music and embracing it. They even have it on their street corner down there as ‘The birthplace of American music.’”
Blues Style: Imagining Improvisation opens tomorrow (Fri., Oct. 1) with a special reception from 6–9 p.m. at Chesterfield Art Gallery (444 Chesterfield Center, next to Chesterfield Mall). The event will feature a special performance by local artist (and Mississippi native) Kenneth DeShields. The exhibit will run through November 13. For more information visit www.chesterfieldarts.org or call (636) 519-1955.
