VOA常速英语2014--Music Fans Still Search for Roots of the Blues 音乐爱好者仍然寻找着蓝调的根源

Music Fans Still Search for Roots of the Blues 1 音乐爱好者仍然寻找着蓝调的根源

MEMPHIS, TENNESSEE — In the early 1900s, a sound came out of African-American communities in the southern U.S. states that came to be called the blues. Some of the deepest roots of the music come from the rich farming region known as the Mississippi Delta 2.

田纳西州，孟菲斯——二十世纪初，美国南部的非洲裔美国人创造了一种音乐，被人们称作“蓝调”（布鲁斯）。这种音乐的更深的根源一部分是来自于被称作“密西西比河三角洲”的富足的农业地区。

A little over a century ago, poor African-American laborers 3 in Mississippi took up European instruments like the guitar and harmonica to play soulful and expressive 4 music called the blues.

一个多世纪前，在密西西比河，贫穷的非洲裔美国工人接受了吉他、口琴这样的欧洲乐器，演奏出深情而富有感染力的音乐，这种音乐就是蓝调。

It was a time when the rich fields of the Delta region required many laborers.

那个时候，三角洲地区肥沃的田野恰好需要大量的劳动者。

Clarksdale, Mississippi, home of the Delta Blues Museum, was a transportation hub then, according to museum director Shelley Ritter.

博物馆馆长Shelley Ritter说，密西西比州的克拉克斯代尔市作为三角洲蓝调博物馆之家，在当时是一个运输中心。

"With so many farms, there was an opportunity for a lot of work and then we had the river here and the railroad was here," she said.

“这里有这么多的农场，为很多找工作的人提供了机会，并且，我们有一条河流和一条铁轨。”她说道。

One of the largest exhibits in the museum is the reassembled farm cabin where famed bluesman Muddy Waters once lived. He and other bluesmen honed their skills in Clarksdale, which offered workers music and more.

博物馆里最大的展品之一就是重新组装好的有名的蓝调人Muddy Waters曾经居住过的农场小木屋。克拉克斯代尔市给工人们提供了音乐以及更丰富的东西，他和其他的蓝调人就是在这里磨练了技巧。

"On Saturdays or on weekends, when the laborers were given time off, they would all come into town and avail themselves of all the vices 5, if you will, as well as the wares," Ritter said.

Ritter说：“到了周六或者是周末，当工人们都放假了，大家就会全部来到城镇里并清洗自己的罪恶。”

Ritter says aspiring 6 bluesmen who couldn't afford a guitar sometimes played on a "diddly bow," a wire strung between two nails.

Ritter说那些有抱负却买不起一把吉他的蓝调人，有时候就会在“无用的弓”上演奏，也就是将一根线系在两颗钉子上。

The sound it produced may have influenced the guitar style now associated with Delta blues.

而由此发出的声音也许影响了吉他的演奏风格，与今天的三角洲蓝调有某种关联。

Musicologist David Evans, who teaches at the University of Memphis, has spent a lifetime playing the blues and studying its characteristics.

在孟菲斯大学任教的音乐理论家David Evans，用了毕生精力演奏蓝调音乐，并研究着它的种种特征。

"The blue notes and blues scale, these bent 7 notes and neutral pitches, sliding pitches, however you want to characterize them and there are various ways to express them vocally 8 and instrumentally," he said.

“蓝调音调和蓝调音阶，以及这些压音音符和中音、滑音，无论你想要怎样描述它们，口头地，或者用乐器演奏，总会有丰富多样的方式来表达它们。”他说。

Evans says the blues borrowed elements from Europe as well as Africa, but its inventors were thoroughly 9 African-American.

"It was a new synthesis, but it was pretty clear that that synthesis was accomplished 10 by black musicians," he said.

他说：“这是一个新的合成体，不过非常清楚的是这个合成体是由黑暗音乐家创造的。”

While the Delta region, as well as Memphis and New Orleans, all have a claim on the blues, Evans says there is evidence it developed over a wide region.

然而孟菲斯和新奥尔良这样的三角洲地区都对蓝调有着强烈的诉求，因为Evans说蓝调是在很广泛的区域内发展起来的。

"The earliest reports come from all over: Mississippi, Georgia, Texas, cities like St. Louis," he said.

“最早的记录都来自密西西比、佐治亚、德克萨斯和圣路易斯等地”他说道。 

The disapproval 11 of community leaders, black and white, and preachers who called it "devil music," only enhanced its allure 12, says Evans.

按照Evans的说法，从黑道和白道各个社会活动者和那些称蓝调为“魔鬼音乐”的传教士那里传出来的反对声音只是更加增强了它的魅力。

"That made the blues variously exotic, exciting, dangerous," he said.

“这使得蓝调的风格丰富多样，既有异域情调，又能让人感到刺激和危险”他说道。

And that may be part of what keeps the blues alive today.

这可能也是导致蓝调长盛不衰、至今受欢迎的原因之一。

It may have started in the American South, but the blues now belongs to the world.

虽然蓝调诞生于美国南部，不过它现在是属于全世界的。