Jeff Opperman💧🐟🎸 Profile picture
Jun 19, 2023 17 tweets 8 min read Read on X
#WaterYear 261
Today is Juneteenth & June is Black Music Month. As the Smithsonian @si_africanart podcast says: "All music is Black music" - & that is certainly true of rock.

A 🧵on the Black music roots of rock - and the role of a river flood

@rockhall on L. Erie in CLE, OH Image
2/ When the Levees Broke: the flood that made rock and roll.

In 1927, an epic flood on the Mississippi River killed hundreds & wreaked massive property damage. But in its wake of destruction, that flood created rock ‘n’ roll.

(🧵adapted from this essay) grist.org/article/2011-0…
3/ To be fair, rock ‘n’ roll, like the Mississippi, is a seriously big river, one with many tributaries that converged to form its still-shifting channel. But one of its tributaries — and perhaps the essential one, with a gritty, longing, shuffling beat... Image
4/ ...still pulsing unmistakably within the bigger river — sprang forth from the black mud that covered the whole Mississippi Delta when the swollen river finally slunk back to its banks in the late summer of 1927. Image
5/ The flood reexposed the deep racial fissures that the Delta society had worked hard to either smooth over or wish away. In the wake of the ugliness and economic upheaval, a river of rural Black people began moving north from the Delta. Image
6/ Delta blues musicians chronicled the flood & its aftermath. Consider “When the Levee Breaks,” by Kansas Joe McCoy & Memphis Minnie. Over a traditional Delta Blues riff on acoustic guitar, McCoy tells how Black people were forced to work during the flood open.spotify.com/track/4QnSKHUl…
7/..to save the levees in, working conditions not that different from the slavery period:

“I works on the levee, mama both night and day, I works so hard, to keep the water away.”

With the final line, he alludes to the great migration of Black people moving northward: Image
8/

“I’s a mean old levee, cause me to weep and moan, gonna leave my baby, and my happy home.”

Led Zeppelin recorded a cover of the song and added greater geographic specificity to that final line... Image
9/ In so doing, they revealed the city where the Delta blues were transformed, the setting for the alchemy that gave their version such heft:

“...going, going to Chicago.”

Chicago was the destination for many of the Delta migrants and..
open.spotify.com/track/05f8Hg3R…
10/...in Chicago, the Delta Blues got plugged into amps and electrified. There, Chess Records artists, like Howlin’ Wolf, Muddy Waters, and John Lee Hooker, provided the first DNA strands that mutated and gloriously evolved the Delta Blues into “Chicago Blues.” Image
11/ With the vigor of a new species, the Chicago Blues dispersed globally and, where they touched down, continued to evolve. In London, Keith Richards and Mick Jagger bonded over their mail-order records from Chess. Image
12/ As I said before, rock ‘n’ roll sprang from many sources. But stripped to its essence, its true heart may be the primal beat & yearning soul of the electrified Delta Blues. The northward migration of Black people from Mississippi Delta to Chicago...

open.spotify.com/track/6uSBSTEn… Image
13/...set this electro-evolution in motion, and that migration was amplified by the great flood of 1927.

And although rock has continued to evolve, you can still hear the black Delta mud in its DNA.

(Black Mud from @theblackkeys):

open.spotify.com/track/2y42MmBC…
14/
Podcast of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture: All Music is Black Music @si_africanart

nmaahc.si.edu/explore/initia….
15/ "Musical Crossroads" from @si_africanart which tells the story of African American music from the arrival of the first Africans to the present day.
nmaahc.si.edu/explore/exhibi…

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More from @jjopperman

Feb 1, 2023
#WaterYear 124
1/10

Today is birthday of 2 great writers of powerful reflections on rivers:
Langston Hughes (1901 - 1967)
Jason Isbell (b. 1979)

A thread on their words on rivers, including "The Negro Speaks of Rivers" (1921) and "River" 99 years later

(photo: Irrawaddy 2016) Image
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Hughes wrote "A Negro Speaks of Rivers" when he was 17 after he crossed the Mississippi while traveling from his home in Cleveland OH to visit his father who was living in Mexico. Published in 1921 in The Crisis, it marks start of his literary career

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Negro…
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I've known rivers:
I've known rivers ancient as the world and older than the flow of human blood in human veins.

My soul has grown deep like the rivers

I bathed in the Euphrates when dawns were young.
I built my hut near the Congo and it lulled me to sleep.
I looked upon Image
Read 11 tweets
Jan 31, 2023
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1/5

Rafts, rainbow, & dark clouds looming, Colorado River, 2009

Due to decades of historic drought, Lakes Mead & Powell, 2 largest reservoirs in US, are approx 3/4 empty. Fed gov't gave deadline of today for 7 states that depend on Colorado 💧 to reach consensus
2/5
...on substantial cuts to their water use;

"Federal officials in June called for the seven states to come up with plans to drastically reduce water diversions by 2 million to 4 million acre-feet per year, a reduction of roughly 15% to 25%."

latimes.com/environment/st….
3/5

Today they missed the deadline.

"not reaching a consensus carried the risk of having the federal government alone determine how to eventually impose cuts."

apnews.com/article/politi…
Read 5 tweets
Jan 30, 2023
#WaterYear 122

1/10
Luca @ an ice wall near Chagrin River in 2008. Just rocks today at end of January, 2023

"Enjoy the weather but worry for the climate"

A short thread on this warm winter, from no ice on Lake Erie to no snow in NYC

(weather/climate quote frm @JesseJenkins)
2/10
New York City just broke record for latest measurable snowfall (previous record was January 29, 1973) and will soon break record for longest stretch without snow (332 days, set in Dec. 2020) - and no snow in 10-day forecast...

nytimes.com/2023/01/29/nyr…
3/10
Snowfall in Ohio is near record lows; only 9 inches so far for Cleveland compared to an average of 28 inches that normally falls by late January

cleveland.com/weather/2023/0…
Read 10 tweets
Aug 30, 2021
Want to save rivers, lakes & wetlands?

Stop overlooking them in global goals, or lumping them in with ‘land.’

A short thread on why this matters, and how the post-2020 global framework can correct this.

With figures...and memes! 1/19 @WWFLeadWater

link.medium.com/S49p5GR63ib
The first detailed draft of the new post-2020 global biodiversity framework was released by the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) in July, calling for protection of “at least 30% of land and sea areas globally.” 2/19
@david_tickner @MicheleThieme
cbd.int/article/draft-…
This overarching goal for protection of “land and seas” continues a pattern in global conservation policies and plans: omission of freshwater habitats such as rivers, lakes & wetlands.

Beyond omission in high level goals, what about tracking of progress? 3/19
Read 20 tweets
Jun 14, 2021
1/7

Though origins of SARS-CoV-2 remain uncertain, all previous pandemics of past century involve zoonotic diseases. Activities bringing people, domestic & wild animals into close contact, in new ways, increase spillover risk @WWFscience @WWFLeadWater
forbes.com/sites/jeffoppe…
2/7

These activities include deforestation, intensified livestock operations on cleared land, + wildlife hunting & trade. In figure, green symbols represent drivers (including ways that we manage the environment) that increase the risk of spillover.

forbes.com/sites/jeffoppe… Image
3/7

Over the past century, novel infectious diseases have been emerging at an increasing rate, with 3-4 new diseases identified annually. The majority of these (60%) have been zoonotic, with most (72%) coming from wildlife.

nature.com/articles/natur… Image
Read 8 tweets
Feb 24, 2020
A thread on the Emergency Recovery Plan for #freshwater #biodiversity, just published by @BioScienceAIBS

6 actions to Bend the Curve on freshwater biodiversity loss

#1 Implement environmental flows, such as below Three Gorges Dam on Yangtze River

academic.oup.com/bioscience/adv…
#2 To bend the curve on freshwater biodiversity, improve water quality.

The Cuyahoga River (below in @CVNPNPS) once was biologically dead from pollution. Actions-local to federal-tackled pollution & bent the curve for Cuyahoga; sections which lacked fish now have > 40 species.
#3 to bend the curve on freshwater biodiversity loss, protect and restore critical habitats.

Ramsar designation and other protected areas can safeguard habitats and species, such as this American crocodile in the Terraba-Sierpe National Wetlands in Costa Rica
Read 6 tweets

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