Saturday, July 26, 2014

KLEM FM

R Crumb's "Keep On Truckin'" (1968):


The Grateful Dead's "Truckin'" (1970):


In the 1920s and 1930s, black jazz musicians used the verb "to truck" in the Robert Crumb sense of "Keep On Truckin'." You can see an example of it in Disney's 1941 "Dumbo," where one of the crows says "And they tell me that a man made a vegetable truck," and all the others crows assume the Keep on Truckin' position. link

Here's the scene from "Dumbo;" the line occurs at around 58 sec:


The crows do a lot of stereotypical strut and swagger, and I wonder if R Crumb was influenced by this in creating his iconic cartoon? Terry Zwigoff's documentary "Crumb" recorded how the young Crumb brothers were obsessed with at least one Disney movie, "Treasure Island" (1950), and Crumb probably saw Dumbo too as a kid (what boomer didn't?). Also, Crumb showed an early fascination with -- ahem -- African American caricature.

12 comments:

Shouting Thomas said...

Watched Dumbo with my one year old granddaughter a few days ago. She was entranced, particularly by the sad parts.

By the end of the movie she was trying to say "Dumbo!"

Given the idiocy of PC, I was surprised that the jiving crow scene wasn't censored.

Love Crumb. He chronicled the San Francisco Bay area hippie scene of the 60s and the 70s with dead on accuracy.

And the Dawgz have decided to do "Truckin'!"

The Dude said...

Those of us who resemble Mr. Natural are offended. This cannot stand! These stereotypes must be ended, or by God, we will end them for you!

chickelit said...

You have a truck with Crumb, Sixty? What about Disney?

chickelit said...

@ST: The "racism" is discussed at the YouTube comments...

The Dude said...

I seen a house fly, we cool.

XRay said...

It's funny, really, what different life experiences we all have had with various segments of our great society.

I have Crumbs "Art Book" and "The Book of Genesis", plus myriad other works of his. Admire the man, truly. But how much more could you be fucked up and still make a living. Well, given today, a lot I guess.

I'm not so sure of the conjecture of him being influenced by... well, you know what. Though he did draw a lot of big lips.

I'm so fucking tired of having to place those of African decent into a fucking box. I don't want to use Blacks, African Americans, niggers etc. I'm really tired of skin tone being a distinction worth noting. Not to say that there aren't cultural differences, that there is without doubt.

But we need, to my mind, a new paradigm to talk about this shit.

XRay said...

Well crap. Meant to brag about having been to no less than 35 or 40 GD concerts, starting in 69 or so. They were into a whole lot of stuff, some good, some strange, some undecipherable. A unique period, that.

chickelit said...

I'm not so sure of the conjecture of him being influenced by... well, you know what.

An argument against my hypothesis is that Crumb was an avid collector of 78 rpm jazz recordings. However, when did he pick up up that 20's jazz influence? Zwigoff's biopic is silent on that aspect, IIRC. Crumb is interviewed later in life (well past 1968) and already has an extensive collection.

chickelit said...

XRay said...
Well crap. Meant to brag about having been to no less than 35 or 40 GD concerts, starting in 69 or so.

Holy shit! I saw them exactly twice: in Madison in the mid 70's and then at Red Rocks (west of Denver) in the 80's.

Trooper York said...

X-Ray the fact that you went to that many Dead concerts explain a lot.

Thanks for the info.

XRay said...

I lived in SF, Troop. A quick bus ride to Winterland and 5 bucks for entry. Cheap entertainment. Course, also part of the reason I wear hearing aid's now.

Amartel said...

I was never a Dead fan, never went to a concert. I do have American Beauty on CD and album, though, and love it. Also I think I've got Shakedown Street on cassette somewhere.