[Thomas "Blind Tom" Wiggins (1849-1908); John Davis Plays Blind Tom, Newport Classic 85660 (1999)]
By Hrayr Attarian
Published: April 17, 2011
“It is safe to assume, that today, Blind Tom Wiggins (AKA Bethune) is not a household name. In the mid to late 19th century, and into the first decade of the 20th, however, Blind Tom was a phenomenon who some named the Eighth Wonder. Although no contemporary physician made the actual diagnosis of autism, it is quite clear from reading about him that he, in all likelihood, fell within the autistic spectrum. Jazz per se did not exist then either, but Tom improvised all his pieces in the style of popular music of the time including waltzes, nocturnes and some proto-ragtime.
“I came across Blind Tom Wiggins accidentally in the used CD bin of a local record store. The copious liner notes include essays and biographical information by four authors: John Davis, the pianist interpreting Wiggins' work; magician/actor/writer Ricky Jay; neurologist/author Oliver Sacks; and poet/activist Amiri Baraka.
“Sacks' piece contains a curious statement: that, because Blind Tom was most likely autistic, and therefore did not possess strong personality characteristics, and because 'creativity has to do with inner life—with the flow of new ideas and strong feelings. Creativity, in this sense, was probably never possible for Blind Tom.' Whether he was autistic or, as Baraka claims in the disc booklet, was labeled such because of 'white supremacist mumbo jumbo... which still passes for science,' two things are clear: first, he was indeed extremely creative, as his improvised pieces (taken down by others) demonstrate; and, second, science can prove even the most august minds wrong as it has done in this case with the venerable Sacks. Autistic people do have an inner life and can be creative. To be fair, Sacks wrote his essay in late 1999, and a lot has changed in our understanding of autism, as I write this, a dozen years later. People reading this in 2023 may find some of the provided information here, in turn, to also be outdated.
“What is Autism?
A disorder of brain pathway development, autism primarily affects social interaction and communication. There is a change in the way brain cells process information and organize their connections with one another. The cause remains unknown. The school of thought that autistic individuals cannot be creative comes from research now almost two decades, where animals whose brains were experimentally damaged, in areas thought of as the seats of creativity, exhibited symptoms similar to autism.
“In 2010 a functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) research study showed that, compared to controls, autistic individuals had an impaired response in the areas of the brain that process the understanding of the emotional content of language. They did, however, try to 'compensate' for it by showing an increased activation of language comprehension areas of both sides of the brain.” [Thomas “Blind Tom” Wiggins (1849-1908) is featured at AfriClassical.com, which presents a complete Works List compiled by Prof. Dominique-René de Lerma of Lawrence University Conservatory.]
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