Southern Blues Influences
What is the Blues? In the words of B.B. King, “Blues is a simple music and I’m a simple man” (qtd. in King and Ritz). From its simple and primitive origins, not only has the Blues affected culture throughout the Deep South, but Southern culture has had a strong influence on the creation of the Blues and its musicians.
The Blues’ unique sound came from the slave songs, such as the work songs and field hollers of the enslaved African Americans (PBS). Nearly every song on the radio today has its roots in the Delta Blues. Although the Blues is definitely from the Mississippi Delta, the date and exact location of the place of origin will forever remain unknown. However, Dockery Farms claims to be the place where the Blues began. The owners of Dockery Farms were known for their good treatment of their workers and their farm grew to house about two thousand workers. Among those workers was a young man named Charley Patton. He was mentored by a musician named Henry Sloan and soon Charley gained a reputation for being a masterful musician. Charley went on to inspire and influence many Blues artists (Kirkpatrick 48-49).
The Blues changed when African Americans moved north. To reflect their new life, the
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Some musicians which he has influenced are: Eric Clapton, Robert Plant, and ZZ Top (Kirkpatrick 50). Clapton had previously said, “Muddy took the music of the Delta plantation, transplanted it in a Chicago nightclub, surrounded it in a electric band, and changed the course of popular music forever” (qtd. in Kirkpatrick 50-51). The styles of both the Blues and the nearly synonymous Gospels are practically interchangeable; Blues songs can be transformed into Gospel songs and vice versa. With that being said, both styles have their own sounds and meanings (Mississippi Blues Commission). And some say that they are “two sides of the same coin” (qtd. in Mississippi Blues
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1118 Words | 5 Pages[the black musician] improvises, he creates, it comes from within” (Gerard 28). Despite Malcolm X’s criticism of the classically-trained musician’s inability to improvise, the European-influenced creole musicians began to learn to create variation within ragtime’s syncopated form. Likewise, blues musicians adopted parts of the genre of ragtime and implemented it into their call-and-response based music. The merging of these two styles of music occurred as a result of external socio-political pressure of Jim Crow segregation, but ultimately helped establish an innovative and swinging genre of jazz
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1169 Words | 5 PagesHis love and fans continued as he recorded with other rock musicians from the 1960s through the 1970’s. When Muddy Waters played at the Newport Folk Festival, he really caught a large portion of white audience. The blues became cool with young white hippies who were against racist categorization of blues as “Black music”. In 1971, he won his first Grammy Award for the album “They Call Me Muddy Waters. Muddy Waters decided to go his own ways and signed with Blue Sky Label.
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732 Words | 3 PagesBlues music was a way for Still to express exactly what he wanted to say as an artist, getting a compromise out of his music. “Darker America” was his last entry into the International Composer’s Guild, however it was one that would be well known by the end. It explored themes of hope and sorrow, combining the idioms of his culture with the modern chromatics that were well known in the music
Delta Blues Annotated Bibliography
2221 Words | 9 PagesIn Deep Blues, Robert Palmer describes the Delta blues as music sang with “unmatched intensity in a gritty, melodically circumscribed, highly ornamented style… “ (Palmer, 1981). The first major characteristics of the Delta blues was that it was in close relations to work chants and field hollers of the African American slaves. As a result of this close connection, songs of the Delta blues were often a share of disparities, sorrow, sad experience and generally life as the oppressed minority (blacks). The Delta Blues is also characterized by the distinct fingerpicking and sliding of the guitar (legato guitar) creating deep elaborate rhythms to express deep emotion and message. This distinct sliding styles of playing is also known as the bottleneck guitar because early sliders were made from smooth glass bottlenecks.
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1223 Words | 5 PagesJimi would eventually get into the blues scene by teaching himself how to play guitar by playing along to artists such as Muddy Water and BB
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707 Words | 3 PagesThe brothers represent not only Baldwin himself, but their entire culture as well. Moreover, the blues express the battles, the condition and the rage that comes with being a black man in American society (Fares 72). The blues are a mutual understanding of suffering between every single person in the community; they are symbolic of the love that lets them bear the weight of the world in their shoulders with confidence because they know they are not alone. Baldwin wrote “Sonny’s Blues” to show that only an individual holds the power to accept their own suffering, and only when they come to terms with their pain, will they begin to understand the pain of those before them like the narrator did during his epiphany. In unison, they will set a framework for the generations that follow as they try to find a solution to their overall role in
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104 Words | 1 PagesThe narrator in Sonny's Blues and his brother, Sonny, are very similar. Both share ethnicity, grew up together in Harlem, and have suffered loss. If you look deeper, past race and blood and family, you can see the two are incredibly different. Sonny is reckless and somewhat carefree for a good portion of his adult life. He is also extremely connected on an emotional level to music.
Theme Of Blues In Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man
928 Words | 4 PagesYet, the ideals that were shown in the book and found in blues music are best shown through the author’s own words. Bluestein cites Ellison’s definition of blues as, “an impulse to keep the painful details and episodes of a brutal experience alive in one's aching consciousness . . . As a form, the blues is an autobiographical chronicle of personal catastrophe expressed lyrically” (Bluestein). In making this comment, Bluestein is showing through Ellison’s words the similarity between the novel and the genre that it is a piece that shows someone’s own
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835 Words | 4 PagesThe Power of Art ¨Trumpeter of Lenox and 7th / through Jesse B. Semple,/ you simply celebrated Blues and Bebop / and beling black before / it was considered hip.¨ (Wesley Boone). Although the poems ¨Long Live Langston¨ by Wesley Boone, and ¨The weary Blues¨ by Langston Hughes were written in different time periods and with different purposes, the poems show similarities such as using similar figurative language to express an idea, and differences such as communicating different themes. Here are some examples of the similarities and differences shown throughout the poems. To begin with, in the poems ¨Long Live Langston¨ by Wesley Boone, and ¨The Weary Blues¨ by Langston Hughes, the authors include similes in their work, which helps the reader understand the similarities between the poems.
Sonny's Blues: The Harlem Renaissance
934 Words | 4 PagesSonny's Blues was written in 1957, 37 years after the roaring twenties had come to an end. Long after the great Migration, where millions of blacks moved to northern cities to escape Jim Crow, and embrace the new found possibilities offered. During this period African-Americans in New York, collectively gathered in Harlem mainly, it was usually alluded to as the black capital. There blacks shared culturally and also, influenced music greatly. This is also where the "new negro" persona was crafted, blacks were no longer going to be referred to as someone's mammies or boy.
Father And Son Relationships In Sonny's Blues By James Baldwin
521 Words | 3 PagesAs a matter of fact, the storyteller does not appreciate Sonny's motivations to play jazz music until the evening he socially joins Sonny to his stage show at a nightclub. Sitting in a dark corner at the nightclub, the storyteller listens to his brother play, considering the reminder of Sonny's friend, Creole, of what the Blues are about, "The tale, of the blues, how we live, and how we are delighted, how we suffer... and how we triumph... must be heard... it's the only light we've got in all this darkness." (Baldwin 139). For the narrator, he perceives that the Blues is the manifestation for Sonny's emotions, especially his suffering, because, as Creole would say, music is the only light in the
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947 Words | 4 PagesThis church type music combined with the blues is speaks from the soul. The expressive melodies based on simple tunes and intricate harmonies create a
Armstrong Hotter Than That Essay
564 Words | 3 PagesI do think racial origins did affect the way these pieces were performed. African music is highly syncopated and rhythmic, often utilizing accents and outgoing behavior to draw attention to the piece. In contrast, the European influences for jazz were more introverted and subdued, resulting in soothing pieces that, while rhythmic, don 't always give extra syncopation. I liked both pieces a lot and the trouble with picking a favorite depends a lot on my mood. Today, I would have to say that I would prefer Singin’ the Blues.
Essay On Blues Music
734 Words | 3 PagesBlues music as a genre and form was developed by African Americans in the south of the United States at the end of the 19th century. The genre has origins in many cultures such as in African music, African-American work songs and European-American folk music. Blues music incorporates field hollers, shouts, chants, etc. The blues form, found in jazz, rhythm and blues and rock and roll, is characterized by the call-and-response pattern, and also the twelve-bar blues structure, which is the most common feature. Early traditional blues verses consisted of a single line repeated four times.
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1115 Words | 5 PagesIn this case repetition is used to regularly insinuate a sense of desperation and isolation. In addition to this, the first two lines of the stanza rhyme. Blues music was created and first sung by the African slaves who would sing to convey their hardship and isolation from others. Blues music to the African slaves was a strategy to explain their feelings and help them cope with their suffering.
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