"The Blues Had a Baby" (Jimmy Byrne's Junior Research Paper)

[JimmyByrne09]

I had to type a 6-8 page research paper on anything that happened in American History, so, naturally, I chose something about music. I took 6 sources and typed this giant paper all about, "How Blues music affected the birth of Rock and Roll"

If you have the time, read and review etc.
Enjoy!


In the 1950s and 1960s, rock and roll music was one of the biggest, most popular phenomenons to ever hit the United States of America. Artists such as Elvis Presley and Chuck Berry paved the way for many of their young listeners to start playing music themselves, and go on to become some of the most influential musicians known today. Many genres of music such as jazz, gospel, folk, and country have been known to play minor roles in contributing to the birth of rock and roll; but the form of music that is best known to have had the biggest influence is none other than the blues. Planting its seeds in United States (U.S.) soil, the blues has been traced back to the early 1800s before the Civil War, when African American slaves would bond together in groups and chant, or sing original melodies while they worked on their master's plantations. These chants developed into a specific pattern heard in most blues songs even today. Word spread quickly across the nation of this new way for people to express their sorrows through song, and over the decades, more and more people picked up the guitar and wrote blues songs depicting their lives, painting pictures of sorrow and depression to their listeners. As technology advanced, these musicians began recording their songs, and the more popular blues musicians began producing their records across the country. The genre grew and became even more well known. As this occurred, young white Americans began listening to these records. They broke the racial bounds of the blues as they imitated the style, and even changed it in their own unique ways using electric guitars backed with other instruments. In addition, somebody produced a beat on a drum set, expressing themselves through anger while continuing to show their depression through the traditional blues pattern that they grew up listening to. Thus, the genre of rock and roll came alive, and grows even still.
A very important aspect in the shaping of the United States of America we know today is the time period before the Civil War, the war between the northern and southern regions of the nation. Southern plantation owners bought and sold slaves that were shipped over from Africa to work for no pay. These slaves were tortured mercilessly. The extreme oppression of this era, caused these African Americans to feel the need to express their woes in a way that wouldn't upset their masters, which resulted in them getting beaten.
The way they went about this problem was by chanting or singing words while working in large groups, that to the untrained ear would sound like nonsense. But within their lyrics, in popular melodies among the slaves, such as “Swing Low Sweet Chariot,” they would hide messages of anger and sadness, projected directly towards the harsh dictatorships of their masters, referring to specifics such as the way they ran their fields. Often times, the slaves would also sing about their yearning for freedom from their eternal careers as servants to their masters' beckoning.
This form of liberation spread quickly throughout the south among slaves. They shouted their subliminal messages in specific patterns such as call and repeat, or sang in styles such as spirituals, work songs, and field hollers. One of these styles of singing, which was previously unnamed, developed to become widely known as the progression used in most classic blues songs.
This pattern mapped out by Lisa Scrivani-Tidd is “most often referred to by musicologists as AAB: the first A is the first phrase of melody, usually four measures long with a first line of text accompanied by harmony consisting of the tonic (I) chord (built upon the first tone of a major scale); the second A is a repetition of the same melody and text, usually four measures long, accompanied by the subdominant (IV) chord (built upon the fourth tone of a major scale) and tonic chords; and the B is a different melody and a contrasting phrase of text that often rhymes with the A line and usually is four measures long, accompanied by the dominant (V) chord and sometimes the dominant seventh (V7) chord (both built upon the fifth tone of a major scale), subdominant, and tonic chords, and functions as a response to the words and melody of the A sections”. The AAB pattern was very popular, and was beginning to be used more often by people after the turn of the century.
The term widely used to define the genre of music that the AAB pattern falls under is “the blues,” which most directly refers to the “blue devils” which means having the feelings of melancholy and sadness. In March of 1912, Hart Wand, a musician from Oklahoma City, Oklahoma was the first man to officially publish the first original blues composition on sheet music, entitled “Dallas Blues”.
In the early 1900s, more and more individuals picked up the guitar, and wrote and produced songs with the AAB progression. These musicians began experimenting with the popular progression, by varying its length or speed. For example, the most commonly used version of the progression, contains twelve measures for each verse of the song, whereas in a shorter version, the progression would be cut in half, in order to contain only 6 measures to a verse.
As well as varying the length of the progression, blues guitarists added their own components, and personalities to their original compositions by using single notes in place of a verse in order to break away from solely playing the basic chords, which became the first use of guitar soloing. It is said to be very possible that the well-known southern blues guitarist, Blind Lemon Jefferson, was the first recorded artist to use the single-string guitar solo in his songs, which inspired many of the other great blues guitarists to do the same.

 

[JimmyByrne09]

PART 2:

One of those artists who went on to stand out highly over the rest, is Robert Johnson. After his birth in May of 1911, Johnson grew up listening to blues music. He immediately fell in love with it. He developed a unique way of playing the blues guitar that can only be identified through his name. After many years of writing and practicing, finally, on November 23rd of 1936, Johnson is said to have scheduled two sessions in San Antonio, Texas to record his songs for the first time. He continued to write and produce for two years, until his unfortunate death in 1938. People continued to purchase and listen to his recordings, some of which incorporated his guitar playing techniques into their own. Robert Johnson is known to be one of the founding fathers of delta blues, one of the many subgenres created from the classic AAB pattern.
Delta Blues is best described as a style of blues music that was originated in the southern part of the United States, and has certain guitar playing techniques that were commonly found in popular country music songs at the time. Along with Robert Johnson, African American blues musicians such as Eddie James Jr. (otherwise known as Son House), and Charley Patton are known to be recognized as the first stars of delta blues. The more popular blues music became across the country, the more important a role it played as a part of African American culture.
One of the previously mentioned Delta Blues musicians, Charley Patton, is known to be one of the first blues musicians to have had incorporated aspects of Delta Blues in his songwriting and performance, which would later be often found in Rock and Roll songs. He is said to have had a performance personality unlike those found in any other blues musician of the time. He had very high energy every time he performed his music live and played his guitar in a very loud, rough manner. He would also hold his guitar between his legs, or behind his back while enthusiastically jumping around on stage.
Other characteristics of Patton that would become apparent in future Rock and Roll musicians were found in his personality. He spent a lot of his time drinking alcohol and smoking. He went through multiple marriages, and even spent time in jail. In his lyrics, Charley Patton explored beyond singing about lost love, or other common woeful messages used by blues musicians at the time. He even added the emotions of anger and hatred in his songs, such as “High Water Everywhere,” “High Sheriff Blues,” “Oh Death,” and “Pony Blues”. Emotions which later would be commonly found in the songwriting of Rock and Roll musicians. It then became apparent to the nation that because of the rapid changes happening in the blues genre, something brand new was gradually beginning to unmask itself.
As the 1950s approached, the racial wall surrounding blues music began to crumble. A new wave of blues performers joined the music industry and a new generation of teenagers were ready to listen. Newer styles of blues were developing as the genre touched base farther north, breaking away from the southern roots of Delta Blues, attracting more young white Americans. A new subgenre joined the realm, as blues musicians took northern roots, and developed Chicago blues.
As technology continued to develop and grow, Chicago blues guitarists, one by one, put down their acoustic instruments. Artists amplified their sound by performing with electric equipment and back-up bands; incorporating different instruments such as bass guitar, rhythm guitar, keyboards and drum beats into their songs. The blues genre that everyone was once familiar with, had suddenly gone through a drastic change, and the electric blues was happily welcomed into the family.
Artists such as Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf, and Willie Dixon branched out, gaining popularity throughout the northern states as they pushed blues music to a whole new level. By adding distortion to their guitars, and turning up the volume on their amplifiers, they factored in a crunchy, angry-toned sound to the music they played, and wrote lyrics expressing such things as anger and rebellion. This new form of blues became very popular, very fast, especially among the younger crowd, simply because the life experiences they were going through at that point in their lives, mirrored some of the same life experiences being explained through the lyrics of these songs.
Among the influenced teenage population aspiring young, white musicians who grew up to be some of the most influential musicians of all time, such as Elvis Presley and Pat Boone, started getting their music produced. They took famous blues songs and performed the unthinkable. Blues songs with an originally slower tempo such as “Shake, Rattle, and Roll” were sped up by artists such as Bill Haley and his Comets, to levels that appealed more to younger, high-energy audiences. They even broke away from the classic AAB blues progression, and mixed chords up to create songs including verses, choruses, and bridges with a continuous backing melody. As this new music sensation started on its journey, radio stations picked up on it.
In 1951, Alan Freed, a disc jockey (DJ) from a local radio station in Cleveland, Ohio, streamed hits from rhythm and blues artists to a multiracial audience, and called it “Rock and Roll”. The term then went on to describe this brand new style of blues. The verb rock had a long history of meaning “to shake up, to disturb or incite”, and the verb roll was used as a metaphor for sex.
The new genre grew over the decades; American musicians came together and formed bands, as the line dividing blues music and rock and roll music became more defined. Racial bounds were broken, as African American blues musicians, such as Chuck Berry entered the scene, and began playing rock and roll music with the highly-produced, white musicians. Over the years, bands such as The Beatles and The Rolling Stones became popular in their hometowns in England and brought their music to the United States as a part of the British invasion, which occurred during the 1960s. These English Rock and Roll groups highly influenced many other American musicians to form bands, write, and produce their music for the general public. Influential bands such as The Doors tested the boundaries of rock music through the use of dark lyrics and original poetry. Rock and Roll guitarist Jimi Hendrix explored what can be done with a single electric instrument. Rock and roll music continues to grow, and branch out into its own subgenres, such as alternative, pop, blues-rock or metal, as it is still a form of music listened to by a large number of people across the world.
Although it is true to say that many different forms of music played small parts in the development of rock and roll, it is most truthful to say that the genre of blues music affected it the most. The time period when slaves chanted hidden messages about their masters while they work, up to the formation of the AAB pattern make up the history of blues music. It became a highly-appreciated music genre toward the turn of the century, as artists started recording, and began producing original blues songs. The popularity level rose even more when subgenres such as Delta, Chicago and Electric blues were formed, and ended up influencing younger musicians to think outside of the box, creating the genre widely known today as Rock and Roll.

 

[LG]

Putting my bookmark in here for now Jimmy, I'll have time to go over it tomorrow.

 

[Magic]

Very nice paper. I like the fact you go into some detail about how the blues was born in the south from slaves. I also like how you mention some of the Delta Blues pioneers. Then you tie the whole paper up by making the connection to how all this lead to rock n roll.


I would give you a good grade for it