Mississippi history is a sad history of slavery and oppression. It is a history of racism and refusal to let go of segregationist ideals. Mississippi history is enough to give many the blues. In fact, the Blues style music originated in Mississippi and gravitated outward from there. .Mississippi history and Blues history are intertwined. Delta Blues is a blues style that originated in the Mississippi Delta and influenced many musicians. Another musical art form, Jazz may be considered an offspring from the Blues and also started in the South. There are many Blues musicians and singers that come from Mississippi or have become linked to Mississippi for various reasons. Bessie Smith, Charley Patton, Muddy Waters, and Cassandra Wilson have all made their mark on Mississippi history through the Blues and Jazz music.
Although Bessie Smith was not born in Mississippi nor did she make her home there, she will always be known for her tragic and early death there. Blues singer Bessie Smith known as “Empress of the Blues” was born in Chattanooga, Tennessee in 1894. The Blues may have come naturally for Smith. Early in her life, she lost her father before she could even remember. Smith was an orphan by the age of nine having also lost her mother. Furthering her attraction to Blues music, she also lost a brother before she was ten. It is no wonder that she experienced the pains of poverty at this early age. An older sister took over the responsibility of the family, but it could not have been easy. Smith and a brother helped earn money for the family by “busking,” a form of street performance. Another brother left the family to join a traveling vaudeville show. Although his exit was painful and without warning for Smith, it laid the path f...
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...in Chicago and transplanted the Blues there. His style of playing became associated with the Chicago Blues style.
Blues music is a big part of Mississippi history. Delta Blues is the distinctive style of Blues music that originated in the Mississippi Delta. One of the most famous early women Blues singers, Bessie Smith died in Mississippi and will always be associated with Mississippi. Charley Patton, who spent his entire life in Mississippi, is considered the “Father of Delta Blues”. He influenced many younger Blues player. Muddy waters was born in Mississippi and learned to play the Blues there, but he developed a style of Blues music that influenced Mississippi and beyond.
Works Cited
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bessie_Smith http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charley_Patton http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dockery_Plantaion
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muddy_Waters
She first started writing, when she came back home after the death of her father. She wrote about the Jackson social scene for the Memphis, Tennessee newspaper. She also was a publicity agent for the Works Progress Administration in rural Mississ...
The blues and jazz are all branches of slave music and that is why slave music is important to music history.No wonder what kind of music, their develop all based on another kind of old music, so slave music is the beginning for all of these musics,like what these musics mean about, what kind of music instruments these musics should be use and what style of temperament it should be includes.All of the musicians are develop their musics because of these basic things,so we can have so many beautiful music in this century because of the slave music’s set up.It make creating road
Bessie Smith was a rough, crude, violent woman. She was also the greatest of the classic Blues singers of the 1920s. Bessie started out as a street musician in Chattanooga. In 1912 Bessie joined a traveling show as a dancer and singer. The show featured Pa and Ma Rainey, and Smith developed a friendship with Ma. Ma Rainey was Bessie's mentor and she stayed with her show until 1915. Bessie then joined the T.O.B.A. vaudeville circuit and gradually built up her own following in the south and along the eastern seaboard. By the early 1920s she was one of the most popular Blues singers in vaudeville. In 1923 she made her recording debut on Columbia, accompanied by pianist Clarence Williams. They recorded "Gulf Coast Blues" and "Down Hearted Blues." The record sold more than 750,000 copies that same year, rivaling the success of Blues singer Mamie Smith (no relation). Throughout the 1920s Smith recorded with many of the great Jazz musicians of that era, including Fletcher Henderson, James P. Johnson, Coleman Hawkins, Don Redman and Louis Armstrong. Her rendition of "St. Louis Blues" with Armstrong is considered by most critics to be one of finest recordings of the 1920s. Bessie Smith was one of the biggest African-American stars of the 1920s and was popular with both Whites and African-Americans, but by 1931 the Classic Blues style of Bessie Smith was out of style and the Depression, radio, and sound movies had all damaged the record companies' ability to sell records so Columbia dropped Smith from its roster. In 1933 she recorded for the last time under the direction of John Hammond for Okeh. The session was released under the name of Bessie Smith accompanied by Buck and his Band. Despite having no record company Smith was still very po...
Bessie Smith was born April 15, 1894 in Chattanooga, Tennessee. She later in life became known as the “Empress of the Blues”. At the age of eighteen she being traveling with a group by the name of Moss Stokes Company. While with the group she met Ma Rainey who also became a friend and mentor to her. After traveling with the group, in 1923 she was discovered by Columbia Records. After signing with Columbia, she released her first song Downhearted Blues. The song Downhearted Blues went on to sale over 800,000 copies and became one her most popular songs. During the 1920s and 1930s she had become one of the most famous blues singers in America. During that time period Bessie recorded over 160 tracks. Because of the time period many black singers
The first appearance of jazz was at the turn of the century in New Orleans and is called “Dixieland Jazz,” or “Classic Jazz.” It developed out of music for street parades in the black community. It also had deeper roots in a style of music called “Blues,” which was used to express the daily experiences of the community (History). Other influences include the combination of West African folk music with the popular classical music of Europe, developing into syncopated rhythms and chord variations on classical pieces (Passion).
The Blues Aesthetic is not simply just a music genre, it is much more. The Blues Aesthetic is a genre of music that comes particularly from African-Americans. The Blues Aesthetic was originated from the southern parts of the United States and eventually grew very popular among all types of people. The Blues Aesthetic started in the south because of the hardships African-Americans had to face at the time; the Blues Aesthetic was a pain reliever for all the pain. The Blues Aesthetic also gave African-Americans a cultural identity. Although the Blues Aesthetic is more referred to as music and poetry, the Blues Aesthetic can be referred to any type of African-American art or African American inspired art, whether is be paintings, drawings, cookings, and so much more. Examples of the Blues Aesthetic are two different African-American artist named B.B. King and Aaron Douglas.
Blues music emerged as an African American music genre derived from spiritual and work songs at the end of the 19th century and became increasingly popular across cultures in America. The Blues is the parent to modern day genre’s like jazz, rhythm and blue and even rock and roll, it uses a call-and-response pattern. While Blues songs frequently expressed individual emotions and problems, such as lost love, they were also used to express despair at social injustice. Even though Blues singing was started by men, it became increasing popular among women, creating one of the first feminist movements. Ma Rainey, a pioneer in women’s
...ey cannot deny that the Blues has influenced different genres from the cotton fields to the Rock-and-Roll Hall of Fame.
Ragtime and Blues are different in that they originated from different places. Blues developed in the south. Blues is mainly a vocal music. It was emotional, in that the earliest form was singing and hand clapping. The blues started out with slaves because they would use it to sing about their pain and problems. However, ragtime was popular among many Americans and flourished. The term “ragged time” came to be used to describe its key trait which was syncopation. Ragtime music is tuneful, but it is primarily rhythmic. Whereas a blues song can be sung freely by one person, or a chorus, without a strict rhythm, ragtime is more like a march. The popularity of ragtime flourished at world fairs and was welcomed by many people. Both styles
Mississippi has a long history of good and bad events. After the Civil War, reconstruction was necessary to repair the South and encourage the people to reenter the Union. In the days of the Civil Rights Movement Mississippi made history in a bad way. Those were tough times for a state that prided itself on self-reliance and determination while covering up hate. Mississippi and its people have always been dedicated to home and family, but it was not a perfect union of races and classes. Railways and waterways were the means to get crops to the Gulf of Mexico. There ships were waiting to take cotton and sugar cane to other countries. The Mississippi River is one of the ways to move goods, services, and people. Music is a part of the old and new Mississippi. Mississippi struggles to lift itself out of the past and into the future. Mississippi is the birth place of the Blues. Music is one way that all people of Mississippi come together in the same place at the same time. Music is alive and well at church, in community buildings, and even schools.
It is very difficult to determine the exact origin of the blues. Although its earliest roots evolved from West Africa, the blues probably emerged in the United States around the 1800's relative to the African America plight into slavery, as spirituals, work songs, and "arhoolies" (traditional, vernacular, or regional music) (The Arhoolie Foundation). All had some form of influence on the blues as a distinct form of music. The emergence of the blues would have occurred with the social and economic circumstances of the African Americans. (Crosby) Blues was a way of communicating discontent. But it was the spiritual blues that was the music of an unhappy people - the music that told of death, and suffering, and a cry for some hope of freedom and liberation from their torment. Yes, the slaves did get their freedom but were still bound to their "Chains" by racism.
Most people know Mississippi for its music such as; gospel, blues, jazz music, and rock and roll. But it is much more than the creator of blues it is much deeper than that. Mississippi wasn’t Mississippi at first it was discovered by European travelers. The first major European expedition into the territory that became Mississippi was that of Hernando Desoto to who passed through in 1540. Another part of Mississippi was claimed by the French. They claimed territory that included Mississippi as part of their colony of New France and started settlement. Did you know a lot of Mississippi’s counties and parts are named after Indian tribes that were here hundreds of years ago? They included the Natchez, the Yazoo, the Pascagoula, and the Biloxi. Hundreds of years ago Mississippi was controlled by a lot of people. On December.10, 1817, the western portion of Mississippi territory became the state of Mississippi, the 20th state of the union. A lot of people think that Jackson was always the state capital it wasn’t. Natchez was the capital of Mississippi first; the capital was moved to Jacks...
Different from other forms of music, blues was only recorded by memory and passed down through generations through live performances. The blues began in the North Mississippi Delta post Civil War times. It was heavily influenced by African roots, field hollers, ballads, church music and rhythmic dance tunes called jump-ups. This eventually developed into music that was set up in a call-and- response way so that the singer would sing a line and he would then respond with his guitar.
The blues emerged as a distinct African-American musical form in the early twentieth century. It typically employed a twelve-bar framework and three-lined stanzas; its roots are based in early African-American songs, such as field hollers and work songs, and generally have a melancholy mood. The blues can be divided into many sub-genres, including Classical, Country, and Urban. The purpose of this paper is to focus on the careers of two of Classical blues most influential and legendary singers: Ma Rainey and Bessie Smith.
The blues of that time was called country blues. It was a mixture of African