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What are the roots of the blues music
History of the blues
The blues music history
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In “Blame It On the Blues” the author Angela Davis, argues against critics, like Samuel Charters and Paul Oliver, who say that the Blues lacks social commentary or political protest, by saying that the Blues was a subtle protest against gender and racial inequality. Davis uses various songs from Ma Rainey and Bessie Smith to prove this. 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,
First, the very sorrow that the characters in this story face is that of racial discrimination a form of darkness. It is noted in the very first paragraph “I stared at it in the swinging lights of the subway car, and in the faces and bodies of the people, and in my own face, trapped in the darkness that roared outside.”(58) The setting of this story takes place in Harlem, New York. The city of Harlem is notoriously known for its inner city, poverty stricken population and mostly as a location in which to find African Americans. “These boys now, were living as we’d been living then they were growing up with a rush and their heads bumped abruptly against the low ceiling of their actual possibilities.” (59). The story Sonny’s Blues was written in the 1950’s which clearly segregation was still indeed active and the African Americans were lynched by the darkness of their skin tone. In the 1950’s the chance of an African American becoming successful especially with coming from the ghetto was extremely low. In the time frame that presents itsel...
Blues has played an extreme role in todays’ music. The music genre of blues, helps us express ourselves in which you can feel it from the ubiquitous in the jazz to the blues scale and the specific chord progressions. To start off, the blues is musically originated by African Americans in the deep South of the United States. Growing up in a southern household, I was used to listening to a variety music, but blues was always most listened to. Every time I listen to blues, the lyrics often deal with personal adversity, and it goes far beyond pity.
Women’s sufferage was at it’s peak with the ratification of the United States Nineteenth Amendment. Women recived more independence after the end of the First World War and took a greater part in the work force. In the 1920s, there were many famous women Jazz artists such as Lovie Austin, a piano player and band leader, Lil Hardin Armstrong, a pianist who was originally a member of King Oliver’s band, and Bessie Smith, an African-American blues singer who inspired women like Billie Holiday and Janis Joplin. Although women were also making a difference in the Jazz industry, it wasn’t until the 1930s when they were recongnized as successful artists in the music world.
As human beings, we have a certain expectation of how we should be addressed and respected. A lack of respect can draw from different sources age, race, religion, and other factors. In history, this condescension can be seen as racism, prejudice, discrimination, exploitation, or segregation. A significant point in time was set in America during the first half of the twentieth century when segregation of whites and blacks was prominent. During this time period, blues music made an appearance and its popularity grew immensely. The songs I Wonder When I’ll Get to be Called a Man and Black, Brown and White, composed by William “Big Bill” Broonzy, illustrate the impertinence felt by African Americans from the rest of America. Ultimately the genre,
The African-American civil rights movement was a cruel time for the African American race to endure due to the harsh discrimination and segregation that they faced. This movement fought for the rights and the equality of African Americans in the United States. With all that was going on, African Americans turned to music for motivation, courage, inspiration and strength to overcome the difficult obstacles that they would soon face. “Non-violence marchers faced beating, hosing, burning, shooting, or jail with no defense other than their courage and songs” (Hast 45). “It's been a long, a long time coming/ But I know a change gonna come, oh yes it will” (Cooke, Sam. A Change Is Gonna Come). Music was their greatest hope for change in the near future and is the thing that kept them fighting for what they deserved. They came together with each other due to the lyrics of many different songs that kept the civil rights movement alive and known. Music painted a vision that they could picture and look forward to; it was a dream that they could fight for. “Music empowered African Americans to hold tight to their dream of racial equality” (Jeske). A genre of music that bought society together during this movement was folk.
Nina Simone used music to challenge, provoke, incite, and inform the masses during the period that we know as the Civil Rights Era. In the songs” Four Women”, “Young Gifted and Black”, and Mississippi God Damn”, Nina Simone musically maps a personal "intersectionality" as it relates to being a black American female artist. Kimberly Crenshaw defines "intersectionality" as an inability for black women to separate race, class and gender. Nina Simone’s music directly addresses this paradigm. While she is celebrated as a prolific artist her political and social activism is understated despite her front- line presence in the movement. According to Ruth Feldstein “Nina Simone recast black activism in the 1960’s.” Feldstein goes on to say that “Simone was known to have supported the struggle for black freedom in the United States much earlier, and in a more outspoken manner around the world than had many other African American entertainers.”
According to Albert Murray, the African-American musical tradition is “fundamentally stoical yet affirmative in spirit” (Star 3). Through the medium of the blues, African-Americans expressed a resilience of spirit which refused to be crippled by either poverty or racism. It is through music that the energies and dexterities of black American life are sounded and expressed (39). For the black culture in this country, the music of Basie or Ellington expressed a “wideawake, forward-tending” rhythm that one can not only dance to but live by (Star 39).
For Stanley, the blues tell the stories of the African-American community. Some of the stories talk about the harshness of their lives, but they also talk about the good times they had. [People] play the blues to get rid of the blues not to get them." (Lamb, 1). When people play or even listen to the blues, they are letting all of their worries go. They are not worrying about their job, the bills, or their kids. They are just trying to enjoy the moment when the blues are playing. The blues are some people's release from the stresses of their lives.
“Sonny’s Blues” revolves around the narrator as he learns who his drug-hooked, piano-playing baby brother, Sonny, really is. The author, James Baldwin, paints views on racism, misery and art and suffering in this story. His written canvas portrays a dark and continual scene pertaining to each topic. As the story unfolds, similarities in each generation can be observed. The two African American brothers share a life similar to that of their father and his brother. The father’s brother had a thirst for music, and they both travelled the treacherous road of night clubs, drinking and partying before his brother was hit and killed by a car full of white boys. Plagued, the father carried this pain of the loss of his brother and bitterness towards the whites to his grave. “Till the day he died he weren’t sure but that every white man he saw was the man that killed his brother.”(346) Watching the same problems transcend onto the narrator’s baby brother, Sonny, the reader feels his despair when he tries to relate the same scenarios his father had, to his brother. “All that hatred down there”, he said “all that hatred and misery and love. It’s a wonder it doesn’t blow the avenue apart.”(355) He’s trying to relate to his brother that even though some try to cover their misery with doing what others deem as “right,” others just cover it with a different mask. “But nobody just takes it.” Sonny cried, “That’s what I’m telling you! Everybody tries not to. You’re just hung up on the way some people try—it’s not your way!”(355) The narrator had dealt with his own miseries of knowing his father’s plight, his Brother Sonny’s imprisonment and the loss of his own child. Sonny tried to give an understanding of what music was for him throughout thei...
Reading these poems is an incredible learning experience because it allows readers to view segregation through the eyes of someone most affected by it. In the U.S. History course I took I didn’t take away the details and specific examples I did from reading and researching Brooks’ work. For example, the history textbook only mentioned one specific person who was affected by segregation, that person was Rosa Parks. The example of Rosa Parks demonstrated just one isolated incident of how black people were punished if they disobeyed the laws of segregation. In contrast, Brooks’ work demonstrates the everyday lives of black people living with segregation, which provides a much different perspective than what people are used to. An example, of this would be in Brooks’ poem “Bronzeville Woman in a Red Hat”. The speaker of this poem hired a black maid and referred to her as “it”(103). By not using the maid’s name or using the pronoun her, the speaker is dehumanizing the maid. This poem expresses to readers that white people thought that black people weren’t like them, that they weren’t even
Racism and the sense to fulfill a dream has been around throughout history. Langston Hughes’s poems “Harlem” and “I, Too” both depict the denial of ethnicity mix in society and its impact on an African American’s dream. James Baldwin’s “Sonny’s Blues” uses jazz music to tie the belief of one’s intention and attainment to the black race. The two main characters are different in a way of one fitting into the norm of the American Dream and the other straying away from such to fulfill his own dream. All three pieces of writing occur during the same time in history in which they connect the black race with the rejection of the American Dream and the opportunity to obtain an individual effort by a culture.
Women in popular music have created a tremendous history in the wake of feminism. They have made their presence visible by identifying themselves as feminists. Being a woman was hard during that stage. Women were not allowed to do many things due to gender inequality such as the right to vote and to own a property. Therefore, from that moment onwards, women decided to stand up and make some changes. During the early stage of feminism, women developed their skills in popular music to create awareness. They associate popular music with feminism. Although there were racial issues between the black and white during that time, both sides continued to establish in different ways, through different genres of music. Black women focused on ‘black genres’ such as blues, jazz, and gospel, whereas white women performed in musical theatres. Female artists such as Lilian Hardin, Sister Rosetta Tharpe, and Nina Simone were among the notable exceptions of female instrumentalists during feminism. In this essay, I will assess feminism focusing on the second-wave.
Schuster-Craig, J. (2011). The Blue Moment: Miles Davis's Kind of Blue and the Remaking of
Goldman, Suzy B. "James Baldwin's "Sonny's Blues": A Message in Music." Negro American Literature Forum 3rd ser. 8 (1974): 231-33. St. Louis University. Web. Apr.-May 2014.
The Roots of Blues Music Blues is a very important type of music. Most music that you hear today has some form of blues in it. If it wasn't for the blues there wouldn't be any rock and roll, country, rap, pop, or jazz . Blues is also important for African American culture. African Americans were also the people who started the blues.