'The History of Blues and Rock ‘N’ Roll\r'

'â€Å"You thr wiz’t variation the blue, until you’ve give your dues” (Spencer 41), said by the brainiac of the blue W. C. Handy. The discolor is a practice of medicine carriage of purport that influenced the States in globey an(prenominal) ways plaintu all(prenominal)y coming to create oscillate and roll. The true originators of the color go back to African break unitys backs brought to America to fetch on orchards. As these slaves gained exemption and bankers acceptance in the big cities vapours highly-developed its declare unique ardour. This unique medicational mode gained popity amongst the purity connection creating an opportunity for evidence labels to make a profit.\r\n at one time the megrims went across the nation gabardine practice of medicineians took the blue appearance and techniques creating brandish and roll. close to argue that disputation and roll was and a feeble attempt at duplicating the megrims whi ch could neer be understood in the face cloth community. Others argue that fluctuate and roll artists take the creative thinking of color medicationians to make their accept profit. My argument is to break with out whether or non the colour was stolen from African Americans and whether the megrims was the property of African Americans non to be using upd by uncontaminatings.\r\nWhatever the case, the megrims changed how other’s viewed symphony and brought a whole unfermented vibe to its etiolated listeners. To curingtle the argument over whether or not the vapours was slightlything that chokeed to nigrifys we must chance out where the vapors came from. If you want to find the origin of the discolour you must feeling back to western Africa before its slew were introduced to the European and American society. African Natives were free from the rest of the world, because it was too other(a) to go technology for travel. Due to this isolation they c reated their admit unique pulp of speech and medical specialty.\r\nThe cay element of West African practice of medicine was cal set asidear method, not airwave and harmony. Instead of the European melodic harmonies, West African euphony was surrounded by turn. â€Å"The core of European medicine was to embellish a short letter with a fleck of melodic instruments, and seasonably set a rhythm. The European grammatical construction of rhythm was only specified by vague terms such as â€Å"adagio” or â€Å"allegro. ” The core of West African music was to color a rhythm with a number of musical comedy instruments, and incidentally dress it up with a melody” (Scaruffi 2) Rhythm was the proveation of the vapours which the early dust coats neer used.\r\nIt can be concluded that the apprehension of rhythm was mostthing that was created by African Americans belonging to their shade. Once the concept of rhythm came to America the technique of melody wo uld fall behind graceful a little important aspect of music. In the 17th century America observed Africa and enslaved the â€Å"Inferior race” (Guralnick 98) to cook as cotton fiber and wheat smackers for Confederate orchard owners. As African slaves were s hip jointped off to America they brought the musical aspect of rhythm that would mystify the foundation for blue music. African slaves brought to pick cotton and wheat would use rhythm to set a pace for work. color slaves developed a â€Å"call and solvent” way of singing to give rhythm to the drudgery of their servitude. These â€Å"field hollers” served as a basis of all blues music that was to follow” (Scaruffi 1). These work verses were the original form of blues. They would express the rasping conditions of thraldom. Africans brought hot feelings and techniques to cause music. None of these emotions could be understood by face cloths because thralldom was not an issue for them. â€Å"Whether rhapsodic (religious), mournful (work) or exuberant (party), it was nigh(prenominal) more than emotional than white class music.\r\nThe combined effect of the hypnotic format and the emotional content created loose structures that could moderate for indefinite periods of time, in a more or less endless alternation of repetition and improvisation” (Guralnick 13). The conditions were unsmooth and brutal working on the southeasterlyern plantations. These harsh conditions were a major localise in the lyrics of African slaves and influenced the future authorship of blues music. â€Å"The songs of a Negro were the journal of his life (road, train, prison, saloon, sex), often an itinerant life, as opposed to the diary of a community (plantation, church)” (Spencer 38).\r\nAfricans held their traditions but changed the theme of their music to cay a picture of their everyday lives. color now had a foundation to make grow on. Due to the refreshed rhy thmic style of the first slaves brought from Africa, and generations of influence from America, blues was beginning to take form. The blues was originally a simple work song of cotton pickers and was now a modernistic style of music making its way into the white culture. vapors music had a style revolving around thralldom. So the blues did belong to African American because the issue of bondage did not affect whites.\r\nIn 1865 the united States added the thirteenth amendment into the constitution abolishing slavery braggart(a) slaves the freedom to travel. The end of slavery take to the â€Å" massive Migration” of blacks into cities legal transfer a hip musical style amongst the white city folk. After the Civil War with the abolition of slavery blacks gained their freedom and could choose where they would work. â€Å" scorch men had few options other than back-breaking manual field labor or becoming a traveling minstrel. M whatsoever chose the line of a trave ling minstrel acting raucous, all-night country dances, fish-frys, and congeejoints” (Pendack 11).\r\nFor blacks who left the South, the North promised freedom. notwithstanding segregation was still wide transmit throughout America. Due to the end of slavery numerous changes were make to the former slave music to create the blues. â€Å"The end of slavery meant, to some extent, the dissolution of the two traditionalistic meeting points for the African community: the plantation and the church” (Scaruffi 9). Music remained the way of release the frustration of African Americans, but the end of slavery introduced Blacks as individuals instead of beingness defined by a group. The black singer was now free to and sure-footed of defining himself as an individual. Solo singers correspond a raw(a) take on that condition, the view of a man eventually enabled to travel, and no longer a captive of his community, although, sometimes, more lonely” (Green 3).\r\nTh e run low of blues music began to change from slave work songs to blues. Whites could not understand the concept of gaining freedom because it was naturally given to them. The themes in the lyrics of the blues could only be seen through a black muliebrity or man’s eyes. Many blacks took railroads to Chicago where the â€Å" urban center discolour” was born. metropolis discolor” was a blues more subdued than its precursor, in part because its rhythms were more refined-more danceable. The African-rooted spirituality basically continued untouched; but the non-articulations (moans and hums) were less dissonant” (Guralnick 101). In Chicago, the emergence of the â€Å"City Blues,” in the 1920’s, created a new blues culture with increased musical capital punishment due to the merging of city life and African musicians. The white culture had already adapted to the city life whereas the city was completely new to blacks.\r\nThe theme of the city blues reflected the conditioning of the South’s rural emigrants to the city’s new universe of experience that could never be understood by whites. â€Å"City blues represent the African American’s transition from the relinquishment of old folkways to the annexation of the new progressive mentality. Race progress, represented the liberation of African Americans from the alleged tyranny of superstition” (Spencer 40). What the blues represented was an emotion that belonged to the blacks. Much of the blues was perform in vote downcast venues giving rise to new music techniques. Singers sang louder, amps were cranked up, because small noisy parliamentary law venues, habitual then, needed saturation to be perceive. Some make the switch to electric car guitars while adding drum sets to their bands due to the loudness of the crowd” (Green 6). The electric guitar began multiplying options for blues players. Some of the first generation artists of â €Å"City Blues” were, â€Å"Muddy Water, Howlin’ Wolf, T-bone Walker, Bobby Bland, Bo Diddley, Jimmy Reed, and B. B. King” (Pendack 2). The slaves of the plantations had made the transition from being â€Å"Field howlers,” to placeable performers in the city life.\r\nAs the sound of the blues began to rise in popularity stone and Roll began to develop over time. As the blues began developing a classifiable sound it provided some fundamental elements for joust and roll. After this time, blues was increasingly merged with rock music to form the rock blues bands of the 1960s and 70s. â€Å"Blues- the last in all of its permutations; call it a blending, a transition, a hybridization, maybe even a heritable modification; this is the progression of the music. The Forties and early Fifties set the table for rock & roll” (Spencer 41).\r\nThe rise in popularity of the blues had much to do with the big silver media, read companies and radios. The blues was spread nationwide amongst the white culture. â€Å"During the late 1920s, with the advent of the 78 RPM phonograph, some of the more popular country blues artists were demonstrateed by Paramount, Aristocrat and other eternize labels. These records served to break off white kinfolk to the blues, as swell as give the fledgling artists moving picture to national, yet segregated record labels” (Guralnick 101). The blues rose to new heights because the money was there.\r\nWar production pay checks and post-war successfulness gave music listeners money to buy the new music they loved. â€Å"They bought radios and they bought record players; they fed juke boxes and they bought records; they went to concerts at the Apollo and at the Hollywood Bowl. They made rhythm & blues profitable” (Pendack 13). With the risen popularity in blues music, record labels jumped at the chance to make some money. With the blues drawing a new crowd and rock and roll was to be born. Many of the original blues artists did not take too kindly to rock and roll. Whites began to make much profit from blues by creating rock and roll.\r\nHowever because blues originated from African American slave songs many whites had trouble replicating the blues because they had not asleep(p) through the same experiences. â€Å"Whites would steal from them this creativity born of labor and the elementary forms of industrialisation and then turn around and parcel out it back. White capital, which owned all of the record companies, controlled this commercialization process from the start, economically and culturally” (Spencer 38). The mass media, record companies and radio mete out stations were primarily under white control making the shift from blues to rock and roll easy. The record labels found that there was a market for blues records among white references of the big cities, curiously revolutionary York and Chicago” (Green 6). One of the original Africa n American Blues artists, W. C. Handy, admitted, â€Å"Each one of my blues is based on some old negro song of the South, some old song that is part of the memories of my puerility and my race. I can tell you the pack song I used as the basis for any one of my blues” (Guralnick 14). The blues music had an underling means of suffering from segregation and slavery. immediately let’s admit, I doubt any white man or woman would establish any experience paper about that topic.\r\nHere is a gigantic example of a white rock band utilise lyrics depicting the harsh conditions of an African American. Many blacks see this as an attempt at use blues music for profit. As the blues construction goes, â€Å"You can play the blues until you’ve paid your dues” (Spencer 38). â€Å"Every time a white cop hits a Negro with his truncheon club, that old club says, dance! Bop!… Be-Bop! Mop… That’s why so many white sept fag out’t dig†¦ White folks do not get their heads smite just for being white. But you, me, a cop is liable to grab me anytime and quake my head-just for being colored.\r\nAnd this where we come from-out of the dark eld we have seen. And not to be remove unless you’ve seen dark says, too. That’s why folks who ain’t suffered much cannot play, and do not understand it. They think it’s nonsense” (Spencer 42). -The police force, 1980 â€Å"It is important to note that â€Å"The law of nature” was a rock bunk from London, England. The trio included the now popular entirely singer â€Å"Sting” (Spencer 39). It is in like manner expenditure mentioning that this band consisted of three white men. not black, but white. Even though this song was produced and sung by a white band the lyrics are sung from a black man’s perspective. The Police” had no idea what it was like to be beat due to a variance in skin color. It is also price ment ioning that, â€Å"The Police” went on to sell more than 50 million albums and became the world’s highest-earning musicians in 2008. The Rolling Stone has bypast on to rank â€Å"The Police” number 70 on the list of vitamin C Greatest Artists of All Time” (Spencer 39).\r\nThey cease up making a grand profit while using lyrics from a black man’s perspective. Now the question arises: â€Å"Was the blues really stolen from African Americans? ” and if so, â€Å"Was the blues really something that belonged to African Americans? flavour back on the origins of the blues we can see that its foundation was set by the concept of rhythm created in Africa. Once African natives were enslaved they were brought over to America using work-songs to set pace for work. With the abolishment of slavery African Americans moved north bringing the new style of the blues with them. As these former slaves began to make the shift to perform in clubs individually , they began to develop a new sound. As the popularity of the blues began to rise record labels jumped at the opportunity to make a profit.\r\nOver time whites began to develop their own form of blues ultimately guide to rock and roll. Going back through this history we can conclude that African-Americans were the founders of blues. However, I do not think the blues is something that could be stolen. Rock and roll was formed by the combination of African culture and White culture. With the rhythmic style of the blues whites were able to transform it into their own version. If we were to persevere the blues hidden belonging only to African Americans, slavery would have never been abolished. Due to the clash of the two cultures the import is rock and roll.\r\nRock and roll heard today is merely the blues in its developed form. The blues was a thawing pot for all musical forms. As the blues was mixed and spiced up by difference artists, rock and roll was what boiled out. Annotated Bibliography Green, Adam. Blues. The Encyclopedia of Chicago. 1991. Web. April 23, 2010. The â€Å"African American Migration” from the South and the growth of the music industry lead to the creation of the â€Å"City Blues. ” During the 1950’, â€Å"City Blues, also known as the â€Å"Chicago Blues,” flourished using rhythm sections and a higher amplification.\r\nA higher reliance was given to guitar and harp leads. While â€Å"Chicago Blues” did not recapture the harsh conditions of the African American community, it found a new audience drawn from followers of rock music. Guralnick, Peter. looking at Like Going Home: Portraits in Blues and Rock ‘N’ Roll. capital of Massachusetts: Little, Brown and Company, 1999. crisscross Blues was a property of African Americans before it was even set on paper. Each blues singer had his own individual way of expressing himself. However there is a common thread of ideas as well as lyrics which gives blues players the ability to sit down with any other and play.\r\nIts very popularity in fact influenced recording trends and tended to place a far greater emphasis on the community. It has always been a commercial vehicle, and particularly so because of its adaptable form. Pendack, Stephen. History of Blues. Blues Music Rocks! 2002. Web. April 20, 2010. Blues has its deepest roots in the work songs of the West African slaves in the South. During their back-breaking work â€Å"field holler” would use rhythm of their work songs to set the pace. During the Great depression, blacks migrated north along railroad tracks to Chicago.\r\nThey brought blues music with them and soon the sound change urban night clubs. We began to see new performers like Muddy Waters electric switch to electric guitar and adding a drum set to their bands. Scaruffi, Piero. A Brief History of Blues Music. History of Popular Music. 2006. Web. April 23, 2010. During the creation of civilizations, bl ues â€Å"solo music” was invented to admire and respect musical talent of singers and instrumentalists. Blues music relied heavily on rhythm, both for bounce and singing. The key element to African music was rhythm, not melody and harmony.\r\nInstead of a melodic counterpoint, West African music was about rhythmic counterpoint. Spencer, Jon. Blues and Evil. Tennessee: The University of Tennessee, 1993. Print White blues artists have tended to fail the underlying theme of the blues because they have not fully understood African American culture. The language of the blues is one including a deep religious pith not to be duplicated by the white culture. With the creation of rock and roll a reason for using the foundations a blues arose. Much profit came from blues music but the meaning could never be understood by white culture.\r\n'