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The history of rock and roll
Development of rock and roll
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Walking Blues vs. Blue Moon of Kentucky As time progressed, music had to continue to evolve to keep up with the ever-changing styles. Blues slowly began to morph into Rock and Roll to engage people of a new era. While many changes occurred in creating Rock and Roll, it continued to carry undertones of the Blues. This can be heard while comparing Son House’s, “Walking Blues” and Elvis Presley’s, “Blue Moon of Kentucky.” These two songs show many similarities, while also having their own identities. There are two main similarities that can be heard while listening to “Walking Blues” and “Blue Moon of Kentucky.” The first is that they are both in 12 bar blues form. One characteristic of 12 bar blues is repeating the first line. Both songs incorporate this feature. In “Walking Blues” the first few lines are: Well I go up this morning, feeling ‘round for my shoes Know about that, I got the walkin’ blues I said I got up this morning, I was feeling ‘round for my shoes …show more content…
(Elvis Presley) The second characteristic of 12 bar blues, that both of these songs obtain is rhymed couplets. Song lyrics like chill and will, blues and shoes, and blue and you are all examples of this element in “Walking Blues”. Elvis also rhymes with words such as bright and tonight and high and bye. 12 bar blues is not the only similarity that this duo has, though. While listening to “Walking Blues” and “Blue Moon of Kentucky” similar instruments can be heard in the background. Both of these songs feature guitars. Son House, while singing, is playing his guitar with bent notes. He also used his notable slide technique to create a unique sound. In “Blue Moon of Kentucky” Presley featured Scotty Moore on the Electric Guitar and Bill Black on the Bass. The instrumentals in this song helped create an upbeat tempo that would lead to sucess. While there are many similarities there are also a number of
the blues were a type of black folk song little known beyond the southern United
8. V. Bogdanov, C. Woodstra, S. T. Erlewine. 2003. All Music Guide to the Blues: The Definitive
This form of music combined elements of R&B and country music with an increased tempo. This style of music can be heard in more of his famous hits such as "Heartbreak Hotel", "Blue Suede Shoes", and "Mystery Train".
Rural blues, being simple and unorganized, and rhythm and blues, being more complex and beat oriented, both portray the same song in virtually opposite ways. Both were entertaining in their own ways, and both of the artists were able grasp and hold the audience’s attention. Johnson’s rural blues version of “Crossroad” was heartfelt and story like with his little instrumental influence and his simple organization. When listening, the audience is able to hear his pure emotion and connection to the lyrics through his raw vocals. Clapton’s rhythm and blues version of “Crossroad” felt rehearsed and preformed; his use of strong beats, strict musical structure, and improvisation made the experience entertaining but very instrumentally focused. By comparing the two types of jazz, the listener is able to comprehend how much jazz has evolved throughout the years. Although one might prefer a specific style over the other, both are intriguing in their own ways and emphasize the strong influence jazz has in our
...h Boy’. The song includes electric guitar, harmonica, bass, piano, drums and vocals. Importantly, the electric guitar, bass and drums are the most distinguishable instruments as ‘Chicago blues instruments’. These formed the basis of many future blues bands and left a legacy for Muddy Waters, who was the one of the famous bluesman to pioneer and popularise modern, or ‘urban’ blues styles. Later styles of the genre were influenced not only by Muddy Waters, but also names such as B.B. King and T-Bone Walker; shaping the westside subgenre which often included more classical brass instruments.
Both genres were shown to have rhythmic syncopation in their music and both showed the improvisation. Blues improvised in the sense of the vocalist and ragtime did not improvise and composed their music to b accenting certain notes. Earlier we saw the main difference between the ragtime and blues because blues is known to completely miss a strong or weak note and ragtime is known to accent midway between notes. This main difference made ragtime have the uplifting swing feel versus the sorrow blues
In both “Sonny’s Blues” and “The Weary Blues”, music serves as a form of catharsis; in “SB” Sonny is able to escape his troubled life, and in “WB” the Negro man expresses his sadness about his difficult life. The portrayal of music differs in that it’s more of a joyful presence in “SB” but a grim and depressing one in “WB”.
Blues music originated in the cotton fields of the southern United States where the majority of the slave hands were put to work. “The earliest folk-blues were sung by nameless African-Americans living and working in the South’s cotton belt in the early 1880’s and 1890’s- in particular, the region from the Mississippi Delta to East Texas”(Barlow 3). It was believed that this began as a call and response style, which matured into the work song. From that standpoint, after the release of the slaves, the work song then matured into their Spirituals, and later was introduced to the whites through black-faced Minstrel of Medicine shows (How the Blues Overview). As the music matured and became more renowned, its influence became prominent in the music styles of the time, and in the intertwining relationships between the races.
The first country blues that was written and published was "Memphis Blues" by W.C. Handy in the early 1900's. The first recorded blues was " Crazy Blues" by Mamie Smith in 1915. Most country blues were played with an acoustic guitar and with someone singing. It also has a definite call and response between the voice and guitar.
The blues, a uniquely American art form, was born on the dusty street corners of the Deep South in the late 1800s. An evolution of West African music brought to the United States by slaves, created the blues which was a way for black people in the south to express their hardships, heartbreaks, religion, passion, and politics that they experienced in their day-to-day lives. The majority of blues songs were never written down, let alone recorded, but instead, were passed on from one musician to another and played on a variety of instruments including a number of stringed instruments, harmonicas, and horns. Once blues songs began to be officially recorded in the 1920s, the most frequently found instruments were guitars and pianos. However, the basic 12-bar style and three.-chord progression have remained the same throughout the years and continue to be key components of the blues.
Blues music is popular because of the characteristics it contains, for example, the musical form of the style. The simple but “expressive ‘microtonal’ pitch inflections, a three-line textual stanza of the form AAB, and a 12-measure form.” The pitch inflections or expressive notes are called “blue notes.” These notes were not found in the Western major and minor scale systems but did derive from the African musical practice. The form of the blues music was distinct from Western music because of the incorporation of African American musical practices; therefore, validating Amiri Baraka’s assessment of blues being the product of African American experiences and
Blues, a genre of music originated by African Americans around the end of the 19th century. This genre used many musical aspects from African-American work songs, African musical traditions and folk music. In order to determine what characteristically is deemed a ‘blues song’, stylistic components of blues as well as mood or emotion are the main corresponding influential factors to illustrate the blues musical genre. Blues form is also characterised by call-and response, meaningful lyrics of hurt or sorrow and a specific chord progression known as the 12-bar blues. Solomon Burke’s live performance of “If you need me”, a song originally written by Wilson Pickett and popularised by Solomon Burke, has definitively captivated the blues musical
Various authors have varyingly explored the origins of the blues, as a genre, possibly because of its influence in modern-day music world. In fact, the blues significantly influence today’s music scene and it is common to find other music genres borrowing from the blues in terms of style, tunes, as well as other features. Nevertheless, the blues have emerged as a widespread genre since its inception in the United States in the early 19th century. It is believed to belong to the popular (commonly referred to as pop music) style of music. In addition, it is associated with African-American culture. This paper looks into the work of two authors (R. Palmer and W. Barlow) by comparing and contrasting their views about the origin of the blues as
Rhythm and blues, also known as R&B, is something that I really enjoy. I am a singer and along with country music, R&B is my favorite thing to sing. With rhythm and blues, there is a song for every emotion, so most of the time the songs can be very relatable. The songs have a variety of subjects like sex, work, and even drinking. In this paper I will briefly discuss how rhythm and blues started, how it evolved into today’s music and why I like it so much.