Great Rock Musicians: Their Achievements And Effect On Rock And Roll

Elvis’ fusion of country music and rhythm and blues made him the most successful rocker of all, he brought forth the clearest fusion of black blues music into the newly formed genre of rock and roll (Clarke). In a recent article done on the impact of Bob Dylan, Elvis Presley and Bruce Springsteen, Jimmy Iovine, the Chairman of Interstate A & M Records writes on Elvis “He didn't invent rock & roll, but he defined it in a way that everyone who followed him owes him a debt”(Iovine). One of rockabilly’s main appeals was the way it sounded on tape. Ma... ... middle of paper ... ...tview, 1997. Print.

The Blues became the defining black sound and it was Blind Lemon Jefferson that was the frontrunner of this image. The video “Folk America ep01 Birth of a Nation” talks about Jefferson’s style of music as something that had never been seen before. His voice was referred to as a street corners voice and his guitar style was very free rolling. Many Blues Musicians tried to imitate his form but nobody could do it quite like him. His first recordings were gospels and his descendants became preachers and musicians.

This is because of the power that the Blues possesses. The Blues started being formed the second an African got on a European's ship and was no longer considered human. Hundreds of years of opression and ghost can be heard in early blues music. Music by Robert Johnson and Maime Smith is not just listened to; it envelops the soul. This is why blues music has had such an impact on our society.

But it was in the twenties, that nation got the craze of blues when singers like Ma Rainey and Bessie Smith recorded classic blues with jazz bands. While Blues falls into its own category, there are many different kinds of blues. Early emerging were Delta Blues and Chicago Blues. Three early pioneer of Delta Blues were Eddie “Son” House, Bukka White, and Big Joe Williams. During the great depression many African-Americans migrated towards the north giving Blues a new identity with the advent of the electric guitar – Chicago Blues.

Handy, “the father of the Blues,” brought the Blues to the mainstream in1912 with the hit “Memphis Blues.” After the public heard the twelve note structure with the deep bass lines, the tree began to bear fruit. The Blues tree produced pioneers in all forms of music, from the haunting sound of Robert Johnson to the “King of the Juke Box” Louis Jordan. After all, where would other forms of music be if the “Carter Family” did not hook up with Lesley Riddle, Jelly “Roll” Morton did not get the message, and the “King” did not have the Blues? Art Menius said, “The African-American music of the rural south provided the source for gospel, jazz, and blues, while the often ignored black contribution to country music and hillbilly music went far beyond providing the banjo and Charley Pride.” In 1928, A.P. Carter, the patriarch of the legendary Carter Family, the first family of country music, met a blues guitarist by the name of Lesley “Esley” Riddle.

They played at weekend parties, picnics, and juke joints and this type of music pertained to the agricultural laborers. The community of African Americans that created the blues started to escape from the South due to the harsh Jim Crow laws. Many started to migrate to the North. Due to the new environment and not wanted to be reminded of the hardship from slavery, the sound of blues started to change. For example, Blues artist Muddy Waters changed from playing the acoustic guitar to the electric guitar and the sound of blues had a more electrified blues sound and this lead the way to the creation of Rhythm and Blues and Rock and Roll.

Towards the end of the 19th century, music brought over to the states by African slaves began to develop. Work songs, chants and shouts were the beginnings of the earliest form of blues: Delta blues. Delta blues was so called after the Mississippi Delta, where the towns and plantations that the original blues men and women worked were located. “The guitar and the harmonica were the primary tool of the Delta bluesman, mostly due to the ease of carrying them around, and many of the musicians of the Early Blues era (1910-1950) were sharecroppers, or worked on one of the many plantations that were located across the Mississippi Delta.” (Gordon, 2014) As well as guitar and harmonica, homemade instruments such as the diddley bow were very common amongst Delt... ... middle of paper ... ...h Boy’. The song includes electric guitar, harmonica, bass, piano, drums and vocals.

African Americans were also the people who started the blues. The Blues started in the late 1800's in levee camps or plantations in places like Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas were many African Americans lived. The blues of that time was called country blues. It was a mixture of African music, field hollers, work songs, religious music, and ragtime. The main influence of blues music was African music which has a strong and steady beat using drums or other instruments.

Among the many songs he eternalized, "The Thrill Is Gone" is perhaps his most enduring, he aslo won several Grammy's for that song and the albums "There Must Be a Better World Somewhere", "My Guitar Sings The Blues", "Live at San Quentin", "Live at the Apollo", and "Blues Summit". He received along with other numerous awards the Grammy Lifetime Achievments Award in 1987. Still on the road and recording for MCA, with Lucille , B.B. King is still showing the world the blues is here to stay. 	King started his career as a teenage professional musician on the streets of Memphis during the 1940s.

Originally, the blues were a type of black folk song little known beyond the southern United States. Handy's songs brought the blues to international attention. Handy's career was rooted in popular music. He began his career in 1896 as a minstrel show and vaudville corntist and bandleader and then became one of the first publishers of music by black composers. William Christopher Handy was born on Nov,16, 1873, in Florence, Ala, the son of former slaves .