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Shortly after the release of my first recording, Down-Hearted Blues in 1923 which was a number on single on the US charts, I returned to Atlanta's "81" Theater. My first night there was so successful that my performance on the following evening was broadcast live on radio. My album sold over two million copies during its first year. My income, reported at $2,000 per week, this established me as the most successful African-American performing artist of the time. During the next ten years, I recorded a total of 180 songs, recording with such music greats as James P. Johnson, Coleman Hawkins, and various members of Fletcher Henderson's Band, including Louis Armstrong, Charlie Green, Joe Smith, and Tommy Ladnier. In 1928, however, my popularity began to diminish. …show more content…
Although in 1929 I appeared in the film St. Louis Blues and in the Broadway show Pansy, my performance opportunities were becoming more limited, probably in part because of the Depression. I managed to get secondary roles as a singer on vaudeville tours and did not record again until John Hammond brought me back into the studio in
The “king of Western swing,” Bob Wills, was a prominent figure from the 1930s through 1950s. At at a young age he learned to play the fiddle and he and his father performed at dances and other social gatherings. He was exposed to other genres of music as a young boy such a blues, conjunto and mariachi, but it was the new sounds of jazz that inspired him to experiment with traditional country music. In 1929 Wills moved to Fort Worth, Texas, were he formed a band, the Wills Fiddle Band, which would soon change to Light Crust Doughboys. Their music was played was played on the Fort Worth radio station, KFJZ radio, and their unique sound quickly spread which is what the radio advertisers needed during the economic downfall. However, in 1933 Wills left the band and formed a new one called Bob Wills and his Texas Playboys and they toured together over the next forty years. In 1945 Wills appeared at the Grand Ole Opry and insisted that there be a horn and drum section on stage. The audience was surprisingly pleased with this unwanted change by the directors. Despite his somewhat strained relationship with Nashville, the local country music establishment formally recognized Wills and his important overall impact on country music when the Country Music Association Hall of Fame inducted him in 1968 (Hartman, 146). Bob Wills died in 1975, but was still a major influence in up and coming young country artists like Merle Haggard, Waylon Jennings, Willie Nelson, George Strait and Lee Ann Womack.
At age eighteen, Bob had started a dance act with his girl friend Millie Rosequest, but it did not last long. Bob soon teamed up with another dancer named George Burd. They took their act to New York and worked at a lot of vaudeville show houses. It was at one of these places where Bob was asked to do the announcing in between acts. Bob's comedic talent and acts took hold and lead to the beginning of his solo career. In less than five years Bob had become the most sought after talent and the # 1 hit in the vaudeville circuit.
The music industry during the 1940s was filled with many talented artists who impacted the music industry and the history of rock n’ roll forever. But one of the very well known and talented artists was Buddy Holly. Buddy Holly was the first to pioneer new music genres and progressive music. Charles Hardin Holley (1936-1959) was an American musician and artist whose creative career began in 1956. The family name is correctly spelled “Holley” but his first recording contract from Decca Records in 1956 spelled his last name “Holly” and he kept it that way for the rest of his career (Griggs 1). Holly took a very influential position in the music industry and built an audience for his Rock and Roll music very quickly due to his unique voice and advanced knowledge of music. Buddy Holly is a prime example of a musical pioneer who blended resources from various music genres including a variety of popular genres such as rhythm and blues (RNB), oriental, and African (Schinder and Schwartz 85).
Smith, Cecile Michener, and Glenn Litton. Musical Comedy in America. New York: Theater Arts Books, 1950. 627-8. Print.
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.
Rhythm and Blues also known as R&B has become one of the most identifiable art-forms of the 20th Century, with an enormous influence on the development of both the sound and attitude of modern music. The history of R&B series of box sets investigates the accidental synthesis of Jazz, Gospel, Blues, Ragtime, Latin, Country and Pop into a definable from of Black music. The hardship of segregation caused by the Jim Crow laws caused a cultural revolution within Afro-American society. In the 1900s, as a method of self-expression in the southern states, the Blues gradually became a form of public entertainment in juke joints and dance halls picking up new rhythm along the way. In 1910, nearly five million African Americans left the south for the
Charlie Pride did it in 1971. Darius Rucker did it in 2009. That’s it. Two black men, spanning thirty-eight years, are the only black artists to win a Country Music Association Award. With country music rooted in bluegrass and rhythm and blues, why aren’t there more black country music stars? When considering the roots of country music, and how closely related country is to blues, bluegrass and honky tonk music, an examination of what happened to all the black musicians seems warranted, no? This paper examines the dearth of black artists in country music and the careers of one of the few black artists who has had commercial success in this genre of music.
On November 23, 1936, Johnson recorded his music for the first time. The first song he recorded was "Terraplane Blues." It became a best-selling hit for Vocalon, a Columbia Records specialty label. In June of 1937, Johnson recorded for his fifth and final time. Johnson only recorded 29 songs during his lifetime. Johnson would have recorded many more songs and may have been an even bigger legend than he already is if his life was cut short.
Hank performed throughout his teens to sold-out crowds on national television. “Went on the road when I was eight years old, when I turned 15 I was stealing the show,” stated Williams. He was
...’s rhythm and phrasing, which she incorporated in her own vocal melodies. Holiday wrote in her autobiography “Lady Sings the Blues”, “I spent many a wonderful hours there listening to Pops and Bessie. I remember Pops’ recording of “West End Blues” and how it used to gas me. It was the first time I ever heard anybody sin without using any words”. (Holiday, Lady Sings the Blues) If you listen closely to her songs and Armstrong’s songs, you recognize how Holiday learned how to sing and swing at the same time, similar to Armstrong’s technique. In 1958, a year before she died, Frank Sinatra said that Holiday was “Unquestionably the most important influence on American popular singing in the last 20 years.” Not only did she develop a memorable and unique style of jazz singing but the way she approached her material left its mark on many of her peers, both in jazz and out.
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
Although he later denied that he ever said it, Sam Phillips-the man who discovered Elvis Presley-is reputed to have said, “if I could find a white man who had the Negro sound the Negro feel, I could make a billion dollars” (Decurtis 78). Certain radio stations would not play the work of black artists in the segregated America of the 1950s. But, nevertheless, rock ‘n’ roll was an art form created by African-Americans. Little Richard, whose songs “Tutti Fruitti” and “Long Tall Sally” became hits only after white-bread versions were made by Pat Boone, said, “It started out as rhythm and blues” (Decurtis 78).
Louis Armstrong’s rendition of “(What Did I Do to Be So) Black and Blue” altered various components of the original tune as he incorporated several jazz techniques typical of the 1920’s and pulled the piece out of its original context of Broadway. Doing so greatly changed the piece as a whole and its meaning, to call attention to the necessity of civil rights for the black population. Armstrong’s life was not purely devoted to music. As a civil rights advocate for the black population in the U.S., he grabbed the attention of the government through his fame and helped to bring equal rights to his brethren. But at times, Armstrong allowed his actions to undermine the importance of African American civil rights, which created negative sentiments
As a child, have you ever felt a sense of isolation or alienation? At some point in our lives, we may feel as though we don't belong or that we are alone. There has been a time at one point or another where everyone has felt this way. This sense of isolation can lead to constant fear for one's own safety as well as feeling unwanted. As a child, I would soon know the feeling of alienation, and the potential danger that it would bring.
“Rhythm and blues is a combination of soulful singing and a strong backbeat” (Cahoon, 2004). Rhythm and blues was created by and for African Americans between the ends of World War II. By 1946 the style of swing music started to fade away where early R&B artists started breaking away from using big bands and emphasizing using blues-style vocals and song structures. “Billboard magazine coined the term rhythm and blues to rename its’, “race records,” chart in 1949, reflecting changes in the social status, economic power, and musical tastes of African Americans” (Cahoon, 2004). Rhythm and blues was like a stepping stone for the popularity of Rock and Roll. There were several focal points for rhythm and blues music, but the main focal point for early R&B originated in Atlanta, Georgia. The first radio station to play rhythm and blues was in 1949. Even though the R&B late night show on WGST was a big hit in the African American community, it featured a white disc jockey named Zenas “Daddy” Sears. (Cahoon, 2004)