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The Blues appeared as an African-American art form of music . The blues is a part of African-American history. The founders of the blues were the slaves who sang while working . The Blues music was influenced by urban culture, popular music and jazz. The blues began in an area called Delta in the 19th century .
A.Freewrite: I am going to write about the point of view used in Baldwin’s “Sonny’s Blues.” In James Baldwin’s “Sonny’s Blues,” Baldwin does not use Sonny as the narrator but instead uses his brother. I believe Baldwin used the brother as the narrator to give to give readers the idea that Sonny and his brother do not communicate well with each other. While Sonny listens but does not speak, his brother speaks but does not listen. Baldwin uses the brother as the narrator to highlight the idea that Sonny’s addiction to heroin, love of jazz music, and his melancholy are associated to Sonny’s lack of voice as well as control over his own life.
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
Thesis Statement: Men and women were in different social classes, women were expected to be in charge of running the household, the hardships of motherhood.
Musicologists have dated the ‘birth’ of blues to be around 1890 as a West African tradition involving blue indigo in which mourners at ceremonies would wear blue dyed attires to resemble their suffering . Although, blues derived from times of slavery, the Prohibition Era (1920’s), World War Two (1939-1945), and during the Vietnam War (predominantly 1960’s to 1970’s), it has been a continuously evolved form of music in America, in which the similarities have always remained; melancholy and protest.
“The Blues are the roots; everything else is the fruits”-Willie Dixon. The blues has deep roots in American history, particularly African-American history. How can something so simple become a massive tree whose roots transcended through different genres? According to Biography.com, W.C. 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?
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
The first similarity between the two music genres is the historical context that the music was born out of. The start of blues music can be traced back to African Americans during the time of slavery and continued on into the twentieth century where African Americans were isolated and oppres...
The black population has fought hard to get where they are in today’s society in terms of their courage, beliefs and faith to accomplish what they have done in the fields of politics and music. They have been affective in the field of politics by having leaders such as Dr. Martin Luther king Jr., Malcolm x and Nelson Mandela lead them to a civil right society where everyone was treated equally. And they have also been part of the revolution of music in terms of how many categories they have invented and taken over. In the field of politics, their leaders led their community in different ways that at the end; their work paid off. They won each and every battle they had to fight. But the most important battle they had to face was to influence their people to do right things and help them achieve goals in life. They made them believe in themselves in every way, that they could do whatever they were capable of doing.
The contribution of Blues music to the development of many other genres of music is very significant. Jazz, rock music and country and western are just some of the styles that owe a lot of their progression from the original blues. Blues was originally grown out of the hardships endured by many generations of African Americans, and first arose from the rural Mississippi region, around about the time of the dawn of the 20th century. The style developed from work shouts (known as arhoolies), and became the vocal narrative style that we associate with blues music today.
In the story, Sonny’s Blues, James Baldwin uses music, jazz, and hymns to shape the story and show how it shapes Sonny’s life and how music is inherent to his survival. All of this is seen through the older brother’s eyes; the older brother is the narrator and the reader begins to understand Sonny through the older brother’s perspective. Baldwin writes the story like a jazz song to make a story out of his father’s past and his brother’s career choice and puts them together, going back and forth, until it creates a blending of histories and lives. He shows how the father’s past is similar to the narrator’s life; the older brother has conflicts with his younger brother, Sonny. Music heals the relationship.
At first glance, "Sonny's Blues" seems ambiguous about the relationship between music and drugs. After all, the worlds of jazz and drug addiction are historically intertwined; it could be possible that Sonny's passion for jazz is merely an excuse for his lifestyle and addiction, as the narrator believes for a time. Or perhaps the world that Sonny has entered by becoming involved in jazz is the danger- if he had not encountered jazz he wouldn't have encountered drugs either. But the clues given by the portrayals of music and what it does for other figures in the story demonstrate music's beneficial nature; music and drugs are not interdependent for Sonny. By studying the moments of music interwoven throughout the story, it can be determined that the author portrays music as a good thing, the preserver and sustainer of hope and life, and Sonny's only way out of the "deep and funky hole" of his life in Harlem, with its attendant peril of drugs (414).
James Baldwin is a writer from the twentieth century. He wrote “Sonny’s Blues,” a short story with the image in Harlem, as many of his stories were, was published in 1957. “Sonny’s Blues” is about the narrator, who remained nameless, and how his life changed after he discovers his brother’s drug addiction. “Sonny’s Blues” highlights the theme of light and darkness throughout the story’s good and bad event, the struggles of brotherly love, and the dilemmas that the narrator and Sonny face as siblings by being raised the same but taking totally different routes in their lives.
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.
Blues singers have always drawn on their environment for inspiration in their lyrics as well as in the sound of their instruments. Unlike the traditional folk singer who will often sing of events that happened many years previous to their own experience -sometimes referring to events spanned by centuries. It is true there are a handful of “blues ballads” such as “John Henry”, “Stack 0’ Lee” or “Frankie & Albert/Johnnie”, which have persisted in black song but they are the exception to the rule - the majority of blues reflected their surroundings in the perspective present.