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Recommended: The Importance Music
Larry Graham is a true musical innovator. Graham’s influence on contemporary music is profound, as a member of Sly & the Family Stone, later as founder of Graham Central Station, and a featured musician on a number of influential recordings. Graham is credited as being the inventor of slap bass. This technique has become a basic playing style for most bass players1. Graham’s innovative style of playing is what made Sly & the Family Stone one of the most influential and highly regarded funk bands. Graham’s influence crosses genres and generations. Many highly regarded bass players like Flea, Victor Wooten, Bootsy Collins, Geddy Lee, Marcus Miller and Stanley Clarke cite Graham as a key influence on their playing. Graham’s significance in music history cannot be understated considering the widespread influence he had on a multitude of musical genres from funk to hip hop and rock to pop.This paper seeks to trace Graham’s influence on contemporary music, through analysis of the slap style of bass and its eventual widespread adoption amongst contemporary bass players.
San Francisco in the sixties and seventies was the cradle of hippy culture. From hippy culture came a number of influential and innovative bands. Among this list are the Grateful Dead, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Tower of Power, Santana, and Jefferson Airplane. The multi-cultural, highly tolerant and creative buzz that filled the air of San Francisco provided the groundwork for the musical revolution taking place. Out of this air of tolerance came Sly and The Family Stone. Before Sly and The Family Stone, funk music would have been associated with the archaic title of race music. Funk in its infancy was predominately played by Black artists and listened to by Black ...
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...s both played for and wrote with Prince. In return, Prince has co-wrote and produced for Graham Central Station.
From his work with Sly and The Family Stone and Graham Central Station, Larry Graham has left his mark on funk music. Sly and the Family Stone broke ground by promoting tolerance and racial inclusion. In this regard, Sly and The Family Stone were able to make funk transcend the title of race music to a mainstream and racially inclusive genre of music. Graham’s invention of slap bass has profoundly changed nearly all contemporary genres of music. Slap bass has evolved from primitive lo-fi tone heard in "Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin)" to the polished and refined style exampled in “The Jam”. Larry Graham is a true innovator, as it is not that often that an artist is credited which having invented such a monumental and archetypal style of playing.
"He just got his music out of the air," said one neighbor. One cannot hear the word "ragtime" without thinking of the "King of Ragtime," Scott Joplin. He is clearly one forerunner in the field of American music, particularly at the turn of the twentieth century.
The development of Rock ‘n’ Roll in the late 1940s and early 1950s by young African Americans coincided with a sensitive time in America. Civil rights movements were under way around the country as African Americans struggles to gain equal treatment and the same access to resources as their white neighbors. As courts began to vote in favor of integration, tensions between whites and blacks escalated. As the catchy rhythm of Rock ‘n’ Roll began to cross racial boundaries many whites began to feel threatened by the music, claiming its role in promoting integration. This became especially problematic as their youth became especially drawn to ...
In Rock- The History of Rock ‘n’ Roll, Yorke provides a chronological approach to rock and roll from 1877- 1974. Although it is not extremely detailed, a general overview of each year’s music is presented. Throughout the book, many descriptive summaries of individual artists may be found along with classic pictures.
The word “jazz” is significant to America, and it has many meanings. Jazz could simply be defined as a genre or style of music that originated in America, but it can also be described as a movement which “bounced into the world somewhere about the year 1911…” . This is important because jazz is constantly changing, evolving, adapting, and improvising. By analyzing the creators, critics, and consumers of jazz in the context of cultural, political, and economic issue, I will illustrate the movement from the 1930’s swing era to the birth of bebop and modern jazz.
Perhaps this trend of commercially successful music promoting hypermasculinity and misogyny found success in funk music and the labels continue to push for these themes in an attempt to continue benefitting from the themes’ popularity and profitability. Both funk and hip hop share the characteristic of being genres that have recurring themes that have been commercially successful, and although it may be out of the control of the artist, these themes play a huge role in both
Motown paved the way for future artists to explore themselves. It helped created the grounds of a great music and cultural integration in the 1970’s to now and hopefully forever. Hip Hop’s arrival was credit to Motown triumphs in the musical world. Through the mixing of percussion and the rhythm of the drumbeats of funk and disco, hip hop revealed the opposition to social inequality and discrimination
Newfield, Jack. “Who Really Invented Rock ‘n’ Roll?” New York Sun. New York Sun, 21 Sep. 2004. Web. 28 Nov. 2010
It would be an understatement to say that Miles Dewey Davis III was one of the greatest jazz musicians of all time. Widely considered one of the most revolutionary and influential figures in the history of music of the twentieth century, Miles Davis has played an integral role in shaping the sounds of jazz, one of the few uniquely and entirely American genres. Needless to say, the brilliant artistry that coolly flowed from his trumpet speaks for itself and clearly shows what a phenomenally inventive and talented musician he was. One could go on and on discussing, analyzing, and meticulously scrutinizing his music, as has been done readily in the past, but the purpose of this paper is to examine his rare appearances on television and the impact his music had on American culture.
This essay will discuss the key musical and lyrical characteristics of Ska music. We will briefly examine some of the musical styles that influenced the session musicians and composers working in Jamaica’s recoding industry at the time of the development of Ska. We will then go on to look at the musical and lyrical characteristics of three ska recordings. The first recording will be Derrick Morgan’s Forward March, the second recording this essay will look at will be Prince Busters Al’ Capone which was released in 1964. We will see how Busters recoding of Al Capone was written with much more focus on the instrumentation rather that the song lyrics while still having a clear concept for the song. The author will look at Millie Smalls recording of my boy lollipop a song that went number one in the UK a successful attempted to incorporate Ska’s musical characteristics into commercial popular music. This essay shall then briefly discuss how ska music’s main characteristics where used in conjunction with musical elements from other genres to bring about a revival ska.
Music tends to follow the trends of its listeners; genres come and go with popularity. Rock and roll was considered to have its golden era in the 1960s (Rock and Roll). It stood out with unforgettable performances by Sly and the Family Stone, The Jefferson Airplane, The Who, Grateful Dead, Santana, The Beatles, Jimi Hendrix, and Janis Joplin (Rock and Roll). The Beatles were one of the top rock and roll bands. It is said that their music “combined the distinct sounds of Chuck Berry, Little Richard, Elvis Presley, and others which shaped a sound that dominated the sixties with its creativity and style” (Holland 105). Jimi Hendrix brought a new style of music called “acid rock”. He changed the way music was played by experimenting with different melodies, different chord...
Have you ever wondered how rock and roll impacted the American society? Rock and roll originated in Africa by the way they used only vocals. Rock and roll used to be called the Tin Pan Alley because they said that it sounded like they were banging on pans. During the big band era, the singers began to rise to fame because they were going solo with their singing. Then, when the electric guitar emerged, rock and roll became more popular and well known. When the radio and the TV had become accessible to every household, rock started to emerge more because kids and teens could watch their favorite band perform on the most well-known show called American Bandstand. The parents didn't like the new style, called rock emerging because they thought it showed crude behavior and had a bad influence on their kids. Rock and roll had a positive impact on American society by changing the way of teenage lifestyle.
The rise of jazz has been one of the most revolutionary changes of all time in terms of musical culture. Jazz grew out of the blues, a genre of music largely occupied by African-American musicians and characterized by deep solo voices vocalizing along with a guitar, singing about loneliness and oppression. Jazz reached its peak popularity in the 1920’s, also known as the “roaring twenties” or the “Jazz Age.” The newly-created prohibition law meant that people had to go out and find secret “speakeasies” to drink in. The rebellious, wild spirit of those who gathered at these social drinking events inspired them to dance. And a new kind of dancing was called for, something loud, exhilarating, and fun. Thus, jazz, with all its loud trumpets and saxophones blaring alongside its silky smooth voices, was born. It wasn’t just a style of music, it was a lifestyle. Because of jazz, America saw African-American musicians rise to fame for the first time. Legends such as Louis Armstrong, Ella Fitzgerald, Miles Davis, Billie Holiday, and Dizzy Gillespie were all born in the intoxicating atmo...
DeWitt, Howard A. Chuck Berry: Rock ‘N’ Roll Music. 2nd Ed. Ann Arbor: Pierian Press, 1985.
Hip-Hop is a cultural movement that emerged from the dilapidated South Bronx, New York in the early 1970’s. The area’s mostly African American and Puerto Rican residents originated this uniquely American musical genre and culture that over the past four decades has developed into a global sensation impacting the formation of youth culture around the world. The South Bronx was a whirlpool of political, social, and economic upheaval in the years leading up to the inception of Hip-Hop. The early part of the 1970’s found many African American and Hispanic communities desperately seeking relief from the poverty, drug, and crime epidemics engulfing the gang dominated neighborhoods. Hip-Hop proved to be successful as both a creative outlet for expressing the struggles of life amidst the prevailing crime and violence as well as an enjoyable and cheap form of recreation.
Powell, A. (2007). The Music of African Americans and its Impact on the American Culture in the 1960’s and the 1970’s. Miller African Centered Academy, 1. Retrieved from http://www.chatham.edu/pti/curriculum/units/2007/Powell.pdf