Author, Lecturer, Broadcaster & Cultural Arts Expert;
President of Art Collage JANG/J Music/J Art/J Books & Media.
Author of over 40 books published on Amazon, including The Crimson Horror series and The Great and Immortal Painters’ Stories series.
Dedicated to sharing insights into art, culture, literature, and creative expression through writing, lectures, media, and content creation.
This
week's lecture is “1950s”, the 4th topic of “Blues”, which is a summary of the contents of“113.
Blues: 4. 1950s”introduced on November 29th (Wed),
2017.
The
transition from country blues to urban blues, which began in the 1920s, was
driven by a series of economic crises and booms, which caused many rural blacks
to migrate to urban areas, known as the “Great Migration”. The long boom after
World War II led to another large-scale migration of African-Americans, the
“Second Great Migration,” which resulted in significant increases in the real
income of the urban blacks and new migrants constituted a new market for the
music industry.
The term “race record” was originally used by the music
industry for African-American music, but was later replaced by the term “rhythm
and blues”, and the rapidly evolving music market reflected in Billboard
magazine's Rhythm and Blues chart. This marketing strategy reinforced trends in
urban blues music, such as the use of electric instruments and amplification,
and the generalization of blues beat and blues shuffle, which were found
everywhere in rhythm and blues. This commercial flow also had a significant
impact on blues music, which, along with jazz and gospel music, became a component
of rhythm and blues.
The cover of race records catalogue of Victor Talking Machine Company
After
World War II, new styles of electric blues became popular in cities such as
Chicago, Memphis, Detroit and St. Louis. Electric blues was played through a
microphone and PA system or overdriven guitar amplifier using electric guitars,
double bass (later replaced by bass guitars), drums and harmonica. From 1948,
when Muddy Waters recorded his first success "I Can't Be Satisfied",
Chicago became a center for electric blues. Chicago blues was heavily
influenced by Delta blues, as many of the performers had migrated from the
Mississippi area.
Muddy Waters
In
the 1950s, blues had a major impact on mainstream American popular music.
Popular musicians such as Bo Diddley and Chuck Berry were influenced by the
Chicago blues, but their passionate playing styles helped break the prejudice
that blues is melancholic.
Bo Diddley
Chuck Berry
In
the late 1950s, a new style of blues pioneered by Magic Sam, Buddy Guy and Otis
Rush appeared in Chicago's West Side. This "West Side sound" was
supported by powerful rhythm parts from rhythm guitar, bass guitar and drums,
and an amplified electric lead guitar dominated the sound, and the expressive
guitar solo was a key feature of the music.
Buddy Guy
Around
the late 1950s, a genre called “Swamp Blues” developed near Baton Rouge.
Strongly influenced by Jimmy Reed, swamp blues was characterized by a slower
pace and simpler harmonica use than the Chicago Blues style.
Over
the past 10 weeks, I have introduced 50 operas by them. From this week, I will
introduce “The history of Jazz” for 11 weeks.
The first theme I will introduce
this week is “Afro-American music”, which is a summary of the contents of “45th
ACJ Music Academy, The history of Jazz: 1. Afro-American music”, which was introduced
on April 30, 2016.
As
time becomes modern, the term “Afro-American” became used for all forms of
civilization created by African black people in the United States. And the
music that black people created in the United States based on their culture is
called “Afro-American music”.
Since
most of the black people, who were brought into slavery on the American
continent, lived on the West Coast of Africa, it is important to first
understand the characteristics of the music of the West African aboriginal
people to understand Afro-American music.
Their
music is a 'life music' with the characteristics of labor songs, and when their
musical scale is expressed based on the Western music, it is the “pentatonic”
scale, and the form in which they sang is “call and response”, which the leader
firstly sing a part and then others respond to it by chorus. African
music with these characteristics are brought into America along with the
slaves, and they were born into new forms of music as they penetrate into the
culture of white people although they still had the characteristics.
The
black slaves, who had been brought to America and suffered from hard labor,
would have sung various labor songs as they did in their hometown. As time
passed by, the Christianity gradually spread to the black slaves who were
spending hard and painful days, and many of them had Christianity as their
religion. As a result, the music that was born when Christianity began to
settle in the music of the black slaves is Spiritual that will be firstly introduced
in Afro-American music.
Very
little data has been left on the musical forms and elements for the Spiritual.
However, there exist many records for the contents or moods of the Spiritual,
most of which wrote down oral tradition. Most of the contents of the Spiritual
are those expressing unconditional faith in God, and the Spiritual at the time consisted
of a form of “call and response”, in which the leader and chorus were divided.
Over
time, the Spiritual is replaced by ‘Gospel’, and the word ‘Gospel’ is a compound
word of ‘God’ and ‘Tale’. Such
Gospel actually began to exert social influence after World War I. Besides, as
Soul music evolved since the late 1950s, Gospel began to get attention again by
the song of "Mahalia Jackson," which had a great influence on many
other genres of black music. Comparing
the contents of the lyrics, the Gospel has a different trend from the Spiritual.
In other words, if the Spiritual has unconditional faith in God, Gospel has a
little skepticism about God, either socially or religiously.
Mahalia Jackson
'Blues'
following Gospel is a product created by Afro-Americans who started from
slavery and rooted in America, through their experiences for making music such
as the Spiritual or the Gospel. The Blues refers to a musical genre, but also a
musical form. If we look at the Blues in musical form, the Blues scale consists
of C-D-Eb-F-G-A-Bb, which is composed of D and A keys from the Western musical
scale and the pentatonic scale (C-Eb-F-G-Bb) from the West African music. Most
of the black music consisted of the Blues scale and 12 bars, and almost all of
the early Jazz music was also in Blues form.
It
is estimated that by the 1880s, the Blues form was established among blacks,
and the Spiritual and Gospel were made by the Blues form and it reached its peak
by the 1890s or 1900s. The Spiritual and Gospel at the time, descending through
the oral tradition, were reproduced or recreated by posterior musicians, such
as Blind Wille Johnson, Blind Lemon Jefferson, and Huddie Ledbetter.
Blind Lemon Jefferson
One
of the important factors that distinguishes Gospel from Blues music is mental issue,
which means that in Blues music, they no longer depend on 'God'. The
Blues played a critical role in the birth of Jazz, and many of the earliest Jazz
music were in Blues form, and this tradition continues to the present day.
In
the early 1900s, it was estimated that Blues had already existedas a genre, which were “Early Blues” or
“Delta Blues”. Most of these music consisted only of an acoustic guitar and
vocals, and since then, Country Blues and Classic Blues hit the peak in the
1920s.
The Country Blues was represented by 'Robert Johnson' and 'Lonnie
Johnson' and also composed of an acoustic guitar and vocals. On the other hand,
the representative musicians classified as Classic Blues were Ma Rainey and Bessie
Smith, whose music was also called 'City Blues' and not an acoustic guitar but
a piano accompaniment instead.
Robert Johnson
Ma Rainey
Bessie Smith
Chicago
Blues, which was developed around Chicago in the 1940s, is the type of blues
that we now enjoy, and electric guitars were used and young B.B. King started
playing. Currently, the Blues are prevalent around Chicago worldwide because most
of the Blues musicians have settled in Chicago since the 1940s, and they made this
area the Mecca of the Blues.
B.B. King
In
a sense, it may be the Blues, not the Jazz that best represents the characteristics
of the black music. Because Jazz has already been divided into many directions
and undergone many transformations, it's hard to say it absolutely represents the
black music, but the Blues is still the music absolutely for the black people.
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