Category Archives: 1 – Influences on R&B

18th-21st Century – Americana – all the different varieties of imported and invented music from America that influenced R&B -The Blues, Rural Blues, Boogie Woogie, Swing Jazz, Gospel, Folk Stomps, Western Swing, Urban Blues, Jump Blues,

1 - Influences on R&B

1 – Influences on R&B

Leave a comment

Table of Contents

1 – Influences on R&B

There are five major genres listed below that have an influence on R&B music, which is basically, the blues, jazz, gospel, folk and country & western (C&W). This is misleading, I know, there are hundreds of subgenres. And myriads of influence. I’ll be concentrating on rhythm & blues (R&B) for this blog so I’ll briefly mention these parent and influential genres that make up the whole of truly indigenous American music.

 A) The Blues

Music from a mystical past, out into a recorded time, rural to urban, the great-grandfather of modern music. Encompassing Robert Johnson, Bessie Smith, Muddy Waters, T-Bone Walker, BB King, and Eric Clapton and beyond. 19th century – 21st century.  

1) Rural Blues – Acoustic blues sprouted up generally from the American deep south, and specifically “the Delta”, Texas, New Orleans, Memphis and many other southern locations. WC Handy, Charlie Patton, Robert Johnson, Lonnie Johnson, Blind Lemon Jefferson, Ma Rainey, Bessie Smith, Mamie Smith & Ethel Waters, and more. The 1920s & 1930s.

2) Transitional Blues – Blues progressed by becoming modern and plugging into electricity, now the guitar could keep up and lead the band. Muddy Waters, Tampa Red, Leadbelly, Lonnie Johnson, Leroy Carr and Big Bill Broonzy among others. 1938-1947. 

3) Urban Blues – Electric Blues guitar becomes an art form and leads the bands into heavy amplified territories in dance music and R&B. Chicago Blues, UK Blues. T-Bone Walker, BB King, John Lee Hooker, Blues Revival, and Eric Clapton. 1948-Present

  

B) Jazz*

Another mysterious music splintering off from the blues and becoming its own technically proficient musical genre. Consisting of many phases from (1890s-1960s) and many sub-genres like Dixieland, Swing, Be-bop, Hard Bop, Free & Avante Gard. Below is a listing of specific styles of jazz that were influential in the development of rhythm & blues.

1) Swing jazz – Swing jazz as a dance music was very influential to the bands of early jump blues and R&B. Andrew Sisters, Tommy Dorsey, Benny Goodman, Lionel Hampton, Cab Calloway. 1935-1946

2) Boogie-woogie – A jazz piano style that splintered off of “stride” piano and gave a blues structure to R&B. Albert Ammons, Meade Lux Lewis, Jimmy Yancey, Pinetop. 1929, 1938-1946

       

C) Gospel

Gospel music is sacred music. The black church brought forth a highly animated and spiritual music, that went on to inspire popular secular modern music. Mahalia Jackson, Soul Stirrers, Sam Cooke, Aretha Franklin. 18th century – 21st century.

D) Folk Music*

Many forms of folk music were imported to America, country blues, hillbilly, Bluegrass, country stomps, Vaudeville, jug bands, Texas troubadours and ring shouters, there are too many genres to list. 17th century – 21st century. 

E) Country & Western*

There are many forms of Country & Western sub-genres such as country pop, bluegrass, outlaw country, heartland country, Western Swing, honky-tonk, rockabilly, Nashville Sound, Bakersfield Sound and many more. 19th century – 21st century.

 

* Please note that these genres are way too big for this blog to cover. 

1 - Rural Blues

The Blues #1

Leave a comment

The Blues

The original sound of the Blues started in the 19th Century possibly from a mix of slave or share cropping “field holler” work songs, country ballads, European folk songs and spirituals, among other sources. Some scholars say it started before the Civil War, some say it started just after and then others claim it came about at the end of the Century in the 1890s. Whichever may be the case, W.C Handy (known as the “Father of the Blues”) was amazed one night while waiting for a train in a “Delta” town in Tutwiler, Mississippi in 1903, to hear an anonymous bluesman. He was playing a strange kind of music, forever after to be known as the Blues. There were, however, accounts by other blues musicians and singers first hearing the Blues in other southern and mid-western states such as in Missouri (accounted by Ma Rainey) or New Orleans (as suggested by Jelly Roll Morton).

For the most part of the first half of the 20th century, the Blues was an acoustic type of music played on guitar and, a little bit later on the piano. It was mostly a rural or folk kind of music that was played by traveling minstrels, vagabonds and train hoppers. The first Blues recordings started showing up during the 1920s, like Mamie Smith and Her Jazz Hounds “Crazy Blues” in 1920, selling over 75,000 copies when initially released. Although “Crazy Blues” was not a true Blues song it was the first song with the word Blues in its title that was recorded by a black singer.

W.C. Handy’s “St. Louis Blues” was somewhat in the Blues style (the standard twelve bar Blues but with a tango rhythm and more closely related to Ragtime) was a huge hit. “St. Louis Blues” was first published in 1914 by Handy and then crossed over as a #1 pop song for Mamie Smith and the Jazz “Father” Louis Armstrong. It became a huge seller right after the rise of “Crazy Blues”.

It wasn’t until later, when Muddy Waters (aka McKinley Morganfield) took the train out of the Delta to Chicago in 1943, that the Blues became a recorded electric form of music. He was only one of several other bluesmen who helped the transition of Blues from rural (acoustic/folk) to urban (electric/amplified). Please see the upcoming articles on “The Blues”.

 

2 - Transitional Blues

Transitional Blues – Part 1

Leave a comment

The “In Betweens” Part 1

Blues musicians like Tampa Red, Leadbelly, Lonnie Johnson, Leroy Carr and Big Bill Broonzy would shape and direct the move and the sounds of a new kind of blues in the late 1930s and 1940s. These “midway” transitional bluesman were directly influenced by the rural folk bluesman like Charlie Patton, Blind Lemon Jefferson, Tommy Johnson, Son House, Skip James, Memphis Minnie, Johnny Johnson and Robert Johnson, just to name a few.

Although these “In Between” blues musicians/singers were not considered urban or electric, they had an enormous influence on the new electric Urban Blues that would come out of Chicago, New York and other northern cities.

 

Tampa Red

Tampa Red was born on Smithville, Georgia as Hudson Woodbridge in 1904. His parents died when he was very young and went to live with his aunt and grandmother in Tampa, Florida. Here he was influenced by his older brother and a street musician known as Piccolo Pete who first taught him blues guitar. He learned and perfected a guitar technique known as slide guitar where one used a bottle neck or metal tube to run up and down the fret board to give a glissando effect (a continuous sliding of one pitch to another pitch without any breaks in the sound, similar to the sliding up and down of a pitch on a trombone or a slide whistle).

He moved to Chicago in the 1920s and accompanied the Blues singer pioneer Ma Rainey. He recorded his first hit song “It’s Tight Like That” in 1928 in a raunchy and humorous style that became known as “Hokum”. Tampa Red, along with Georgia Tom (Thomas A. Dorsey), recorded many songs in various incarnations as the Hokum Boys or as Tampa Red’s Hokum Jug Band. He acquired a steel bodied resonator guitar which helped him further develop his slide guitar technique.

In the 1930s, he went on to play and record with many other famous blues artists like Sonny Boy Williamson, Memphis Minnie, Big Bill Broonzy, Victoria Spivey and Big Maceo (Merriweather), just to name a few. He started the Chicago Five which invented the “Bluebird” sound and became a big influence on the small comb groups of Jump Blues and R&B. He was the center of a community of Blues musicians as they made the trip from the Delta to Chicago. He had many hit songs throughout his career in both Blues and the new R&B styles. In 1942 he had an early R&B hit called “Let Me Play with Your Poodle” and later in 1949 with “When Things Go Wrong with You (It Hurst Me Too)” on electric guitar.

He was later “re-discovered” like so many other bluesmen in the 1950s blues revival and enjoyed a resurgence of critical acclaim. Even though he was a big star, recording over 300 sides, he died in poverty in Chicago at the age of 77. Later, he was recognized as one of the most prolific influences of the Blues and the newer styles (Urban, Jump and Rock & Roll) and is one of the greatest bluesman in the development of the blues genres.

 

Leadbelly

Huddie William Ledbetter, known as Lead Belly, was an enormous influence on the Folk, Blues and Gospel genres. He was born on a plantation near Mooringsport, Louisiana around 1888. He is best known for his knowledge of many folk and blues standards, his strong tenor singing skills and his virtuosity on the 12- string acoustic guitar. He was a multi-instrumentalist who played piano, harmonica, accordion and many stringed instruments such as the guitar, mandolin and the violin.

His song writing included topics about day laboring, cattle herding, prison life, rural lifestyles as well as being one of the first bluesman to write about socio-economic, social matters including social inequality, bigotry and American politics. He would often write about what was current in the newspapers of his time including the sinking of the Titanic (immortalized in his song “The Titanic), World War I, the Depression era, World War II and the upheaval in Europe in the 1930s and 1940s. He had notable success in performing game songs that appealed to children since he performed at children’s birthday parties as a young man.

Leadbelly spent a lot of his life in and out of prison due to his volatile temper, starting in 1915. He had escaped a chain gang in one instance but was again imprisoned after killing a relative in a fight over a woman. He is famous for being pardoned by Texas Governor Pat Morris Neff after he wrote a spiritual song about the Governor (regardless of Texans pledge to issue no pardons). He frequently entertained the prison guards and was highly praised for his abilities as a Bluesman and talented guitar player.

In 1930 he was sentenced to the infamous Angola Prison Farm in Louisiana after stabbing a white man in a fight. It was at Angola where he was recorded in 1933 and 1934, by John and Alan Lomax. They recorded hundreds of songs for the Library of Congress, including his signature song “Goodnight Irene”. Once again, Leadbelly was released on “good behavior” after serving a minimum sentence at Angola.

After his release, Leadbelly was hired by John Lomax as a driver while he continued his mission to record many folk singers and bluesmen in the southern states. Later at the end of 1934, Leadbelly and Lomax went to Pennsylvania where he participated in a performance at Bryn Mawr College. This is when he found fame as the “singing convict”, written about in many newspapers in New York City. He would continue traveling with John Lomax, playing at lecture halls on a short tour of colleges including Harvard. He even had newsreels about his music and life produced by Time Magazine. Alan Lomax wrote a book that came out in 1936 called “Negro Folk Songs as Sung by Leadbelly”.

Lomax and Leadbelly had a falling out due to management contract disagreements where Leadbelly decided to strike out on his own playing and performing at Harlem’s Apollo Theatre in New York City. Life Magazine featured (a rather racist) three page article on Leadbelly in April of 1937, detailing his music and prison life and suggesting that he was pardoned due to his talents as a folk singer and bluesman.

He found success speaking and playing at lectures, concerts and benefits with an emphasis on his southern black culture. He befriended the great black novelist Richard Wright (member of the Communist Party) with whom he became close friends and a literary subject in the “Daily Worker”. At this time Leadbelly wrote left wing influenced “Bourgeois Blues”, one of his more famous songs.

He fell in with Alan Lomax and was featured in the CBS radio show “Back Where I Came From”, befriending many of New York City’s folk scene including Josh White, Sonny Terry Brownie McGhee, Woody Guthrie and Pete Seger in the early 1940s. He recorded for RCA and performed regularly on WNYC radio show for Henrietta Yurchenco; had great success in California on Capitol Records and was one of the first black folk and country bluesman to achieve fame in Europe particularly in France.

Sadly, Leadbelly was diagnosed with Lou Gehrig’s disease in 1949, fell ill and died shortly after a tribute performance to his mentor, John Lomax, at the University of Texas. He is honored with a statue at the Caddo Parish Courthouse in Shreveport.

Leadbelly’s influence on the Blues is almost insurmountable to many of his peers. He greatly influenced many bluesman and folk singers that would come to fame later in the 1950s and in the folk revival of the 1960s. He was very influential to the genres of Blues, Folk, Gospel, R&B, Rock & Roll and Rock and is cited by so many artists that the list is too long to cite here.

 

2 - Transitional Blues

Transitional Blues – Part 2

Leave a comment

Lonnie Johnson

Lonnie Johnson was born in New Orleans in 1899 and was influential to both the Blues and Jazz. He played the guitar, piano, mandolin and the violin. Lonnie pioneered a technique of the single string solo style so well used in Jazz, Rural and Urban Blues, and in modern Rock.

Lonnie Johnson started playing on riverboats up the Mississippi river with his brother as a duo and with the Fate Marable Orchestra, among others. He began his recording career with Okeh Records after winning a Blues contest in 1925 and recording over 130 sides for Okeh with many successful hits. He recorded with Victoria Spivey, Bessie Smith, Louis Armstrong’s Hot Five, Duke Ellington and the great Stride Jazz pianist James P. Johnson.

With Louis Armstrong Johnson recorded on the sides “I’m Not Rough”, “Savoy Blues” and “Hotter Than That”; with the Duke, Lonnie recorded on the sides “Hot and Bothered”, “Move Over” and “The Mooch”; then he recorded his own sides of “Racketeers’ Blues”, “Hard Times Ain’t Gone Nowhere” and “Fine Booze and Heavy Dues” which were successful in addressing the hardships endured by Black America in the 1920s and the Depression era of the early 1930s. During the late 1930s, like so many other Bluesmen, he was forced to take on menial jobs to make ends meet when the record industry experienced a lull.

In 1939, Johnson started playing the electric guitar and recorded for Bluebird Records the hit songs “He’s a Jelly Roll Baker” and “In Love Again”. Lonnie Johnson made the switch to Rhythm and Blues after WWII, recording for King Records with the mega hit “Tomorrow Night” in 1948. It topped the newly named R&B (race records) category for seven weeks and crossed over at #19 on the pop charts. He followed “Tomorrow Night” with the R&B hits “Pleasing You”, “So Tired” and “Confused”. At this time his hits bared almost no resemblance to his earlier Blues and Jazz sides of the 20s and 30s. He then toured Britain with Lonnie Donegan (an influence on the Beatles) in 1952.

Later in the 1950s, Johnson once again was forced to take on menial jobs in Philadelphia, but had a “rediscovery” during the early 1960s Folk Revival period. Then he was reunited with the Duke for an all- star pair of concerts at New York City’s Town Hall. He toured Europe with Muddy Waters in 1963 as part of the American Folk Blues Festival. Later in 1965, he moved to Toronto, Canada where he played, recorded and toured for the rest of the decade. Sadly, Lonnie Johnson was struck by a car in March of 1969, suffered a stroke in August and never fully recovered from these two setbacks. He got a standing ovation at his last performance at Massey Hall in Toronto, performing with Buddy Guy. He died in June of 1970 and his body was transferred and buried in Philadelphia.

Johnson’s contribution to music is in his influence on the single note solos. Where would Jazz, R&B, Rock and Roll and (Blues influenced) Rock be, without the quintessential guitar solo? Everyone from Charlie Christian (in Jazz), Muddy Waters and BB King (in Blues) to the genres of Rock & Roll and Rock guitar solos (Chuck Berry, Hendrix, Page, Clapton and Beck, just to name a very few) all trace their music back to Lonnie Johnson.

 

Leroy Carr

Born in Nashville in 1905, Leroy Carr was a blues singer, songwriter, and pianist who first came to fame with the song “How Long, How Long Blues” in 1928. He had a laid back singing style that was influential to the Blues incorporating an urban feel that was taken up by Blues artists T-Bone Walker, Count Basie, blues shouter Jimmy Rushing and R&B singers Charles Brown and Amos Milburn and also pop giants Nat “King” Cole and Ray Charles.

His most famous songs showcasing his unique crooner style were “Blues before Sunrise”, “Midnight Hour Blues” both in 1932 and “Hurry Down Sunshine” in 1934. He had a lifelong partnership with the great Blues and Jazz melodic guitarist Scrapper Blackwell. Although he died in 1935 at the age of 30 from chronic alcoholism, he left behind a large body of work that became very influential in the genres of Blues and R&B.

Leroy Carr’s virtuoso piano playing was somewhat in the style of the New Orleans Tin Pan Alley and barrelhouse styles. Though not exactly in the Blues format (12 Bars), his songwriting reflects the Blues ethos. His songs, accompanied by Blackwell, were precursors for the Rural Blues of his time, showing the “move” to Urban Blues sophistication.

In his song “How Long, How Long Blues”, he gives us a sense of yearning for the old rural ways even though he was very much a sophisticated urbanite (living as he did in Indianapolis). His singing and playing styles were very influential to the coming Blues styles of Urban Blues, Jump Blues, R&B and later Rock & Roll. Carr’s soul searching and introspective lyrics were tremendous on the new genres that he was never to live long enough to see or experience.

 

Big Bill Broonzy

Big Bill Broonzy was one of the key figures in the transition from Rural Blues to Urban Blues. He helped develop the transmutation of Blues in the late 1930s and 1940s and then went back to his country folk Blues in the late 1950s, as a part of the American Folk Blues Revival. Broonzy wrote more than 300 songs in his long and varied career that show a unique writing style that chronicles the “move” from country Blues to Urban Blues.

Born Lee Conley Bradley, sometime between the years of 1893 to 1898 in Arkansas or Mississippi, Blues scholars and historians are in dispute on this. He began playing and learning spirituals and folk songs at a very early age from his uncle. He began performing the fiddle at segregated social and church events. He was drafted into the army in 1917 and served two years in Europe during World War I. Upon returning to the states, he was discouraged by the racism and bigotry he experienced in Arkansas and made the move to Chicago (like so many other black performers, in 1920).

In Chicago, Big Bill learned guitar from Papa Charlie Jackson, a medicine show minstrel and Paramount recording artist. At the time, Big Bill worked at odd jobs and menial labor, as he perfected his bluesman craft. He tried several times to become a successful recording artist through Paramount but didn’t have much success. He then moved to New York City in 1932, where he had some success as a performer. He returned to Chicago where he had steady work in the South Side clubs and teamed up with Memphis Minnie.

By 1934, Big Bill was signed to Bluebird Records and had success when he teamed up with the pianist Black Bob Call. He began to make the “move” from a folk blues guitarist to more of an Urban Blues style (a pre-cursor to R&B). He started to record in small combos with horns, harmonica, piano, upright bass and drums under the Vocalion label. Throughout the mid 1930s, Big Bill was a composer of many important songs recorded by Tampa Red and his half brother, Washboard Sam, both signed to Bluebird Records. He played on most of Washboard Sam’s sides. However, due to contract intricacies, he had to be billed as composer only. He became an important figure in the Chicago Blues scene.

His career took a turn for the better when he was asked to fill in for Robert Johnson (who had recently died) in the famous Carnegie Hall John Hammond concerts and production “From Spirituals to Swing” in 1938. He had a role in the movie “Swinging the Dream”, along with Maxine Sullivan, Louis Armstrong and the Benny Goodman Sextet.

At this point Big Bill Broonzy had become a pivotal artist in the transformation of Country Blues to Urban Blues. Like Leroy Carr’s lyrics of the yearning for the old days in rural America, Big Bill wrote songs that appealed to the urban black audience’s sophistication and reflections of where they came from. He was a prolific writer encompassing many genres such as Rural Blues, Folk songs, Spirituals and early Gospel, Hokum Blues, Jazz songs, Ragtime and most importantly the new sounds and themes of Urban Blues and Chicago Electric Blues.

His recordings of “Where the Blues Began” (with Big Maceo on piano and Buster Bennett on Saxophone), “Martha Blues” (with Memphis Slim on piano) and the quintessential Urban Blues defining song, “Keys to the Highway” all appeared in the mid 1940s. In 1948, Big Bill moved to Mercury Records and started a tour with the folk music revue “I Come For To Sing” with Studs Terkel and was the key artist.  He had to quit the tour due to health problems later that year.

After he regained his strength in 1951, he commenced a very successful tour of Europe, where he was greeted with standing ovations and critical praise. The tours he had of Europe and particularly in England, made him a star influencing many up and coming musicians of the British Blues, Jazz and Folk scenes, including John Lennon of the Beatles.

He returned to the states triumphant and financially secure. He then began performing with Pete Seger, Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee as part of Folk Revival. Here is where Big Bill returned to his roots and toured the world in Africa, South America and the Pacific as well as Europe. In 1955 he published an autobiographical book entitled “Big Bill Blues”. In 1957, he helped start a school called the Old Town School of Folk Music. Unfortunately in August of 1958, Big Bill died after a battle with throat cancer in Chicago.

Big Bill Broonzy’s influence in music is quite remarkable and vast. He was a great songwriter who wrote in many genres and was a key figure in the “move” of the Blues to Urban Blues, R&B and the later genres of Rock & Roll and modern Rock. He was a bridge from the older genres to the newer genres of the 20th century, bridging the music of Son House, Blind Lemon Jefferson and Jimmie Rodgers with Muddy Waters, Willie Dixon, Eric Clapton, Yes, The Grateful Dead and even Rush as well as The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, The Kinks, and the British Blues scene of the mid and late 1960s and 1970s. He is also credited as an educator against racism and bigotry and a proponent of the Blues and music in general.

 

3 - Urban Blues

Urban Blues #1

Leave a comment

Urban Blues

Origins

Urban Blues was a development growing out of traditional rural blues or folk blues. Scholars disagree as to the exact origin or source of the music. Some scholars say the source of the Blues was from the Mississippi “Delta”, some have said Texas, others say New Orleans and still others say from states like Georgia, Florida or Alabama. Suffice it to say, the blues seems to have simultaneously manifested itself throughout the aforementioned southern states of America. This stands to reason since the music was played by travelers and vagabonds in its early stages.

In any event the music was brought to cities in the north of the United States during what was known as the great migrations (at least two waves). This consisted of mostly African Americans and other people of color like Hispanics, Creoles (people of mixed races) and American Indians who moved from the rural south to the urban north. By the 1970s, 80% of all black people living in America resided in these cities and urban areas.

The first wave of the great migration started in the 1910s, continuing up to about the early 1930s, which saw some 1.6 million African Americans move from Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas, Florida and Georgia, north to northern industrial cities like New York, Chicago, Memphis, Detroit, Philadelphia, St. Louis, Pittsburgh, and Indianapolis and other smaller northern cities. The people were in search of jobs and social/economic opportunities and were trying to escape the Jim Crow south, poverty, racism and bigotry.

 

Early Urban Blues Hits

Scholars often disagree as to what were the first Urban Blues hits. However, author Francis Davis in his book “The History of the Blues” suggests that Tampa Red, although not fully Urban Blues was an artist who was “midway’ between Folk Blues and Urban Blues with his 1928 hit “It’s Tight Like That”. The song was written and also co-performed by Georgia Tom Dorsey (no relation to the Dorsey Brothers in Jazz), who was famous for writing the songs “Peace in the Valley and “Precious Lord, Take My Hand.

Also in 1928, Nashville bluesmen Leroy Carr, along with guitarist Francis “Scrapper” Blackwell released “How Long, How Long Blues”, considered by many to be the first authentic Urban Blues song. The song was recorded in Indianapolis and became a hit in Chicago.

Around this time, there was a wide range of authentic, original music being recorded by many of the record labels in the north and to a limited extent in the South. There was Klezmer music, cantors, Irish (jigs) music, Italian operas, hillbilly music, many factions of country music, Ozark folk music, vaudeville humorous comedy bits and music, spirituals (pre-cursor to Gospel) as well as the pop music of the day, which was Broadway show tunes, Ragtime and Jazz.

The blues was also one of the many genres being recorded and sold to a specific crowd, depending on where you lived and the accessibility of the recorded music. Some scholars claim that, never again in America would there be such a wide range of music recorded and sold as there were in the first few decades of the 20th century. The Great Depression changed all of this and brought about a stifling effect to the music industry and distribution.

The repeal of Prohibition in 1933 saved many record companies from Chapter 11 and bankruptcy. Also the invention of the “Jukebox” helped revive the recorded music industry by supplying accessible music to bars, clubs, malt shops, candy stores, diners, variety stores, markets and almost any place where people commercially congregated. By 1939 there were over a quarter of a million jukeboxes being maintained and accessed all throughout America.

3 - Urban Blues

Urban Blues #2

Leave a comment

The Second Wave

The second wave occurred after the great depression and during World War II, where at least 5 million black people moved north to the aforementioned cities as well as west to Los Angeles, San Francisco, Oakland, Phoenix, and Seattle.  With them came the blues, ragtime, jazz, and other folk music which went through some changes as the people adjusted to urban life from country life.

Rural or folk blues was predominantly played on acoustic guitar and piano in the rural south. But in the cities of the north, blues artists started in the 1940s to play electric guitar, to use microphones and started to incorporate small band combos to play the blues. Many of the combos would also use harmonicas (with microphone) along with bass, drums, horns (trumpets, coronets and trombones) and saxophones. This is what constituted what was called “small combos” (up to 5, 6 or 7 players) as opposed to the big bands of swing and popular “sweet” bands which were much bigger. They incorporated 8 to 40+ players. In the late 1940s it was more economical to have a small yet amplified combo.

 

The Beginning of Rhythm & Blues in the Jazz Big Bands Era

Throughout most of the big band era there were many territory bands like Bennie Moten, Jay McShann and Count Basie’s Big bands (mostly operating out of Kansas City) that incorporated the blues into their Big Band sounds. Also, “Blues Shouters” like Jimmy Rushing, Walter Brown, Duke Henderson, Big Joe Williams, Jimmy Witherspoon, and of course, Eddie “Cleanhead” Vinson became popular in northern cities from Chicago to New York in the late 1930s through the 1940s.

Simultaneously, “Boogie Woogie” was taking off in urban America as well, which was very blues based and was easily played in crowded urban “rent parties”. Later on, coming out of the Boogie Woogie craze, was “Jump Blues”, which would take the mainstream by storm with artists like Lionel Hampton, Cab Calloway and the genre definers Louis Jordan and Big Joe Turner. The genres of (Rural) Blues, Boogie Woogie, Jump Blues, Gospel and Electric Blues would all combine to be what would be coined, in 1948, as Rhythm and Blues or R&B replacing the term “race records”. These genres would coalesce to mix with Country & Western genres that would give birth to what would be called “Rock & Roll” in the mid fifties.

 

Amplification

In the late 1940s, the electric guitar would become a pivotal instrument in R&B in general and later on in Rock & Roll. Guitarists like Charlie Christian in jazz and T-Bone Walker in the blues were the pioneers of the use of the electric guitar in these new genres.  The music was becoming louder due to guitar amplification and the microphone jacked PA systems (Public Address or Announcement microphones, speakers and amplifiers).

The drum beats would become louder and more driven. The rhythm in Jump Blues was referred to as “8 to the bar”, a faster shuffle or straight beat, where the bass drums and the snare drums would become more prominent and generalized. In Urban Blues, the beat was more straight forward and insistent rather than the old swing beats that were lighter with use of cymbals and Hi-Hats in the 1920s and 1930s and during the Swing Era. This “eight to the bar” method would become stronger to produce the back-beat later on in the early 1950s.

Electric Blues/Urban Blues was being heard in cities like Chicago, St. Louis, Memphis and Detroit in the last days of the Depression Era and then throughout World War II and really took off in the last half of the 40s decade. Urban, Electric and most definitely Jump Blues would crossover to the mainstream and would begin to slowly usurp the older Swing Jazz genre, though this would take some time. R&B would overtake Swing after 1955 under the label “Rock & Roll” (which is, again, simply R&B targeted to white audiences) and mainstream would then be dominated by the new beat for the rest of the century.

 

2 - Boogie-woogie

Boogie Woogie

Leave a comment

Boogie Woogie

Boogie Woogie is a dance music genre derived or related to various forms of music like the blues, jazz, and particularly stride piano and ragtime in the early 20th century. The consensus among some musicologists is that the style of piano started in northeast Texas as early as the 1870s particularly in the Piney Woods among the lumber and turpentine camps as well as the Harrison and Marshall Counties in Texas. The polyrhythmic sound and cadence of Boogie Woogie (then called “Fast Western” music) was influenced by the “Texas Western Railroad Company” workers.

The origins of the term Boogie Woogie are unknown, though it is believed to have come from certain African dialects. The blues musician Blind Lemon Jefferson referred to the bass figure of the music style as “Booga Rooga”. The style of piano music was heard and then acquired by musicians early in the 20th century by the likes of Jelly Roll Morton as piano music and then was acquired by many Texan guitarists like Lead Belly (who knew Blind Lemon Jefferson).

Later, during the mass migration of African Americans from the south up to the north western cities, the music became known also as house-rent party music. These “rent parties” started as a way for black renters to meet the monthly rent payments when many were suffering from poverty and unemployment. This became a common practice in the late 19th century up through to the mid-20th century in the cities up and down the Mississippi river (in particular, St. Louis and of course Chicago). These rent parties had the effect of incubating great forms of African American music like ragtime, Stride, Jazz and Boogie Woogie.

Boogie Woogie started out primarily as piano music (as solo piano, duet and even triplet pianos) where it was easily played in the juke joints, barrel houses, bar rooms of the rural south and then later, in rented apartments in the urban cities of the mid-west.

As the migration continued up the Mississippi river, Chicago became the hub of boogie woogie music, as well as all the other contemporary forms of music; Jazz, Ragtime, Urban Blues and Stride in the decades before and including the Roaring 20s. Boogie Woogie then was being played by guitars and small and larger jazz combos that used trumpet(s), trombone(s), of course piano, stringed double bass and drums.

The first hit song of Boogie Woogie was a tune called “Pine Top’s Boogie Woogie”, which hit #20 on the charts in February of 1929 by Pine Top Smith. He lived only a month after his hit when he was shot at age 24 in a night club. This might have prompted Elton John’s album titled “Don’t Shoot Me, I’m Just the Piano Player”, which was said to be a comeback joke between Groucho Marx and Elton.

Hersal and George Thomas from Texas who migrated to Chicago are cited as being very influential in the 2nd & 3rd decades of the 20th century (1910s-1920s) with the piece “The Fives”. “The Fives” had most of the modern bass figures in it such as the walking, shuffle and chordal bass, as well as broken octaves (used in ragtime stride). The Fives are considered the first use of Boogie Woogie in a jazz band as found in Joseph Samuels’ Tampa Blue Jazz Band in 1923.

Later on, in the 30s piano artists like Jimmy Yancey who influenced Meade Lux Lewis, Albert Ammons and Pete Johnson, who would all carry the torch of Boogie Woogie into the 1940s. Incidentally, Jimmy Yancey wouldn’t record a song until 1939 when he caused a stir with his unique light-handed style. Meade Lux Lewis recorded “Honky Tonk Train Blues”, released in 1930. Albert Ammons was influential with the song “Boogie Woogie Stomp” in 1936. Pete Johnson (who played with Big Joe Turner) had an influential record with the 12-bar blues, Boogie Woogie style “Roll ‘Em Pete” released in 1938 and considered one of the first Rock & Roll records, if not a precursor to the future genre.

Pine Top influenced Jimmy Dorsey, the big band leader, who recorded a version of Pine Top’s Boogie called simply “Boogie Woogie”, a #3 hit (with a million sales) in 1938 which re-entered the charts in 1943, 1944 and 1945 during the revival Boogie Woogie craze.

2 - Boogie-woogie

The Boogie Woogie Revival

Leave a comment

The Boogie Woogie Revival

Boogie Woogie would experience a revival in 1938-39, culminating in Columbia Records, John Hammond produced popular records “From Spirituals to Swing” concerts which were recorded on two occasions in Carnegie Hall. This propelled a renewed Boogie Woogie craze that would last well into the 1940s.

“From Spirituals to Swing” recordings featured Jimmy Yancey, Albert Ammons and the song “Swanee River Boogie”, Meade Lux Lewis and his hit song “Freight Train Blues” and of course Pete Johnson’s and Big Joe Turner’s “Roll ‘Em Pete” made the concerts and accompanying records very successful. The night clubs in New York City, especially on 52nd Street, gave way to the Boogie Woogie craze in the 40s.

This had a big influential effect on Swing Jazz, as many big bands started incorporating Boogie Woogie tunes into their sets. The Will Bradley Orchestra had a string of hits with the original version of “Beat Me, Daddy, Eight to the Bar” hitting #2, and also another #2 hit with “Scrub Me Mama, With A Boogie Beat” and the #10 “Down the Road A Piece”, all with Ray McKinley singing and all in 1940 spilling into 1941.

Glenn Miller had a hit in 1940 with the #7 hit “Boog It”. The Andrews Sisters had several Boogie Woogie hits like the late 1940 #2 hit “Beat Me, Daddy, Eight to the Bar” and the famous pre-World War II hit “Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy” in 1941. The Boogie Woogie craze was fueled by the fact that the Lindy Hop and the Jitterbug dances were very compatible with the boogie “beat”.

Lionel Hampton, one of the three “Fathers” of Jump Blues and R&B (as well as Count Basie and Louis Jordan) had a string of boogie hits, including the 1944, #23 hit “Hamp’s Boogie Woogie” and the 1946, #9 hit “Hey! Ba-Ba-Re-Bop”, which became very popular. Louis Jordan, had a string of boogie hits starting with the #6 “Caldonia Boogie” in 1945, the #7 hit “Choo Choo Ch’ Boogie” just to name a few. Count Basie also had several boogie hits such as the b-side, #10 hit “Mad Boogie” in 1946.

At the same time, many C&W (Country & Western) artists had hits in the boogie styled derivative genres called Country Boogie, Hillbilly Boogie or Western Boogie. Remember boogie started in Texas. These were precursors to Rockabilly. Johnny Barfield had a hit record with a “Boogie Woogie” in 1939. Ella Mae Morse and Freddie Slack had a million plus seller with the Benny Carter/Gene DePaul/Don Raye penned #9 hit “Cow Cow Boogie” in 1942.

The Delmore Brothers had a boogie hit with “Freight Train Boogie” which was also very influential to Rock & Roll and Rockabilly. Arthur Smith & His Cracker Jacks had several Country Boogie hits, such as the #25 crossover electric guitar hit “Guitar Boogie” in 1948 as well as the C&W hit “Banjo Boogie”. Tennessee Ernie Ford had a boogie hit with the #15 crossover hit “Shot Gun Boogie” in 1951.

And also, we can’t forget that Bill Haley started out his career as a C&W artist as “Bill Haley and The Saddlemen” before going Rock & Roll with “The Comets”. He recorded several Country Boogies like “Green Tree Boogie” in 1951, as well as the C&W (Rockabilly) version of Ike Turner’s “Rocket 88” (a couple of months after the original R&B release). Bill Haley & the Saddlemen then released “Sundown Boogie” in 1952 as well as a cover of Jimmy Preston’s “Rock This Joint” which was considered to be the first Rockabilly song.

 

C - Gospel

C – Gospel Music

Leave a comment

Gospel Music

 

Gospel music or rather African American gospel music was an outgrowth of Christian hymnal music that was forced upon the African American community of the 17th & 18th centuries. The gospel church brought forth a certain kind of hymn called “the spiritual”, a form of African American music that was key in the development of polyphonic gospel music.

 

The Vocals

The lyrics are words of love, hope, salvation, words to uplift relying heavily on the Christian Bible. Contemporary gospel, urban contemporary gospel (black gospel), southern gospel and, modern contemporary Christian music all share sacred lyric. Later on, some gospel music especially after Ray Charles’s “I Got a Woman”, became less sacred in lyrics department and featured more of the music of gospel which went on to influence R&B and soul.

Gospel music utilizes the “call & response” vocal techniques used most often by the preacher and the choir, usually with a band accompaniment. Along with call & response, gospel shares many characteristics with the blues as with R&B and soul. Although gospel shares characteristics with the blues, many gospel music purists consider the two forms of music on opposite poles.

The music is a powerful force of vocals usually featuring several talented vocalists who can use advanced vocal techniques. The choir and the separation of polyphony or rather harmony among the voices (usually soprano, alto, tenor, and bass) is crucial to the overall sounds of gospel music.

The lead vocals or the preacher in gospel music utilize vocal techniques that can consist of vibrato (a regular pulsating change of pitch); coloratura (or the coloring of a melody with runs, trills, leaps and other voice projection techniques); sostenuto (the sustaining of a note over a long period); singing in legato, subtly connecting notes and phrases in a smooth manner; and melismas (the singing of one syllable while moving between different notes in succession).

 

Gospel’s Development

Gospel music started to change or cleave off of the older hymnal and spiritual music by becoming more rhythmic and dependent on the foundation of a sizable band. Many of the worshippers could now join in with the music by singing and clapping along and using any kind of percussion instrument.

A lot of gospel music features a band (organ, guitar, bass, drums), sometimes with horns (sax, cornets, trombones) and strings. The tempo is very fast starting around 120 beats per minute to 150 beats per minute or higher, which can induce many interesting effects on one’s person.

Gospel music especially of the 20th century becomes very transcendental in nature by using a very fast pulse and rhythm in order to induce a trance-like state of euphoria and connectedness. Many would look forward to Sunday morning for the release of energy and expression of religious love in the music.

 

The Popularity of Gospel

Along with any other kind of music, there are always complaints of commercialization. With the modernization of the recording music industry, gospel music has become a very commercially successful genre in its own right in the later-half of the 20th century and early 21st.

Gospel music gives you an uplifting feeling you get when the lead singer is giving the final crescendo at the apex of an old modernized spiritual. It’s electrifying, the thrill of pins & needles when it truly feels like a spiritual “phenomenon”.

The nature of gospel music can conjure up strong emotional feelings that reflect an expression of the human state, unlike other genres. The trance-like state of euphoria that music, in particularly gospel and dance music, can induce is central to the development of human spiritualism and expression going back to the hunter-gatherer campfires.

I’ve had the pleasure of playing Gospel music in several groups and I can’t deny the feeling that overcomes you when playing Gospel or soul music. The only way to describe it is as spiritual. Gospel is a lot of fun to play, especially with a great choir, the music goes by so fast and then after, you realize how much fun it was and that you received a good workout physically, mentally and of course spiritually.