African American Music In The 20th Century

The Blues also became a hit in the 1920s after Mamie Smith recorded “Crazy Blues” and it grew into a huge part of the Jazz Industry. African Americans were given credit for the creation of the Blues industry of music as well. Bessie Smith was known as the “most famous of the 1920s Blues singers.”

Eileen Southern’s The Music of Black Americans: A History she examines the influence that African Americans had in the holiness churches in music and worship. She initially starts with the landing of the first Africans to the colonies and she creates a phenomenal conversation of the musicians in the new world. She details the progression in the gospel, classical, jazz, rap, blues and the contributions they made.

Looking back at the history of Blues music, one can see the influence of the African-American community, tradition, and culture very apparent in it. The Blues music genre came into being from the songs

The blues emerged as a distinct African-American musical form in the early twentieth century. It typically employed a twelve-bar framework and three-lined stanzas; its roots are based in early African-American songs, such as field hollers and work songs, and generally have a melancholy mood. The blues can be divided into many sub-genres, including Classical, Country, and Urban. The purpose of this paper is to focus on the careers of two of Classical blues most influential and legendary singers: Ma Rainey and Bessie Smith.

“When first entering in America, British folk music was distinguished by three-chord tunes, sparse instrumentation (with some fiddlers), mostly male performers, improvisation, the singers’ sporadic shouts (Scottish “yips”), Christian themes served up in hundreds of hymns, and a secular collection of songs that told stories, generally about love and lost love, using metaphor and symbol to tell those stories” (Allen 101). By the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, British music changed and became Americanized. Vocal harmonizing slowly evolved, and fiddlers were accompanied by those who played banjo, an African American opening. “Tambourines and “bones” (tapping out rhythms using pork rib bones) were a minstrel show contribution” (Allen 102). When African Americans were forced into slavery and brought to North America in the 1600s, they brought their own musical traditions and sounds. Slaves who were on the Mississippi River Valley delta soil developed what will later be introduced as blues music. On the plantations, slaves greatly changed British American hymn singing. They took non-religious British American songs and turned it into their own forms of music that followed their culture and taste of music. Blues emerged in the early twentieth century at the same time country music became settled from its folk roots. Blues music talked about the indifferences African American slaves were going through at that time. “The blues voiced human

African American influence in music has been an ever present and controversial subject in American history. Stemming from many different cultures, religions and backgrounds, large portions of American music was introduced by, and credited to African Americans. Although in many cases, this music was used for entertainment by the masses or majority, contrary to popular belief, black music served a greater purpose than just recreation. Dating all the way back to the beginning of slavery in the U.S. during the 17th century, music has been used to make a statement and send a message. As African American music progressed over the years, there were common themes expressed as the genres evolved. It has been an open letter to the world, documenting and protesting the ongoing oppression faced by blacks in the United States, as well as an outlet for frustration. For many African Americans, the music gave them the only voice that couldn’t be silenced by their oppressors.

The blues, a uniquely American art form, was born on the dusty street corners of the Deep South in the late 1800s. An evolution of West African music brought to the United States by slaves, created the blues which was a way for black people in the south

In 1951, Alan Freed, a European American disc jockey for a Cleveland radio station, first coined the term rock’n roll. Fifty years later, if you were to poll the general public on which race would dominate that genre of music, the response would be overwhelmingly whites. But rock’n roll is not a white mans music. African American’s were and still are an essential cornerstone of the genre known as rock’n roll. But rock’n roll simply would not exist if it weren't for African Americans. Their presence is felt in almost every genre of music known to the United States. Early twentieth century black musicians helped shape, influence and create my favorite genre of music today.

On the other hand, Blues were basically from work songs of African Americans slaves at the time. “It is a native American music, the product of the black man in this country, or, to put it more exactly the way I have come to think about it, blues could not exist if the African captives had not become American captives”(pp.17), said Jones and Baraka. In Jazz – A History, Frank Tirro wisely analyzes and explains the relationship between the unique background and

     The Blues musical move was prominent during the 1920s and '30s, a time known as the Harlem Renaissance. Blues music characteristically told the story of

Rhythm and blues, also known today as “R & B”, has been one of the most influential genres of music within the African American Culture, and has evolved over many decades in style and sound. Emerging in the late 1940's rhythm and blues, sometimes called jump blues, became dominant black popular music during and after WWII. Rhythm and blues artists often sung about love, relationships, life troubles, and sometimes focused on segregation and race struggles. Rhythm and blues helped embody what was unique about black American culture and validate it as something distinctive and valuable.

In today’s day and age, it’s easy to hear black culture represented in most hip-hop; that is the dominating music genre that expresses African American views. It’s not so easy to remember where African Americans influence on music al began. Black influence on music today is really unrecognized but it’s important to bring to light just how much African Americans really have contributed to the sound, style, and feel of today’s music. Not just hip-hop or rap, but all kinds of music.

The Blues first appeared in the southern states of America around the beginning of the 19th century. Originally the poorest people in the southern plantations, often slaves near the Mississippi Delta, were the ones to create Blues music. The documentary, Blues America, focuses on some of the earlier years of Blues music to discover how musicians such as Bessie Smith (known as Empress of the Blues), Blind Lemon Jefferson (the first Country Blues star who was famous for his song “Black Snake Moan”), and Charley Patton (the Father of the Blues who was inspired by the Delta blues musicians of his era) used the latest technologies in media to bring their music to the public.

Soul music, or “Soul”,was adopted to describe African-American popular music as it evolved from the 1950s to the early 1970s. Although some people thought of “Soul” music as a new term for Rhythm and Blues, it was not. In fact, the “key ingredient in Soul music, and the element that defined it as a new style was the influence of gospel music.” (1)This style of music was a blend gospel music with the dance grooves of that era. However, Soul music during its heyday did more than simply entertain. During the 1950’s through the 1970 's, was also when the American Civil Rights Movement was coming to a head. Because of the that, it impacted the musical styles which reflected in the music and the culture of that era. So one would be correct in both assuming that the Civil Rights Movement helped to give rise to Soul music, as much Soul music contributed to the success of the campaign for civil rights. For a people in the African American community and for a people immersed in turmoil and tragedy, it served as a source of motivation, strength and education. The system of segregation had effectively inhibited the general populace’s awareness of the great achievements and contributions made by African-Americans throughout the history of the United States. In as much, the artists of Soul music sought to bring things that were normally left in darkness out and into the light for not only the nation but the world to see.

The Blues is one of the most independent types of black music that has been influenced by the Afro-American traditions. The blues were not completely developed until all the slaves were announce free in 1862. When one listen to blues, one can hear that the genre is very much influences by the slaves` work songs and Negro Spirituals. Even when the slaves finally got their freedom, they were not seen as equals by the environment around them. A large amount of the Africans in America was poor and they lived under difficult circumstances. Most of them could not read and had a lack of education. They were disrespected by the rest of the population. It was through the experiences of pain and strife of being taken from their home and emotions that the slavery brought through, that the term “Being blue” was introduced. This expression expressed the former slaves` feeling of depression and sadness, and most of all loneliness. This is how the blues appeared. The lyrics of the blues is mainly about being lonely, broken hearts, being sick and problems with money. While the Negro spirituals was about the slaves` need for religious or spiritual guidance, the blues was about the struggles the Africans faced every day. The blues was about conveying the `feeling` of suffering and pain that the slaves went through. In