Alvin Ailey's Rocka My Soul

Music is more than just lyrics, it is seen as a way to express feelings. A simple song can be a combination of deeper meanings. This is seen in James Baldwin’s “Sonny’s Blues” when Sonny finally finds a way to express himself and his struggles of life. Sonny faces many struggles while living in Harlem such as poverty, being African American, and being confined in a community that is known for being the lower part of life. Within his struggles Sonny finds a love for music. This comes in handy when his relationship with his brother is` struggling. Music gives Sonny an opportunity to reconnect with his brother since he did not understand what he was going through and express his struggles. Although Sonny has many struggles throughout life, He’s

“Sonny’s Blues” is an emotional story written by an amazing author, James Baldwin, who has come to be one of my favorite writers. This particular piece talks about the troubles of African American freeing themselves from the mental bondages of their surroundings, the ghetto. The title is significant, and helped me to understand the underlining meaning of the story. The title can be divided into two main reasons, the first, “Sonny’s Blues, meaning the music he plays. Second is the reference to his life, his feelings, his style, and most importantly his way of life.

In James Baldwin's Sonny's Blues he deals with a man trying to find his identity in a very hostile society. The blues in this story is used in a more emotional manner which recollects the past. It also repairs the relationship between the two brothers who have chosen two different ways of coping in their ghetto environment. The blues also serves as a communication devise between the two brothers. Baldwin uses the blues to state a fact; the ugliness and meanness inherent in the human condition. In order to really understand the message of the blues you have to be one that has suffered just like Sonny and the elder brother. The blues that they play also communicates to other sufferers who have had their own trials, so they know what this music is all about. Sonny's suffering are within himself, but deep suffering is common to all his listeners. Even his brother can attune himself to this suffering, which is brought on by the death of his little daughter Grace. When the brother is at the club listening to the blues he recalls his mother, the moonlit road on

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

Sonny’s actions were highly influenced by his environment, whether it be the struggles of the streets, his relationship with his father or the dark side of being a blues musician in the 50s. The Narrator explains the lifeless environment he grew up in and the constant struggle of finding light in such a dark enviroment “God knows the people who live in it do their best to make it a parody. The beat-looking grass lying around isn't enough to make their lives green, the hedges will never hold out the streets, and they know it. The big windows fool no one, they aren't big enough to make space out of no space. They don't bother with the windows, they watch the TV screen instead. The playground is most popular with the children who don't play at jacks, or skip rope, or roller skate, or swing, and they can be found in it after dark” (255). One of the significant elements that the author writes about is darkness, he makes it clear about how harlem is a cloak of darkness, and unfortunately people do not know any other shade of life. Both brothers come from the same environment but they cope with their struggles in a different manners: “Thus, in the story of Sonny and his brother an intuition of the meaning of the Blues repairs the relationship between the two men who have chosen different ways to cope with the menacing ghetto environment, and their reconciliation through the medium of this AfroAmerican musical form extends the meaning of the individual's Blues until it becomes a metaphor of Black community” (Reilly 230). African Americans have pioneered many different genres of music that the american society can now claim as their own. What is often not appreciated or shown is the spiritual connection that they have with the music that they create. This sense of finding identity in the music is

Blues is a music genre originating in Africa .This genre emerged with the introduction of African people as slaves to America's south. Slaves were employed in poor conditions in the cotton fields before the Civil War. Making music meant avoiding the pain for them. People think Blues music is slow and smooth because the lyrics of the Blues music always includes depression, loneliness and anger.

Blues started in the South, long ago, when slavery was still socially accepted. Slaves were severely oppressed because they were legally bound to their masters. One way they found emotional freedom was to sing songs, which were called “slave songs.” “It Makes a Long Time Man Feel Bad”, “Hammer, Ring”, “Cornfield Holler”, were just a few of the popular slave songs (“Slavery and the Making of America”, 2004). Slave songs were in various forms such as field hollers, work songs, spirituals, and country string ballads (“The Blues- A History”, 2003). As time passed, these types of songs were starting to become known as the blues. After slavery ended in 1865, blues was not only still present, but became more evident. In the beginning of the 20th century, blues music was on the

This song implies that individual’s are violating the norms and values of society. They start the song with a verse that expresses

The title used by James Baldwin, Sonny’s Blues, according to John Reilley, can be interpreted in two ways (Reilly, 56). The first interpretation is the state of unhappiness and discontent amongst the Black community and the music played by Sonny, or rather his depression (blues).

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

“Sonny’s Blues,” which is an outstanding short story by James Baldwin, describes many obstacles in lifestyles and relationships of African-Americans in the influential time of post Harlem Renaissance and discrimination in the 1950s. In the end of the story, the nightclub setting is the most important and emotional turning point of the brotherhood between narrator and his young brother, Sonny. After many conflicts and arguments about their different ideals and lifestyles, Sonny tries to open his heart to let his brother understand him by inviting the narrator to come to his jazz music performance at a small nightclub in Greenwich Village. At this place, he meets friends of Sonny, acquaint himself with jazz music and tries to get into Sonny’s world. He carefully observes any changes of his brother on the stage. Sonny is nervous and has trouble in the beginning of the performance. However, Sonny quickly gets back on track. His music seems to touch everyone, including his brother, by its beauty and freedom. The narrator becomes proud of Sonny. Eventually, he recognizes his brother’s talent and understands that Sonny was born to be a real musician.

No black person can escape the blues, because the blues are an inherent part of the black existence in America. To be black is to be blue. The blues tell us about black people’s attempt to carve out a significant existence in a very trying situation. The purpose of the blues is to give structure to black existence in a context where color means rejection and humiliation. Suffering and its relation to blackness is inseparable from the meaning of the blues. Without pain and suffering, and what that meant for black people in Mississippi, Tennessee, and Arkansas, there would have been no blues. The blue mood means sorrow, frustration, despair, and black people’s attempt to take these existential realities upon themselves and not lose their sanity. The blues are not art for art’s sake, music for music’s sake. They are a way of life, a life-style of the black community; and the will for survival. Thus to seek to understand the blues apart from the suffering that created them is to misinterpret them and distort the very creativity that defines them (Cone, 1980).

Nowadays the blues revolve around the meaning of sadness but doesn’t have a true message of fighting for survival or deprivation of freedom. In the process of searching for the modern day blues, it was discovered that the music is compiled by mostly Caucasian artist compared to the past where it was conceived by blacks to prompt their practices and beliefs.

The beginning of rock music is also the tale of the never-ending social struggles of American history. Blues and jazz, the expressive and meaningful songs of everyday black Americans, are deeply rooted in regret, loss, despair, hope, love, strength, and dreams. While upholding the originality over many decades, the spirit and musical theory of these styles have influenced much of the American music that is produced to this day. The “blue notes”, a term for notes that are much lower and flatter than usual that are the major factors of the form became prominent in country music, rock and roll and jazz (Merwe, 1989). The simple yet untraditional form of blues became the model for the first rock and roll songs, such as “Good Rockin’ Tonight”,

Music is a form of art, and since art reflects life, it only makes sense that music is reflective of life. Music is used all over the world to express thoughts, feelings, and behaviors; whether it is used to express celebration, the act of worship, the act of mourning, just to dance to, or any other reasoning, it all comes back to the idea that music reflects life. One genre of music that is particularly obvious in what it is trying to express, is blues music. Blues music is a genre of music that is most often associated with melancholy lyrics and notes, combining slow and long patterns and melodic sequences. After first rising to popularity at a fundamental time in our country’s history, blues music eventually went on to become one of the most impactful aspects in the music world because of the several artists that gave it notoriety, as well as its obvious influence on other important musical genres and styles.