Bessie Smith Lost Your Head Blues

“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.

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.”

Blues is one of the most captivating genres of music. The genre was originated in the late 1800’s as a method used by African American slaves to express the circumstances as well as to put emphasis on their feelings and emotions. In order to create these feelings in this music, blues artists incorporate many of the same techniques used to write poetry. One of the most easily identifiable songs in which it is easy to see the relation between poetic elements and blues music is the song “Empty Bed Blues” by Bessie Smith.

Popular singer Elton John once said; “music has healing power; it has the ability to take people out of themselves for a few hours”, and for most, music is the portal to an out of body experience. African American lyricists especially have been found to use the art of music to escape the real world, commencing from the slavery era and onward. The blues song titled The Tracks of My Tears does just that; expresses the ability to remove your soul from a treacherous reality. Similarly, the lyrics from popular modern songs, written by black artists, speak volumes about what is presently going on in the country, parallel to the way African American slavery songs did. Music written at an earlier period have been found to correlate to music of the past through providing strong emotion toward present day commentary.

Troubled and alone the man described attempts to escape his past. He plays with a slow methodical rhythm. The rhythm is not happy, but more relative to the man’s experiences. Although not specified, we can infer his past was not favorable. Langston writes, “I’s gwine to quit ma frownin’ And put ma troubles on the shelf (Hughes).” The anguish of his past is overbearing and without an outlet he would likely be dead. The melancholy attitude carries through to his life and without his Blues music his overbearing emotions shine. “He slept like a rock or a man that’s dead. (Hughes).” What was optimistic lines prior turns dark in despair as he sleeps. One can infer the cycle continues day in and day out. He finds hope in the music, just like Sonny; however, once the curtains close the true emotions emerge. His expression is almost that of desperation as opposed to inspiration. His plays his past and current emotions in his music, which gives its richer and deeper vide. Instead of putting up a masquerade he plays it how it

In the first paragraph the ambiguousness comes to light as he states "Creole began to tell us what the blues were all about." It could have a literal meaning in the sense that Creole could be singing of the blues, actually speaking the words and the definition. It could also mean that the music itself tells the story of the blues. The notes and the melody intertwine to hit a chord as no words ever could. To convey a meaning as no tale ever could. To truly bind the narrator to his brother as no conversation ever could. It is with this paragraph that the narrator really begins to understand his brother and perhaps begins to understand a little more about himself. Baldwin uses this paragraph to describe the affect of music on a human in terms of finding the good in the bad and embracing life as it is. He chooses words in his description commonly associated with music, such as "beat" with"He hit something in all of them, he hit something in me, myself, and the music tightened and deepened apprehension began to beat the air.' In fact the sentence itself seems to move in "beat." He uses colloquial language that you would expect to hear from someone in a jazz joint with phrases such as "he and his boys" and "keeping it new." The last few sentences intricately weave together the ideas of the music and its parallel in life.

While reading “Sonny’s Blues” by James Baldwin theme, symbolism, and motifs were discovered throughout the entire short story. Sonny one of the two main characters, is dealing with a drug addiction and is now following his dreams of becoming a jazz musician. The narrator, whose name was never given, does his best to keep the promise he made his mother years ago, to be his brother’s keeper.

The blues have deep roots embedded within American history—particularly that of African American history. The history of the blues originated on Southern plantations in the 19th century and was created by slaves, ex-slaves, and descendants of slaves. They were created by individuals who endured great hardship while performing endless hours of arduous labor and blues served as a form of escapism. To these individuals, songs provided them with the strength to persevere through their struggles. Blues songs depicted individuals who persevered in the face of adversity. They were symbols of hope to those squandering in the depths of oppression. In relations to the blues, every song has a story behind it and within every story, there is something to be said. Blues artists, through their struggles, detail how they overcame hardship and laughed at the face of oppression. They defied the rules and in doing so, showed African Americans that they too are beacons of hope for the hopeless. The best blues is instinctive, cathartic, and intensely emotional. From irrepressible bliss to deep sadness, no form of music communicates more genuine emotion than that of the blues. Like many bluesmen of his day, Robert Johnson applied his craft as a lonely traveling musician on street corners and in juke joints. He was a lonely man whose songs romanticized that existence. With Johnson’s unique vocal style, haunting lyrics, and creative guitar techniques, Johnson’s innovation embodied the essence of

In Harlem you heard someone playing some type of jazz, telling their story, sharing their emotions. The first poem “The Weary Blues” in stanza one it says “Droning a drowsy syncopated tune, rocking back and forth to a mellow croon, I heard a Negro play.” The word syncopated means a displacement of beats or accents in music or a rhythm so that strong beats become weak and vice versa. It also tells a story from a black mans soul as stated in stanza 15. The next poem called Harlem says in stanza 10 “We remember”.

A single source of blues music cannot be traced, but Ma Rainey is rightfully credited with introducing it to the world. Hence the reason she was dubbed as “The Mother of the Blues”. During an interview in the 1930s, Ma told musicologist John Work, that she heard what would be called blues, for the first time around 1902. She was in a small town in Missouri working a show at the time, and one morning a local girl came into the tent singing about a man whom had left her. This new style of soulful music drew in Ma Rainey so much she later had the girl teach her the song. Rainey performed the song as an encore in a show soon after, earning a special place in the show, and marking the start of her career (Jas Obrecht Archive).

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

     Jazz music is often associated with long, lazy melodies and ornate rhythmical patterns. The Blues, a type of jazz, also follows this similar style. Langston Hughes' poem, "The Weary Blues," is no exception. The sound qualities that make up Hughes' work are intricate, yet quite apparent. Hughes' use of consonance, assonance, onomatopoeia, and rhyme in "The Weary Blues" gives the poem a deep feeling of sorrow while, at the same time, allows the reader to feel as if he or she is actually listening to the blues sung by the poem's character.

The women in these blues are in relationships that have caused their blues. In Cox’s blues, the woman is in a relationship with an alcoholic. As a young child, she followed society’s rules, because she believed this would grant her a blissful life. Instead she is punished with a horrible relationship and she feels betrayed by her destiny. She regrets living in between the lines, when she could have lived frivolously like a wild woman. Morton’s song describes the life of a wild woman described in Cox’s song. The woman lives in the city and is in a relationship with an unemployed man. Although she is not trapped in a house like the previous song, she is trapped being the sole breadwinner for herself and her man. The woman is described as being wild because she is acting improperly by openly begging to men for money. When a woman begs for money, it exposes the man for not providing for

There are several stylistic characteristics of the blues. The first one is the blue notes, which is the "bent" technique for lowering the pitch of third and seventh scale degrees in the major scale(259). The next one is the blue chorus, which is three-line lyrics, and it contains fill which is the instrument response of the call and response between vocal and instrument. The third feature is the blue progression which is the form of the combination between tonic(I), subdominant(IV), and dominant(V) chords. It is usually arranged as: I- / IV- I- / V- I-. Another characteristic is that the timbre of the vocals in blues have a wide varieties. Every single piece of blue music features a different kind of vocal texture. The rhythm in the blues has a characteristic called "swung" which means the long-short pattern of the rhythm. In all three pieces of music, the blue note and the blue chorus are applied to the composition. The "bent" texture of the pitch and the neat separation of the lyrics can be easily notice in the music. The call and response in vocals and instruments, on the other hand, is not so obvious in "Can 't Help Lovin ' Dat Man," but I think, though subtle, it is still there at the end of each line. The rhythm in the "Muleskinner Blues" is more steady instead of the long- short patterned "swung." The "swung" is not so obvious in "Can 't Help Lovin ' Dat Man," either. Overall, there are some standard blue style in all three pieces of music, but we