Music and Race Essay

Blues is an African-American music that covers a wide range of emotions and musical styles. “Feeling blue” is expressed in songs whose verses lament injustice or express longing for a better life and lost loves, jobs, and money. But blues is also a raucous dance music that celebrates pleasure and success. Central to the idea of blues performance is the concept that, by performing or listening to the blues, one is able to overcome sadness and find hope.

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

Ragtime wasn't the only music to come from gospel. Around the turn of the 20th century, a different sound was drifting out of the Mississippi Valley and out of Tin Pan Alley. It would overtake rag in popularity and endurance, …it was associated with the haunting heartaches of life and thus came to be called the blues.

According to Robert Stolorow, “[The blues] has origins in spirituals, work songs, field hollers, etc., all of which are types of music associated with enslaved people attempting to deal with their painful situation” (5). Even though modern blues singers do not have personal experience with slavery, their music is greatly influenced by the slave songs. The slave songs are first-hand accounts of the inhumane treatment of blacks and blues musicians use these spiritual narratives to reach deeper essence in their music (Wright 418). The blues is such a power form of music because it comforts and unites suffering people with its words and rhythm (Stolorow 7). When people are suffering, they look for a way to escape from that suffering and the blues grants them the peace of mind they are searching for.

Throughout the late 19th century, African Americans did not have the same rights as white people, which led towards the establishment of Jim Crow laws. Jim Crow laws segregated blacks from whites in a political, educational, and social setting, which created unfair treatment towards people of color. In Devil in the Grove, four African American boys, known as the Groveland Boys, were falsely accused of raping a white woman in Florida, which was known as the Groveland case. Thurgood Marshall, who was a part of The National Association of Advancement for Colored People (NAACP), helped to solve the Groveland case, as he was an advocate in fighting against Jim Crow segregation. The labor force, vigilante groups, and legal precedents led towards the establishment of Jim Crow policies by segregating black people from white people in public areas. African Americans contested these policies by creating legal organizations that overturned cases supporting segregation laws and using music as a way to protest against the Jim Crow policies.

For centuries, the color blue has been associated with sadness. By the mid- nineteenth century the expression “the blues,” was commonly known in this way. Throughout history, the blues was a regular feeling that African Americans experienced. The Blues arose out of slavery. Through slavery, they were confronted with racism, violence, and poverty.

The blues in Missouri did not evolve in one place, it also grew from field hollers and work songs. To ease the drudgery of laboring in the fields, work bosses, echoing the call and response common to church services, called out a phrase and the workers responded in unison. Ma Rainey, a pioneering woman blues shouter, first heard the blues around 1902 while traveling with a tent show in eastern Missouri. After the show, a young woman cornered Rainey and sang a mournful song of lost love. Rainey incorporated the song into her repertoire and spread the blues across the

Ma Rainey started her career at the early age of fourteen, singing and dancing at the Springer Opera House. Very early on, she was recognized for her talent, and was a widespread sensation by the 1920’s. She was very unique in her vocal style and was known as the Mother of Blues. She is widely recognized for being the first female blues singer and inspiring the Blues Movement.

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

In chapter ten, author Bruno Nettle takes the reader to the town of Browning, Montana, where he is about to witness a modern Native American ceremony. As he observes, he notices that only one-half of the people there are actual Native Americans. The rest are are white tourists and innocent observers just like himself. Eventually, somewhere around eighteen singing groups appear from different tribes and reservations. They will be summoning the dancers into what is known as the grand entry. Nettle notices that the overall style of the music remains the same among all of the different groups, or `drums.' People are able to interact by taking pictures, video and tape recording what goes on. In that

Rainey recruited her for her 1915 Tennessee tour which later launched Smith’s career. Bessie Smith grew up in poverty, and as an adult was known to be a heavy drinker and curse constantly. Like her mentor, Smith was married but often had affairs with women and men alike. In his biography Bessie, historian Chris Albertson describes a famous anecdote in which Smith snapped at a fellow performer and lover, saying “I got twelve women on this show and I can have one every night if I want it.” “Young Woman’s Blues” and “Empty Bed Blues” are the next two songs on the playlist. In the prior, Smith sings the 1920’s equivalent of “Single Ladies,” and that she “a young woman and ain't done runnin' 'round” and she “ain't gonna marry, ain't gonna settle down.” In the second, Smith sings of receiving oral sex from a skilled lover, yet only through

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.

Disco music gained fame through clubs that played these novelty tunes as well as the gay, latino, and psychedelic communities that flocked said clubs. This genre became mainstream because of its

The Rise and Fall of Disco The birth of Disco had a huge influence on the American culture in the 1970s. It reached far beyond music and into fashion, club culture, and film. Disco was created in Philadelphia and New York City in the late 1960s and early 1970s, formed by people in reaction to the popularity of rock music and the lack of progress of dance music in the late 60s. First heard in nightclubs for many minority groups including Italians, Latinos, blacks, gays, and hippies, it was embraced by women, as well as men, and many female entertainers came into fame because of disco music.

Austrian born, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was regarded to be the greatest child prodigy the world has ever known. At age four, he heard his older sister playing a harpsichord minuet. Mozart begged his father to let him try the piece, and by ear, he played the piece perfectly. Throughout his life, tragedy struck. He was one of the most talented composers ever to walk the face of the earth, yet he led a life filled with much unhappiness.