In 1930's powerful recording and publishing companies were more concerned with...
Guaranteeing profits than in encouraging musical diversity and experimentation
Between the years of WW1 and WW2...
Companies began to target specific new audiences and in the process diversified music
Musical Diversification was encouraged by...
The millions of people from rural communities to cities. These people reflected both rural origins and new, distinctive urban styles
Race records definition
Were recordings of performances by African American musicians produced mainly for sale to African American listeners.
Hillbilly Music definition
Old time music," performed by and mainly intended for southern whites.
Race and Hillbilly music in common
Both originated mainly in the American south and were rooted in long-standing folk music traditions
In the 1920s...
The idea of recording material closer to African American folk traditions- and the associated idea of selling such material to an AA audience- took hold in the record business.
Mamie Smith
Black vaudeville performer, created first set of black music recordings made in 1920
Perry Brandford
A successful black songwriter and music store owner, brought Smith to the attention of the Okeh Record Companu and suggested she replace "Sophie Tucker"- a popular Jewish American who specialized in "Negro Songs"- in a recording session.
Ralph Peer
Was he first to promote "race music," was also a talent scout for Okeh Records who worked as an assistant on Mamie's first recording sessions.
Okeh records was the first label...
To send talent scouts to the South.
Paramount Records
Entered the race music market as a subsidiary of the Wisconsin Chair Company (the company made phonographs and the wooden cabinetry that enclosed them).
J. Mayo Williams
Influential AA in the record business, helped Paramount become one of the most important race record labels.
Black Swan
Founded in 1921 in NY by Harry Pace, first AA-owned record company. Fletcher Henderson was the band leader.
AA Surprising Costumers
AA bought as many as 10 million blues and gospel recordings per year (one per person) which was astonishing considering many black people lived in poverty.
William Christopher Handy
Most influential of the classic blues composer. Worked as a freelance musician, taking the job of bandmaster for a minstrel troupe and eventually formed his own dance band.
Handy's blues style
Had a lot of tin pan alley song form but drew substantially on AA traditions.
Handy's biggest hit...
St. Louis Blues
Blues
Musical genre that emerged in black communities of the Deep South- and especially the region from the Mississippi Delta to East Texas- sometime around the end of the nineteenth century.
Prince's Orchestra
Studio ensemble that released the first in a series of "blues" dance arrangements
Alberta Hunter
Billed as the "Marian Anderson of the Blues
Ethel Waters
Entertained the growing AA middle class in NY, Chicago and other northern cities.
Gertrude "Ma" Rainy
Rougher style, "Mother of the Blues
Bessie Smith
Empress of the Blues," her version of St. Louis blues created a bridge between black and white communities of taste and because of this was single-handedly able to save Columbia records from bankruptcy.
Bar
Aka measure, is simply a rhythmic unit of music, consisting of one accented beat followed by one or more unaccented beats.
Beats
Equal measures of musical time
12 bar blues
Particular arrangement of four beat bars (1,2,3,4)
Three line poetic stanza, in which _________________ is extremely common in 12 bar blues.
The second line is a repetition of the first
12 bar blues pattern
1,2,3,4- Home, tonic
5,6- change 1
7,8- Home, tonic
9,10- change 2
11,12- Home, tonic
Chord bar 5
Subdominant
Chord bar 9
Dominant
Country blues
Aka rural, down home or folk blues.
Rural blues music not recorded until _______.
1920's
Folk blues originated in...
Mississippi Delta, slaves and cotton
Jump-ups" (Influences of AA blues)
songs based on short repeated phrases used for accompaniment for dancing
AA Story Songs (Influences of AA blues)
Influenced by English ballad tradition
Work Songs (Influences of AA blues)
Rhythmic songs used to encourage labor
Field Hollers (Influences of AA blues)
People yelling in fields
The basic features of classic blues are
a 12 bar structure, a basic 3 chord pattern, a three-line AAB (Older blues were more free in structure)
Early 20th century country blues were...
Purely oral passed down, no sheet music
Blues Sheet music
Music structure had to be simplified and become a little more standardized than improvised
Charley Patton
Earliest known pioneers of the mississippi delta.
His recordings are he best example of first generation blues men
Henry Speir
white record store owner and talent scout for paramount he discovered Patton
Blues vs. Euro ballads
Balads have chronological order.
blues are evocative snapshots around a theme.
Blind Lemon Jefferson
First country blues star. From texas. Born Blind. age 14 wandered from town to town performing. First record in 1926. Advertised as an "authentic Blues-man." Recorded ragtime as well.
Jefferson vs. Patton
Jefferson: vocal quality is nasally and clearer, guitar is sparser and less rhythmic and subordinate to the vocals.he did call and response with vocals and guitar.
Patton: not that
Robert Johnson
More "'futuristic blues sound." his more popular in the future. only 22 sounds were released. Lots of superstition surrounding him.
hillbilly music orgin
developed from folk songs, ballads, and british isles dance music.
what led to first country recording
race records
Fiddlin John Carson
started off as a replacement for someone that didn't show up, but they realized he was a good player. his first 500 copies were sold out in a month. sales indicated a new audience for this kind of music
KDKA radio
first commercial radio station in Pittsburgh. new medium of radio was crucial to the rapid growth of the hillbilly music market, but not race music. all radios owned by whites
Jack Cooper
first race music show in Chicago in late 1930s
WSB
1922, First station to feature country artists on a regular basis
WPAB
1923, First station to air hour long radio show to air country music in Texas
Barn Dance" Format
Typically featured a variety of music performers (string bands, solo and duet singers), comedians,
Vernon Dollhart
Texas born, former opera singer, recorded the first country music hit. Huge hits: "Wreck of the ol' '97, "Prisoner Songs," popularized the genre.
Country music major theme
About the relationship of the country and the city, home (ballads and love songs) and migration (heartbreak and moving around), and past an present
Carters and Rodgers both discovered by...
Ralph Peer in Tennessee
Carter Family
Born in Virginia, regarded as most important groups of country music, A.P. "Doc" carter was the leader of the group (also sang bass), Sarah carter sang lead vocals. Set list included adaptations of old folk songs, hymns and sentimental songs, Doc would go
Most Popular Songs Include
Wild Wood Flower," "Wabash Cannonball," "Keep on the sunny side," "can the circle be unbroken," made all their songs fit on records (3 minutes)
Jimmy Rodgers
Crazy guy, most versatile, and influential country singer, white parallel to Robert Johnson, early country music recording star.
During the Great Depression blues and hillbilly music injected...
Social realism to popular music
Woodrow Wilson (Woody Guthrie)
This machiine kills fascists", composed songs politically overt in nature