Musc 200 1st Edition Lecture 11 Outline of Last Lecture II Chicago Blues instrumentation A Slide guitar III Chicago blues history IV Listening segments from Muddy Waters and Howlin Wolf V Gospel influenced Rhythm and Blues a A Capella male quartets b Virtuoso female singer accompanied by band or choir Outline of Current Lecture VI Gospel Influenced R B cont VII 1950s Rock and Roll a Demographic and Economic Context b Culture of Consumption c Culture of Race d Culture of Sexuality e The Music Industry Context VIII Rock and Roll Radio Current Lecture Gospel Influenced Rhythm and Blues cont Pacing how frequently chords change or how many chords per measure Voicing how notes are selected and stacked for a chord o Different ways of voicing the same chord Gospel music has characteristic ways of pacing and voicing Climatic form starts out with less intensity and builds o Singer embellishes more and more and builds in emotional intensity Many singers began their careers in Gospel music and then switched to R B Many singers who started in R B borrowed elements from Gospel music Those two things caused controversy by crossing sacred and secular These notes represent a detailed interpretation of the professor s lecture GradeBuddy is best used as a supplement to your own notes not as a substitute Listening Have Mercy Baby by The Dominos Rhythm and Blues with Gospel influence R B o Raspy voice timbre o 12 bar blues o Jump blues instrumentation o Lyrics are secular singing about a girlfriend Gospel o Quartet o Call and response form o Melisma o Back vocalists have smooth blends o Lyric theme could be shifted from girlfriend to God Listening I Got A Woman by Ray Charles Ray Charles was hugely influential This was one of the main songs that put Ray Charles on the map R B o Jump blues instrumentation Gospel o Based on a Gospel song I Got A Savior I Got A Woman shifts the song from God to a woman Secularized version of a sacred song o Every verse has climatic form o Melisma o Voicing and pacing played on the brass and reeds sound like something you could hear playing on an organ or piano in Gospel music 1950s Rock and Roll Part 1 Demographic and Economic Context 1945 46 economy not great 1947 1950s economy takes off often called the Golden Age of Capitalism o Due to lack of competition from other countries since they were ruined in the war o Huge amount of government spending on the military industrial complex and also schools housing interstate highways etc o Massive development of consumer goods 1957 peak of the Baby Boom o Huge population growth 1950s suburb growth o Track housing single floorplan used for a large area of land o Growth of highways contributed to the growth of suburbs as people needed to have easy ways to get into the city for work o Housing retailers and banks were very segregated o African Americans and other minority groups weren t able to get loans or buy houses in most suburban areas Growth of suburbs increased segregation People living in the suburbs had more money which meant their children had disposable income Culture of Consumption Our society is built around buying things it wasn t always like that Going into the 20th century people began buying a lot more 1920s consumer culture emerges 1950s consumer culture is omnipotent o Growth of consumer capitalism Advertising industry shifted consumption from practical pragmatic reasons to what you buy saying something about your personal identity For the first time teenagers had money and their identities began to be shaped by the music they listened to o Mainstream music industry missed this and didn t see this new market for music Suburban teens begin to buy more music Culture of Race Highly segregated by law de jure in the south and outside the law de facto everywhere else Teenagers were aware of segregation but not all of them completely bought it there was more flexibility Lots of teens began to listen to R B as they could relate and find meaning in this music better than the mainstream TPA pop Culture of Sexuality R B was upfront about sexuality unlike TPA Gender roles were very rigid in principle but a lot more people were breaking them Public expressions of sexuality were not accepted Advertising was exploding with expressions of sexuality o Linked consumption with sexuality Many contradictions of what was socially acceptable and what was actually going on The Music Industry Context R B in the 1950s was promoted by independent labels Mainstream music industry ignored it o Didn t understand the music aesthetic o Didn t want to sell African American music and risk upsetting people o Thought only African Americans were buying it Meaning of R B varied for each audience o Teens fun pleasure dancing good times teenage experiences White teens Conservative listen to what parents listened to mainstream TPA pop Experimental crossed the racial divide and could go against the racial segregation by listening to African American identified music o Express their sexuality o Find pleasure and interest in something that their parents didn t understand o Explore class regional divide Non white teens African Americans music of their community o Transgression Latinos and African Americans joined together through this music Transgression crossing boundaries o Racial sexual class and regional o Celebrated the teenager identity Rock and Roll Radio In the 1950s experimental whites began listening to R B music 1951 Alan Freed was a classical DJ in Cleveland Ohio o A record store owner convinced him that something new was happening white teens were coming in and buying R B music o Freed created a new radio station called Moondog s Rock and Roll Party White teens listened to African American music without the label of Rhythm and Blues Freed didn t call the music rhythm and blues as he didn t think it would draw in white teens So he relabeled rhythm and blues as Rock and Roll which was African American slang for sex 1952 Moondog s Coronation Ball a concert organized by Alan Freed o Brought in a mixed race audience of 20 000 o Due to the huge success Freed went on to organize a series of these concerts 1954 Freed moved from Cleveland to New York City where he emerged as an early entrepreneur of Rock and Roll The audience who listened to Freed s radio show began to buy R B records Crossover a situation in which an album made specifically for rhythm and blues charts starts to climb the pop charts o In the 1950s this meant songs by African American