Good Essay On Engl 2013

Essay Assignment: Blues Music

The Blues is the name of the music genre that African Americans created at the end of the 19th century. The music originated from areas notorious for slavery such as Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas, Alabama and generally the Southern parts of the US. The performance of the blues was usually by solo singers accompanied by guitar or banjo. One iconic blues artist was Robert Johnson (1911-1938). Johnson’s music and that of other blues artists was characterized by raw emotion and the messages therein dwelt on love, hopelessness, injustice, and loneliness. The blues music in terms of the lyrics, the compositions, the instruments, the delivery of vocals and other aspects were all passed on from one generation to another through oral traditions. Though now a genre sang and enjoyed by all ethnicities and cultures, the blues reflect the life of many African Americans such as their history, struggles and the contemporary issues that they encounter.
The blues reflect the oral tradition of African Americans. Oral traditions in this case include proverbs, old saying, songs, and some cultural products that have not been recorded or written. First, the music has retained some characteristic slang and double meaning akin to the yesteryears of the African American community in the US. Slavery took Africans from their original lands and into foreign territories. Africans got separated from their rich oral traditions and their music. When working as slaves, the Africans found solace by singing spirituals while working in the fields and in the churches whenever they got opportunities to worship. The spirituals helped to lighten the workload and the mental torture of being slaves. Through the spirituals, the Slaves passed information to new generations of the kind of life they had lived as free people and the kind of torture they used to undergo on a daily basis. The Africans used to pass on news, plot escapes from slavery, and release frustrations through the spirituals, which later transformed into the blues of the 19th century. Early blues music carried on the traditions of Africans voicing their experiences and aspirations and hence the tight relationship between the oral traditions of the Africans and blues music.
Blues music reflects black aesthetic. The blues music expresses the material historical and psychological source. The music is rife with emotions of bitterness, betrayal, torture, frustrations and other issues that reflect the hard life that blacks have gone through especially during the US’s formative years. Blues music also represents the prowess of black musicians, their creativity, excellence in playing instruments and entertainment in general. The blues music is secular and handles issues about post-chattel slavery. In the 19th century, African Americans had been properly assimilated into American lifestyle. Their blues songs transformed from spirituals and hollers. They also changed from being shouts and arhoolies and into a music genre that celebrated the lives and ways of the African Americans.
There has been a transition by current events in the lives of the African Americans. Some of the issues covered through blues music were the movements of blacks from plantations to the southern cities and later on to the civil war. Later on the blues music helped bring to the fore issues about the civil complexity issues of the 1880s in the North. Moreover, the music helped to voice the discomfort that the African American communities faced during the reconstruction of the US as well as the KuKluxKlan (KKK) issues. The songs were less harsh and more certain. Many of the songs composed from the late 19th century and the 20th century were largely expressions of love. Black culture permeated the very compositions trough the mention of black beauty, black neighborhoods, and famous black personalities. The videos that accompanied the productions were shot and featured black personalities and this was a great way to appreciate black authenticity.
The blues and hiphop music are closely related. According to Tricia Rose, in her book Black Noise, hiphop emerged from cultural exchange as well as the social and political conditions of black segregation and disillusionment. The African Americans especially those in their youth sought to find their place in their own culture. As such, the origin and the motivations that inspired blues music also inspired hiphop music. The two genres of music were expressions of black freedom and culture. Whereas hiphop was an expression of some arrogance and self-pride, the Blues were an expression of frustration, loneliness and the suffering of love and betrayal. Largely the hiphop music was also an expression of the same values and emotions but in a bold and unrelenting manner.
Mamie Smith (1883-1946) was the first person to record blues music in the 1920s. She sang Perry Bradford’s songs “It’s right here for you”, and “Crazy Blues” which were produced by Okeh Records. The album sold more than 1 million copies in less than 1 year. Smith’s records and music were very successful and she motivated other African Americans to compose and record blues music. Her song “Crazy Blues” inspired recording companies to set up strategies to capture and help female black artists to produce blues music. The recording companies were looking for artists who could match the huge success of Smith’s works.
Besides opening up doors for the recording Smith also motivated other black artists to diversify their entertainment talents. She started as a dance at the age of ten years before she started to go on tours. She gained confidence and produced her first music at 37 years, which also inspired the ageing entertainers to produce blues music.
Smith prompted her producer Terry Bradford to target the huge number of African Americans who had emigrated to the North. Through the group Jazz Hounds that Bradford helped put together, he was able to give Smith a platform to recruit and train other artists in the production of blues music. Some of the artists that got inspiration from Smith’s music were Bubber Mile and Johnny Dunn. Smith also inspired a seventeen-year-old saxophone player Coleman Hawkins to join Jazz Hound and produce blues music. As such, Smith led the evolution of blues music to include some musical instruments such as the saxophone, which was originally considered a western style musical instrument. Mamie Smith set the standard for female blues singers to emulate. She was an all-round entertainer who appeared in several films besides singing and recording music until the early 1940s.

Conclusion

The blues music is typically African-American music. It is music inspired by the hardships that African Americans have faced since the slavery days, the genre was largely inspired by spirituals, and soulful music sang to express frustrations. The blues music has been at the heart of the major events that African Americans have faced in their history such as civil war and the civil strife of the last 100 years. One of the most popular and instrumental blues musician was Mamie Smith whose record breaking sale of the song “Crazy Blues” inspired the production of numerous blues music. In all the blues music though now a genre enjoyed and expressing the interests of multicultural communities in the US has remained largely identifiable with African American lifestyles.

Works Cited

BBC. Music: Blues. 2014. 12 March 2015 <http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/gcsebitesize/music/popular_music/blues1.shtml>.
Hamlet, Janice. "Word! The African American Oral Tradition and its Rhetorical Impact on American Popular Culture." (2015): 74-78.
RedHotJazz. Mamie Smith. 2015. 12 March 2015 <http://www.redhotjazz.com/mamie.html>.