Contact CU Independent Entertainment Writer Thomas Roller at thomas.roller@colorado.edu.
Music history offers a unique perspective on culture — it showcases society’s various fascinations and attitudes in time, as well as the origins of some of our most iconic forms of expression. And it is of origins that I wish to speak. In the spirit of Black History Month, I’d like to give a brief history lesson in American popular music, and how African-American music like spirituals and, more crucially, jazz and blues music, lie at the root of nearly every genre we enjoy today.
The origin of African-American culture’s influence on American music began in times of American slavery with two types of music: field hollers and work songs. Field hollers were musical communication, in essence. Working slaves would use them to communicate information or emotions over long distances. They often did not rhyme or contain any convention musical structure beyond melody.
Work songs were — big surprise — songs that were meant to accompany the work. These songs eased the hardships of working and also helped slaves maintain a steady tempo. Lyrically, field hollers and work songs dealt with feelings of hardship, the toils of being a slave and aspirations of freedom. These deeply emotional lyrics would be a massive contributor to the sound and feel of the most crucial development in American music history: the blues.
Starting in the deep South, most famously in the Mississippi Delta (hence the term “Delta Blues”), the blues was an emotional outpouring the likes of which had never been seen in popular music. The instrumentation was bleeding-edge, with many blues musicians discovering new sounds to make with their instruments, especially the guitar. The lyrics were also much darker than American music at the time was used to.
In some ways, the appeal of blues was its sheer rawness. One of most famous bluesmen was Robert Johnson, whose landmark works were recorded in the mid-1930s. Legend has it that Johnson sold his soul to the devil in exchange for musical prowess. He would go on to directly influence dozens of bands. Johnson is, by all rights, the progenitor of rock and roll.
At the time, American popular music had more European values and was based more heavily on symphonic and classical music. Marching bands and parlor music were the order of the day. As time went on, the European and African values would begin to meld closer and closer. The vanguard of this movement was jazz.
Jazz developed in parallel to the blues, and in fact incorporated many blues techniques, including the iconic “blues scale” into its composition. For many, it represented a direct contrast to classical music. The free-flowing improvisations of jazz artists was a much more complex, mysterious and beautiful sound than the rigid precision of European-style music. Jazz was also crucial to the development of rock and roll.
In the 1950s, musicians began speeding up the tempos of jazz and using the guitar as a leading instrument instead of the rhythm-keeping tool it had previously been. Singers became more wild and rambunctious. Lyrics became racier, dealing predominantly with sex and youthful freedom — which, naturally, authority figures of the time hated. Most people call Elvis Presley the King of Rock and Roll, but the scheming viziers behind the throne were Little Richard and Chuck Berry. Rock was predominantly a black genre at its inception, and this fact combined with the racist attitudes of the era also contributed to its status as a forbidden treat. Regardless of its politics, rock was the most dynamic sound in contemporary history, and it would irrevocably change American music forever.
From here music exploded into hundreds of genres and subgenres. All of these could make interesting origin stories in and of themselves, but it’s important to keep in mind that the attitudes of blues and jazz permeated all of them. Black Sabbath took the blues scale and added minor chords, distortion effects and lyrics about Pagan witchcraft and invented heavy metal. Pop stars emerged from the heavily African-American influenced Motown scene, the earliest examples of which were stars like Michael Jackson, Stevie Wonder and Aretha Franklin. Rap and hip-hop emerged by channeling the grooves and positive vibes of funk and soul, and later, the raw aggression of rock.
So what’s the point of all this? Well, I try not to get too topical with my posts. I like to talk about music and not much else. But I think in the face of ongoing racist attitudes, it’s important to keep in mind that some of the greatest artistic accomplishments of the last century and a half would not have happened were it not for the influence of African culture. It’s in the DNA of everything on the radio today.
Music is the great equalizer — everyone enjoys music. The act of listening to it, seeing it live and critiquing it are universal endeavors. Music has no color. It is all colors intermingled together in infinite combinations, all in an effort to understand the human condition. Music heals wounds and bridges cultures, and helps us come together as a society. Look at what this merging of cultures has done already. Think what it could do in the future.
