Rhythm & Blues and "Rockabilly"

  1. Rhythm & Blues
    1. General characteristics:
      1. Integration of country and city blues styles.
      2. Use of electric or amplified instruments.
      3. The more urban sound reflected a degree of increased optimism in the African American community in the post-WWII years.
    2. Wartime prosperity among African Americans encouraged the music industry to market to the black community. As early as the 1940s, radio stations in metropolitan areas devoted time to "race" records and "black-oriented programming" (Garofalo).
    3. Early Rhythm & Blues artists
      1. Muddy Waters (McKinley Morganfield; b Rolling Fork, MS, 4/4/1915; d Downers Grove, IL, 4/30/1983).
        1. In 1941--2 he was recorded in Mississippi for the Library of Congress; his I be's troubled and Country Blues (both 1941, AAFS) from these sessions show the influence of Son House, whom he knew personally, and the recordings of Robert Johnson. In 1943 he moved to Chicago, where in 1947 he began to record commercially under the name Muddy Waters. The following year he signed to the Aristocrat label which later changed its name to Chess Records. By this time he had taken up the electric guitar, which he played with a vibrant slide technique, singing with a louder and harder voice.
        2. By 1953 Muddy Waters was performing dramatically phrased songs which built to a forceful climax such as I'm your Hoochie Coochie Man (1953, Chess) and Mannish Boy (1955, Chess); these established him among the most important postwar blues singers. In the 1960s Muddy Waters toured extensively in the USA and Europe but lost much of his black audience and frequently re-recorded his songs of the 1950s. However, he made a substanital impact on a new generation of white musicians, particularly in Britain, including Graham Bond, Alexis Korner, John Mayall and the Rolling Stones. A serious road accident in 1970 obliged him to sing from a chair from then onwards.
        3. For more info check out www.blueflamecafe.com
        4. Listening example [I'm Your Hootchie Cootchie Man (recorded 1954)]
      2. Howlin' Wolf (Chester Arthur Burnett; b 6/10/10 between West Point and Aberdeen, MS; d 1/10/76 Hines Veterans Administration Hospital, Chicago, IL)
        1. Burnett's father gave him a guitar at 18; around the same time he met Charley Patton, from whom he learned the basics of the Delta blues style. About 5 years later his family moved to Arkansas where he learned harmonica from Sonny Boy Williamson.
        2. Except for some time in the armed forces and farming, Burnett toured the Delta area until age 38, when he began perfoming on a weekly show on KWEM in West Memphis, where he began using the name "Howlin' Wolf."
        3. His first recording was made in 1950 for Chess. His career peaked in 1956, although he regained some popularity in Europe in the mid 1960s as part of a Chess blues revival show; British bands such as the Stones became familiar with his music.
        4. "Howlin' Wolf was a seminal figure in the development of the Chicago blues style. His fierce, growling voice, punctuated by his trademark falsetto 'howl,' carried with it the primitive energy of the country blues he learned as a young man on the Delta. He successfully made the transition between the country style and the urban style, and in doing so, he was one of a handful of artists who shaped and defined the emerging urban blues sound. Literally hundreds of artists (his contemporaries included) have claimed him as an influence, and equal numbers have recorded their own versions of his songs."
        5. Listening examples:
          1. [Red Rooster (from the London Sessions 5/7/70)]
          2. [Wang Dang Doodle (5/4/70)]
          3. [Who's Been Talkin'(5/70)]
      3. Bo Diddley - Listening Example [Bo Diddley]
    4. "Other currents" in R'n'B
      1. New Orleans contributed a variety of musical styles such as "barrelhouse piano," jazz, and Mississippi Delta blues as well as several great session players. Antoine "Fats" Domino and "Little Richard" Penniman were probably the most famous New Orleans rock 'n' rollers.
      2. Some performers in the jazz tradition continued playing a more danceable style after the "mainstream" shifted toward bebop.
      3. In the last half of the 1950s, L.A. produced rockers with a Latin heritage. The death of Ritchie Valens slowed the Latin contribution to rock 'n' roll.
      4. Country influences can be found not only in the rockabilly artists but in others as well. A demo of the song that would become "Maybelline" by Chuck Berry was reworked because it sounded "too country for a black man."
      5. Although R & B was not considered suitable for church, several artists - including the Dominoes and Ray Charles - were significantly influenced by church music.
      6. The R & B Market:
        1. Originally purchased almost exclusively by African Americans who identified with the more urban sound.
        2. White teenagers "discovered" R & B in the early to mid-50's. However, they were drawn to younger and "wilder" performers such as Chuck Berry and Little Richard [Penniman].
        3. Berry and Little Richard bridged the gap between R & B and what would soon be called "rock-and-roll."
  2. Rockabilly
    1. The term "Rockabilly" first appeared in print in 1956 by a trade magazine; it was not generally used by performers themselves until the rockabilly revival in the 1970s.
    2. American popular music genres such as jazz and country have often integrated elements of African American music, particularly the blues, into their own songs and performance.
      1. [listening example "T for Texas" - Jimmie Rodgers]
      2. The integration of African American and white elements contains some contradictions, given the state of racial segregation in the South.
      3. "If I could only find a white man who had the Negro sound and the Negro feel, I could make a million dollars" (Sam Phillips, founder of Sun Records).
      4. Carl Perkins once described rockabilly as "a country man's song with a black man's rhythm."
      5. Some rockabilly musicians had direct exposure to black musicians or R & B recordings, but most were more accustomed to the "honky-tonk" style typified by Hank Williams.
    3. Musical and other elements
      1. Brewer considers the "Habanera rythm" to be a key ingredient to early rockabilly.
        1. Few if any rockabilly musicians were probably aware of the the Habanera's Afro-Cuban heritage; it was more likely associated with erotic or exotic striptease acts.
        2. Latin rhythms had influenced the development of American popular music even before the turn of the century.
        3. Brewer contends that rockabilly musicians came form a musical culture characterized by a "neat delineation of upbeats and downbeats."
      2. Some other elements of rockabilly as described at www.history-of-rock.com:
        1. obvious Presley influence
        2. performers with a country background
        3. identifiable country and rhythm and blues inflections
        4. blues structure
        5. use of echo effect
        6. strong Rhythm and beat
        7. emotion and feeling
        8. "wild and extreme" vocal style
        9. an energetic, blues influenced guitar solo
        10. upright bass, especially if played in a slapped manner
        11. moderate to fast tempo
        12. a date of 1954, 1955 or 1956
        13. Southern orgins

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