To the
detached musicologist, defining the blues is a simple task: a basic I-IV-V
chord
progression laid over a 12-bar framework. For the rest of us who identify
with the music
on a more personal level, it's a great deal more complicated than that.
Ever since the
blues first developed from African-American field hollers, feeling has
been the most essential ingredient. Rough-hewn rural heavyweights Blind
Lemon Jefferson and Charlie Patton, vaudeville-trained belters Bessie
Smith and "Ma" Rainey, and Memphis bandleader W.C. Handy played
incalcuble roles in defining the idiom. In Robert Johnson's mesmerizing
hands, the blues jumped out of the Delta stark and menacing; barrelhouse
pianists Roosevelt Sykes and Big Maceo gave it thunderous power, and
ebullient alto saxist Louis Jordan injected a dose of happy jumping jive.
Whether
drawing from the mighty post-war roar of Chicago giants Muddy Waters and
Howlin' Wolf, the immaculate guitar excursions of B.B. King and his vast
legion of
acolytes, the daunting harmonica exploits of Little Walter and the two
Sonny Boy
Williamsons, or the soul-slanted, honey-voiced croons of Bobby
"Blue" Bland and Little
Milton, the blues has grown, adapted, remained abreast of the times as the
decades sailed by. It remains a living, breathing entity as we cross the
threshold into a new millennium, its future assured as long as folks
search for relief from their suffering or require a rollicking soundtrack
for their Saturday night soirees.
The blues is
as honest a musical form as it is uplifting. The blues is life-with all
its
ups and downs intact.
Thomas A.
Dorsey (1899-1993, composer of such standards as "There Will Be Peace
in the Valley"), is considered by many gospel devotees to be the
"Father of Gospel Music." The son of a minister, Dorsey was a
consummate musician and as a young man accompanied some of the most famous
blues singers of all time-specifically, Bessie Smith (1894-1937) and Ma
Rainey (1886-1939). He also arranged and composed blues tunes. His
penchant for bouncy tunes and bawdy lyrics did not keep him from attending
the annual meetings of the National Baptist Convention, though. and it was
at one of these meetings in Philadelphia that Dorsey first heard the
compositions of Charles A. Tindley (1851-1933, composer of "We'll
Understand It Better By and By" and "Leave It There" among
others).
In his essay, "Rock, Church, Rock," Arna Bontemps says that it
was then that Dorsey began to write religious music, abandoning his brash
lyrics but not the jazz rhythms and blues flavor and
A 1994 Score
magazine article titled "The Father of Gospel Music" quoted
Dorsey as saying, "When I realized how hard some folks were
fighting the gospel idea, I was determined to carry the banner."
Carry it he
did. "I borrowed five dollars and sent out 500 copies of my song,
'If You See
My Savior,' to churches throughout the country.... It was three years
before I got a single
order. I felt like going back to the blues."
He didn't.
With pioneer singers such as Sallie Martin (1896-1988) and Mother Willie
Mae Ford Smith
(1904-94) propagating his music, he stayed the course long enough to
write over 800 songs and hear his music ascend from the first row pews
to the choir stand, where it previously had been banned.
Other
composers, such as Lucy Campbell ("Something Within") and Dr.
Herbert Brewster ("Surely God is Able"), picked up the torch
and the way was lit for another generation to take control. To insure
this, Dorsey founded The National Convention of Gospel Choirs and
Choruses in 1932, an organization still in existence today.
Hip-hop has
always been about making something out of little or nothing.
Few knew that that something would become the biggest pop music innovation
since rock and roll in the 1950s. Now the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and
Museum
presents Roots, Rhymes and Rage: The Hip-Hop Story, a major exhibit
opening
November 11, 1999. Occupying three floors of the museum, the exhibit looks
at
the history and influences of hip-hop on popular music and culture.
Costumes,
video, live demonstrations and computerized interactive terminals immerse
the
visitor in the four elements of hip-hop culture: MCing, DJing, dancing and
graffiti writing.
Hip-hop was born in New York City in the mid-1970s as a vehicle for
inner-city
youth to throw parties on their blocks and at area clubs, and for them to
make
money as DJs and promoters. Early hip-hop was largely a
"throw-your-hands-in-the-air"
music, taking its cues from the
Now a
billion-dollar industry, hip-hop has become the voice of young people on
the
planet breaking down racial, ethnic, gender, class, language and
regional barriers.
Hip-hop is manifest everywhere, pushing the sales of entities as
different as high
profile designers and soft drinks, and turning rappers like Will Smith
and LL Cool J
into box-office stars. Like rock and roll in the 1950s, hip-hop has
become the great
cultural bridge in these times-it is the pop culture of young America
today.
Hip-hop is
and has been a part of my life for at least the past 20 years, dating
back to that momentous fall 1979 day when I first heard the Sugar Hill
Gang's "Rapper's
Delight" on a New York City radio station. I knew that cats
"rapped" on the streets, at
block parties, yet my boyish mind never gave the concept much thought.
But to hear a
speaking pattern from around the way, as we say, on the airwaves was
nothing short of
miraculous to me. I bought a 45rpm of "Rapper's Delight" for
99 cents-which I still
own-and drove my mom nuts as I quickly memorized those corny, yet catchy
rhymes.
While no
individual can be said to have invented rock and roll, Chuck Berry comes
the closest of any single figure to being the one who put all the
essential pieces together. As John Lennon of the Beetles onces said
if you wanted to rename rock and roll you might as well call it Chuck
Berry!
Charles Edward Berry was born in St. Louis on October 18, 1926. In the
early Fifties, Berry led a popular blues trio by night and worked as a
beautician by day. He befriended Muddy Waters, who thought highly enough
of Berry's ability to introduce him to Leonard Chess, head of
Chicago-based Chess Records. It was not his bluesy numbers that convinced
Chess to sign Berry but a song on his audition tape called "Ida
Red," an up tempo, R&B -country hybrid that Berry later reworked
into "Maybellene." Released on August 20, 1955, "Maybellene"
went to Number 5 in Billboard and established Berry as a rarity: a black
artist who successfully crossed over to the largely white pop charts.
Asked
why he made the transition when so many other deserving black artists in
the Fifties had been locked out, Berry replied: "I think it had a lot
to do with my diction. The pop fan could understand what I was saying
better than many other singers."
