Final Week Key Terms

Hip Hop
Jamaica
Soundsystems
Selectors
Clashes
Specials
Dub
Toasting
DJ Kool Herc
Breakbeat
"Looking for the Perfect Beat", Afrika Bambaataa
"The Message", Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five
Run D.M.C.
Public Enemy
Gangsta Rap
"Fortress Los Angeles"
Ice-T
Iceberg Slim
N.W.A.
"C.R.E.A.M.", Wu-Tang Clan
"Mind Playing Tricks On Me", Geto Boys
"Stan", Eminem

1. Music is part of a conversation
2. Music is functional
3. Remember the impulses
4. Be open to the different and unusual
5. Resist authenticity
6. Be part of the call and response

Week Twelve Key Terms

The Blues Revival
The Folk Revival
Counterculture
Greenwich Village, NY
Newport Folk Festival
"Born in Chicago", Paul Butterfield Blues Band, 1965
Arhoolie Records
Delmark Records
"Sweet Home Chicago", Magic Sam, 1965
Ann Arbor Blues Festival
Chitlin Circuit
"Cheating in the Next Room", Z.Z. Hill, 1981
"Right Next Door (Because of Me)", Robert Cray, 1986
"You Gotta Hurt Before You Heal", Bobby Bland, 1989
Johnnie Taylor
Bobby Rush
Bonnie Raitt
Eric Clapton
Stevie Ray Vaughan

Week Eleven Key Terms

The Baby Boom (1946-1964)
Consumer Culture
Youth Culture
Rock and Roll
"What'd I Say", Ray Charles, 1959
"Hey Bo Diddley", Bo Diddley, 1957 (clave)
"Johnny B. Goode", Chuck Berry, 1958
"Brown-Eyed Handsome Man", Chuck Berry, 1956
"Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin' On", Little Richard, 1957

Southern Soul
"Please, Please, Please", James Brown, 1956
"At The Dark End of the Street", James Carr, 1967
Stax Records (Memphis)
Booker T and the MGs
"When Something Is Wrong With My Baby", Sam and Dave, 1965
"Born Under A Bad Sign", Albert King, 1967
"Respect", Otis Redding, 1965
"Respect", Aretha Franklin, 1967
"Chain of Fools", Aretha Franklin, 1967

Motown (Detroit)
Berry Gordy, Jr.
"Tracks of My Tears", Smokey Robinson, 1965


The British Invasion
The Beatles
The Kinks
The Who
The Rolling Stones

"Like A Rolling Stone", Bob Dylan, 1965
"The Star-Spangled Banner", Jimi Hendrix, 1968
"Fortunate Son", Creedence Clearwater Revival, 1969
"Free Bird", Lynyrd Skynyrd", 1973
"Ain't No Sunshine", Bill Withers, 1971
"Political Science", Randy Newman, 1973

Week Ten Key Terms

The Sunbelt
Jump Blues
Louis Jordan, "Jumpin' at the Jubilee"
The King Cole Trio, "Straighten Up and Fly Right", 1944
Rhythm & Blues
Doo-Wop
Ruth Brown, "(Mama) He Treats Your Daughter Mean", 1953
Clyde McPhatter and the Drifters, "Such A Night", 1953

Los Angeles

Johnny Otis Orchestra (with Little Esther), "Cupid Boogie", 1950
Etta James, "I Just Want to Make Love to You", 1960

Texas

Lightning Hopkins, "Come Go With Me", 1964
T-Bone Walker, "The Hustle Is On", 1951

Louisiana

Clarence Gatemouth Brown, "For Now So Long", 1954
Freddie King, "Hide Away", 1961
Guitar Slim, "Things That I Used To Do", 1953
Professor Longhair, "Tipitina", 1950
Swamp Blues
Slim Harpo, "I'm A King Bee", 1957
Cajun Music
Acadians
Amede Ardoin, "Two Step De Mama", 1929
Zydeco Music
Clifton Chenier, "Zydeco Sont Pas Sale", 1965

Detroit

John Lee Hooker, "Boogie Chillen", 1948

Week Nine Key Terms

The Civil Rights Movement

1909 National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) founded
1910 National Urban League founded
1950 Sweat v Painter
1954 Brown v Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas (Thurgood Marshall)
1955 The Montgomery Bus Boycott (Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King)
SNCC (Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee)
SCLC (Southern Christian Leadership Conference)
1961 Freedom Rides
1963 March on Washington ("I Have A Dream" speech)
1965 The Voting Rights Act

Memphis

Beale Street
1866 race riots
1870s cholera and yellow fever epidemic
1909 "Boss Crump Blues", W.C. Handy

"Police Station Blues", Peetie Wheatstraw, 1932
"Falling Down Blues", Furry Lewis, 1927
WDIA
"B.B.'s Blues", B.B. King, 1952
"Tiger Man", Rufus Thomas, 1953
Sun Records
Sam Phillips
"Hound Dog", Big Mama Thornton, 1952
"Booted", Roscoe Gordon, 1952
"Cotton Crop Blues", James Cotton, 1951
"Rocket 88", Jackie Brenston (with Ike Turner), 1951

"Blue Moon of Kentucky", Bill Monroe, 1947
"Blue Moon of Kentucky", Elvis Presley, 1954
"Mystery Train", Little Junior's Blue Flames, 1953
"Mystery Train", Elvis Presley, 1954

"Folsom City Blues", Johnny Cash

"Paying the Cost to Be The Boss", B.B. King, 1968
"The Thrill Is Gone", B.B. King, 1970

"Little Boy Blue" Bobby Blue Bland, 1958
"I've Been Wrong So Long", Bobby Blue Bland, 1960

Week Eight Key Terms

Lester Melrose

Big Bill Broonzy
Memphis Minnie
Sonny Boy Williamson

Leroy Carr, "When the Sun Goes Down", 1935

The Bluebird Beat
Tampa Red, "Don't You Lie To Me", 1940
Eddie Boyd, "Chicago Is Just That Way", 1948

Chess Records (1950)
Leonard and Phil Chess

Muddy Waters
Willie Dixon
Muddy Waters, "I Can't Be Satisfied", 1948
Muddy Waters, "Rollin' Stone", 1950
Muddy Waters, "Got My Mojo Working", 1956
Little Walter, "My Babe", 1955

Howlin' Wolf, "Moanin' at Midnight", 1962
Jimmy Reed, "Baby, What You Want Me To Do", 1958
Jimmy Reed, "Bright Lights, Big City", 1958

Week Eight Key Terms

Week Seven Key Terms

The Great Migration
First wave: 1915-1930
Second Wave 1940-1970

1914: 90% of African Americans lived in the South (2/3 rural)
1970: 50% of African Americans lived in the South (2/3 urban)

Why?
Boll Weevil
WWI Ends Immigration
Industrialization
Segregation

First Great Migration Information

Map: The First Great Migration
Map: States of Origin of the Migrants, 1910-1930
Map: The Great Blues Migration
Map: Population Density Changes

Second Great Migration Information:

Map: The Second Great Migration
Map: African American Population Change

Chicago

500,000 New African American Migrants
1915: African Americans - 2 percent of Chicago's population
1970: African Americans - 33 percent of Chicago's population


Map: Subscribers to the Chicago Defender
Article: Chicago Defender Editorial

Midterm Grading Scale and Breakdown

Grading Scale

A 94-100
A- 90-93
B+ 87-89
B 83-86
B- 80-82
C+ 77-79
C 73-76
C- 70-72
D+ 67-69
D 63-66
D- 60-62
F 00-59

Week Five Key Terms

Twelve-bar blues, theoretically:
First line, four bars, in home key
Second line, four bars, travels to different key, returns to home key
Third line, four bars, to yet another key, returns to home key

Blue Notes
Typically flatted third and seventh notes

The Delta Blues

Mississippi Delta Map

Robert Palmer: "Delta blues is a dialogue between the overt and the hidden. The music's apparent simplicity--basic verse forms, little or no harmonic content, melodies with as few as three principal pitches--is superficial. Apparently straightforward rhythmic drive often proves, on careful listening, to be the by-product of a mercurial interplay between polyrhythms, layered in complex relationships. The music's supreme rhythmic masters kept several rhythms going simultaneously, like a juggler with balls in the air or like the most gifted modern jazz drummers. Sometimes the music seems to lie behind the beat and rush just ahead of it at the same time...

"The simplest way to characterize the music's origin is as a turn-of-the-century innovation, accommodating the vocal traditions of work songs and field hollers to the expressive capabilities of a newly popular stringed instrument, the guitar. Older black ballads and dance songs, preaching and church singing, the rhythms of folk drumming, and the ring shout of 'holy dance' fed into the new music as well. But the richly ornamented, powerfully projected singing style associated with the field holler was dominant, which is hardly surprising; the Delta is more or less one big cotton field."

Charlie Patton, "Down the Dirt Road", 1929
Charlie Patton, "Pony Blues", 1929
Skip James, "Devil Got My Woman", 1931
Son House, "Country Farm Blues", 1930
Robert Johnson, "Me and the Devil Blues", 1937
Robert Johnson, "Terraplane Blues", 1936
Ike Zinneman
Paramount Records, Grafton and Port Washington
Wisconsin Chair Company
The Chicago Defender
Blind Lemon Jefferson, "Black Snake Moan", 1926
Meade Lux Lewis, "Honky Tonk Train Blues", 1930
Alan Lomax

Week Four Key Terms

W.C. Handy
Mamie Smith, "Crazy Blues", 1920
Prohibition
Bessie Smith, "Summertime" 1926
Bessie Smith, "Down Hearted Blues", 1923
Ma Rainey
Elizabeth Johnson, "Empty Bed Blues", 1927
Alberta Hunter, "Beale Street Blues", 1927
Theater Owners Booking Association (TOBA)
Ma Rainey, "Farewell Daddy Blues, " 1924
Bessie Smith, "Any Woman Blues", 1923
Bessie Smith, "Nobody Knows You When You're Down and Out", 1929
Billie Holiday, "Summertime", 1936
Billie Holiday, "Strange Fruit", 1939

Week Two Key Terms

Reconstruction 1866-1876
Black Codes
Ku Klux Klan
The Compromise of 1877 (Rutherford B. Hayes)
Lynching
Jim Crow Laws
Miscegenation
Poll Taxes
Accomodation ("Living behind the veil." - DuBois)
Sambo
Uncle Tom
Birth of a Nation
Blackface Minstrelsy

"All Coons Look Alike To Me", Arthur Collins, 1902
"A Coon Band Contest", Arthur Pryor's Band, 1906
"A Coon Band Contest", Earl Fuller's Famous Jazz Band, 1917

Griots (West Africa)
"Jangali Famata", Ali Farka Toure
"Longa Nakryse", Said Chraibi

"Trouble So Hard", Dock Reed, Henry Reed and Vera Hall, (recorded 1957)
"Oh Mary, Don't You Weep," Georgia Field Hands, 1929

Djerma Dundun Drummers, Niger, recorded 1976
"Long John", Lightning and Group, 1934

"Hard Times Come Again No More", published 1850, Stephen Foster (Thomas Hampson)
"Pretty Polly", Dock Boggs

Elder Lightfoot Solomon Michaux & Congregation, 1935
"Sometimes I Feel Like A Motherless Child", 1926, Paul Robeson

Vaudeville
"Nobody", Bert Williams, 1906
"Tiger Rag", Jack Johnson's Jazz Band, 1929

"Foldin' Bed", Whistler's Jug Band, 1930

Week One Outline

Key elements in Black Music
1. Call and response

2. Polyrhythm

3. Improvisation

4. Vocalization

5. Functionality

The Three Impulses

The Blues Impulse
1. Fingering the jagged grain of the brutal experience

2. Finding a near-tragic, near-comic lyricism

3. Reaffirming your existence

Example: "Making Love (At The Dark End of the Street)", Clarence Carter

The Gospel Impulse
1. Acknowledging the burden

2. Bearing Witness

3. Finding Redemption

Example: "No Hiding Place", Dorothy Love Coates

The Jazz Impulse
The constant process of redefinition

Example: "In The Ghetto", Eric B. & Rakim

Welcome

Greetings, everyone. You can use this blog as a reference source to learn more about American history and the history of the blues. There are several links that might help. In particular, the "272 Music" link connects you to a page where you can listen to a lot of the music we'll discuss in class (you need your UWM ID and password to use it). Remember that there is limited bandwith for the music, so do not wait until just before the exams to use it!

I will also try to post something periodically - answers to questions, interesting links about the blues, YouTube music clips, etc. - so check back occasionally.