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LESSON 6

Modern Music

&

Beyond

THIS LESSON CONSISTS OF:

· LECTURE

· TEXTBOOK CHAPTER READING

· DISCUSSION POST:

· Q&A

· WEBSITE REVIEWS (WSR)

· LISTENING GUIDE & VIDEOS

· EXAM 6

The 1950s saw the birth of the Civil Rights movement and also the birth of Rock ‘n’ Roll.

Both shocked mainstream America!

Violence against black and white civil rights activists was very common at the time. Four black children were murdered in the bombing of a Baptist church in Alabama in 1963, and numerous black churches throughout the South were burned or bombed. Three civil rights workers were brutally murdered in Philadelphia and Mississippi in 1964. Two whites and one black were murdered during a demonstration in Alabama in 1968.

Martin Luther King Jr., the recognized leader of the Civil Rights movement, was also assassinated in 1968.

America in the 1960s was in a transitional stage regarding human equality and freedom of speech. African Americans were angry and frustrated about the social injustice, and this culminated in violent riots in New York’s Harlem and later in Los Angeles’ Watts neighborhood, among other cities, resulting in numerous deaths.

In 1963 a quarter of a million people witnessed Martin Luther King Jr. delivering his “I Have a Dream” speech in Washington DC, which sent a message of non-violence and love that made a major social impact in America and reached the entire world.

The federal response to the violent reaction of segregationists was the passing of several new laws. One of them was The Civil Rights Act (1964) which provided federal protection in the exercise of civil rights. However, this didn’t prevent the continuous acts of violence and discrimination that took place for the next few years in America.

Rock ‘n’ Roll

African Americans in the 1940s and 1950s were developing an outgrowth of rhythm ‘n’ blues into a genre called rock ‘n’ roll.

However, it was with white musicians such as Bill Haley and Elvis Presley, playing a guitar-based fusion of black rhythm ‘n’ blues with country music called rockabilly, that rock ‘n’ roll music became commercially appealing.

The exact point in time rock ‘n’ roll started is not known. There were rock ‘n’ roll elements showing up in blues songs and old country western songs as far back as the 1920s and 30s, and by the 1950s the history of rock music had begun.

The phrase rock ‘n’ roll used to have two meanings:

· The first one appeared to mean dancing.

· The second one had a sexual connotation attached to it, as it was an African-American slang word for sex, which was used in rhythm ‘n’ blues songs. It was first used in the title of the song in the 1920s “My Baby Rocks Me With One Steady Roll.” However, it was Alan Freed a disc jockey from Ohio, who first came up with the phrase rock ‘n’ roll in 1955, and with that the history of rock music was well under way.

Rock ‘n’ Roll music can be traced to the late 1940s, when the popular styles of the day, primarily African-American blues, jazz, gospel, country, and folk music, morphed into a sound emphasized by electric guitars and a steady drum beat. The rock ‘n’ roll artists of the 1950s leaned heavily on classic blues structures, while demonstrating a flair for natural-born entertainers.

As we mentioned before, rock ‘n’ roll music evolved from several different musical genres; however, it was Bill Haley’s song “Rock Around the Clock” that became popular enough to top the Billboard music charts.

Among the earliest rock ‘n’ roll stars are names like Bill Haley, Elvis Presley, Little Richard, Jerry Lee Lewis, and Chuck Berry.

~Refer to Part 7 – Chapter 65 of the textbook:

· The Many Voices of Rock

· Rhythm and Blues

· Chuck Berry and Roll Over Beethoven

· Rolling Past Berry

As opposed to the safe pop music of the era and the Tin Pan Alley style, rock ‘n’ roll’s aggressive attack suggested a youthful rebellion and a type of sexual freedom that proved shocking during that conservative age.

In the 1920s, 30s and 40s, young and old alike, black and white, danced to much of the same music; however, rock ‘n’ roll split the European-American world into youths and elders. Those who reached adulthood by the beginning of the 1950s did not dance to rock ‘n’ roll, which became music for adolescents. As those adolescents grew older, and their younger siblings moved into their place, rock ‘n’ roll became the expressive catalyst for a generation of cultural and political protest.

Rock ‘n’ roll arrived at a time of considerable technological change, soon after the development of the electric guitar, amplifier and microphone, and the 45 rpm record. There were also changes in the record industry, with the rise of independent labels and a similar surge of radio stations that played their music.

Some historians have claimed that rock ‘n’ roll was one of the first musical genres to define an age group. It gave teenagers a sense of belonging even when they were alone.

Rock ‘n’ roll is often identified with the emergence of teen culture (“teen identity”) among the first baby boomer generation, who had both greater affluence, free time, and who adopted rock ‘n’ roll as part of a distinct sub-culture. This involved not just music, absorbed via radio, record buying, jukeboxes, and television programs, but it also extended to movies, clothes, hair-styles, cars, motorbikes, and distinctive slang and language.

A teenager growing up prior to the end of World War II was forced to take life very seriously. Males were expected to join the service or to get a job, help support his family or a new bride. Women were expected to meet a man, marry, and have children. College was for a select few! Teens had very limited freedom, not much economic power, and little influence in decisions made by the older generation. They acted responsibly without demanding freedom as a payment.

In the 1950s expectations for teenagers changed. With a booming post-war economy, parents could now help their children achieve more than they had themselves. More parents encouraged their children to finish high school and eventually college, and also insisted on paying their educational costs. As a result, youngsters began receiving family allowances, were able to get part-time jobs as the economy was in the rise, and also had free time after school. They had more time to themselves to be social and form peer bonds and social groups. They began to have more fun and became less serious than prior generations.

From its early 1950s beginning through the early 1960s, rock ‘n’ roll music inspired new dance fashionable styles. High school gym dances and home basement parties became the rage, and American teens watched television to keep up with the latest dance and fashion styles. From the mid-1960s on, as rock ‘n’ roll become simply “rock”, later dance genres followed starting with the twist, and leading up to funk, disco, house, techno, and hip-hop.

In the United Kingdom, British blues became a gradually mainstream phenomenon, returning to the USA in the form of the “British Invasion”…a group of music bands led by The Beatles, The Rolling Stones and The Animals, who started to perform blues and rhythm ‘n’ blues-inspired pop, with both traditional and modernized aspects.

The “British Invasion” was a cultural phenomenon when not only rock and pop music acts from the United Kingdom became popular in the United States, but other aspects of British culture, as well.

Rock ‘n’ roll became simply “Rock” between 1959 and 1965. One of the main influences was the British group The Beatles, who were interested in musical innovations and continued experimentation with instruments, textures, forms, rhythms, melodic designs, and lyrics.

In the United States, Surf music, or the California sound, was the American reaction to the British invasion, with groups like The Beach Boys. It refers to music arising in Southern California as a major center of rock activity and experimentation. Initially, “surf music” was centered on having fun in the California sun, and later it became related to the hippie movement and hallucinogenic drug use known as “acid rock.”

At that time, music fans were soon trading-in their Motown and girl group 45 rpm records for new releases by The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, The Byrds, The Beach Boys, and The Doors – groups whose songs reflected the changing times and attitudes of the 60s generation.

The 1960s introduced an influx of drugs, the United States’ involvement in the Vietnam War (1961-1975), and the sexual revolution to the lives of American teenagers. It seemed inappropriate to write fairy-tale songs when graphic scenes from Vietnam were being broadcast worldwide. The times were rapidly changing, and the music would have to change with it.

By the mid-1960s, many of the best and brightest sons and daughters of the European-American middle class were joining the Civil Rights movement, protesting the war in Vietnam, chanting and meditating, taking hallucinogenic drugs, proclaiming and acting on sexual freedom, growing concerned about the environment, revising gender roles, and in general trying to create what became known as the counter-culture. All of this activity was reflected in the lyrics of rock ‘n’ roll and energized by its beat.

Urban Folk (Folk Rock)

Starting in the mid-20th century a new form of popular folk music evolved from traditional American folk music. It has also been called the “Urban Folk revival” and reached its highest point in the 1960s.

Joan Baez and Bob Dylan were among the most representative figures of this new musical folk style that expressed socio-political protest.

By the late 1960s the massive popularity of pop/rock concerts had taken the attention of music fans all over the world.

The most significant music concert of this time was the Woodstock Music and Art Fair, which took place in 1969 at a farm in New York State, attracting an audience of about 400,000 people.

Joan Baez and other contemporary folk artists got the concert started on the first night of the weekend-long festival. Different rock and psychedelic bands also shared the stage in the following days.

~Refer to Part 7 – Prelude 7 of the textbook:

· Music as Protest

Musicians like Janis Joplin, The Who, Jimmy Hendrix, Santana, Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, Grateful Dead, and Jimmy Hendrix all participated in the ground-breaking event.

These exciting genres of rock and acid rock definitely took the spotlight inciting massive and spontaneous reactions from the audience, and it became clear which direction the pop/rock music was taking.

In the music world and as a main musical significance, Woodstock was monumental and sent a message of peace, openness, and cultural expression. It showed a generation that demonstrated through their music, and demanded to be politically and socially heard.

The “Urban Folk Revival” movement came to an end in the 1970s. This genre didn’t undergo a major transformation through the years adopting a wide variety of musical styles like other major genres, although it provided a long list of influential musicians.

Many of these musicians either branched-out into other musical styles, such as rock group collaborations, some went on to become successful members of psychedelic rock groups, and others retained their folk music backgrounds such as Joni Mitchell, Carly Simon, Cat Stevens, Simon and Garfunkel, and James Taylor among many others.

Later developments of Rock:

· Folk Rock

· Acid or Psychedelic Rock

· Heavy Metal

· Art or Progressive Rock

· Latin Rock

· Punk Rock

· Glam or Glitter Rock

· Experimental Rock

· Alternative Rock

· Grunge Rock

Motown

In 1960 Berry Gordy founded Motown Records in Detroit, the first label to primarily feature African-American artists aimed at achieving crossover success. The label developed an innovative and commercially successful style of soul music with distinctive pop elements.

Motown arrived at the height of the Civil Rights movement. It became an exclusively African –American music business that gave America something they just could not get enough of – joyous, sad, romantic, mad, and above all, moving music.

The Motown sound had great melodies. A great deal of percussion, including tambourines and hand clapping, brassy instruments, playful interplay between the lead singer and his or her backup vocalists, driving bass lines, and powerful drum parts are all prominent characteristics.

Over the next decade, the amount of chart-topping artists, musicians, and groups produced by Motown is unbelievable.

· Martha and the Vandellas

· Smokey Robinson and the Miracles

· The Temptations

· Diana Ross and the Supremes

· Michael Jackson and the Jackson Five

· Marvin Gaye

· Stevie Wonder

· Lionel Richie

They were all among the many important talents, and became part of what would come to be known as the Motown Sound.

Also, the story of Motown owes a great deal to the “Girl Groups.”

In the late 1950s, a number of female vocal groups began to produce songs that mixed doo-wop harmonies with rhythm ‘n’ blues music. These groups were usually trios or quartets in which one vocalist sang the lead part while the others contributed a background harmonic vocal. This arrangement became known as the “girl group sound” and it flourished during the early 1960s. These female artists were a constant presence on the Billboard pop charts from 1962 to 1965, but by then the popularity of this sound was fading away as it was eclipsed by other musical trends.

The girl group era represents an important part of the early days of rock ‘n’ roll, as well as the history of women in popular music.

The rock ‘n’ roll scene certainly does not have a history of being “feminine-friendly.” Rock ‘n’ roll was firmly on the popular music scene by mid-1950s, but totally male-dominated; then the girl groups started appearing. By the end of the 1950s, rock ‘n’ roll needed new faces and the girl groups came to its rescue. However, these female groups succeeded because they were being marketed and exploited by men like Berry Gordy and Phil Spector, who made fortunes off these performers, and not surprisingly, the young women saw little of that money in return.

· The Chantels

· The Shirelles

· The Caravelles

· Patti Label and The Blue-Belles

· The Crystals

· Martha & the Vandellas

· The Marvelettes

· The Shangri-Las

· Diana Ross & The Supremes

These are just a few among the lengthy list of “girl groups” from that musical era.

The Supremes will always be remembered as the 60s most popular girl group.

Gospel

Gospel music descended from the original “spirituals” sung by slaves on the plantations. Songs such as “Go Down Moses,” “When the Saints Go Marching In,” and “Swing Low Sweet Chariot” included messages of hope, anger and anguish.

Like blues and jazz, gospel music also included the African “call-and-response” format. Gospel music utilizes instruments such as the piano and the organ, and includes the use of multi-vocal choirs. Even today, the African-American church continues to be a significant cornerstone of Gospel music has helped it to achieve worldwide popularity.

In the midst of excruciatingly difficult lives, slaves used these songs to inspire inner strength and courage. By borrowing from protestant hymns, reworking them, and then making up new melodies and harmonies, spirituals became the first authentically American sacred music.

The abolishment of slavery in 1865 meant several things to the music culture of African Americans. It became easier for the slaves to practice their religion and by that, also their music. Also, the number of black churches in the South grew rapidly during the Reconstruction Era. As the number of churches grew, the slaves brought with them their music and their spirituals into the churches, and filled their religious services with inspiring and uplifting congregational songs.

The black church became a virtual school of music, which came to produce many talented musicians, as well as taking the evolvement of all music even further. With the development of spirituals, the first musical foundations were set for what eventually came to be known as Gospel Music.

Today, gospel music is performed all over the world, with many artists gaining popularity and a large base of faithful music fans. The styles of gospel may vary from artist to artist, but the fact remains that gospel music is still an enthusiastic genre of musical expression, and will continue to enjoy support throughout the world.

There is also a secularized form of American gospel music called soul, which can be described as a fusion of gospel with rhythm ‘n’ blues.

Soul was developed in the 1950s by music pioneers Jackie Wilson and Sam Cooke. Cooke became the first major gospel star to crossover to soul with the song “You Send Me.” Between the years of 1955 and 1957, Ray Charles took a huge chance by arranging and re-writing traditional gospel tunes and very successfully turning them into popular hits of soul-style music, such as “I’ve Got a Woman” and “Hallelujah, I Love Her So.”

Soul

As we have mentioned, in the late 1950s a secularized form of African-American gospel music developed…Soul.

Soul music came out of rhythm ‘n’ blues and gospel. In fact, it was closer to gospel because it was hopeful music, a music that celebrated black pride in a way that black music had never done before.

Soul music was a combination of gospel singing, secular subject matter, doo-wop, and complex rhythmic elements.

This musical style was well-received by blacks and whites alike, and played a big part in the end of segregation in America’s society.

The two cultures started to come together through the power of music.

Some of the earliest soul artists were Ray Charles, Sam Cooke, Jackie Wilson, and James Brown.

Although soul music today sounds slightly different than it did during its inception, it is still very much in the forefront. Artists like Whitney Houston, Anita Baker, and Aretha Franklin have all done their part to keep soul music alive.

Soul music is no longer directly related to African Americans. White artists like George Michael, Taylor Hicks, and Amy Winehouse can be considered modern day soul musicians.

Funk

Funk is a music genre that originated in the mid-1960s when African-American musicians blended soul music, blues, jazz, gospel, and rhythm ‘n’ blues, into a highly complex rhythmic new form of music.

In the 1960s, the chronological center of the middle of all the rock and folk-oriented popular music of the time, there was an artist who changed the face of popular music forever: the “Godfather of Soul”…James Brown.

James Brown’s music moved people to dance and also listen to his message. Brown was truly involved with the civil rights movement and helping the black community, and through the years he raised millions of dollars through philanthropy and other charity work.

He recorded a song in 1968 that supported the Black Power movement called “Say It Loud: I’m Black and I’m Proud” which became an anthem that showed black pride and defiance. James Brown was one of the first artists to use funk as a main distinguishing feature of his unique sound.

His performance style was forceful. It incorporated sophisticated vocal embellishments with physically dynamic stage presence, and intricate and showy dance moves that made his audiences excited and dance right along with him.

The result has been not only a highly successful career and many great recordings, but also his funk legacy and a musical genre that would eventually evolve and develop into contemporary musical styles such as hip-hop and rap.

Funk doesn’t emphasize melody and harmony as a whole, and it typically consists of complex polyrhythms in which each instrument or group of instruments repeats its own simple rhythmic pattern, creating rhythmic textures by overlapping these patterns.

The instrumentation of funk bands consists of electric guitars, electric bass, Hammond organ, and drums playing interlocking rhythms, and they often have a horn section of several saxophones, trumpets, and trombones.

Along with rhythm ‘n’ blues, soul, hip-hop & rap, funk is one of the most enduring popular music forms to emerge out of the African-American community. It is special not only because of its musical roots, but also because it defines an era and a culture in American history.

Funk samples have been extensively used in genres such as hip-hop & rap.

Hip-Hop & Rap

Hip-hop is a culture and music style comprised mainly of 4 elements:

· MC’ing or rapping (MC)

· DJ’ing (DJ)

· Graffiti art

· Break dancing

As hip-hop has evolved over the years, these elements have merged with others like clothing trends, a particular slang language, and general mindset and culture.

Important concepts:

· MC – master of ceremonies or microphone controller.

· DJ – disc jockey

· Rap – vocal style of rhythmic speaking in rhyme in which the voice is used as a percussive instrument. The actual speaking is called “rapping” or MC’ing.

· Cutting – using multiple turntables to insert sections from one recording into another.

· Scratching – working the needle back and forth rhythmically to create a rhythmic pulse.

· Samples – using existing records from which excerpts are taken to create background for raps.

Rap is a form of music that developed from hip-hop culture and its lifestyle. Basically…“hip-hop” is something you live, while “rap” is something you do.

Hip-hop is believed to have originated in the Bronx by a Jamaican DJ named Kool Herc. Herc’s style of DJ’ing involved reciting rhymes over instrumentals. At block and house parties, Herc would rap with the microphone, using a myriad of in-house references. Duplicates of Herc’s house parties soon drifted through Brooklyn and Manhattan and other party DJs helped spread the message of hip-hop around town and quickly reached many followers.

Originating from the Bronx, hip-hop culture is most identifiable with African Americans, but has been adopted by all ethnicities both in the U.S. and around the world.

Stylistic Categories of Rap:

· Old School

· Gangsta Rap

· Underground Rap

· Bass and Southern Rap

· Non-violent and Pop Rap

· East Coast Rap

· West Coast Rap

· Women Rappers

· Rap and Other Racial / Ethnic Groups

Originally, rap music was party music…fun with witty lyrics. Later, other styles, such as “gangsta rap” used obscenities, displayed racism, made violent remarks about homosexuality, women, police, and encouraged crime.

Critics felt the lyrics promoted violence, while defenders said it just stated the harsh realities of ghetto life or that lyrics were intended to be humorous.

Due to the explicit language and controversial topics that some hip-hop music addressed, conservative groups moved to censor hip-hop music and artists on the basis that they glorified drugs and violence. If anything, this only increased the popularity of the hip-hop artists they tried to regulate, and reinforced existing prejudices that hip-hop culture had against censorship.

Hip-hop music consists of a stylized rhythmic music commonly accompanied by rapping, a rhythmic and rhyming speech that is chanted.

A product of cross-culture integration, rap is deeply rooted within ancient African culture and oral tradition.

Hip-hop, as music and culture, formed during the 1970s when block parties became increasingly popular in New York City, particularly among African American and Latinos living in the Bronx. Block parties incorporated DJs who played popular genres of music, especially funk and soul.

Rapping is a vocal style in which the artist speaks lyrically, in rhyme and verse, generally to an instrumental or synthesized beat. Beats, almost in 4/4-time signature, can be created by sampling and sequencing portions of other songs by a producer. They also incorporate synthesizers, drum machines, and live bands.

Rappers may write, memorize, or improvise their lyrics, and perform “a cappella” or simply to a beat.

Hip-hop music in its beginnings has been described as an outlet and a “voice” for the youth in low-economical areas, as the hip-hop culture reflected the social, economic, and political realities of their lives. Later, MCs grew more varied in their vocal and rhythmic delivery, also incorporating brief rhymes, often with a sexual theme, in an effort to differentiate themselves and to entertain the audience.

Hip-hop music was both, strongly influenced by disco and also a backlash against it. The early days of hip-hop were characterized by divisions between fans and detractors of disco music.

Hip-hop had largely emerged by its creators as a direct response to what they considered the superficial and trivial “Europeanized” disco music that dominated the music world at the time. The earliest hip-hop was mainly based on hard funk tracks.

However, by the late 1970s, disco instrumental tracks had become the basis of much hip-hop music. This genre got the name of “disco-rap” and ironically hip-hop music was also one of the key proponents in the eventual decline in disco music popularity.

In the late 1970s, African-American performers such as Michael Jackson and Lionel Richie became so successful in modifying their music to more effectively cross over to white audiences that a major musical change had to happen in popular music to satisfy the expressive needs of the black audiences. Rap emerged to create that change.

While rap has its antecedents in the tight rhythms of James Brown and the verbal games and poems of the streets, it also has features which make it a new point of musical departure:

· It is the most insistently rhythmic of the African-American musical genres, reducing melody and harmony to a minimal and mostly background role.

· It has the most intricate and elaborated lyrics.

· It often substitutes anger for the sensuality which had been basic to earlier forms.

The combination of these factors is that rap does not follow directly from the blues and gospel base which had been the foundation of basic African-American musical expression throughout the 20th century. Rap rather looks to verbal combat, oral narrative, and rhythm as its point of departure.

Rappers use fragments of recordings to create a background for the foreground performer. This began in a multiple turn-table technique in which one performer created a background of fragments from various sources, while producing a strong and steady rhythmic pulse through scratching a record with a turntable needle.

With the advent of digital technology this evolved into an elaborate and sophisticated technique of digital possibilities, and this makes it the first musical genre the existence of which depends heavily upon modern recording technology.

Technology has become intrinsic to rap’s creation, not just as a means of preserving and distributing the music.

Along with the rhythmic element, the lyrics and message are most important in rap music. Rap has more words than any other form of American music. Those words are manipulated as much for rhythmic effect as for what they say. More than anything else rap lyrics have brought African-American verbal virtuosity to the forefront of mass public awareness.