Race and Hillbilly Records
Early Phonographs
Early radio
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1st commercial radio broadcast in
1920
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1922: 600 stations
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“Free” entertainment competed
with record industry
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Radio impacted pop song:
– Artistic blandness and conformity
to please sponsors
– Generated huge celebrities
– Sped up “life” of pop hits
– Popularized regional styles and
artists
Independent Labels: Black
Swan and OKeh Records
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Black Swan:
– African American-owned company
in Harlem (1920s)
– Owner Harry Pace wanted to create
music for and by African
Americans
– Attempted to show breadth of
African American taste
– Released “hot” jazz, blues, gospel
and classical music by black artists
•
Recognized “new” market:
African American record buyers
– Urban migration in 1917
– Rural popularity of phonograph
– Connected African American
communities
OKeh Records pioneered another approach to Race Records
•
Term “Race Records” coined by OKeh
exec. Ralph Peer
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•
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Exploited and promoted a distinctive
African American identity based on
musical taste and racial stereotypes
Recorded music outside of
commercial mainstream: blues, hot
jazz, gospel
Competed with Tin Pan Alley
establishment
Popularized musical form called Blues
Who first thought of getting Race Records out for the Race?
Okeh, that's right! Genuine Race Artists make genuine Blues
for Okeh.
There is also a complete alphabetical index, listing every
Race Record you might crave. Do go on and turn our pages
and see the kind of stuff we're holding back. Every smilin',
teasin' brownskin gal in dis book of Greatest Blues has jes
got it natchely, the dawggone Blues; dis ain't no time to git
blues, jes go back downtown and git some of our Okeh
Blues, then there's nuthin' gonna stop you from feelin' as
happy as a kissin' papa. Boy, do that thing--and tell 'em
about Okeh.”
The Classic Blues
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Blues refers to a form of Southern folk music originally developed in black
Southern communities
•
“Professionalized” in the style of classic blues:
– Performed by female nightclub and vaudeville singers
– Professionally composed, accompanied by jazz bands
– Heavily promoted through race records
•
Features distinct form
– 12-Bar Blues:
• Refers to a particular arrangement of a verse into 4-beat bars with…
• 3 phrases, each containing 4 bars
• A sequence of 3 chords (chord progression)
• A distinct poetic structure: AAB
Listening Example: “St. Louis Blues”
Composed by W.C. Handy
Performed by Bessie Smith, 1925
•
ARRANGEMENT
–
–
–
Accompanied by a jazz combo, including Louis Armstrong on
cornet (call and response w/vocals)
Vocal quality is rough and full throttle -Vaudeville style “classic
blues”
FORM:composer W.C. Handy combined 12-bar blues with Tin
Pan Alley pop structure
Melody A
Melody A
12-bar blues (AAB lyric structure)
repeated
Melody B
16-bar bridge (8-bar melody sung twice)
Melody C
12-bar blues
new melody!
new lyrics structure! ABC
Country Blues
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Rural-based folk style of blues music
– Expressed the experiences of impoverished Southern black work force: sharecroppers,
rivermen, railroad workers, prisoners
– Spread by guitar-players/singers who sang about their own experiences/stories
•
Less formalized than classic blues:
– Oral tradition
– 12-bar form is flexible
– Sometimes riffs replace chords
•
Blues lyrics themes:
– Realistic, personalized view of everyday life: relationships, politics, money
– Hidden meanings, use of metaphor
– Humor, irony, wit as antidote to oppression
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Ex:
– Charley Patten, “Tom Rushen Blues” (1929)
– Blind Lemon Jefferson, “Black Snake Moan” (1927)
OKeh Records and country music
•
Ralph Peer coined “hillbilly”
genre in 1923
– Recorded old-time fiddler John
Carson in Georgia
• Huge sales - unexpected!
• Spurred interest in
recording rural Southern
white artists
•
Promoted gospel, blues, string
bands, jug bands
•
Promoted two kinds of imagery:
– Home/Family/Faith
– Uprooted/Hard Luck Blues
Jimmie Rodgers and The Carter Family
•
Both Rodgers and the Carters
“discovered” by Ralph Peer in
Bristol, TN in 1927
•
The Carters emulated a
conservative, religious, and
family-based image
– Sang old ballads and gospel
songs
Rodgers, in white suit, posing with the
Carter Family
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Rodgers was a wandering
railroad man who sang about
hobos and hard luck
– Sang white blues and ballads
The Carter Family:
A.P. “Doc” Carter (bass vocals)
Sara Carter (lead vocals, autoharp)
Maybelle Carter (guitar)
Natives of the Clinch Mountains,
Virginia
Style/Stance:
Straightforward, unembellished
“authentic” white gospel and
mountain music
Humility and devotion to church
and family, traditional values
Conveyed through “plain”
arrangements and conservative
image
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Jimmie Rodgers:
– From Meridian, MS
– Worked on railroads
– Influenced by white and black “folk”
music (ballads, country blues)
– Adapted style to popular music (“Waiting
For a Train”)
– 1933 - Died of tuberculosis at 36
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Style/Stance:
– Wrote and performed his own songs
about American underbelly, hard luck
folks
– Images of urban migration, lost
home/family
– Used blues to convey a sense of loss
– Described conflict between establishment
and those outside of it