THE MUSIC OF THE COLORBLIND: HOW INTEGRATED MUSIC WAS CREATED IN A REGION OF POLITICAL AND SOCIAL SEGREGATION by Damon A. Brooks A Thesis/Project Presented to The Faculty of Humboldt State University In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Master of Social Science In Teaching American History May, 2005 THE MUSIC OF THE COLORBLIND: HOW INTEGRATED MUSIC WAS CREATED IN A REGION OF POLITICAL AND SOCIAL SEGREGATION by Damon A. Brooks Approved by the Master’s Thesis Committee: Delores McBroome, Committee Chair Date Rod Sievers, Committee Member Date Gayle Olson, Committee Member Date Delores McBroome, Graduate Coordinator Date MASS – Teaching American History Donna E. Schafer, Dean for Research and Graduate Studies Date ABSTRACT The Music of the Colorblind: How Integrated Music was Created in a Region of Political and Social Segregation Damon A. Brooks The importance of Memphis, Tennessee in the history of popular American music cannot be overstated. If Memphis had produced just the Sun recordings of Elvis Presley in the fifties alone, its status as a city rich in musical tradition would be secure. But there is so much more music that came from Memphis: Johnny Cash, Carl Perkins, Howlin’ Wolf, Roy Orbison, Booker T. and the M.G.s, Otis Redding, Rufus and Carla Thomas, Isaac Hayes, Albert King, Sam and Dave, and Al Green to list just a few. Memphis helped shape almost all subsequent rock and roll. The synthesis of black and white musical styles that occurred there in the fifties was unique. The Stax recordings of sixties soul music and seventies funk continued Memphis’ history of mixing black and white music together. Perched on the banks of the Mississippi River, the city also deserves credit as a historical locale for blues music, the predecessor of rock and roll. Gospel music helped to define the sound of the music that came from Memphis as well. This project will attempt to detail the geographic and cultural origins of the different types of music that blended together to become the “Memphis sound.” The project will also explore the elements of Memphis that made it such a unique musical petri dish. Why was it that in a city afflicted with racial tension, and in a region stricken iii with racism, that the musical worlds of black and whites could be fused into new art forms? The presence of gospel, blues, rhythm and blues, rockabilly, country, funk and soul music in Memphis, and its location as a river trading port are important factors that will be explored as well. The importance of Memphis radio, and the individuals who spoke over those airwaves are also vitally important and will be discussed. An entrepreneurial spirit that exists in Memphis and Sam Phillips’s unique vision of racial harmony are also factors that shaped the music, and are parts of the story that will be told. The project will also illustrate the evolution and synthesis of black and white musical styles in Memphis. A classroom lesson plan is included that explores the importance of not only Memphis, but also other cities that have made important contributions to American musical history. These materials could be used by teachers during their study of the civil rights era, (state standard 11.10, Students analyze the development of federal civil rights and voting rights). Teachers might also find it useful when teaching the culture of the fifties, sixties or seventies (state standard 11.9, Students analyze the economic boom and social transformation of post World War II America in terms of: forms of popular culture with emphasis on their origins and geographic diffusion). Using both primary and secondary documents, as well as the wealth of recordings from Sun, Stax and Atlantic studios, conclusions about Memphis’ cultural uniqueness and contributions to the history of American music will be made. iv ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I could not have written this without the patience, understanding, and help of my wife Kim. Thank you. I love you. I’d also like to thank the tremendous instructors of the Teaching American History program. I can’t imagine how much work it must have been grading our work, and coordinating our classes! Professors Dee McBroome and Gayle Olson deserve special thanks. I could have not completed this project without their help and guidance. My colleagues from Eureka High School, Craig Parker, Andrea Tarantino, and Ron Perry were great classmates throughout the three years of the Teaching American History program. We commiserated, and we complained together. Ron’s help formatting my final product was invaluable as well. I also hope that my son, Gavin, who was two years old at the time of this writing, will someday read this and grow to share the same love and appreciation of Memphis music that I have. v TABLE OF CONTENTS Page ABSTRACT.......................................................................................................................iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS................................................................................................ v TABLE OF CONTENTS................................................................................................... vi HISTORIC MEMPHIS: THE ROOTS OF THE CULTURAL COLLISION................... 1 THE BLUES & THEIR IMPORTANCE IN SHAPING THE MEMPHIS SOUND......... 9 SAM PHILLIPS AND SUN RECORDS.......................................................................... 12 MEMPHIS RADIO: SEGREGATION IN THE AIR....................................................... 18 ELVIS ............................................................................................................................... 22 STAX ................................................................................................................................ 27 CONCLUSIONS............................................................................................................... 42 LESSON PLAN................................................................................................................ 44 Introduction........................................................................................................... 44 Prior Content Knowledge and Skills..................................................................... 44 Content Hook........................................................................................................ 45 Lesson Content...................................................................................................... 46 Evaluation ............................................................................................................. 48 APPENDIX A Grade Level Standards .......................................................................... 49 APPENDIX B Student Handouts................................................................................... 53 APPENDIX C Teacher Handouts.................................................................................. 69 vi BIBLIOGRAPHY............................................................................................................. 76 vii HISTORIC MEMPHIS: THE ROOTS OF THE CULTURAL COLLISION Music fans might argue that America’s greatest gift to the world has been the rich heritage of American music created during the twentieth century. Out of the system of American slavery, African musical traditions emerged to lay the foundation for the explosion of indigenous music that would become jazz, gospel, blues, rhythm and blues, rock and roll and southern soul music. New Orleans, Macon, Muscle Shoals, Chicago, New York and even Los Angeles all contributed greatly to the evolution of American music, but Memphis, Tennessee may have played the greatest role in the development of America’s musical legacy. Shockingly, Memphis’ musical synthesis of white and black musical idioms occurred in a politically and socially segregated region. This racial collision was the very core of the change that was occurring in American music. Critical elements existed in Memphis that allowed a small cadre of trailblazers to change the history of not only American music, but to alter the history of popular music worldwide. Memphis possessed a large population of African Americans, a ubiquitous love of music (both black and white), formal musical education and family music traditions, a history of musical innovation, and the entrepreneurial spirit to overcome the social and political segregation that affected almost all facets of life in the South in the twentieth century; first with Sam Phillips and the Sun Studio, and later in the 1960s with the Stax studio. 1 2 The history of nineteenth century Memphis explains a great deal about the musical and cultural innovations that would come later. Incorporated in 1826 on the banks of the Mississippi River, Memphis soon became a vital trading and social center. It was a rough, hard-drinking, hard-working city and even in those days there was the music of Memphis. “The earliest ‘Memphis sound’ was provided by itinerant fiddlers and banjo players…The regional differences that would later develop in American fiddle music had yet to take shape, but the African influence with its greater emphasis on supple, syncopated rhythms was already beginning to enter the music.”1 Minstrel shows soon became popular and were some of the earliest black-white musical collaborations that occurred in Memphis. Many of the minstrels’ jigs, hornpipes, and reels had roots in the Celtic traditions of Ireland, Scotland, and England, but the unique changes in rhythm found in their American versions may