Southern Music Bill C

Southern Music Bill C. Malone and Leontyne Price, express little or no region al identity, the folk South, in contrast, has he S"euth has played a central greatly broadened the nation's musical styles. ana defining role in American Southern-born musical styles also have con usical history, as an inspir quered the world, making immense fortunes tien for songwriters, as a for a few musicians and more entrepreneurs, source of styles, and as the but we should not forget that they were born birthplace of many of the in poverty. They were nurtured in the folk nation's greatest musicians. It communities of the South, largely apart from is impossible to think of Amer the gaze of outsiders, in homes, churches, ican music in this century singing schools and conventions, juke joints, without such Southern-de honky tonks, brothels, fiddle contests, and rived forms as ragtime, jazz, other scenes of social interchange. The region's blues, country, gospel, rhythm working people drew deeply from their mar and blues, Cajun, zydeco, and velous music to preserve their sanity, assert rock 'n' roll. These vibrant their identity, build community ties, worship styles have been taken to heart God, and win emotional release and liberation by people around the world in a society that seemed too often to value only and have even been reintro their labor. duced to this country in The deep waters of Southern folk music altered forms through the flowed principally from the confluence of two performances of such foreign mighty cultural streams, the British and the based musicians as the Beatles West African. This mighty river was enriched and Rolling Stones. by the periodic infusion of German, Spanish, Romantic images of the French, Caribbean, and other melodic and South have fired the imagi stylistic elements. The African admixture has nations of songwriters since at contributed much to the distinctiveness and "Bill Monroe, often called the least the 1830s, when black-face minstrels appeal of Southern music: syncopation, anti father of Bluegrass music, began exploiting Southern musical forms and phony (call and response), improvisation, and established the classic Bluegrass cultural symbols. The region has spawned a blue notes. But other ethnic groups have also sound- high, pure tenor voice, veritable school of songwriters, from Stephen added to the musical mix. Scotch-Irish bal Foster, Will Hays, and Dan Emmett in the ladry and fiddle music, German accordion powerful mandolin solos against nineteenth century to Johnny Mercer, Hoagy rhythms and hymn tunes, the infectious Cajun the banjo background. Bluegrass Carmichael, Allen Toussaint, Tom T. Hall, dance style, and the soulful cry of Mexican remains the most distinctive of all Dolly Parton, and Hank Williams, Jr., in our conjunto singers have all shaped the Southern the sub-styles within country own time. Visions of lonesome pines, lazy sound. music, having changed relatively rivers, and smoky mountains have long enrap Southern working people's music also bor little in the last half-century." tured America's lyricists and delighted audien rowed much from both high art and popular ces with images of a land where time moves culture. Some rural dances, for example, had -David Vinopal, All Music Guide slowly, life is simple, and people hold clear middle- or upper-class origins. The square Photo by Bruce Roberts, values and love to make music. dance came from the cotillion; the African ©Southern Living, Inc. Southerners themselves have greatly en American cakewalk was a burlesque of formal riched American music, as performers, song European-American dancing; the Virginia Reel writers, record producers and promoters, and was a variation of the upper-class dance called folklorists . While some Southern-born musi cians who have won international distinction, like Mary Martin and Kate Smith, Van Cliburn Festival of American Folklife 1996 57 At the home of Terry Wootten on Sand Mountain, in Alabama, the Wootten family sings from the Sacred Harp Songbook, first published in Georgia in 7844. The invention in 7802 of shape notes, a format in which the pitch the Sir Roger de Coverley. Many fiddle tunes see, made devotees of "serious music" aware of of each note is represented with hallowed in rural folk tradition, such as "Under Negro Spirituals after 1871, when they made one of four shapes, facilitated the Double Eagle," "Listen to the Mocking performing tours in the North and in Europe. bird," and "Red Wing," came from marches or And in the 1890s, a large number of itinerant music reading. The notation pop tunes written by popular composers. piano players, led principally by Scott Joplin proved so popular in the South Chautauqua tents, medicine shows, tent-rep from Texarkana, Texas, revolutionized the and Midwest that practically shows, vaudeville, and the popular music world of American popular music with rag every singing-school book used industry all introduced styles and songs that time. During the years surrounding World the four shapes devised by became part of Southern folk traditions. War I, composer and veteran brass-band mu William Little and William Smith. Southern music entered the nation's con sician W. C. Handy, based in Memphis, popu sciousness late in the nineteenth century. Until larized a style of sophisticated, urban blues Photo by Anne Kimzey, that time national audiences had heard only music, including his own compositions such © Alabama Center for Traditional Culture caricatures of Southern music in the perform as "St. Louis Blues" and "Memphis Blues." The ances of the black-face minstrels- Northern, most dramatic entrance of Southern-derived White song-and-dance men who roamed the music on the national scene, however, came country sporting corked faces and grotesque after 1917, when a few bands from New Or "darky'' dialects. In 1865, however, a small leans, including the Original Dixieland Jazz group of African-American entertainers, the Band and Joe "King" Oliver's Creole Jazz Band, Georgia Minstrels, inaugurated a brand of min brought their hot, improvised numbers to strelsy that, while still suffering from stereo receptive fans on the West Coast and in Chi types of the genre, enabled Black performers to cago and New York. First described as 'jazz" slowly develop a form of entertainment more in Chicago, this music rapidly won over young truly representative of their culture and music. musicians and fans with its dance beat and At least as late as World War I, minstrel spirited improvisations. Jazz stars quickly a troupes featuring African-American performers rose, including instrumentalists Sidney Bechet such as Billy Kersands , Ma Rainey, and Bessie and Louis Armstrong and vocalist Bessie Smith spread Black Southern music to a wide Smith, whose city blues developed in a close audience. relationship with jazz. By 1900, Southern music had had a power ful impact on high and popular culture. The Fisk Jubilee Singers from Nashville, Tennes- 58 Festival of Ame rican Folklife 1996 Gospel singers on W. C. Handy Square in Memphis. Gospel music is rooted in spirituals, blues, shape-note songs, ragtime, and the urban church revival. It emerged in the early twentieth century as traveling performers "visited" church communities, popularizing compositions by Charles Tindley and Thomas Dorsey. Gospel compositions are formally notated, but they are transformed during performances, when participation and Although collections of Appalachian ballads jordan, and the urban and electrified blues of improvisation on the part of the and cowboy songs had been published in 1917 Muddy Waters. Southern music was already audience become an important and 1920, the music of rural White folk of the making crucial stylistic departures and reach part of the offering. South between the eastern mountains and the ing out to larger audiences by the end of the Photo © Roland L. Freeman western plains remained unknown and un 1930s through powerful radio broadcasts, valued nationally. The discovery and populari Hollywood movies, personal appearance tours , zation of this music came with the media revo and increasingly sophisticated recording lution of the 1920s. White rural entertainers techniques. began performing on newly established South The massive population movements and the em radio stations, and in 1923 a fiddler named prosperity caused by World War II and new john Carson, who had earlier performed on forms of consciousness among youth, women, WSB in Atlanta, made the first "hillbilly" re and African Americans combined to intensify cording in the same city. As the decade con the nationalization of Southern music. Many tinued, other Southern grassroots forms such as small record labels featuring grassroots music Cajun, cowboy, gospel (African- and European styles of the South appeared after the war, in American), and country blues also began to and outside the region. Major record labels appear on commercial recordings. found commercial success with Southern-born Southern musical forms changed as they musicians like Hank Williams, Eddy Arnold, grew to national popularity during the 1930s Louis jordan, Nat "King" Cole, Sister Rosetta and 1940s. They thrived during the Great Tharp , and Elvis Presley. Postwar recording Depression and provided hard-pressed Ameri tended increasingly to be done in such South cans with escape, fantasy , and hope in dance ern cities as Dallas, Houston, New Orleans, able rhythms and down-to-earth lyrics. New Memphis, Macon, Muscle Shoals, and and vital forms emerged, including the singing Nashville. cowboy genre of Gene Autry, the western Powered by prosperity and an emerging swing dance music of Bob Wills, the hanky youth market, a skyrocketing entertainment tonk music of Ernest Tubb, the gospel soul of industry distributed great quantities of com Mahalia Jackson, the shuffle beat of Louis mercial music. Old forms evolved and acquired new labels that seemed to better reflect Amer ica's newly emerging realities. "Hillbilly" gave way to "country," "rural blues" became Festival of American Folklife 1996 59 erican South "rhythm and blues," and the gospel style of the Country music has become America's old shape-note publishing houses became a favorite.

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