MUSI 2007 W12 Introduction

One thing to be aware of: although this course has a very broad title (“popular music”), we are going to be talking almost entirely about U.S. popular music, and a little bit about the U.K. Why might that be?

“Popular” is a vague term, and various kinds of music have been called popular for different reasons. Some of the particular types we’ll be looking at in this course include… Folk musics and/or musics connected to particular social activities which were especially subject to… Professionalization and marketing, partly in response to… “Pop” as a distinctive mentality and aesthetic. This includes commercialized versions of musics which first existed in less commercial forms, and also musics that were originally created with commercial intent. What would be some examples of all the above? Also, it is important to understand a little about the nature of African-American culture, and racial politics in the U.S.. Why is that?

So to begin to flesh out some of these issues, and also to give you some background information necessary to understand the course material, I want to look at a few pre-1945 forms which are all quite different from one another. But what all these have in common is that they each provided important source material for popular music as it evolved in the second half of the twentieth century. These styles are: Anglo-American folk ballads; delta blues; Tin Pan Alley pop; early country music, and; rhythm and blues (R+B).

Audio: Blind Alfred Reed “The Wreck Of The Virginian.” There are two common meanings of the word “ballad.” This particular meaning (as in “Anglo-American folk ballad”) goes back to at least the 16 th century, and the repertoire itself goes back even farther (compare to Greek drama, Norse sagas, and the poetry of West African griots, for example). Discuss: the nature of the lyrics and the relationship between the music and voice. Discuss: the social importance and function of these kinds of songs. Also, what kind of people sang these songs, and under what sorts of circumstances? Explain the “folk process”: oral/aural transmission, variants (sometimes without originals), authorship. Explain the general meaning of “form,” and “strophic form” in particular (AAAA…)

Now on to delta blues. There are many different types of blues, and they have all been important in one way or another. But we’ll focus on delta blues for two reasons: (i) it is an especially good example of some main features that most kinds of blues share; (ii) it was especially influential on later rock and folk musicians (along with electric Chicago blues, which we’ll discuss in a later lecture). We don’t have a precise timeline for the evolution of this music, because the earliest sound recordings date from the 1920s, at which point the music had already developed. However, delta blues as we know it couldn’t have developed before 1865, so that lets us roughly pinpoint the period when it was appearing (probably somewhere around ). What happened in 1865, and why would that event have been crucial for blues and other kinds of U.S. popular/folk music?

A few important things to keep in mind about early African- American culture: (i) why it is so central to popular music history (the strange blend of segregation and intermingling in U.S. culture); (ii) the slave trade and connections to the Caribbean and West Africa; (iii) the immediate and long-term effects of slavery; (iv) challenges and features of the post- slavery era: sharecropping, Jim Crow laws, migrancy and migration, the church/juke-joint dynamic. Audio: Robert Johnson “Me And The Devil Blues” (read lyrics while listening). Although this was recorded rather late (1937), it is a good example of the delta blues style. First, the lyrics. How do these lyrics reflect the influence of some of the post-slavery factors we’ve already discussed?

Two other important features in blues lyrics: associative coherence (as opposed to narrative coherence), and the floating pool of verses. In a general way, how does this performance resemble the folk ballad we just heard? Why is the delta blues usually included in the larger family of “folk blues”? Consider also: what was the lifestyle and persona of the average folk blues musician? How was it influential on later forms of popular music? Finally, explain 12-bar blues form. Preliminary to understanding this: beats and bars as measures of musical time. Also, what is a chord and what do we mean by chord changes (a.k.a. harmony).

12-bar blues form Bar ChordsIIVIV (T) Lyricsaab GuitarRes.

One style that’s dramatically different from blues and folk music, but was equally influential on 20 th century popular music, is Tin Pan Alley pop. As a warm-up, listen to this and try to answer two questions: (a) in what ways does it differ from what we’ve heard up to this point; (b) how is it similar to styles that we still call “pop” today? Audio: Judy Garland “Over The Rainbow”

The post-civil-war era in the U.S. was also marked by greatly increased urbanization and industrialization. By around 1900, we start to see the existence of a “mass audience” as we usually think of it, and musical genres begin to appear which deliberately pitch themselves to this audience. Question: what is a mass audience, and what conditions help one to exist? In what ways might a music be transformed or created to appeal to such an audience?

In the 19 th century and very early 20 th, the big money in the music industry was connected to music publishing. One example of publishing success and the kind of money involved is the song “After The Ball” (1892), which brought in $25,000 per week for a time (roughly $600,000 / wk in today’s money). By 1900, most popular music publishers had moved their headquarters to the same small neighbourhood in New York City. Prior to this, many U.S. cities hosted successful publishers (including some that we might not nowadays expect, e.g., Milwaukee), so the concentration was an important change in the industry. This group of New York- based publishers almost completely dominated the U.S. popular music market from around 1900 to the 1940s.

The phrase Tin Pan Alley consequently has three interrelated meanings. First, it refers to the neighbourhood in New York where these publishers were located. Although by the 1920s this complete geographical domination weakened as Los Angeles became an important secondary pop music centre (why did that happen?) Second, it refers to a way of working (explain: professionalization, overt commercialism, segregation of tasks, volume of production). Third, it refers to a certain kind of mainstream aesthetic (discuss details: formula, universal themes, accessibility, professionalism again). Nowadays, people still use the phrase Tin Pan Alley to describe a certain way of working and a certain aesthetic.

TPA also gives us another musical form to add to our list (along with strophic, and 12-bar blues). This form is sometimes called Tin Pan Alley Ballad form, and sometimes 32-Bar Chorus form. Notice, this is the other meaning of “ballad,” referring to a slow, commercial, sentimental song (usually a love song). This form can be written: AABA. Each section is eight bars long, and the ‘B’ section is often called the ‘middle eight.’

TPA pop is a good example of a music which was created to be commercial and professional from the outset. By contrast, country music began through the commercialization and professionalization of folk music, much of which was not at first commercial (or at least not as obviously so). Audio and overhead: The Carter Family “Keep On The Sunny Side” Audio and overhead: Jimmie Rodgers “Blue Yodel No. 1” Both The Carter Family and Jimmie Rodgers made their first recordings in 1927 at the famous Bristol Sessions (explain details). Together, they are generally regarded as the earliest figureheads of country music as a distinct genre. In what ways does their music resemble the different kinds of folk music we’ve already looked at? Are there significant differences in sound or lyrics?

So in what ways was folk music commercialized to create country as a new genre? (a) Image creation. Discuss how Jimmie Rodgers and The Carter Family represent clear-cut, different, and marketable kinds of personas. And also how they established the two basic prototypes for country images that came later. (b) Economic scale. (c) Music which sounds old-timey, but is newly composed (or at least newly copyrighted).

The last pre-1945 style to consider for now is Rhythm and Blues (R+B). Audio: Big Mama Thornton “Hound Dog” How does this resemble the delta blues we’ve already heard, and how is it different? Specifically, why might this style be called rhythm and blues? The R+B style developed in the early 1940s, by which time African-American culture had mostly completed its transformation from urban to rural. Also, by the 1940s black Americans collectively had enough disposable income to be an important force in the popular music market. So R+B was one of the forms which expressed this new set of circumstances.

Some important features of R+B Instrumental arrangements were generally in 12-bar blues form, although the vocals often deviated from the format. Accompaniments often built on riffs. Louder than delta blues because: (i) this was a group form rather than a solo form; (ii) instruments and voices were often amplified, and; (iii) drums were common. Although delta blues was also used as a dance music, R+B was clearly specialized as a dance music for use in larger, noisier venues. The lyrical range was generally narrower than in delta blues, and the themes were generally lighter (lots of party lyrics and less dark relationship lyrics). Frequent use of saxophone (influence of big band swing). Shouting vocal style.

For our purposes, R+B is important for at least two reasons: (i) it is one indication of how African-American culture was making the transition from a predominantly folk culture to a “popular culture”; (ii) it was a very clear influence on early rock and roll. You could make the case that the term “rock and roll” is more a sociological one than a musicological one, because in practice it often essentially meant “R+B played by and/or for white people” (more about that in the Elvis lecture). Also in the 1940s, some very similar things were happening in country music. If you look up the history and stylistic details of early honky tonk, you should be able to see how it resembles R+B in some important ways.