Race Records and Hillbilly Music

Musical Diversification

  Record companies targeted new audiences between World War I and World War II (1918–40). Recorded music derived from the folk traditions of the American South – Migration of millions of people from rural communities to cities such as New York, Chicago, Detroit, Atlanta, and Nashville in the years following World War I

Race Records and Hillbilly Music

   Terms used by the American music industry to classify and advertise southern music.

Race Records – Recordings of performances by African American musicians produced mainly for sale to African American listeners Hillbilly or Old-Time – Music performed by and intended for sale to southern whites

Mamie Smith (1883–1946)

    Known as the “Queen of the Blues” Pioneer blues singer, pianist, and black vaudeville performer In 1920, she recorded the bestsellers “Crazy Blues” and “It's Right Here For You, If You Don't Get It, 'Tain't No Fault of Mine.” Mamie Smith’s success as a recording artist opened up the record industry to recordings by and for African Americans.

Race Music

 The term was first applied by Ralph Peer (1892–1960). – A Missouri-born talent scout for Okeh Records – Had worked as an assistant on Mamie Smith’s first recording sessions

Race Records

  The performances released on race records included a variety of musical styles: – Blues – Jazz – Gospel choirs – Vocal quartets – String bands – Jug-and-washboard bands Verbal performances – Sermons – Stories – Comic routines

The Blues

Definitions:

1. Describes a feeling—“I’ve got the blues” 2. Refers to the blues style of singing or playing – blues vocals—like intensified speech – narrow range; rough, highly inflected timbre 3. Indicates a musical form—twelve-bar chorus, AAB text

Blues Form

 A standard rhythmic harmonic structure in which a twelve-bar chord progression is tied to the AAB text in three four-bar phrases.  It is also called “twelve-bar blues.”

Text of a Blues Song

 Rhymed couplet—each chorus of a blues song contains two lines of text with the first line repeated. The text is AAB: – – – I hate to see the eve-nin’ sun go down I hate to see the eve-nin’ sun go down It makes me think I’m on my last go-round

Form of a Blues Song

 Melodic form—each line is sung to its own melodic idea.  Rhythmic form—each phrase of a standard blues chorus lasts four bars. One chorus of a blues song is twelve measures long (3x4).  Harmonic form—the harmony of a blues song is I, IV, and V chords.

Twelve-Bar Blues

 

I 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 IV I V IV I

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Classic Blues

Classic blues songs were performed by high-class nightclub singers.

  – Alberta Hunter (1895–1984) Billed as the “Marian Anderson of the Blues” – Ethel Waters (1896–1977) Entertained the growing African American middle class in New York, Chicago, and other northern cities

Classic Blues

  Singers who performed in a somewhat rougher style   Gertrude “Ma” Rainey (1886–1939) – Popularly known as the “Mother of the Blues” Bessie Smith (1894–1937) – “Empress of the Blues” Rainey and Smith developed their singing styles in the rough-and-tumble black vaudeville and tent shows.

    

Bessie Smith (1894–1937)

The “Empress of the Blues” The most important and influential of the woman blues singers from the early twentieth century. Born in Chattanooga, Tennessee; began recording in 1923 Stylistically a blues singer even when performing novelty and vaudeville numbers; had a majestic voice The centerpiece of Columbia’s race record labels

W. C. Handy (1873–1958)

    – – – The “Father of the Blues” The most influential of the classic blues composers Son of a conservative pastor who forbade him from playing the guitar  Learned to play the cornet instead Went on to college, received a degree, and became a schoolteacher Handy cofounded the first African American–owned publishing house. His music owed much to Tin Pan Alley as well as African American folk traditions. His biggest hit was “St. Louis Blues,” written in 1914.

Listening: “St. Louis Blues,” by W. C. Handy, sung by Bessie Smith (1925)   This was the type of recording that introduced much of white America to the blues. A hybrid approach to the blues – Removed from the “down-home” interpretation by country blues performers and composers such as Charley Patton and Blind Lemon Jefferson.

   Listening: “St. Louis Blues,” by W. C. Handy, sung by Bessie Smith (1925) – – Accompaniment — reed organ and cornet Louis Armstrong on cornet Fred Longshaw on reed organ Call and response between cornet and Smith Form – Based on the AABA model commonly seen in Tin Pan Alley songs – The final section is really a “C,” having a new melody but relating to the earlier “A” section of chords. – The “A” and “C” sections represent the twelve-bar blues.

Listening: “St. Louis Blues,” by W. C. Handy, sung by Bessie Smith (1925)

 A – a. I hate to see the eve-nin’ sun go down – a. I hate to see the eve-nin’ sun go down – b. It makes me think I’m on my last go-round  A – a. Feelin’ tomorrow like I do today – a. Feelin’ tomorrow like I do today

Listening: “St. Louis Blues,” by W. C. Handy, sung by Bessie Smith (1925)

 B  a.

 b.

 a.

 b.

St. Louis woman… Pulls my man around… Wasn’t for powder… The man I love…  C I got them St. Louis blues…