The Blues were invented around the 1860s, the movement of the Blues started deep in the South, St. Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, and South Carolina. Mostly, African Americans in the South were starting to sing the Blues after the abolishment of slavery. Often the Blues would keep their hopes alive during the hard times while facing racist culture in the deep South. The way the term “Blues” came about was through blue feelings of sadness, darkness or melancholy. This feeling was usually experienced first hand by the artist who sings the Blues. Blues have one unique way of appealing to the audience, blue notes. Blue notes are notes that you find a little more dull and sad sounding. Blue notes are played for the singer to sing just a little off key in comparison to the other musicians. This makes the tone of the song more melancholy. Blue notes are usually minor chords instead of major chords due to this having a more emotional appeal. As the Blues evolved they started picking their guitars differently, incorporating more parts into the song to have more of a twang, and incorporating the steel guitar into their sound.
The Blues played a big part in the way that Jazz came about as a genre. With some early Jazz bands in the early 1900s, like Louis Armstrong and “His Hot Five”. They started making songs with a new Blues style, called Ragtime Blues as well as adding a unique twist to the Blues. Ragtime Blues was a style of Blues played on guitar. Ragtime Blues were the Blues that had influenced the start of Jazz, the rhythms were something that Jazz bands had copied, giving the feel of the music to be more dynamic and complex sounding to the ear. Jazz created a more complex way of playing the Blues, and evolved a very appealing way of making and creating music. Jazz was something very different than the Blues and folk music because of the smooth riffs and drum tracks, and in my personal opinion that’s the beauty of Jazz.
Bluegrass is another genre that is a vital part in the creation of Rock and Roll.
Bluegrass came about more in the 1940s, it became a mixture of the Blues and folk country despite its jazzy characteristics. Bluegrass incorporates faster picking style than other genres at the time. While some Bluegrass styles are similar to Blue notes, Bluegrass has unique off beat notes that create the Bluegrass style. Bluegrass also tends to show more emotions expressed within the faster movements on the instrument. The big thing that most Bluegrass bands do is use dissonance within the writing to create more of a leading sound onto another progression in the song, creating a sorrowsome note. One of the first bands that made this sound associated to bluegrass is, the Monroe Brothers with universal songs, such as “My Long Journey Home” wich is about a sorrowsome journey that the singer expirenced.
Around the late 1940s, folk revival music started to get popular. Rooted in the Appalachian Mountain area, the Folk Revival Movement was the first type of genre to really talk about what was happening during the Great Depression. The sorrow that was felt by the people at the time was being spoken through the music that they were playing, such as Woody Guthrie’s “ Better World A Comin’ ”. Woody Guthrie sings about how he is in the union, fighting for change in the world. “Better World A Comin’ ” Woody talks of his feeling for the people who were facing the agricultural drought and downfall within the Great Depression. Woody show’s them that there’s hope for the future by his soulful lyrics. A little later in the folk revival scene, Bob Dylan started to produce music talking about the Anti-Vietnam Peace Movement around the 1960’s. As the song that he wrote” Times Are A Changin’ ” talking about problems many people could relate too. Bob Dylan went off to sing songs that clearly resembled the way Woody Guthrie played. Bob Dylan shows his love for Woody Guthrie by writing “Song to Woody” in 1962. This song was a tribute song to Woody Guthrie. The song was inspired off of Bob Dylan’s inspirations from Woody. He took on his legacy to make songs for the people, inspiring change and positivity in tougher times.
Each and every genre that I’ve covered has had something to do with the unique sound that Rock and Roll has created. The person who popularized Rock and Roll was Elvis Presley in the mid 50’s. He began to incorporate the ragtime blue rhythms in his first song he published, “Blue suede shoes”. He created a different sound than other blues. He dramatized the way it was being played and he had a much more of an affectionate way of playing the guitar. I think that that is the biggest part of why Rock and Roll was so big. Elvis focused on the way he can incorporate different genres in his songs for more of a unique way sound to the audience. Rock and roll was a harder style of Jazz, Blues, Folk, and country/bluegrass, usually played on electric guitars to find more of groovy characteristics within the slight distortion.
All sources used from wikipedia articles…
(Bluegrass music, Blues, Jazz, American folk music revival)
