American Music

“Music is a surrogate for cultural understandings of place and regional stereotypes… and is an excellent vehicle for learning cultural geography.”

Hunter Shobe and David Banis, 2010

All music is Blues, all of it!

George Carlin

Some American Music Types (off the top of my head)

Native American Christian Music English ballads Gospel Blues Jazz Rock and Roll Funk Hip Hop/Rap Country Western Blue Grass; Buffalo

Grass Western Swing Pop Techno Pop Modern “classical”

Show Tunes Jingles Work Songs Rhythm & Blues Heavy Metal Punk Bebop Norteno/Tejano Klezmer Soul Cajun Zydeco Slash grass Acid Rock New Age Christian Rock

• Muzak• Fuzak• Indie Rock• Polka?• Minneapolis sound

American Music Types (Wiki map)

Grunge Twee pop Riot grit ? Psychedelia Surf Death rock Glam metal Skacore Paisley Underground ? Cow punk Stack key Jawaiian Hula Slack-key Lounge Mormon Folk Mormon Pop

Chicken Scratch Lubbock sound Corrido Conjunto Dixieland Piedmont Blues Gullah Music Miami Bass Go Go Amish Philly Sound Swamp pop Death metal Celtic Music?

• Emo ?•

Jazz Geography

New Orleans Memphis St. Louis Kansas City Chicago New York Everywhere else

John and Alan Lomax: Recordings from the 1920s

John Lomax with Uncle Rich Brown in 1940

Allan Lomax performing folk music in Asheville in 1940

1901 Minstrel song

Pharoah’s Army Got Drowned: 1921Recorded by Thomas Edison

East Texas,

1867-1917

W.C. Handy, the father of the Blues, Florence, AL, 1873-1958

Robert Johnson, 1911-1938, Hazelhurst, MSA Faustian bargain?

Blues Rules

Muddy Waters

(McKinley Morganfield) Issaquena County, MS

1913-1983

Howlin’ Wolf, Chester Arthur Burnett,

White Station, MS1910-1976

KR

100 greatest Blues Musicians

1. W.C. Handy  2. Son House  3. Bessie Smith  4. Robert Johnson  5. B.B. King  6. T-Bone Walker  7. Muddy Waters  8. Little Walter  9. Lonnie Johnson10. John Lee Hooker11. Blind Lemon Jefferson12. Elmore James13. Willie Dixon14. Freddie King15. Billie Holiday16. Stevie Ray Vaughan17. Charlie Patton18. Ma Rainey19. Leadbelly20. Howlin' Wolf21. Louis Jordan22. Big Bill Broonzy23. Skip James24. Sonny Boy Williamson I25. Professor Longhair26. Mamie Smith27. Blind Blake28. Robert Nighthawk29. Memphis Minnie30. Leroy Carr31. Arthur Big Boy Crudup32. Ida Cox33. Tampa Red34. Sonny Boy Williamson II35. Lightnin' Hopkins36. Charles Brown37. Albert King38. Brownie McGhee39. Junior Wells40. Missippi John Hurt41. Jimmy Reed42. Ray Charles43. Blind Willie Johnson44. Big Mama Thornton45. Big Joe Turner46. Albert Collins47. Sleepy John Estes48. Rosco Gordon49. Otis Spann50. Walter "Furry" Lewis

51. Reverend Gary Davis52. Big Maceo53. Blind Boy Fuller54. Pinetop Smith55. Hound Dog Taylor56. Roosevelt Sykes57. Buddy Guy58. Johnny Winter59. Big Joe Williams60. Missippi Fred McDowell61. Slim Harpo62. Etta James63. Tommy Johnson64. Big Walter Horton65. Sippie Wallace66. Amos Milburn67. Bobby Blue Bland68. Victoria Spivey69. Otis Rush70. Gus Cannon71. Sunnyland Sims72. Magic Sam73. Memphis Slim74. Willie Brown75. John Mayall76. Big Maybelle77. Champion Jack Dupree78. Johnny Shines79. Julia Lee80. Josh White81. Sister Rosetta Tharpe82. J B Hutto83. Jesse Fuller84. Eric Clapton85. Blind Willie McTell86. Eddie Taylor87. Peatie Wheatstraw88. Wynonie Harris89. Meade Lux Lewis90. Jimmy Rushing91. Taj Mahal92. KoKo Taylor93. Charles Musselwhite94. Luther Allison95. Frank "Son" Seals96. Honeyboy Edwards97. Ruth Brown98. Barbecue Bob99. Johnny Ace100. James Cotton

Louis Armstrong

1901-1971, New Orleans

KC, K

John Coltrane, 1926-67

Hamlet, NC

Thelonious Monk, 1917-82

Rocky Mount, NC

Dizzy Gillespie

1917-1993

Cheraw, SC

Miles Davis

1926-1991

Alton, Ill & E. St. Louis

Billie Holiday

Philadelphia

Nina Simone1933-2003

Tryon, NC

Big Mama Thornton, 1926-1984Montgomery, AL

Hound Dog

Elvis, 1935-1977Tupelo, MS

Where it all comes from…The blues, a form of music that seems as ancient as the emotions it conveys, is actually less than a hundred years old. Sometime in the mists of the late 1890s, somewhere in the South, some unknown singer (or singers) first settled on the now-familiar three-line verse, with its AAB rhyme scheme and its line length of five stressed syllables, e.g.:

Hitch up my pony, saddle up my black mare, Hitch up my pony, saddle up my black mare, I’m gonna find a rider, baby, in the world somewhere. (Charlie Patton, “Pony Blues”)

The Genius of the Blues, Luc Sante

In 1903, W.C. Handy, dozing in the depot in Tutwiler, Mississippi, while waiting for a train that was nine hours late, was awakened by a ragged black man playing “the weirdest music I had ever heard,” fretting his guitar with a knife to produce an eerie, sliding wail, and singing about “goin’ where the Southern cross the Dog,” i.e., matter-of-factly describing his impending journey to Moorhead, Mississippi. A year earlier Ma Rainey was working a tent show in Missouri when “a girl from town” turned up to sing a “strange and poignant” song that galvanized the audience. When asked what kind of song it was, she said, “It’s the Blues.” Around the same time or a bit earlier Jelly Roll Morton, in New Orleans, heard a piano player and sometime prostitute named Mamie Desdoumes sing a lament that was clearly a blues:

I stood on the corner, my feet was dripping wet,

I asked every man I met…

Can’t you give me a dollar, give me a lousy dime,

Just to feed that hungry man of mine…

White and Black Geography

of American Music

Country Music Rules

Hank Williams, 1923-1953, Mt. Olive, AL

Lovesick Blues

Merle Haggard, 1937, Oildale, CA

Workin’ Man Blues

George Jones, 1931, Saratoga, TX

Things have gone to pieces

Waylon Jennings, 1937-2002, Littlefield, TX

Willie Nelson, 1933, Arkansas to Abbott, TX

Patsy Cline, 1932-1963Winchester, VA

Loretta Lynn, 1932Butcher Holler near Paintsville, KY

Dolly Parton, 1946, Sevierville, TN