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Cultural products have significant importance because they bear distinctiveness, ethics/principles and facilitate a society to move on and progress both economically and socially. When people belonging to a particular culture make efforts for the preservation and promotion of their cultural diversity, it encourages the development of cultural industries (Horkheimer, Adorno & Noerr 95). As far as United States of America is concerned, the society here has been influenced by various cultural forms (musical style, film genre, media technology etc.) from a number of other countries and cultures. In this paper, Blues music would be discussed and explored as being one of the musical styles that has influenced the consumers in the United States who have adapted the mentioned genre and the values embedded in it.
It is not an untold secret that African Americans are “people whose self-definition is the most restricted by conventional attitudes in the United States of America” (Fox). Yet, their culture has influenced the Americans in the most significant ways. Blues is one of the most well-known music genres that were initially introduced by the African-American communities (“Blues Music”). It can be simply described as the slow Jazz song that typically expresses sorrow for a love affair that didn’t conclude glowingly. Blues is the secular form of folk music of the 20th century. The African-Americans have dominated it for a very long period of time. It has a rich history of progress and expansion and is connected with Jazz now and again. From inexplicable, misty and principally undocumented country origins of the United States of America, Blues became the most comprehensively recorded music. It has developed and advanced socially and the transformations have helped the music in the reorganization of its nature in more lingering modes (Nichols).
Since the earlier 1960s, Blues has inflicted a fundamental and most significant influence on the improvement and expansion of popular music in the United States of America. It is important to mention here that a number of other musical genres including rock ‘n’ roll have been influenced by the Blues and various rock ‘n’ roll artists adapted the Blues music in songs in its initial times.
The style of the Blues genre is under the influence of the Blacks’ slavery and the torments this community suffered. However, not only did the slaves were successful in maintaining their African vocal traditions but they also help their Christian beliefs. In this way, they were able to amalgamate African beats with the accounts of holy Gospel. When Blues is sung, a majority of them have a call-and-response. The music world is a witness to the eventual evolution of Blues. In America, the Blues is responsible for bringing various instruments into use “responding to social developments and taking on more formality and structure” (“Blues Music”).
In USA, the slaves, especially the people of color, had to suffer brutal treatment. Such hardships consequently led to the development of freedom of expression through music as it relieved them out of their miserable feelings. The primary fundamental Blues constituted of 3-line field shout structure and church spirituals. Many work songs consisted of the murmurs/rumbles and movements of the labor-intensive tasks and hard work. If truth be told, it was the work structure that hammered itself into the rhythmic composition of the Blues. On the other hand, the black speech patterns also brought changes in the form of this music sophisticatedly. Following the Civil War and freedom, the African-Americans started travelling all through the United States of America and thus began the sharing of music in an inescapable way (Nichols 160).
Previously, the slaves had composed their songs about freedom and independence. However, those who were granted liberation after the Civil War started singing about the issues and dilemma they expected to face while seeking employment for earning money. This was the start of a period when “Blues music took on a personal quality, telling stories of everyday individuals that was unprecedented in original African music” (“Blues Music”). Thus, Blues became the major form of expressiveness and eloquence for both males and females that were not provided their due share in the American society as individuals. The Mississippi Delta that is also the rural south of the United States of America became the main ground for the evolution and development of the Blues despite the fact that the blacks travelled all through United States.
Regardless of the fact that the blues was said to involve quite a lot of spiritual themes, it was given the status of secular music. It is also recognized by many as "the devil's music." In United States of America, it gained much popularity in the early 20th century. William C. Handy (composer/song writer) is considered the “Father of the Blues”. Country blues, Delta blues and Memphis blues derived from their relevant regions during the 1920s and 1930s. These mentioned forms of Blues made use of a variety of instruments and sounds that differed. Musicians who gained fame during this period include “Bo Carter, Blind Lemon Jefferson, Tampa Red, Blind Blake, Sylvester Weaver, Robert Johnson, Blind Willie McTell, Blind Boy Fuller, Frank Stokes, Robert Wilkins and Casey Bill Weldon” (“Blues Music”).
With the passage of time, more and more African-Americans started migrating to cities like Chicago. Due to this movement and increase in the number of Blacks, blues genre was born in the urban areas. All this discussion is open evidence that the American culture got deeply influenced by the Blues genre that was distinctively a unique style of Black people. All through the Prohibition period, the Blues musicians and instrumentalists used to play in the honky-tonky part of the urban areas. Over the period of 1930s and 1940s, boogie-woogie music that was dependent on a piano turned out as a renowned music mantra. However, big-band Blues and Jump Blues later took over that form of music. By this time, more and more Blacks had permanently settled in the urban areas after migration from countryside. They spread all over the United States of America and the society witnessed amplification in the instruments. As a consequence, the American nation heard a more conventional form of blues. In the 1950s, the expression "rhythm and blues" awakened the sense of modern-day blues. R&B turned out to be the most important genre of music in the United States of America and is presently acknowledged as the predecessor of rock and roll music (“Blues Music”).
The Blues emerged out as the most fundamental constituent of the world of commercial trendy music all over the planet. In the contemporary era of today, Blues music is being adopted and revolutionized by those who are not Blacks. In other words, most of the Blues cultivators today are the whites all over the United States of America. As far as the musicians of Blues genre are concerned, this kind of music is now not only played by the Blacks but whites are also equally responsible in making this music popular all over the world. It cannot only be considered as the most important component of the musical expression of the African-Americans alone. To cut a long story short, Blues has been that music genre that is truly influential in every sense. It is related to a distinctive ethnic and racial diversity. Having an African-American origin, this genre is connected to deep human emotions.
If truth be told, Blues is a symbol of a culture that managed to survive in prosperous and worst times. According to a number of musicologists, Blues can be truly linked with the traditions that prevail in both Europe and Africa. It is correctly entitled by Robert Palmer as a Black-American creation. In fact, Blues delivered a message to the people, by the people, for the people. It turned out to be that form of music that took many adaptations. Blues was invented by one of the most marginalized population in the United States of America. Though the country has achieved the position of a global superpower, it is a fact that the minorities in the historic America did go through various difficulties. Blues has now been torn from the culture where it was born. In the present times, the contemporary Blues singers have re-envisioned and re-construed this genre of music in a number of modern contexts. The music has taken the form of a paradox. Still today, it is considered a dominant artistic achievement created in an isolated and manipulative society. According to Leon Wynter, the coming times are “not about black people leading black people,” but “about black people leading all Americans” (as qtd. in Andersen).
References
Andersen, K. "Pop Culture in the Age of Obama." The New York Times. N.p., 5 Aug. 2009. Web. 27 Jan. 2014. <http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/09/books/review/Andersen-t.html?_r=2&>.
"Blues Music." Questia. N.p., n.d. Web. 26 Jan. 2014. <http://www.questia.com/library/music-and-performing-arts/music/music-genres-and-styles/blues-music>.
Fox, G. "Imagining a Nation." The University of Arizona. N.p., n.d. Web. 26 Jan. 2014. <http://www.uapress.arizona.edu/catalogs/dlg_show_excerpt.php?id=1056&title=Hispanic+Nation&subtitle=Culture,+Politics,+and+the+Constructing+of+Identity&author=Geoffrey+Fox>.
Horkheimer, Max, Adorno, T. W., and Noerr, G. Dialectic of enlightenment: philosophical fragments. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 2002. Print.
Nichols, Stephen J. Getting the Blues: What Blues Music Teaches Us About Suffering And Salvation. Grand Rapids, MI: Brazos Press, 2008. Print.
