Re: [Harp-L] blues history

["Chris Michalek" <chris@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

I didn't do my research before I posted but I took an college level african music course a while ago and the professor said Blues and Funk is really JuJu and Hilife music. One musician or the other could step into each others' show and his/her music chops would work.



>-----Original Message-----
>From: Jonathan Ross [mailto:jross38@xxxxxxxxxxx]
>Sent: Saturday, July 22, 2006 06:45 AM
>To: harp-l@xxxxxxxxxx
>Subject: [Harp-L] blues history
>
>There's been a lot of talk about the history and origins of the  
>blues.  In no particular order here goes.
>
>Chris M. wrote:
>
>"Blues evolved from JuJu and Hilife music in western african. In fact  
>the evolution is very slight as even the older forms of JuJu sound  
>like contemporary blues and funk.  The blues was not born in the  
>rural southern US it was brought here and forced to be perfomed on  
>primitve and otherwise makeshift instruments that were given to the  
>slaves to keep them happy."
>
>Considering that JuJu and Highlife are contemporary forms which  
>evolved in the 20th century, somehow I doubt this.  Blues has some  
>similar traits with the griot (primarily Manding) traditions, but is  
>not simply the same thing in the US.  It can be hard to tell what  
>influenced what now, because there has been a great cross- 
>fertilization of African musics with African-American forms in the  
>20th century--and this is particularly hard in West Africa, which was  
>the origin of most Africans in the American slave trade.  But if you  
>look to the older traditions you can see some significant differences  
>between West Africa and the African-American southern musics--for  
>reasons I'll get into below.
>
>Paul LaBrier writes:
>
>"Look at it historically.  Go back to the origins of it.  You had
>primative roots music being played both by those of african and
>european decent."
>
>"Primitive"?  These were folk traditions, neither more or less  
>primitive than most folk musics found throughout the world.  The  
>primitive label is often used in comparison to the more harmonically  
>complex art-musics (be it jazz or "classical") but it is a poor term,  
>as there have always been complexities within folk musics which are  
>of a different type and form than harmonic complexity (structure,  
>rhythm, time, inflection, etc...).
>
>"The early roots music of european decent morphed into Country and
>Bluegrass and has nearly been lost.  The early roots music of african
>decent mutated into many other things too."
>
>First, last I checked country was quite popular and bluegrass doing  
>quite well.  Which says nothing about old-time and it's stunning  
>popularity vis-a-vis the "O Brother Where Art Though" soundtrack-- 
>which was bigger than the movie, it would seem.  Second, these were  
>not separate traditions.  White and black musics from the old south  
>are very difficult to tell apart simply by listening to recordings.   
>The South was horribly segregated, of course, but the cultural roots  
>of the poorer classes (who were the folk musicians) tended to be  
>rather mixed together and quite similar.  A good example is in the  
>Louisiana french traditions.  Here, Amade Ardoin(sp) is one of the  
>lynchpins of Cajun (white) music but he himself was a Creole (black)  
>and he also serves as an early exponent of zydeco.  It wasn't until  
>later changes in both that a more distinct color-based difference  
>evolved.  It is similar for white and black music throughout the  
>south--early forms are quite similar, with race-based distinctions  
>coming later.  Notably these distinctions seem to have evolved  
>coincident with the music recording industry in both cases.
>
>To say that the blues is "African" music or that country is  
>"European" ignores the reality that both originated in the culturally  
>mixed American South and that it is this blending which made Southern  
>American music so distinct from both the older traditions from which  
>they sprang.  A gross simplification could say that European  
>(primarily British) influences can be seen in the instrumentation and  
>the song structures (I-IV-V chords, for example, or the waltzes of  
>the French speakers in Louisiana) while African influences are  
>noticeable in the tonality (blue notes) and complex rhythmic  
>structures.  This is what made them distinct from the traditions  
>which came before in the countries of origins.  It is the amazing  
>cultural mix (despite the massive racism) which gave rise to the  
>forms which would later dominate American popular music, including  
>Jazz, Blues, Rock, Swing, Country and Bluegrass.  You just can't  
>separate things out and say this is "African" and this "European"--it  
>simply doesn't fit.
>
>Another interesting mix of culture in the South is bar-be-que.  Again  
>it shows a mix of both African and European origins and was (and is)  
>practiced by both the black and white populations.  Indeed, again  
>similarly to the early musical forms there is more variety regionally  
>than racially in terms of bar-be-que.
>
>
>
>  ()()    JR "Bulldogge" Ross
>()  ()   & Snuffy, too:)
>`----'
>
>
>
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