by Kip Lornell
Otis Redding stepped forth as the quintessence of male southern soul singing. Following a career that included stints as a vocalist with various R&B bands, a frustrating career singing imitations of Little Richard, and washing cars, Redding hit it big in 1962. Like Elvis Presley nearly ten years before him, he got his break in a Memphis recording studio. But Redding was in the Stax studio, his second home until an airplane crash took his life on December 10, 1967. During this five-year period Redding recorded hit after hit in the soul idiom. Several of his recordings, “Respect,” “Try a Little Tenderness,” “Sitting on the Dock of the Bay,” and “I’ve Been Loving You Too Long,” became identified with Redding. Interestingly, others originated from some unlikely sources: the Rolling Stones’ “Satisfaction” and Bing Crosby’s “Try a Little Tenderness.”
Redding’s singing is instantly recognizable, unmistakable, and springs directly from his southern black ancestry. All soul singers owe debts to blues singers like Bessie Smith, Peetie Wheatstraw, and B. B. King, but Otis Redding was particularly close to the gospel tradition. Like the great gospel soloists, he had great control over the dynamics in his voice and enjoyed playing with subtle rhythmic shifts to vary his message. Redding had also mastered other techniques—mellismas, rasping, chanted interpolations—heard every Sunday in African American churches and familiar to black Americans across the United States.
As mainstream popular black music, soul lasted about eight years longer than Otis Redding. Other Stax artists such as Sam and Dave and Carla Thomas had major hits on both the soul (black) and pop (white) Billboard charts. Curtis Mayfield, who was involved in the gospel and civil rights movement, emerged as one of the important socially aware black music voices during the late 1960s. In the early 1970s the Gamble and Huff soft-soul sound of the O’Jays, Spinners, and Herald Melvin and the Blue Notes shifted the focus to Philadelphia but by mid-decade funk and disco had supplanted soul music as the predominate form of black pop.
HIP-HOP AND RAP
Hip-hop refers to contemporary black music and culture. It emerged from the urban, black, and largely male-dominated culture—from the streets of New York, Detroit, and Los Angeles. Hip-hop began as a purely “black thing” and remained that way for several years before the mass media and mainstream white culture discovered it. Rap, the most tangible product of hip-hop, caught most people’s attention and caused the greatest controversy.
Rap music itself results from the hybridization of folk and popular trends. It materialized nationwide in the early 1980s and has made extensive use of the technological aspects (twelve-inch singles, scratching, electronic sounds, and dance remixes) that place it solidly within the popular realm. The funk style gained popularity in the early and middle 1970s, but rap slowly moved in to supplant soul as the next major force in black popular music.
This music was first heard in black clubs and discotheques in New York City in the middle 1970s when DJs began talking and chanting over highly syncopated instrumental tracks by Funkadelic, Chic, Parliament, and other funk artists. Think of a song like “One Nation Under a Groove” by Funkadelic or George Clinton’s “Do Fries Go with That Shake” and you have quintessential cosmic funk as it was heard across the country in the middle 1970s. Its most immediate musical precedent, however, is the “toasting” style pioneered by Jamaican disc jockeys in the 1960s who recited simple rhymes, political poems, and plain doggerel over a prerecorded track. American blacks were exposed to toasting in the Caribbean clubs of Brooklyn and the South Bronx. By the late 1970s the Sugar Hill Gang, Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five, and Soul Sonic Force were selling their ten-inch “dance mix” singles in black and gay clubs throughout New York City. Within a few years major record companies had stepped in and even white pop artists such as Blondie got into the act.
Go-Go record promotional flyer. Courtesy of Kip Lornell.
Rap quickly moved into America’s cultural mainstream. Break dancing became popular among black and white kids throughout the United States. The year 1984 saw the release of two films, Breakdance and Beat Street, evolving around this urban musical culture.
Local permutations, such as go-go, a mixture of funk and rap, remain popular in Washington, D.C. Go-go artists like Chuck Brown, Trouble Funk, Little Benny, The Huck-A-Bucks, and Experience Unlimited engage their audience in antiphonal style, much like a Pentecostal church service: “Do you want to get down?” “Let’s get down, let’s get down!”
Part of the controversy regarding rap revolves around the political and sexual nature of the lyrics, which are often seen as volatile, lewd, and misogynistic. These are traits that tie rap directly to black folk culture. Black protest songs are a long-standing part of black oral tradition that goes back to the time of slavery and continues into the work songs of the twentieth century. They tend to be sung or spoken rather than written about within the black community. Rap is simply the latest voice of protest that has been heard in Mississippi fields and the streets of Harlem for over two hundred years. The obscene lyrics are another part of black tradition that can be heard on blues records from the 1920s and in the toasts that most black males know. The same bragging and proud aesthetic of playing the dozens, an insult game heard throughout black America, though predominately among the young, has been transferred to rap.
Rap’s preoccupation with strongly syncopated accents and body percussion also has a strong, long-standing link to folk culture. Throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries most styles of black music held rhythmic interest in high esteem. Earlier manifestations include the fife and drum bands, washboards that are used to accompany blues singers and in zydeco bands, and the jaw bones that provided an accompaniment to black accordion players. Body percussion is tied to this aesthetic and is still seen today in children who play a game of hambone, during which they use both hands to slap their body in a pronounced, sometimes syncopated, duple meter and recite short rhymes. A standard opening line is “Hambone, hambone, where you been? Around the world and back again.” This verbal format also emphasizes that call (question) and response (answer) remains vitally important in black culture.
The technological aspects of rap, particularly sampling, provides another example of an earlier African American aesthetic at work. Sampling involves selecting a short piece of music, running it through a computer or synthesizer, and then inserting it into your own rap. Sometimes it is a distinctive phrase or a loop that plays over and over again. Contemporary artists usually sample older styles of black music (James Brown is a particular favorite), thus using an oral means of infusing older styles with rap. Part of rap’s creativity stems from a synthesis that is based upon the black American musical legacy.
Rap gained its greatest controversy through its association with street life and violence. Notorious B.I.G., Tupac, NWA, and other rappers came up from the streets and their background is clearly delineated in their music, which is identified with guns, drugs, and other less savory aspects of urban black life. Obscenity is another related issue. Aside from the famous trial of Luther Campbell for his use of obscenities in Florida, there is the issue of censorship by record companies. These major companies, all of which are ultimately owned by three multinational corporations, routinely issue expurgated compact discs for general consumption and for radio air play, while simultaneously putting the uncensored version in the marketplace. Record companies use the euphemistic terms “clean version” and “explicit lyrics” in the Grammy Awards Guide monthly catalogue of new releases, but it is a long-standing battle in the record industry that goes back to the era of race records. The more things change, the more things stay the same.
COUNTRY MUSIC TODAY
Perhaps as a backlash to what is perceived as the continuing commercialization of contemporary country music (Nashville style), there has been a movement back to its earlier days. Today’s commercial country music stations may have carved out their own niche, with a play list that is distinctive from their rock counterparts, but the music is far m
ore akin than it once was. An artist such as Jewel receives a great deal of attention from the pop music pundits and the general press and occasionally a country artist will cross over into the world of rock.
An “alternative country” scene, with feet and ears firmly planted in all types of music—mostly rootsy regional country styles such as western swing, string band music, and honky-tonk—exists on the commercial fringes. In the mid-1990s groups like Uncle Tupelo, the Bad Livers, and the Old 97s explored the earlier byways of country music, creating a movement that sounded simultaneously neo and progressive. The little edge of commercial country music is sometimes called “No Depression” in honor of Uncle Tupelo’s influential recording of “No Depression in Heaven.” Some of the more rock-oriented members of these bands spun off into more pop groups like Son Volt and Wilco, both of which enjoyed success outside of the country music axis.
Nonetheless, country music is clearly aware of its roots, though it pays more lip service than actual hommage to its creators. The country music business establishment acknowledges the importance of Jimmie Rodgers, the Carter Family, Bob Wills, and a handful of other pioneers in shaping its sound. Today’s country music stars—Garth Brooks, Shania Twain, the Dixie Chicks, or George Strait—have a strong sense of things past, though it seems directed toward the heroes of honky-tonk like George Jones. The next tier down in popularity, artists like Ricky Scaggs and Marty Stuart, have an even stronger and more direct sense of the earlier days. Both men clearly love genres like bluegrass and western swing and Stuart, in particular, is a respected collector of instruments, records, and other artifacts of country music history back to the 1920s. Dolly Parton fits into this category as well. Her first release in 2001 was a bluegrass album, released on the Sugar Hill label. Despite this respect, the future of contemporary country music appears to be orientated toward popular mass culture, rather than its idealized rural heritage.
FINAL THOUGHTS
Although we live in a postmodern world and new millennium marked by rapid musical and cultural change, our roots are never entirely obscured. The trends in popular music have become increasingly fleeting, ephemeral, but also more diverse as we become a more global society via the Internet and other means of wireless communication. Nonetheless, the latest musical revolution is always informed by whatever proceeded it, and two dynamic, energetic, and emotional forms of black folk music that emerged in the twentieth century—blues and gospel—continue to have a strong impact on popular music. Some of the musical and stylistic traits they developed, most importantly the blues form itself, their reliance upon syncopated rhythms, and certain vocal techniques, have become so inculcated in late-twentieth-century pop music that we tend to forget from where they come. At one time, they were truly bred in the bone; now they are passed along through other, equally important, means.
KEY FIGURES AND TERMS
B-Boy
clowning
Fats Domino
the dozens
go-go
hip-hop
improvisation
Louis Jordan
Memphis
Motown
New Orleans
Sam Phillips
Elvis Presley
R&B
Otis Redding
Little Richard
rockabilly
sampling
soul
Sun Records
SUGGESTED LISTENING
B-52s. Time Capsule. Reprise 46920. A retrospective of the group’s lengthy career that includes some of their most fun selections–“Rock Lobster,” “Love Shack,” and “Party Out Of Bounds.”
Billy Bragg & Wilco. Mermaid Avenue. WEA/Elektra Entertainment. A fascinating collaboration in which these men take unpublished Woody Guthrie lyrics and put them in a contemporary (though thoroughly roots-oriented) musical context.
James Brown. Star Time. Polydor 849 108-4. Five hours of classic R&B/soul from the late 1960s and 1970s by the “hardest working man in show business.”
Freddy Fender. Interpreta El Rock. Arhoolie CD 9039. Originally released (circa 1962) as an album on the small Ideal label, these wild recordings meld rock ’n’ roll with musics from the Mexican border into what might be called Tex-Mex Garage Rock.
Son Volt. VH-1 Crossroads. WEA/Atlantic. This enhanced compact disc includes a wide range of original material and “guest artists,” such as K.D. Lang and Blues Traveler.
Wilco. Summer Teeth. WEA/Warner Brothers. A pop-oriented effort (somewhat in the vein of Big Star and Alex Chilton) by perhaps the strongest of the roots rockers.
Lucinda Williams. Ramblin’. Smithsonian Folkways 40092. The earliest (and most folk-based) recordings by this popular artist, which was initially released on Folkways in 1979.
Various. The Complete Stax/Volt Singles 1959–1968. Rhino 21801. A multi-CD boxed set that samples the mid-South soul sound of the mid- to late 1960s.
Various. Four Decades of Folk Rock. Time Life Records. From the 1960s into the 2000s, this nicely illustrated set of four compact discs does a good job of surveying the field from Bob Dylan to Son Volt.
Various. Get Hot or Go Home: Vintage RCA Rockabilly 1956–59. Country Music Foundation 014. A double set that covers the genre quite nicely and comes with an illustrated eight-page booklet.
Various. The R & B Box: 30 Years of Rhythm & Blues. Rhino 71806. Six carefully selected compact discs that cut across labels make this the best overview of R&B from 1943 till 1973.
Various. Sun Rockabilly—The Classic Recordings. Rounder SS-37. A set that, in fact, contains the classic Sun rockabilly performances by Billy Lee Riley, Warren Smith, Malcolm Yellvington, and other mid-South musicians.
SUGGESTED READING
Michael T. Bertrand. Race, Rock, and Elvis. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2005. Bertrand explores the complicated intersections of the mid-South in the 1950s that touches upon the civil rights movement, independent record companies, and youth culture.
Nelson George. The Death of Rhythm & Blues. New York: Pantheon Press, 1988. Although it focuses on the 1960s through the 1980s, this book reviews the changes in black popular music since the 1930s in light of the white-dominated music industry.
Robert Gordon. It Came From Memphis. New York: Faber & Faber, 1995. An idiosyncratic, insiders look at the transformation of regional and folk music in the mid-South and Memphis into contemporary popular music by way of rockabilly.
Peter Guralnick. Last Train to Memphis: The Rise of Elvis Presley. New York: Little, Brown, 1994. A masterful examination of Presley’s life and times through 1958, the author also looks at the roots (blues and country, in particular) of the King’s musical style. This is the first of a two-volume biography.
Peter Guralnick. Lost Highways: Journeys & Arrivals of American Musicians. Boston: David R. Grodine, 1979. A series of thoughtful essays covering blues, country, and rock performers from the 1940s through the 1960s.
Greil Marcus. Mystery Train: Images of America in Rock ’n’ Roll Music, 5th edition. New York: Plume, 2008. Marcus writes provocatively and insightfully about the role of Robert Johnson, The Band, and Elvis Presley in American grassroots and popular culture.
Craig Morrison. Go Cat Go! Rockabilly Music and Its Makers . Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1996. The definitive scholarly history of rockabilly music from its Memphis origins through its various revivals.
Gerry Naylor. The Rockabilly Legends: They Called It Rockabilly Long Before It Was Called Rock ’n’ Roll. Milwaukee, WI: Hal Leonard Books, 2007. Certainly not the final word, but a useful recounting of the genre, which mostly focuses on 1954–59 and familiar names such as Presley, Cash, and Orbison.
Nick Tosches. Unsung Heroes of Rock ’n’ Roll. New York: Scribner’s, 1984. Poignant and humorous views of some of the less known and sometimes outrageous pioneers of the idiom.
SUGGESTED VIEWING
Chuck Berry: Hail! Hail! Rock ’N’ Roll. MCA. This is a detailed, popularized documentary about the grassroots rock ’n’
roller, which features wonderful concert footage and lots of Eric Clapton, Keith Richards, and other blues-influenced musicians.
James Brown Live in America. Rhino. Basically a concert performance, this is a vintage and exciting program by one of the most influential R&B/soul singers.
Various. The American Folk Blues Festival 1962–1966, Vol. 1 (1962). Regional Music & Music Distribution 75009. The first in an extensive series of DVD issues covering groups of touring American blues and folk musicians that included Muddy Waters, Otis Rush, and John Lee Hooker, who directly influenced British rock artists such as Eric Clapton and Mick Jagger.
Various. Blue Suede Shoes: A Rockabilly Session. MCA. Dave Edmunds, Eric Clapton, and others help to recreate the rockabilly music that influenced them in this informal film.
Various. The History of Rock ’n’ Roll. Time Life. This ten-volume set encompasses the music’s historical development, though the first two volumes—“Rock ’n’ Roll Explodes” and “Good Rockin’ Tonight”—are the most relevant to this chapter.
Various. Let the World Listen Right. DarSan Productions/Folkstreams.net. The musical intersections (hip-hop, blues, and gospel, in particular) found in Mississippi in the early twenty-first century are the subjects of this modest film.
Various. Style Wars. Public Arts Films/Folkstreams.net. This 1983 film looks at the roots of hip-hop culture, including its many traditional, improvised arts.
Various. The Music District. California Newsreel/Folkstreams.net. Local filmmaker Susan Levitas documents three genres of black music in Washington, D.C., gospel quartet singing, go-go, and the stirring sounds of the brass bands emanating from the United House of Prayer for All People.