Cultural ideas influence on the chosen musical style
Cultural ideas influence on the chosen musical style
The 1990s saw a revival of the swing style. New swing bands released popular recordings and were featured as part of advertising campaigns and even at the Superbowl Half Time Show. Prominent bands of the decade include the Brian Setzer Orchestra, Cherry Poppin’ Daddies, Squirrel Nut Zippers (a personal favorite) , and Big Bad Voodoo Daddy.
Listen to some selections of music from the swing revival and compare the sound of this music to swing-era selections by Duke Ellington, Count Basie, Benny Goodman, Tommy Dorsey, Cab Calloway, and Glenn Miller. Note any differences/similarities in timbre, instrumentation, and groove, and musical forms. Most of the lyrics for music in the swing era were similar in theme to Tin Pan Alley songs. How do the lyrics of music from the swing revival of the 1990s differ from those in the Tin Pan Alley era?
500 word minimum.
SLO: Critically evaluate the influence of social, political, technological, and/or cultural ideas on the chosen musical style(s).
Cultural Influences on Music
The evolution of popular music in the United States in the 20th century was shaped by a myriad of cultural influences. Rapidly shifting demographics brought previously independent cultures into contact and also created new cultures and subcultures, and music evolved to reflect these changes. Among the most important cultural influences on music are migration, the evolution of youth culture, and racial integration.
Migration
One of the major cultural influences on the popular music industry over the past century is migration. In 1910, 89 percent of Black Americans still lived in the South, most of them in rural farming areas (Weingroff, 2011). Three years later, a series of disastrous events devastated the cotton industry. World cotton prices plummeted, a boll weevil beetle infestation destroyed large areas of crops, and in 1915, flooding destroyed many of the houses and crops of farmers along the Mississippi River. Already suffering from the restrictive “Jim Crow” laws that segregated schools, restaurants, hotels, and hospitals, Black sharecroppers began to look to the North for a more prosperous lifestyle.
Northern states were enjoying an economic boom as a result of an increased demand for industrial goods because of the war in Europe. They were also in need of labor because the war had slowed the rate of foreign immigration to Northern cities. Between 1915 and 1920, as many as 1 million Black individuals moved to Northern cities in search of jobs, closely followed by another million throughout the following decade (Nebraska Studies, 2010).
The mass exodus of Black farmers from the South became known as the Great Migration, and by 1960, 75 percent of all Black Americans lived in cities (Emerging Minds, 2005). The Great Migration had a huge impact on political, economic, and cultural life in the North, and popular music reflected this cultural change.
Figure 6.13
During the Great Migration, the 12 states in blue had the largest population growth of Black individuals, while the states in red had the 10 largest net losses (Martin).
Some of the Black individuals who moved to Northern cities came from the Mississippi Delta, home of the blues. The most popular destination was Chicago. Delta-born pianist Eddie Boyd later told Living Blues magazine, “I thought of coming to Chicago where I could get away from some of that racism and where I would have an opportunity to, well, do something with my talent…. It wasn’t peaches and cream, man, but it was a hell of a lot better than down there where I was born (Szatmary).” At first, the migrants brought their style of country blues to the city. Characterized by the guitar and the harmonica, the Delta blues was identified by its rhythmic structure and strong vocals.
Migrant musicians were heavily influenced by Delta blues musicians such as Charley Patton and legendary guitarist Robert Johnson. However, as the urban setting began to influence the migrants’ style, they started to record a hybrid of blues, vaudeville, and swing, including the boogie-woogie and rolling-bass piano. Mississippi-born guitarist Muddy Waters, who moved to Chicago in the early 1940s, revolutionized the blues by combining his Delta roots with an electric guitar and amplifier. He did so partly out of necessity, since he could barely make himself heard in crowded Chicago clubs with an acoustic guitar (Chicago Blues Guitar). Waters’s style was peppier and more buoyant than the sullen country blues.
His plugged-in electric blues became the hallmark of the Chicago blues style, influencing countless other musicians and creating the underpinnings of rock and roll. Other migrant bluesmen helped to create regional variations of the blues all around the country, including John Lee Hooker in Detroit, Michigan, and T-Bone Walker in Los Angeles, California.
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