The influence of Black artists and musicians is present throughout all aspects of American culture. In honor of Black Music Month, we embarked on a journey to explore how Black music impacted not only key moments in history, but also the artists and songs that we listen to today borrowing from the teachings of our Blues SchoolHouse program. You can’t enjoy the Rhythm and ignore The Blues.
Throughout the course of North American history, black musicians have drawn from their African heritage and borrowed from outside sources to create a variety of musical genres that have generated interest from multiracial audiences, weakening interracial barriers. Along the way music has served to both perpetuate and dispel negative or simplistic stereotypes of African Americans. The history of African American music illustrates an ongoing cultural interaction between African Americans and European Americans from the colonial period through the twentieth century.
Through a constant exchange of material, styles, and instrumentation, black and white Americans forged a pluralistic and distinctly American musical culture that survived despite a prevailing institutional racism that discouraged cultural interaction. The advent of mass media in the twentieth century resulted in a general breakdown of social, cultural, and regional barriers that exposed diverse audiences to black musical styles, catapulting African American music into the cultural mainstream.
Roots and Foundations
Our legacy is rooted in the blues. The music we all enjoy today is rooted in the blues. Blues was born out of the oppression, struggle, hope, and resistance experienced by African Americans in the late 1800s. Pioneers of the blues included artists Robert Johnson, whose influence is heard in many of today’s legendary guitarists; and Bessie Smith, the Empress of the Blues, who boldly sang classic blues and established roots for the forthright expressions of womanhood in music.
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Rhythm and blues was the soundtrack to an important time in America’s evolution. The emergence of R&B traces back to African- Americans moving from the rural south to cities between 1916-1960. Black music started to reflect urban environments through amplified sounds, social concerns, and cultural pride expressed through music. It combined blues, jazz, boogie-woogie and gospel taking the form of fast paced dance music with highly energized guitar work appealing to young audiences across racial divides. Key figures of the time included Ruth Brown, also known as the Queen of R&B, whose signature high-note “squeak” was later emulated by Little Richard.
By the end of the 1950s, R&B laid the foundation for rock ‘n’ roll. The genre names were simply designations used by the commercial music industry to describe how the music was marketed to black vs white audiences.
The 1960s: A Decade of Transformation
The 1960s was a time of great turbulence and change. The Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act were passed during the 1960s and there was an emphasized pride in Black heritage. With the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr, major uprisings, and the Vietnam War, music reflected the country’s anxiety around social and political issues that were raging across the nation.
Soul combined elements of blues and gospel with a driving bass line and percussive energy. The undeniable Queen of Soul, Aretha Franklin, took soul to a new level and inspired generations of singers who came after her. In addition to being one of the best-selling artists of all time, she was deeply involved in the Civil Rights Movement and her voice helped the nation through troubling times.
Music continued to evolve through the 1960s and funk originated with James Brown’s development of a signature groove that emphasized the downbeat and focused on the strong rhythmic groove of the bassline. George Clinton and his Parliament-Funkadelic collective developed an influential and eclectic form of funk in the 70s that drew on science fiction, outlandish fashion, and psychedelia. Along with James Brown and Sly Stone, Clinton is known as one of the foremost innovators of funk music and was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1997 and in 2019 received the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award.
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Soul Music: The Sound of Black America
Soul music was partially the result of the urbanization and commercialization of rhythm and blues in the 1960s. Soul came to describe a number of R & B-based music styles. From the bouncy, catchy acts from Motown Records to the horn-driven, gritty soul of Stax/Volt Records, there was an immense amount of diversity within soul. During the first part of the ’60s, soul music remained close to its R & B roots. However, musicians from different regions of America pushed the music in different directions.
In urban centers like New York, Philadelphia, St. Louis, Memphis, and Chicago, the music concentrated on vocal interplay and smooth productions. In Detroit, Motown Records concentrated on creating a pop-oriented sound that was informed equally by gospel, R & B, and rock & roll. In the South, the music became harder and tougher, relying on syncopated rhythms, raw vocals, and blaring horns. Aretha Franklin, the “Queen of Soul,” reigned during this period, establishing herself as one of the greatest artists of all time.
All of these styles formed soul, which ruled the black music charts throughout the ’60s and also frequently “crossed over” into the pop charts. As with swing and rock and roll, dance was a big part of genre’s success among both black and white Americans. At the end of the ’60s, soul began to splinter, as artists like James Brown and Sly Stone developed funk, and other artists developed slicker forms of soul.
Funk: The Evolution of Rhythm
Funk was inspired by soul music, jazz, and African grooves. Soul music helped originate funk music by adding strong rhythm to it, and disco was later influenced by funk. Common instruments included electric guitar, electric bass, drums, and electric piano, and sometimes synthesizers, trumpets, trombones, and other small percussion instruments were used. Big acts included James Brown, Aretha Franklin, Stevie Wonder, Donna Summer, Kool and the Gang, Earth, Wind & Fire, and Prince.
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Motown: A Sound That United America
Motown was inspired by blues music, but with more rhythm added in. This style was named after Motown Records, whose goal was to feature African American musicians. Motown musicians include Diana Ross and the Supremes, The Temptations, Martha and the Vandellas, The Miracles, The Four Tops, the Jackson 5, and Marvin Gaye.
Milestones in African American Music
The commercialization of American music through radio and records in the 1920s exposed black and white audiences to a wide range of African-influenced musical styles, and promoters and performers of this music often sought to enhance their appeal by embracing racial stereotypes. Record companies marketed various black folk styles under the category of “race” music, and radio stations catering to black audiences (but attracting white ones as well) proliferated throughout the South and in urban areas in the North. Black migration to northern cities skyrocketed during World War II, resulting in a mixing of musical styles in urban ghettoes that produced a diverse body of music ranging from the gospel of Mahalia Jackson to the electric blues of Muddy Waters and John Lee Hooker.
The United States’ ongoing obsession with jazz through World War II nurtured an ongoing white fascination with African American culture. In the late 1940s and early 1950s, black rhythm and blues enjoyed increasing popularity among white teenagers economically empowered by postwar prosperity. Less cerebral than bebop jazz and less “ethnic” than electric blues, this hybridized, dance-oriented music provided a sound track for the emerging youth culture of mobility and independence. From this culture emerged rock and roll, a culmination of generations of exchange between black and white southern folk music.
The arrival of rock and roll in the American mainstream both symbolized and influenced the changing course of race relations in the United States of the 1950s: Many popular early rock-and-roll performers were African American, and white rockabilly artists such as Elvis Presley openly affected black speech and mannerisms. Early rock-and-roll package tours were interracial and played to interracial audiences. White middle-class objections to the racial liberalism and subtle sexuality of rock and roll created a backlash against the music in the late 1950s that coincided with a white backlash against school desegregation. Yet rock and roll had already broken down barriers that had been weakening for generations.
The explosion of rock and roll in the 1960s catapulted African American music and artists into the mainstream of American culture. By mid-decade, Quincy Jones had become the first African American record label executive, and the distinctive sound of a black-owned record label, Motown, permeated the airwaves of AM radio. The atmosphere of experimentation that defined late-1960s popular culture encouraged a multicultural creative environment in which various styles clashed and merged and interracial groups such as the Jimi Hendrix Experience, Sly and the Family Stone, and Santana symbolized the openness and youth-oriented solidarity of the counterculture. The experimental mind-set of the 1960s combined with a new black consciousness brought new black musical genres to prominence in the 1970s, from rock-influenced fusion and funk to Afro-Caribbean styles such as dub (a precursor of rap), ska, and reggae, a mixture of calypso and New Orleans rhythm and blues that evoked millennialist religion and black separatism in its lyrics. Meanwhile, the mainstream of black music was dominated by vocal rhythm and blues, which retained much of its early style while incorporating contemporary musical and social themes. From the lighter side of funk and rhythm and blues emerged disco, a predominantly white cultural phenomenon that nevertheless reflected the social diversity of the urban club scene, garnering special appeal among Latino and gay American communities.
Here is a table summarizing key milestones in African American music history:
| Year | Event | Impact |
|---|---|---|
| 1619 | First African slaves arrive in colonial America | Slaves bring African musical styles to the New World. Their vocal tradition is preserved in work songs and spirituals. |
| 1871 | Fisk Jubilee Singers tour United States, Europe | Nine-member choir of black youth popularizes African American spirituals, raises $150,000 to found Fisk University. |
| 1899 | “Maple Leaf Rag” published | Ragtime peaks in popularity following the publication of this Scott Joplin composition. |
| 1912 | “St. Louis Blues” published | Classically trained musician W. C. |
| 1984 | Purple Rain, album and feature film by Prince, released | Self-produced project by black artist attracts a racially mixed audience, influencing the burgeoning music video industry. |
