Summary of Elijah Wald's Escaping the Delta

Everest Media

Description

Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book.
Sample Book Insights:
#1 The history of blues music is full of romantic foolishness. When did blues emerge. Popular entertainers were reborn as primitive voices from the dark and demonic Delta, and a music notable for its professionalism was recast as the heart-cry of a suffering people.
#2 The term blues has been used for a lot of different styles over the years. It has been used to describe the music filed in record stores as blues, but it has also been used to describe the music of Bessie Smith and B. B. King.
#3 The most common and influential definition of blues is the one used by the true modern arbiters of genre, the people who market music and file it in record stores. Through their good offices, blues has come to be generally understood as the range of music found in the blues section when we go shopping for CDs.
#4 The term blues was first used to describe the popular style of music played by Handy and the blues queens. It was expanded to include other, more or less related styles played by guitarists on the streets and farms of the deep South.

Sujets

• Musique
• Culture musicale
• Styles
• Genres
• Music
• Blues

Informations

• Publié par: Everest Media LLC
• Date de parution: 24 mai 2022
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9798822520189
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

Insights on Elijah Wald's Escaping the Delta
Contents Insights from Chapter 1 Insights from Chapter 2 Insights from Chapter 3
Insights from Chapter 1

#1

The history of blues music is full of romantic foolishness. When did blues emerge. Popular entertainers were reborn as primitive voices from the dark and demonic Delta, and a music notable for its professionalism was recast as the heart-cry of a suffering people.

#2

The term blues has been used for a lot of different styles over the years. It has been used to describe the music filed in record stores as blues, but it has also been used to describe the music of Bessie Smith and B. B. King.

#3

The most common and influential definition of blues is the one used by the true modern arbiters of genre, the people who market music and file it in record stores. Through their good offices, blues has come to be generally understood as the range of music found in the blues section when we go shopping for CDs.

#4

The term blues was first used to describe the popular style of music played by Handy and the blues queens. It was expanded to include other, more or less related styles played by guitarists on the streets and farms of the deep South.

#5

The more romantic view of the blues is that it was the heart-cry of poor, backcountry black folk. However, there have been many blues artists who have resented the image of the blues being the music of poor, backcountry black people.

#6

The term blues was not used to describe rural back-porch moans, but a new hot pop style performed by professionals in fine gowns and fancy suits. The older black music that survives in the recordings of people like Mississippi John Hurt only came to be marketed as blues later on.

#7

The blues was developed by Ma Rainey, a blues singer, and her husband, William Pa Rainey, a minstrel performer. They performed in circuses and vaudeville theaters throughout the southeastern United States.

#8

The first rural guitarists and singers began recording in the mid-1920s, and they were called blues singers. The music was a commercial choice designed to link them to the popular recordings of the blues queens.

#9

The mainstream perception of the early blues boom is completely out of sync with the facts. The most influential and acclaimed stars of the period were often belittled or ignored by later writers and fans.

#10

The first published blues was a song called I Got the Blues, which appeared in New Orleans in 1908. It was described on its cover as An Up-to-Date Rag.

#11

The first blues record was made in 1914, when the Victor Military Band cut a version of Handy’s Memphis Blues. By the end of the decade, there were dozens of vocal blues on the market, and a couple of artists were even making a specialty of the style.

#12

The white blues singers of the 1950s and 60s, such as Harris and Bernard, were significant figures in their time. They made blues-inflected songs a mainstay of their careers, but they were also celebrated for their mastery of Negro dialect songs.

#13

The first white blues singers were often vaudeville performers who wanted to promote the songs of other songwriters. They were very appreciative of the white blues singers, and many white bands were more receptive to their work than their black counterparts.

#14

The history of the blues as popular music is not the same as its history as black cultural expression. The music first emerged as a black, Southern style, but was later marketed to a black market.

#15

The importance of Smith’s first release, Down Hearted Blues, has been overstated. While her voice was magnificent, she was a little tentative and lacked the eloquent command of the lyric that Hunter had.

#16

The appeal of blues artists like Bessie Smith and Ma Rainey was not just their singing, but their showmanship as well. They were practiced professionals with many years of stage experience, and they presented themselves not as pure, down-home blueswomen, but as successful stars.

#17

The gospel show is a great example of how the truth and soulfulness of a performer is supported by broad, self-conscious theater. Gospel stars continue to surround themselves with the flashing lights and rolling bass drums, and the gaudy array of gold and diamonds, which a more urbane performer might consider cheap.

#18

The history of the blues has been skewed in the popular imagination. While there were many female blues singers who were popular during the 1920s, the music’s biggest stars were always the blues queens.

#19

Papa Charlie Jackson, a street musician from Chicago, was the first country-style blues star. His most enduring number was Salty Dog Blues, a comic ragtime piece that sold not only to blues fans, but also to minstrel novelties fans.

#20

The 1920s and 1930s saw the rise of a new type of black recording star: the blues singer. These artists were a complete departure from the previous black recording stars, and were intended to appeal to a different market.

#21

Until the mid-1920s, records had simply replicated popular show business successes. In the 1920s, the record companies began to realize that there were huge profits to be made off niche and regional markets.

#22

The country music boom that followed Jefferson’s success was not based on nostalgia for the old South, but rather on a new appreciation for the regional heritage. Black country artists were marketed in the regular Race catalogs, alongside the hottest pop singers.

#23

The first wave of black guitarists, who were popularized by Carson and Jefferson, played a variety of non-blues material. While they were not necessarily farmers who played guitar on the side, they were professional musicians who were keenly aware of the current trends.

#24

The blues era was a time when many musicians were recording songs that were similar to the Black Snake Blues. There were also many regional styles, and some who were very successful in their home areas but not nationally.

#25

The record companies outgrew the period of experimentation that had led to their exposure. By the late 1920s, they had worked out how to produce reliable sales, and no longer cared to record unpolished country eccentrics.

#26

Carr was the most influential blues singer, and his impact extended well beyond the boundaries of what is normally considered blues. He was the first blues crooner, and his smoothly soulful phrasing formed the template followed by virtually every blues balladeer to follow.