Blues Music Influence On African-American Culture

Great Essays
Sweet harmony and valiant lyrics ring out in the sky as a group of people in the street clap and dance to the beat of the music. The lyrics speak of overcoming all and living in what seems to be such a distant world. The people enjoying the music are African-Americans and they are playing a genre known today as the Blues. The origin of the Blues genre dates back to the Atlantic Slave Trade, which took place from 1619 to 1809 and beyond. In order to get the cheapest labor for future plans in the New World, Europeans travelled to Africa in search of people who would soon become slaves (Weissman 6). It was these slaves who found a sense of peace in the music they would later begin to create. After continuous years of slave labor in America, a “cultural process” began to occur. African-American slaves began to gain a sense of themselves and thus started to bond together to create African-American culture (Steinberg 7). This culture led to an explosion of tunes that included harmonious …show more content…
The rooting of the genre began in locations all over Africa before the Atlantic Slave Trade began. It continued to develop with the transport of slaves during the 17th century all the way up to the beginning of the 19th century (6). While slavery was mainly prominent in the South, Blues style music can also be traced to areas further north. This could be due to the freeing and fleeing of slaves who then traveled up North (Jones 4). Although the music did begin to spread all over the United States, this was not without cause. Soon after the Atlantic Slave Trade ended, there was a drastic increase in the African-American population. With this and the fear of rebellion, slave owners did everything in their power to fight the issue and spread apart the population (Weissman 8). Despite this separation, this did not stop the development of what would become one of the most popular music genres of the

Related Documents

  • Improved Essays

    The American music would not be where it is today if it was not the contribution from the African Slaves who were being taken to the States and the Europeans who migrated from Europe. The American music is the product of mixture of different cultures and backgrounds. However, a lot of people do not know that African American influenced country, which is considered white music. For instance, Bailey was one of the first few black musicians who called themselves black hillbillies. Pecknold believes in his book, Hidden in the Mix: The African American Presence in Country Music, that “some have suggested that Bailey’s participation in the Grand Ole Opry demonstrated during hillbilly phase of the country music’s development black music and white music in the south were not separate”( Pecknold 147).…

    • 680 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Great Essays

    Jazz Opportunities

    • 2450 Words
    • 10 Pages

    The Jazz Age: Prevailing Opportunities for African Americans During the Jazz Age, jazz music, primarily dominated by African Americans before 1920, began to gain popularity among whites and transformed into an important aspect of American culture. The increased popularity of jazz music led to a growing acceptance of African American culture and presented African Americans with the opportunity to gain social status. Music has always played an essential part in African American life and its aspects have influenced the creation of jazz. Jazz music, referred to as “jass” before the 1920s, is heavily rooted in African-…

    • 2450 Words
    • 10 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Improved Essays

    They were both recognized within the same time frame, which was around the late 19th century. They originated in the similar background of African American communities. Blues originated from communities in the deep south of United States and ragtime originated from communities in the southern parts of the Midwest. Although they both originated from the African American community, the two also integrated European touch into the musical styles. They were both an amalgam of African American and European musical features.…

    • 1577 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The African American Spiritual is a folksong with biblical tales as the basis, and is typically associated with slavery in the South around the Civil War. Spirituals have come to be a recognized genre, but how? There are many ways to answer that, but I’m going to only go into three. Spirituals came to be recognized by its roots in Southern plantations, it’s performance by public groups and well-known soloists, and its performance and adaptation in modern music and society.…

    • 271 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Decent Essays

    African Americans have influenced the way we eat in numerous ways. When they were enslaved they were forced to leave behind their favorite foods. So they planted seeds of those foods. They had made many African-style dishes. This was because they were not use to the American food.…

    • 147 Words
    • 1 Pages
    Decent Essays
  • Superior Essays

    African Influence On Jazz

    • 1376 Words
    • 6 Pages

    The primary factor was the importation of African slaves to a world dominated by warring European colonists-- particularly the French, Spanish, and English. In striving to keep African musical traditions alive, the slaves eventually found ways to blend them with the abiding traditions of Europe, producing hybrid in North and South America unlike anything in the old world.” In 1987, the U.S. Congress passed a resolution declaring jazz a “Valuable National American treasure,” but the full text summarizes the confusion distributed by the music’s contradictory qualities. Jazz is an “art form” brought to the American people through well-funded classes and art programs, but it is also a “people’s music” that came upward from the desires of ordinary people.…

    • 1376 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Notorious Big Music Essay

    • 892 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Over the years, African Americans have significantly impacted music through their daily struggles and failures. When slaves were emancipated their music and culture came along with them. African Americans have created different genres of music such as blues, Jazz, Rock N Roll, Hip-Hop, and Rap. They used music to express themselves and communicate with each other, as well as a mode of physical survival. They have marked history for the legacy of music by relaying a powerful message in the form of a musical story and all music today captures your attention in the form of a story.…

    • 892 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Back in enslavement time, African slaves brought their music to the North America. They were singing and dancing to voice their suffering and to worship God by field hollers and ring shouts. African slaves used blues music for their religion and pray god within songs and their instruments. Over time, blues music and gospel emerged within oral tradition of African American culture in black community churches and they started to use blues music in the worship of God and the base music of the religious expression. “In the early to middle 1930s, the first notes of gospel blues—a blend of sacred texts and blues tunes—were heard in Protestant black churches in the mid-west and northeast cities of the United States.”…

    • 635 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Alan Lomax's Blues Music

    • 874 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Alan Lomax once said, “ Blues has always been a state of being as well as a way of singing”. (Lomax IX) Blues music started in the African American community as a way of expressing the weights upon their hearts. These songs were their interpretation of their protest against discrimination. Blues is a genre of music that began around the nineteen hundreds, which have impact our world by giving a voice to the Afro Americans.…

    • 874 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The blues were created in the Mississippi Delta after the civil war. Mississippi has even been called the “birthplace of the blues.” It also headed north toward Beale Street in Memphis, from the crossroads of Highway 61 and 49. Continuing to shape the music worldwide, the blues have strongly influenced almost all-popular music including, country, jazz, rock and roll. Watching the video I noticed that it seems like the blues originated from African field hollers, chants, and work songs.…

    • 236 Words
    • 1 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Back in the days, the African American people were using vernacular as a way to express their own history, their own life, their own pain as they were taking away from their countries and family from the Europeans to become slaves. The vernacular, means “ belonging to, developed in, and spoken or used by the people of a particular place, religion, or country; native; indigenous” ( The vernacular tradition. Part 1, pg 6). In consists with the church songs, blues, ballads, stories and hip-hop, work songs, secular songs, dances, stage shows and visual arts. Each one of these categories somehow are related to each other as an example, same topic, but others time they have different meaning behind the words.…

    • 1141 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Among the formal, identifying musical traits of the blues are the familiar “blue notes,” a three-line AAB verse form, and a characteristic use of the familiar blues chord progression. Historically, the popularity of blues coincides with the rise of the commercial recording industry, the introduction of “race” records aimed at black record-buyers after 1920, and the emigration of black Americans from the rural South to the urban North. Many of the earliest black American recording stars were blues singers. The first blues songs to be recorded, often called “classic blues,” were jazz-influenced songs in a vaudeville style, sung by the great blueswomen: Gertrude “Ma” Rainey, Bessie Smith, and others. These singers were often accompanied by pianists,…

    • 374 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Our presentation starts with the black protest music of the 1960s, which was a rather turbulent time in terms of social issues. While the various issues gained speed and support, the Civil Rights Movement especially grew during this time. There were many approaches taken in attempt to tackle civil rights, such as protests and marches, but by far the most integral part of the movement was the creation of protest music by various black artists. These songs were able to bring hope to black people in such troubling times, like with Sam Cooke’s “A Change Is Gonna Come,” as well as capture the pain and anger they bore, like with Nina Simone’s “Mississippi Goddam.” The contrasting approaches of these two artists are perfectly summarized with a quote from the Lynskey text: “Cooke’s is midnight blue, slow and stately, full of hope and healing.…

    • 837 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    During the 1900’s there were many slaveholding plantations and camps in the American South. Within these slaveholding nations there was an emergence of African American music that helped pave and shape the musical style of early blues and spirituals. When listening to early slave era music you can hear certain elements or Africanisms that make connections to early blues and spiritual music such as the call-and-response style. Songs like “Daniel,” performed by Georgia Sea Island Singers (Week 1 Lecture pg. 17) depict the call-and-response and polyrhythmic pattern of hand clapping that is very common in ring shouts and slave songs. Another key element that shares this connection is the use of “blue notes” in combination with the adaptation of the vocal timbre.…

    • 365 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Essay On Soul Music

    • 500 Words
    • 2 Pages

    The soul music is includes variations of sounds that incorporate elements such as rhythm or pattern. It’s a popular music genre that originated in the United States in the late 1950s and early 1960s. It combines elements of African American gospel music, rhythm and blues and jazz. Soul music became popular for dancing and listening in the United States as where record labels such as Motown, Atlantic and Stax were influential in the civil rights era. Soul also became popular around the world, directly influencing rock music and the music of Africa.…

    • 500 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays

Related Topics