Black Popular Culture Study Guide

Blues Themes

1. Love lost and won or stolen 2. Aggression in the forms of fights, bullets 3. Humor/ Double Entendre' 4. Travel Especially by Train or Walkin 5. Alcohol and Drugs 6. Male/Female dominance or Braggadocio 7. Liberation of Women 8. Night Time 9. Animals Especially as Tricksters 10. Work-Hard, back breaking, out of and otherwise 11. Police and Prison 12. Crime 13. Magic/hoodoo

Vocals

Ella Fitzgerald Cassandra Wilson Billie Holliday Sarah Vaughan Nina Simone Gregory Porter Billy Eckstine Johnny Hartman

Drums

Warren "Baby" Dodds Max Roach Art Blakey Roy Haynes Elvin Jones

Post-soul imagination

has been fueled by three distinct critical desires namely, the reconstitution of community, particularly one that is critically engaged with the cultural and political output of black communities; a rigorous form of self and communal critique and the willingness to undermine or deconstruct the most negative symbols and stereotypes of black life via the use and distribution of those very same symbols and stereotypes.

Black Popular Culture

is an arena of daily life in any culture that actualizes, engenders, operationalizes, or signifies pleasure, enjoyment and amusement according to the beliefs, values, experiences, and social institutions of people of African descent in particular but also other racial groups in general.

Cornel West

➢ Public Intellectual ➢ Philosopher ➢ Author of "Race Matters" ➢ Three Coordinates of "The New Cultural Politics of Difference" 1. Displacement of European Models of High Culture 2. Emergence of the US as a World Power and consequentially as the center of global cultural production and circulation 3. Decolonization of the Third World.

Michelle Wallace

➢ The conference ➢ Critiques of Boyz in the Hood (John Singleton) and Jungle Fever (Spike Lee) ➢ Misrepresentation of Black Woman ➢ Blaxploitation Era in Film ➢ Julie Dash- A Black Womans Perspective, Daughters of the Dust

Thomas Allen Harris

➢ We must privilege the contradictions, the ambivalences, the fluidity, and the complexity of black diasporic culture in the modern world. ➢ Was at 1991 BPC Conference ➢ Producer for NY public TV ➢ Raised Issues of race and gender ➢ Work: Through a Lens Darkly

Toni Cade Bambara

➢ Work: The Salt Eaters, Gorilla My Love, Deep Sighting and Rescue Missions ➢ Reading the Signs, Empowering the Eye: Daughters of the Dust and The Black Independent Cinema Movement ➢ Women's perspective, Women's validation of Women, Shared space rather than dominated space and glamour/attention to female iconography ➢ Most Particularly, it fulfills the promise of Afrafemcentrists who choose film as their instrument for Self-Expression

Rev. Gary Davis

➢ Born 1896 Laurens, SC ➢ Came to Durham in the 1920's ➢ 1st recorded in the 30's ➢ Inspired Bob Dylan, Taj Mahal, Donovan, and Eric Bibb; Jorma Kaukonen, David Bromberg, and Ry Cooder studied with Davis.

Charley Patton

➢ Born in 1887 in Edwards, Mississippi ➢ "Pony Blues" and "High Water Blues" ➢ Pop celebrity ➢ 1st recorded in 1929 by Paramount

Huddie William Leadbetter "Leadbelly"

➢ Born in 1888 in Mooringsport, Louisianna ➢ Learned slide guitar form Blind Lemon Jefferson in Texas and played the 12 string guitar ➢ His singing got him released from prison twice ➢ Recorded by John and Alan Lomax for the library of Congress. ➢ Sparked Folk Revival of 40's to 60's

Big Bill Broonzy

➢ Born in 1893 Scott, Mississippi ➢ 1st recorded in 1927 ➢ Had hundreds of titles ➢ Contributed to the growth of the Chicago Blues sound ➢ Major blues ambassador via worldwide touring especially in Europe

Alec Ford "Rice" Miller

➢ Born in 1899 Glendora, Mississippi ➢ Legendary star of KFFA King Biscuit Tie and married to Howlin' Wolf's sister ➢ Signature tune was Robert Johnson's "Dust My Broom"

Peetie Wheastra W

➢ Born in 1902 Ripley, Tennessee ➢ Paired up with guitarist like his inspiration Leroy Carr

Son House

➢ Born in 1902 Riverton, Mississippi ➢ Major innovator of Delta Blues Style ➢ Performed with Charley Patton ➢ Preached the gospel first at 15 then switched to blues at 25 ➢ Inspired Muddy Waters and Robert Johnson ➢ Got his 2nd airing in the Folk revival 60's

Count Basie

➢ Born in 1904 Red Bank, New Jersey ➢ "Boogie Woogie Blues" ➢ Featured major blues vocalist with his band

Leroy Carr

➢ Born in 1905 Nashville, Tennessee ➢ Started "Urban Blues"

Otha Turner

➢ Born in 1907 Rankin County, Mississippi ➢ Fife and drum music ➢ Colonial drum and West African flute ➢ North Mississippi music tradition dating back to early 1800's

Louis Jordan

➢ Born in 1908 Brinkley, Arkansas ➢ 1942-1951 had 57 R&B chart hits

Blind Boy Fuller

➢ Born in 1908 Wadesboro, NC ➢ Relocated to Durham, NC ➢ Most recorded artist of his time ➢ Recorded between 1935-1941 over 130 sides ➢ Hits include: Rag Mama Rage, Trucking My Blues Away, Step it Up and Go

T-Bone Walker

➢ Born in 1910 Linden, Texas ➢ Electrified the guitar in 1940 ➢ "Call it stormy Monday but Tuesday is just as Bad"

Howlin' Wolf Chester Arthur Burnett

➢ Born in 1910 West Point, Mississippi ➢ Brought the electric guitar into vogue ➢ Went from Memphis to Chicago ➢ Hits include: Killing Floor, Spoonful, Back Door Man ➢ Big Success with Chess Records and Willie Dixon

Sonny Terry

➢ Born in 1911 Greensboro, Georgia ➢ His father was a folk-styled harmonica player ➢ Paired up with Blind Boy Fuller in 1937 and joined forces with Mcghee after Fuller's passage

Robert Johnson

➢ Born in 1911 Hazlehurst, Mississippi ➢ Blues legend and mythic figure king of the delta blues hits include Crossroads, Terraplane Blues, Come on in My Kitchen, and Hellhound on My Trail

Big Joe Turner

➢ Born in 1911 Kansas City, Misouri ➢ "Shake, Rattle and Roll"

Etta Baker

➢ Born in 1913 in Caldwell County, NC ➢ 1st recorded in 1956

John Lee "Sonny Boy" Williamson

➢ Born in 1914 Jackson, Tennessee ➢ Made the harmonica a lead instrument for the blues ➢ Established the call and response style by answering a vocal line with the harp

Memphis Slim

➢ Born in 1915 Memphis, Tennessee ➢ Recorded Lend Me Your Love and Rockin the House in 1947 and left USA in 1962

Muddy Waters (McKinley Morganfield)

➢ Born in 1915 Rolling Fort, Mississippi ➢ Interviewed on Stovall Plantation, Mississippi by Alan Lomax. ➢ "I be's troubled" was his first hit once he recoreded it for Chess as "I can't be satisfied" when he moved up to Chicago and took it by storm he literally put Chicago style blues on the map to stay some of his other hits include: "Im your hoochie coochie man", "Mannish boy" and "got my mojo working"

Willie Dixon

➢ Born in 1915 Vicksburg, Mississippi ➢ Major songwriter for chess records for Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf, Little Walter Among other major musical organizer for the American Folk Blues Festival Tour of Europe in the 60's

Billie Holiday

➢ Born in 1915 in Baltimore, Maryland ➢ First recorded in 1933 ➢ What she sand and how she sang it what's most important and along with her life experiences you undoubtedly say she is blues

John Lee Hooker

➢ Born in 1920 Clarksdale, Mississippi ➢ Placed in Detroit in the boogie ➢ Hits include Boogie Chillen, Boom Boom ➢ Grammy Winning with "The Healer"

Charles Brown

➢ Born in 1922 Texas City, Texas ➢ Remember "Merry Christmas Baby"

Clarence "Gatemouth" Brown

➢ Born in 1924 Vinton, Louisiana ➢ Also played harmonica, violin, mandolin, drums and bass ➢ "Okie Dokie Stomp"

B.B. King

➢ Born in 1925 Indianola, Mississippi ➢ Hits include Sweet 16, Everyday I Have the Blues, and The Thrill is Gone

Chuck Berry

➢ Born in 1926 St Louis, Missouri

Bo Diddley

➢ Born in 1928 McComb, Mississippi ➢ Infused the juba African rhythm into Rock n Roll

Fat Domino

➢ Born in 1928 New Orleans ➢ Classic New Orleans Style R&B

Algia Mae Hinton

➢ Born in 1929 ➢ Johnston County, NC

John Dee Holeman

➢ Born in 1929 in Orange County, NC ➢ Learned to play listening to Blind Boy Fuller records ➢ National Heritage Fellowship awarded in 1988 ➢ NC Folk Heritage Award in 1994 ➢ His major release is "Bull Durham Blues"

Ray Charles

➢ Born in 1930 Albany, Georgia ➢ Developed soul music ➢ Remember The Right Time, What'd I say, and Take These Chains From My Heart.

Otis Spann

➢ Born in 1930 Jackson, Mississippi ➢ Played Piano with Muddy Waters ➢ Greatest album was the 1962 release, "Walking the Blues"

Little Walter

➢ Born in 1930 Marksville, Louisiana ➢ Arrived in Chicagoo in 1946 ➢ Joined Muddy Waters' band in 1948 recorded his chart topper "Juke" in 1952

Pat Boone

➢ Born in 1934 Jacksonville, Florida ➢ Covered many blues and R&B hits in mid 50s including Tutti Frutti and Aint That A Shame

Little Richard

➢ Born in 1935 Macon, Georgia ➢ Hits include Long Tall Sally, Good Golly Miss Molly, and The Girl Can't Help It

Elvis Presley

➢ Born in 1935 Tupelo, Mississippi through covers and bringing a performance style Memphis is proud of, but parents of the 50's weren't he became the rage of Rock and Roll.

Jerry Lee Lewis

➢ Born in 1935 in Ferriday, Louisiana ➢ Had hits with Whole lot of shakin goin on, Great Balls of Fire

Buddy Guy

➢ Born in 1936, Lettsworth, Louisiana ➢ Chicago's Blues King ➢ Hits include: First time I met the blues, My Time After Awhile, Stone Crazy

Mamie Smith

➢ Born in Cincinatti, Oh in 1883 ➢ 1st to record a female blues in 1920 with "Crazy Blues" Which sold a million copies in six months ➢ Her Recording set the recording industry on the course of producing "Race Records" recognizing the market and opening the door to many other woman blues singers.

Sippie Wallace

➢ Born in Houston in 1898 ➢ 1st Recorded for Okeh Records in 1923 ➢ Came out of retirement in the 60's

Victoria Spivey

➢ Born in Houston in 1906 ➢ 1st recorded "Black Snake Blues" in 1926

Brownie Mcghee

➢ Born in Knoxville, Tennessee in 1915 ➢ Billed as Blind Boy Fuller 2 and paired with Sonny Terry they were some of the 1st Blues Artist to Tour Europe

Ruth Brown

➢ Born in Portsmouth, Va in 1928 ➢ Atlantic Records "The House Ruth Built"

Ida Cox

➢ Born in Toccoa, Ga in 1896 ➢ Her most popular recording was "Wild Women Don't Have The Blues

Zora Neal Hurston

➢ Collected and Documented ➢ Folktales Hoodoo Blues

Stuart Hall

➢ Cultural Theorist ➢ Sociologist ➢ Father of British Cultural Studies ➢ Qualifications in Essay: 1. America's ethnic hierarchies 2. Shifting of the terrain of culture to the popular (nature of the period of cultural globalization) 3. Postmodernism's fascination with difference (sexual, cultural, racial and ethnic) Marginality...a productive space...voicing of the margins. We get Michelle Wallace, Hal Foster and Antonio Gramsci. 4. Backlash: the aggressive resistance to difference The "popular" has affirmative ring and is local, of the people. Commodification/homogenization slips in all the time for example Go-Go music. Black popular culture is a contradictory space/strategic contestation ➢ Raises an emphasis of the critical focus on three repertoires of Black Popular Culture: Style, music and the body as canvas. ➢ Essentialisms, either/ors of black or British, thus black or American it is just one and they are both. ➢ Isaac Julien's different racial bodies, Black subjectivities and black masculinities as presented in his film Young Soul Rebels.

Valerie Smith

➢ Documentary impulse in contemporary black film ➢ The Use of Factual in Fiction: Richard Wright-Native Son, Arna Bontemps- Black Thunder, Margaret Walker- Jubilee, David Bradley- Chaneysville incident. ➢ Fiction that Questions Fact or Gives the Appearance of Fact: Ishmael Reed- Mumbo Jumbo, Ernest Gaines- The autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman, John A. Williams- Captain Blackman ➢ Documentary Filmmakers: William Greaves- "Black Journal", St. Claire Bourne- "Chamba Mediaworks"

Bessie Smith

➢ Empress of the Blues ➢ Born in 1894 Chattanooga, TN ➢ Play tape

Henry Louis Gates

➢ Examines Isaac Julien's Looking for Langston ➢ The challenges to the film as presented by the Hughes estate ➢ Historical and critical look at homophobia

W.C. Handy

➢ Father of the Blues ➢ Born in 1873 ➢ First to compose and publish "blues" titled tunes

Michelle Parkerson

➢ Filmmaker ➢ "Of course she's Betty Carter" ➢ Performance Poet ➢ Professor at Temple University

Angela Davis

➢ Founder of critical resistance ➢ Author ➢ Civil Rights Activist ➢ Feminist ➢ Prisoner ➢ Black Panther ➢ Scholar ➢ Former Communist ➢ Personal Experiences she reflected on 1. Malcolm X Speaking at Brandeis University 2. Black Panther Party 3. Student non-violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) 4. Communist Party

Ta-Nehisi Coates

➢ Here is what I would like for you to know: In America, it is traditional to destroy the black body—it is heritage.

John Cephas and Phil Wiggins

➢ Influenced by Blind Boy Fuller, Gary Davis and Sonny Terry this duo came together in Washington, Dc and won a W.C. Handy Award with their Album "Dog Days of August"

Funk

➢ Is an American music genre that originated in the later 1960s when African American musicians blended soul music, soul jazz and R&B into a rhythmic, danceable new form of music. Funk de-emphasizes melody and harmony and brings a strong rhythmic groove of electric bass and drums to the foreground ➢ Often based on an extended vamp on single chord, distinguishing it from R&B and soul songs centered around chord progressions. ➢ Essential Funk of the 70s: Earth, Wind and Fire; The Ohio Players, Kool and The Gang, The Isley Brothers

Greg Tate

➢ Journalist ➢ Cultural Critic ➢ Work: Midnight Lightning Jimi Hendrix and the Black Experience; Flyboy in the Buttermilk, Everything But the Burden: What White People Are Taking From Black Culture

Ma Rainey

➢ Mother of the Blues ➢ Born in Columbus, Georgia in 1886 ➢ Started singing in Minstrel Shows ➢ Performed with her husband as Rainer and Rainey, Assassinators of the Blues ➢ Gave young Bessie Smith Vocal Lessons ➢ Early hits were "C.C. Rider" and "Bo Weavil Blues"

Sites in the evolution of Jazz

➢ New Orleans ➢ Kansas City (Bennie Moten's Jazz Orchestra) ➢ Chicago ➢ New York City ➢ Harlem ➢ Philly ➢ DC

Romare Bearden

➢ Nudes drawings troubled Judith Wilson 1. Voyeuristic gaze 2. Representation of prostitution 3. Domestication of the nude 4. Equating Woman with Nature ➢ Famous Work: Daybreak Express.

5 Characteristics of African Music

1. Dominance of Percussion 2. Polymeter 3. Off-beat phrasing of melodic accent 4. Overlap of call and response 5. Voice used as metronome

Sankofa

"to go back and fetch it" we must look back to the past so that we may understand how we became what we are and move forward to a better future.

Post-soul intelligentsia

- a generation of urban-bred black intellectuals born during the waning moments of the civil rights/ black power movements, raised on the rhythms and harmonies of 1970s soul but having come to maturity during the mid to late 1980s and embracing the oppositional possibilities of urban and hip hop aesthetics, mass media, and popular culture as vehicles for mass social praxis.

Blues

- is a vocal and instrumental form of music based on the use of blue notes and a repetitive pattern that most often follows a twelve-bar structure. One of the most popular chord progressions in popular music/lyrics are in three lines, with the first two lines almost the same with slight differences in phrasing and interjections

Bass

Charles Mingus Ron Carter Ray Brown Paul Chamberss Esperanze Spalding

West African music

Color a rhythm via counterpoint of a number of rhythmic instruments, Key elements of west African music were rhythm and timbre, not melody and harmony. Instead of melodic counterpoint, West African music was about rhythmic counterpoint

Piano/Composers

Jelly Roll Morton James P. Johnson Bud Powell Art Tatum Duke Ellington Thelonious Monk Mary Lou Williams Randy Weston Sun Ra

Where has Blues Gone

➢ Other Music Genres: Jazz, Jump Blues, Boogie Woogie, R&B/Soul, Rock and Roll. The British invasion of the 1960's reinvigorated interest in America's blues roots and a new rock and roll spirit fortified by folk music-inspired consciousness was born.

Trumpet

Louis Armstrong (1901-1971) Miles Davis (1926-1991) Dizzy Gillespie (1917-1993)

The Iconic Image And The Black Body

Malcolm X, Angela Davis, Tommie Smith and John Carlos holding up black power fists at the 1968 Olympics in Mexico.

West African Instruments

Ngoni, Ekonting, Kora

3 Great Pianists That Started The Boogie Woogie Craze in1938

➢ Pete Johnson: Born in 1904 Kansas City Missouri ➢ Albert Ammons: Born in 1907 Chicago, Illinois ➢ Meade "Lux" Lewis born in 1905 Chicago Illinois

Saxophone

Sidney Bechet Charlie Parker John Coltrane

Stover Definition of Blues

The blues stringed instrument accompanied percussive storytelling.

Isaac Julien

➢ "Black is, Black ain't: Notes on De-Essentializing Black Identities" ➢ Looking for Langston: Queerness as identity too, Black Gay Struggle for representation ➢ Young Soul Rebel: " Does not meet the demand for documentary guarantee as do the black US gangster films." "Could be read as the antidote to Jungle Fever in terms of its presentation of non pathological interracial relationships."

Thomas Dorsey

➢ "Father of Gospel Music" ➢ Born in 1899 Villa Rica, Georgia ➢ Pianist and Blues arranger

Ali Farka Toure

➢ "King of desert blues singers"

Ada Gray Griffin

➢ "Seizing the Moving Image: Reflections of a Black Independent Producer" ➢ Executive director of Third World Newsreel ➢ "Having an independent thought is a question of survival ➢ "Black films, Black Videos and Black media are those productions directed by black artisits on subjects and forms that reference the black experience and imagination" ➢ "Moving-image medium...primary apparatus for the communication of information, ideas, and history of this country" ➢ "Where are the black women filmmakers?"

Jacqueline Bobo

➢ "The politics of Interpretation: Black Critics, Filmmakers, Audiences" ➢ Cotton comes to Harlem ➢ Black film critique ➢ The Color Purple ➢ Issues around audiences and distribution

Jazz

➢ A type of music of black American origin characterized by improvisation, syncopation, and usually a regular or forceful rhythm, emerging at the beginning of the 20th century. ➢ Music originating in New Orleans around the beginning of the 20th century and subsequently developing through various increasing complex styles, generally marked by intricate, propulsive rhythms, polyphonic, ensemble playing, improvisatory, virtuosic solos, melodic freedom, and harmonic idiom ranging from simple diatonicism through chromaticisim to atonality.

Other Media:

➢ Art ➢ Books ➢ Film ➢ Internet ➢ Novels ➢ Poetry

Ed Guerrero

➢ Black Film in the 1990s: The New Black Movie Boom and Its Portents ➢ Much like the novels of black women that started to emerge in the 1970s, Daughters of the Dust pointedly sets out to reconstruct, to recover a sense of black women's history and to affirm their cultural and political space in the expanding arena of black cinema production ➢ Black Women... for one of the few times in commercial cinema history occupy the visual, spiritual and moral center of the screen.

Mark Anthony Neal

➢ Black Popular Culture Scholar, especially the history of Black music ➢ Popular Works: New Black man, Looking for Leroy, What The Music Said, That's The Joint, Songs N The Key of Black Life, Soul Babies ➢ Look at Baseball Metaphor in BPC 3 ➢ Host of Left of Black

Gina Dent

➢ Black Popular Culture- the book ➢ In the introduction she gives us and pleasure

Music Appreciation

➢ Blues Societies ➢ Blues Festivals ➢ Magazines