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Blues Singer In The 1920's

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Bessie Smith was the most popular and successful blues singer of the 1920’s. In 1923, she signed with Columbia Records and quickly flourished to fame as the main act in the Theater's Owners’ Booking Association theater circuit. This is where one of her most popular hits came to be,“Down Hearted Blues.” This song brought Smith a lot of fortune, it was a hit selling 780,000 copies, which was considered a staggering amount in the 1920’s. It got her a contract for 8 years with Columbia Records and made her lots of money. Her next most harmonic and popular song was “St. Louis Blues.” Many did not consider this a blues because the form and content did not follow traditional blues format of 12-bar progressions. But even though it was not traditional
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Bessie Smith sang at shows and theaters with her heavy, throaty vocals which were balanced by a delightful sense of timing. Walter "Furry" Lewis was known

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Understanding the 12 Bar Blues . Retrieved from PBS : http://www.pbs.org/theblues/classroom/essays12bar.html Johnson, R. (1936). Crossroad Blues [Recorded by R. Johnson]. San Antonio, Texas , US. Miller,

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The greatest white female rock singer of the 1960s, Janis Joplin was also a great blues singer, making her material her own with her wailing, raspy, supercharged emotional delivery. First rising to stardom as the frontwoman for San Francisco psychedelic band Big Brother & the Holding Company, she left the group in the late '60s for a brief and uneven (though commercially successful) career as a solo artist. Although she wasn't always supplied with the best material or most sympathetic musicians, her best recordings, with both Big Brother and on her own, are some of the most exciting performances of her era. She also did much to redefine the role of women in rock with her assertive, sexually forthright persona and raunchy, electrifying on-stage

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732 Words | 3 Pages

Blues music was a way for Still to express exactly what he wanted to say as an artist, getting a compromise out of his music. “Darker America” was his last entry into the International Composer’s Guild, however it was one that would be well known by the end. It explored themes of hope and sorrow, combining the idioms of his culture with the modern chromatics that were well known in the music

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220 Words | 1 Pages

Women’s Blues music in the 1920s and early 1930s served as liberation for the sexual and cultural politics of female sexuality in black women’s dissertation. Hazel V. Carby explores the ideology of the white feminist theory in her deposition, "It Jus Be 's Dat Way Sometime: The Sexual Politics of Women 's Blues", and critiques its views by focusing on the representation of feminism, sexuality, and power in black women’s blues music. She analyzes the sexual and cultural politics of black women who constructed themselves as sexual subjects through songs in blues music and explains how the representation of black female sexuality in black women’s fiction and in women’s blues differ from one another. Carby claims that these black women

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1440 Words | 6 Pages

Robert Leroy Johnson was the most influential and the most significant singer of the Delta Blues during 1920s. Johnson was regarded as the master of the blues because he totally influenced many rock musicians. Eric Clapton, a well-known rock and blues guitarist, has even called Johnson "the most important blues singer that ever lived.” Unfortunately, Robert Johnson, the legendary blues musician, passed away at his age 27. His obscurely documented life led him to a legend which really made a great affect on modern music genres and musicians

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993 Words | 4 Pages

The genre of blues exploded into the blues craze during the 1920’s. During this time, white record producers saw the untapped goldmine that was blues music performed by people of color. Ma Rainey was one of them, and to some, one of the first, giving her the title, ‘The Mother of Blues’. The 1920’s was not only an era of continuing homophobia from the past (although that would change, briefly, into a mild form of acceptance until the more conservative 1930’s), but also of harsh racism. And yet, one singer, Ma Rainey’s, broke these restrictions.

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1584 Words | 7 Pages

“Sonny’s blues” is

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Often referred to as "The First Lady of Song," Ella Fitzgerald was one of the most popular female jazz singers in the United States. Throughout her career, Ella was awarded thirteen Grammys and sold over 40 million albums. With a voice that not only encompassed a large range, but a dynamic and powerful sound, Ella could sing almost anything from scatting to the popular tunes of her day. She performed in the top venues all around the world to packed houses, with audiences as diverse as the music she created. Ella came from a small town and impoverished family, but through her talent and determination, skyrocketed to fame creating a legacy that has withstood the sands of time.

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934 Words | 4 Pages

Sonny's Blues was written in 1957, 37 years after the roaring twenties had come to an end. Long after the great Migration, where millions of blacks moved to northern cities to escape Jim Crow, and embrace the new found possibilities offered. During this period African-Americans in New York, collectively gathered in Harlem mainly, it was usually alluded to as the black capital. There blacks shared culturally and also, influenced music greatly. This is also where the "new negro" persona was crafted, blacks were no longer going to be referred to as someone's mammies or boy.

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The use of both the bottleneck and the bending of strings by the left hand delivers the player with the capability to slide from one group of pitches or chord to another. This sliding or “bending” of pitch is also a hallmark of the blues vocal style. Johnson’s singing style also proves the “holler” that is strongly characteristic of Delta blues and a number of other African-American musical

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692 Words | 3 Pages

Homer’s, “the Odyssey’, due to its powerful story-telling, has become a huge influence on shaping Western literature today. “The Odyssey” is a story-telling masterpiece that draws readers in with its creative story plots, and character usage to fully engage the audience. In scroll 19 of the Odyssey, it focuses on Odysseus’s disguised return to Ithaca, and the encounter with his wife, Penelope. Homer demonstrates his literary skills in this scroll by using impressive imagery and dramatization that helps capture the emotion, and the visual scenes of the story. In this essay, I will demonstrate how Homer uses imagery to help visualize the scene, and how he uses dramatization to fully engage the audience.

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1005 Words | 5 Pages

Prior to the Emancipation Proclamation, most music was work music or spirituals which were sung without musical instruments. While students of history know the musical classes that moves the blues, there isn 't much data regarding why the class was made. Modest and convenient instruments including the harmonica and guitar was effortlessly acquired and added to the spirituals as of now made by African Americans. The expansion of instruments could be the making of the blues. The blues rapidly got to be prominent among the African American audience members and the sound would in the long run be perfected bringing about sub-classifications including the Delta blues which started in the Mississippi Delta.

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585 Words | 3 Pages

Billie Holiday lived a tumultuous life as she went through many ups and downs during her childhood and into her adulthood. Billie Holiday was only eighteen years old when she was discovered singing in nightclubs and soon found great success as a jazz singer. In spite of her lack of musical training, Holiday’s distinct singing caught the attention of her audience and she became one of the greatest jazz singers of the twentieth century. However, despite the remarkable success Billie achieved, she continuously battled with substance abuse until the end of her life. Holiday may have had a tragic life, but her emotional, melancholic voice made her an imperative presence in the period of jazz.

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734 Words | 3 Pages

Blues music as a genre and form was developed by African Americans in the south of the United States at the end of the 19th century. The genre has origins in many cultures such as in African music, African-American work songs and European-American folk music. Blues music incorporates field hollers, shouts, chants, etc. The blues form, found in jazz, rhythm and blues and rock and roll, is characterized by the call-and-response pattern, and also the twelve-bar blues structure, which is the most common feature. Early traditional blues verses consisted of a single line repeated four times.

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