Themes and Streams, the Beginning

This week’s listening started with Barbra Allen as an old-time music song. This is an example of the British Ballad tradition that contributed to the foundation of American popular music, it tells a story about love. Storytelling in music is a centuries-old technique in music but this style contributed its solo singer, verse style of music to American culture. You can see the similarities to Stephen Foster in chapter 2 and his song Jeanie with the Light Brown Hair and the tin pan alley selection that we also listened to this week. These songs influence can be seen in the music of today. A recent example I can think of is the song Lost Boy by Ruth B. It takes another well-known story, Peter Pan, and presents it in the song form very similar to the British ballad.

A contrasting piece I enjoyed was Long John. The contrasting simplicity of the lyrics, audience/group interaction, and the communal feel of this song was interesting to listen to right after the old-time music. Different from the stories of love and life in the old-time music, this song has religious connections to life and the suffering these singers probably felt while in prison. That tie to religion would be connected to the development of the black spirituals which the text mentions. Starr and Waterman discuss the “enthusiastic call-and-response singing…” and how the African community changed the music as “a cultural invention in which the hymns were re-interpreted in accordance with the slaves’ aspirations and beliefs” (2018 p. 28) The intensity of this song from both the leader and the group of singers is part of that enthusiasm and aspirations. The pain and loss which the prisoners experienced with a strong desire for freedom contribute to that intensity.

Music today that stems from poverty, violence, and pain of some sort have similar intensity. Rebellion or dreams of freedom have been great unifiers and the music that has followed such has been just as powerful. This song is an example of how even before the rebellious anthems of rock and roll, and rap, people used music to express similar desires one hundred years prior. On a similar thought, the song Stagoolee talks about the strong, difficult to kill bad man. A form of rebellion through a fictional character. I thought immediately of Luke Cage of our time and how there is still that same story told in a different light.

As popular music continued to evolve with songwriters such as Stephen Foster and other songwriters from Tin Pan Alley, the influences from the African American community became more apparent and influential. The opposite side of those growing trends, the brass band tradition also grew out of European influence. The text mentions “brass band contacts or one of the most important musical aspects of American life.” (Starr and Waterman 2018, p.56). This becoming a communal music aspect of life as “every town of note had a park with a band shell in it…” (p.56), it was a combination of patriotism and pop culture which helped contribute to these brass bands becoming so popular. John Phillip Sousa was the most popular bandleader of this time. Stars and Stripes Forever is one of his most famous songs. This popularity and widespread growth of brass bands would be a contributor to the Jazz movement in the coming decades.

With all these styles of music and musical traditions with roots from all over the world, American popular music traditions became more unique and varied. In the short time that we have already studied, we've seen an evolution of the African American tradition from call and response spirituals and the incorporation of more African influences such as ragtime music. The old-time music of string bands influencing in the south, and widespread dance songs that found its way into the brass band traditions throughout America, the music of America continued to develop. With the influences of the European immigration, the freed slaves making their own culture with music, and Latin musicians the music styles would continue to evolve in ways that would not be possible in other parts of the world.