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In the 1920s, talent scouts from northern record companies
turned their attention to the South. They recorded black and white musicians, paid next to nothing, and made fortunes selling
music to southern audiences. The varied and colorful strains combined to create a multitude of folk and popular music. They
contributed to the development of jazz, one of America’s most unique and highly developed arts, and influenced the work
of American classical composers. Jazz was born about the turn of the twentieth century in New Orleans, which was a crossroads
of musical culture. Jazz had its basis in the religious
shouts
and hollers, dances, work songs, and blues of African American people. The music heard in North Carolina in the 1920s was
heard mostly in homes or in places of worship. However, with the arrival of the radio, and the recording of country and folk
music, musical experiences and tastes changed during the decade. Today, with compact discs, television, MTV, and the many
modern electronic devices, music has become more diverse and different than anyone could have imagined in the 1920s. Can you
imagine how music will sound when your grandchildren are urging you to listen to a popular song of their day?
Jazz has been known since the early 20’s and during
those years there were jazz legendary musicians which remain as the best jazz musicians up to now. Named Louis Armstrong,
Duke Ellington, Paul Whiteman and Jelly Roll Morton.
Regardless
of the huge numbers of middle and upper class people—mostly white—who were music enthusiasts, it is often argued
the 1920's Jazz music has intensified the racial tension during the post war years. This is due to great success of these
African American musicians who were popular as African American jazz musicians. During the time of intense segregation they
mostly expressed of racial hatred. Those African American musicians recorded and marketed ‘racial hatred music’
towards the African American population. Amazingly those records made very huge amounts of money considering the time period.
Nonetheless, jazz during those years was expressive and improvisational.
In the 1920's, Jazz bands were made up of three voices and a rhythm section. The voices consisted of the cornet,
clarinet, and trombone. It was the New Orleans sound that began spreading throughout the United States, bringing incredible
amounts of new listeners and fans.
Phonograph records and musical programs on radio shows
in the late 1920s helped make jazz popular in the urban areas. It became so popular, that it spread throughout the world.
Jazz flourished as part of New York’s Harlem Renaissance. While much of urban America experienced an economic boom through
much of the 1920s, the world community enjoyed little peace or stability. The aftershocks of World War I totally dominated
the European landscape. Russia was experiencing a tumultuous period as Lenin consolidated his power, and communism consumed
the nation. A wary United States responded with the “Red Scare” and growing resentment of foreigners. Great Britain’s
mighty empire was crumbling and cracks were appearing in India and Ireland. President Wilson was unsuccessful in his efforts
to convince the United States to support his Fourteen Points and join the League of Nations. His attempts to ensure peace
throughout the world and foster fledging democracies fell victim to totalitarianism which began to raise its ugly head in
the form of Mussolini in Italy and Hitler in Germany. The 1920s were a decade dominated by perrsonalities that varied from
Babe Ruth and Charles Lindbergh to villains such as Al Capone. People were entertained with Edison’s motion pictures
and spectacles such as the Sacco and Vanzetti trial and the Scopes Monkey Trial. Conservatism in business and isolationism
on the international scene dominated the American political scene. Euphoria reigned over the stock market until Black Tuesday
in October of 1929, and the economy of the U.S. and the world collapsed. The roar of the 1920s became silent.
Delta Blues specifically references the Delta region
of Mississippi, in the Northern and Western part of the state, between Memphis and Vicksburg (not near where the Mississippi
River meets the Gulf - that’s New Orleans).
Probably the
best candidate for where the blues began, this rural, heavily populated area of sharecroppers and farm laborers produced
the greatest number of top notch blues pioneers, some of the earliest being Charlie Patton and Son House. Here guitars are
usually played chorded, with slide guitar common. This style of playing seems to have originated in Northwestern Mississippi
on a folk instrument known as a “diddly-bow,” made by stretching broom or baling wire along the wooden wall of
a house. Sometimes a whole shack served as a resonator, with a nail on a rock for a bridge. Players would pluck the string
or
use a worn glass bottle or knife to slide along its surface,
producing a glissando. This homemade instrument was often a learning tool to many Delta bluesmen. Work songs are associated
with Mississippi Delta work farms or prison gangs. Work songs have short phrases, vocal pauses and natural, strong regular
rhythms derived from physical activity. Escape and love gone bad are major themes of these songs punctuated with familiar
set phrases, wordless vocalizations and variation on a theme improvisations. Many work songs have a call-and -response form.
Charlie Patton was an innovator in that often his themes were about natural disasters and a few of his own personal ones.
Perhaps the best known Country Blues artists, more famous through his Black folk repertoire than any blues associations, was
Leadbelly (Huddie Ledbetter).
In 1919, writer/director John Murray Anderson launched
the first edition of The Greenwich Village Follies, which was a such a hit that it soon transferred from a theater in the
Village to Broadway. The 1920 edition repeated that pattern, opening in the Village and then transferring to Broadway. Subsequent
editions—in 1921, 1922, 1923, 1924, 1925, and 1928—never played in Greenwich Village at all; by then, The Greenwich
Village Follies was such an established success that each new edition opened in a top Broadway musical house, such as the
Shubert Theater and the Winter Garden. These were lavish, opulent, carefully crafted revues, designed to give The Ziegfeld
Follies and George White's Scandals a run for their money. They featured major stars of the era, including Ted Lewis,
Joe E. Brown, Martha Graham, Irene Franklin, Benny Field and
Blossom
Seeley, and introduced such enduringly popular hit songs as "When My Baby Smiles at Me" and "Three O'Clock
in the Morning."
Country music (or country and Western) is a blend of
popular musical forms originally found in the Southern United States and the Appalachian Mountains. It has roots in traditional
folk music, Celtic music, gospel music and old-time music and evolved rapidly in the 1920s. The term country music began to
be used in the 1940s when the earlier term hillbilly music was deemed to be degrading and the term was widely embraced in
the 1970s, while Country and Western has declined in use since that time. In the Southwestern United States a different mix
of ethnic groups created the music that became the Western music of the term Country and Western. The term "country music"
is used today to describe many styles and sub genres most of which, with a few exceptions, have little merit, and bare not
much resemblance to the master works of the 1930's to the 1960's
In 1922, a radio station based in Georgia (WSM) was the first to broadcast folk songs to its audience. A little later,
a radio station from Fort Worth, in Texas (WBAP), launched the first "barn dance" show. In june 1923, 55-year old
Georgia's fiddler John Carson recorded (in Atlanta) two "hillbilly" (i.e., southern rural) songs, an event that
is often considered the official founding of "country" music (although Texas fiddler Eck Roberton had already recorded
the year before). The recording industry started dividing popular music into two categories: race music (that was only black)
and hillbilly music (that was only white). The term "hillbilly" was actually introduced by "Uncle" Dave
Macon's Hill Billie Blues (1924). In 1924, Chicago's radio station WLS (originally "World's Largest Store")
began broadcasting a barn dance that could be heard throughout the Midwest.
With When The Work's All Done This Fall (1925),
Texas-bred Carl Sprague became the first major musician to record cowboy songs (the first "singing cowboy" of country
music). And, finally, in 1925, Nashville's first radio station (WSM) began broadcasting a barn dance that would eventually
change name to "Grand Ole Opry". Country music was steaming ahead. Labels flocked to the South to record singing
cowboys, and singing cowboys were exhibited in the big cities of the North.
Among the most literate songwriters were Texas-born Goebel Reeves, who penned The Drifter (1929), Blue Undertaker's
Blues (1930), Hobo's Lullaby (1934) and The Cowboy's Prayer (1934), i.e. a mixture of hobo and cowboy songs, and Tennessee-born
Harry McClintock, the author of the hobo ballads Big Rock Candy Mountain (1928) and Hallelujah Bum Again (1926).
Country music was a federation of styles, rather than a monolithic
style. Its origins were lost in the early decades of colonization, when the folk dances (Scottish reels, Irish jigs, and square
dances, the poor man's version of the French "cotillion" and "quadrille") and the British ballad got
transplanted into the new world and got contaminated by the religious hymns of church and camp meetings. The musical styles
were reminiscent of their British ancestors. The lyrics, on the other hand, were completely different. The Americans disliked
the subject of love, to which they preferred pratical issues such as real-world experiences (ranching, logging, mining, railroads)
and real-world tragedies (bank robberies, natural disasters, murders, train accidents).
The instrumentation included the banjo, introduced by the African slaves via the minstrel shows, the Scottish "fiddle"
(the poor man's violin, simplified so that the fiddler could also sing) and the Spanish guitar (an instrument that became
popular in the South only around 1910). Ironically, as more and more blacks abandoned the banjo and adopted the guitar, the
banjo ended up being identified with white music, while the guitar ended up being identified as black music. For example,
Hobart Smith learned to play from black bluesman Blind Lemon Jefferson, but went on to play the banjo while Jefferson played
the guitar.
The earliest documentation of European music in the
New World says, “The Pinta leads the procession, and her crew is singing the Te Deum [a religious chant]. The crews
of the Santa Maria and the Nina join in the solemn chant, and many of the rough sailors brush tears from their eyes.”
Christopher Columbus wrote these words in his journal on October 12, 1492, as his three ships landed in America.Cornwallis’s
surrender at Yorktown in 1781 was accompanied by music. Colonial fifeand- drummers tootled “Yankee Doodle,” and
the British played an appropriate folk tune, “The World Turned Upside Down.” In the South, the fiddle tradition
flourished. It was influenced by the rhythmic music of enslaved people. It laid the basis for later styles such as bluegrass
and country-andwestern
music. From Scotland and Ireland, successive waves of migrations have kept alive traditions in
many communities throughout North Carolina and the United States, where protest songs and ballads can still be heard. Music
for dancing was an essential ingredient in communal activities such as corn husking, quilting bees, tobacco curing, apple
stringing, log rolling, and wood chopping. Music served other important functions. The traditional ballads were the storybooks,
radios, and news flashes of isolated rural life. New songs told stories of local events, famous happenings, and legendary
heroes and outlaws. Songs detailed the ups and downs of farming and rural life. There were sentimental songs, love songs,
and many songs about the railroad. The railroad in the nineteenth century helped break down the isolation of rural communities
and to many people held out hope of adventure and freedom. In the early 1900s, some southern rural communities grew to be
less isolated as they became industrialized, and major social and technological developments changed the way of life for many
people. The radio came to many isolated rural areas in the 1920s. It brought popular commercial music from northern cities.
It also made possible a venue for country musicians to broadcast throughout the South, on programs such as the National Barn
Dance.
Barrett A. Silverstein
In the 1840s black communities from Mississippi, Memphis,
Saint Louis, and other southern rural areas were fighting against a lack of opportunities to progress in society. Between
1880 and 1916, about one million black Americans migrated from southern rural areas to the big cities of the north, especially
Chicago. Social conditions and economic opportunities had deteriorated for blacks. The existence of the Black Codes (1800-66),
which had restricted the civil rights and civil liberties of African-Americans, or the Jim Crow Laws (1876-1965) ― state
and local laws enacted in the Southern and border States of the United States that mandated “separate but equal”
status for African Americans but in reality led to treatment and accommodations that were almost always inferior to those
provided to white Americans ― has a special role in this matter.
During this era black Americans found themselves in a world of injustices, where they were declared culpable of a
crime without any proof and confined to hard labor (a leasing system very attractive for the white man and not so different
from the old slavery system). Those were times of humiliation and no education where black society had to conserve its traditional
black cosmology. The diaspora from the south did not find a better life in the north. The conditions in the northern cities
were not so different from those in the rural south. Black Americans had no possibilities to join the unions, and they always
had to accept the least desirable jobs. They had no opportunities to advance, and they began to settle in isolated communities
due to hostility from European immigrants like Irish, Italians, or Polish. In spite of this, it can be said that life in the
city was still better. The European wars left the industrial north without enough labor and the black community was a good
source of workers. David Evans (1982) emphasizes the fact that during slavery times, black men had well-defined roles as anonymous
members of a slave society with their basic physical needs taken care of by their masters, but in the new era of “freedom,”
black men were unprepared for new responsibilities and racial discrimination. It is in these living conditions in the city
where the music performers and the bluesmen struggle to reflect suffering, and this is why the basic theme of blues music
does not change too much from rural areas to the city. But in the city the music and instrumentation varies and is inspired
and enriched by influences from other musical styles.
In the early 1900s, some southern rural communities
grew to be less isolated as they became industrialized, and major social and technological developments changed the way of
life for many people. The radio came to many isolated rural areas in the 1920s. It brought popular commercial music from northern
cities. It also made possible a venue for
country musicians to
broadcast throughout the South, on programs such as the National Barn Dance. Another important innovation was the phonograph.
When the phonograph became popular in the South, country people could buy records only of northern entertainers. However,
in 1923 Fiddlin’ John Carson, an old-time fiddler, political campaigner, and
moonshine maker, became one of the first of the southern musicians recorded when he played the song “The Little
Old Log Cabin in the Lane.” The unprecedented success of this record in rural areas launched the “hillbilly”
recording industry.
Much of the “country music” recorded
in the 1920s and 1930s drew its sound and lyrics from the folk music of the South. Commercial recordings made country music
available to everyone.
The Carter Family of Tennessee sang
historic ballads in a traditional fashion and became enormously popular in the 1920s. The Carters also sang religious tunes,
original songs, and popular and sentimental ballads. Their harmony singing, and Maybelle Carter’s lead guitar work,
had a great influence on future stars of country music. Uncle Dave Macon, who traveled through North Carolina and the South,
was a very colorful performer, singing everything from traditional folk songs to community satire to medicine show novelty
songs. He became the first big star of the Grand Ole Opry, the first national country music show.
Charlie Poole and his North Carolina Ramblers were among the many popular string
bands of the 1920s. The band featured fiddle, guitar, and banjo, and combined traditional dance tunes with the latest offerings
from the New York song industry. The most popular country music star of the 1920s was the “singing brakeman,”
Jimmie Rodgers. Originally from Mississippi, Jimmie Rodgers spent many years in Texas, and his association with the West led
to the increasing popularity of western and cowboy music. Authentic cowboy music was, like the music of the Southeast, rugged
and
traditional and often sung unaccompanied. Rodgers was one
of a long line of country musicians influenced by southern black music. His combination of blues with a highpitched yodel
earned him the name Blue Yodeler. Nationwide, the early years of country music recording reflected the effects of the Great
Depression. Many people were driven off their farms and became migrants looking for work. They often ended up in the bread
lines of the cities. Country musicians used
commercial success
as a way to escape poverty. However, as they tried to keep up with the new fads, traditional music was neglected. Though traditional
music did continue, the Depression’s disruption of rural life contributed to the decline of such music in the South.
As blues developed in Mississippi after the 1900s and
into the 1920s, it began to emerge into the mainstream of popular music. For some time it had been described as the devil=s
music and was performed mostly in juke joints and local parties. Black and white musicians in Mississippi did things together
in the 1920s that even in the 1960s would have been unheard of. Jimmie Rodgers, for example, invited Ishmon Bracey and Tommy
Johnson, both black blues artists, to perform with him at the King Edward Hotel in Jackson. This was after Rodgers heard them
playing on the street in front of the hotel. The blues influence on Jimmie Rodgers can be heard in many of his songs, such
as Train Whistle Blues, recorded in 1929.
Jimmie Rodgers
came to Jackson in 1926 to record a demo tape for RCA Victor with then talent scout H. C. Speir. Speir had a music store on
Farish Street and had discovered many great blues artists in the 1920s and 1930s. For that, he is called the Godfather of
Delta Blues. But after hearing Rodgers play, Speir said, AJimmie, you=re not ready to record right now.@ Speir told Rodgers
to go back to Meridian, work up some more songs, and come back later. Six months later, Rodgers found another way to get his
songs on Victor. The rest is history.
In the 1920s, Paris was the place to be! Paris’
allure was great in spite of the fact that the world was between two great wars and had seen destruction that was previously
beyond all comprehension. So many men died that male populations in some areas of the world were completely decimated. In
the United States, we had the “Roaring Twenties.” Exuberance, a thriving stock market, enthusiasm in dance, art,
and music was evident. Harlem attracted people as never before, and experienced a Renaissance of its own. Skyscrapers in Chicago
and New York reached new heights, as did hemlines. Charles Lindbergh crossed the Atlantic, and people were doing the Lindy
Hop. They also danced the Charleston, played jazz, and could buy a Ford for $290.
July 16, 1920, the beginning of the “Roaring Twenties,” was marked by the passage of the Volstead Act
– i.e. Prohibition. Even one half-ounce of the “Demon Rum” was outlawed, and proponents imagined empty jails
and happy homes in a society where alcohol, the root of all evil, would be no more. Proponents of Prohibition “even
claimed that nearly three thousand infants were smothered in bed each year by drunken parents” In fact, it was
thought that the sale of alcohol increased crime of all types. This very Act may have produced a decade of unprecedented lawlessness
in the United States. Organized crime, with characters such as Al Capone and Dutch Schultz, flourished as the supplier for
the great demand for alcohol. Speakeasies were just one of the alternatives people found to get their much desired liquor.
They could not be supplied legally, so gangsters took this opportunity and filled the gap. The money earned from the sale
of illegal alcohol financed Organized Crime, which found bigger and better fields of endeavor once Prohibition ended. They
quickly expanded their enterprise to include
“prostitution,
gambling, and extortion. In the process, they became involved in turf wars that, combined with their extortion rackets, made
many northern cities dangerous places to live” Of course, between the bathtub gin produced at home, the speakeasies,
doctors prescribing alcohol as frequently as they chose, and the fact that common people did not really consider drinking
a crime, the attempt to ban liquor was a failed endeavor from the start.
The 1920s was a decade of change, when many Americans
owned cars, radios, and telephones for the first time. The cars brought the need for good roads. The radio brought the world
closer to home. The telephone connected families and friends. Prosperity was on the rise in cities and towns, and social change
flavored the air. A substantial growth of industry occurred in North Carolina, especially in the areas of tobacco, textiles,
and furniture. Some rural farmers were leaving their farms in order to receive a regular pay-check in the factories. Unions
were on the rise. Women shortened, or “bobbed,” their hair,
flappers danced and wore short fancy dresses, and men shaved off their beards. In 1920 the average life span in the United
States was about fifty-four years, whereas today it’s about seventy-seven years. In 1920 the average time a student
spent in school each year was 75 days, and today it’s about 180 days. In 1920 the Eighteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution
was passed, creating the era of Prohibition. The amendment forbade the manufacture, sale, or transportation of alcoholic beverages. Many people ignored the ban, however. In 1933 the amendment
was abolished, and it became the only Constitutional amendment to be repealed. The 1920s began with the last American troops
returning from Europe after World War I. They were coming back to their families, friends, and jobs. Most of the soldiers
had never been far from home before the war, and their experiences had changed their perspective of life around them. After
seeing Europe, they wanted some of the finer things in life for themselves and their families.
Musical styles were also changing in the 1920s. In 1922
Louis Armstrong started improvising and adding personal musical variations with his trumpet, playing in a style known as jazz.
In 1925 the flappers found a new dance craze, called the Charleston. In 1927 The Jazz Singer became the first successful “talking
picture.” Before that time, motion pictures had been silent. In 1928 Mickey Mouse first appeared in the cartoon Steamboat
Willie, and in 1929 Popeye first appeared in the comic strip Thimble Theater. Aviation represented another area in which things
were changing quite rapidly, helped by advances and improvements in aircraft during World War I. Up to this time only a few
daredevils and barnstormers had flown. In 1924 the United States Air Service circumnavigated the world in airplanes, just
twenty-one years after Orville Wright flew the first powered plane for only forty yards here in North Carolina. On May 20–21,
1927, Charles Lindbergh flew solo from New York to Paris, and on June 17, 1928, Amelia Earhart became the first woman to fly
across the Atlantic Ocean. Before the decade was over, commercial passenger air travel had begun. In 1924 Congress passed
a law that made all American Indians citizens of the United States. The Fourteenth Amendment had already given African Americans
citizenship in 1866. Yet segregation, or separation of the races, continued to be practiced in North Carolina and in the South.
Modern civil rights laws for minorities were still many years away.
The 1920s represented an era of change and growth. The
decade was one of learning and exploration. America had become a world power and was no longer considered just another former
British colony. American culture, such as books, movies, and Broadway theater, was now being exported to the rest of the world.
World War I had left Europe on the decline and America on the rise. The decade of the 1920s helped to establish America’s
position in respect to the rest of the world, through its industry, its inventions, and its creativity.
Rock ’n’ roll. Hip-hop. Rap. Heavy metal.
These contemporary types of music may cause the older generation to be concerned about the popular music that youth listen
to today. Did you know that the young people of the 1920s faced similar issues with their older generation? When the adults
of the 1920s heard the blues and jazz being played, they expressed concern about the popular music that their youth were listening
to, as well. Many of the cultural conservatives viewed the music as having a bad moral influence on youth. We can define music
as “vocal, instrumental, or mechanical sounds having rhythm, melody, or harmony.” Ultimately, music reflects personal
tastes and situations. We listen to music when we are happy or sad. We play music for amusement and pleasure and when we want
to forget the cares of the day. We can hear music in our places of worship, riding in the car, or in the shower. Historically,
the United States has been one of the most culturally and ethnically diversenations in the world. Nearly every cultural and
ethnic group has brought its own music to America. History and geography have also played their parts in the music of America.
Think about work songs, cowboy songs, Depression songs, war songs, union songs, train songs, and protest songs. The first
Europeans to arrive in the New World brought with them the memories and songs of their native lands. These songs were, in
turn, mixed and blended with the sounds of the American Indians whom the colonists encountered. Each group of settlers brought
its own unique ethnic form of music. Puritans and Pilgrims sang hymns and psalms without instruments at meetings and church.
English and Scots-Irish gentry remembered ballads of the British Isles, and enslaved people brought here in slave ships carried
with them the chants and rhythms of Africa.
Much of the “country music” recorded in
the 1920s and 1930s drew its sound and lyrics from the folk music of the South. Commercial recordings made country music available
to everyone. The Carter Family of Tennessee sang historic ballads in a traditional fashion and became enormously popular in
the 1920s. The Carters also sang religious tunes, original songs, and popular and sentimental ballads. Their harmony singing,
and Maybelle Carter’s lead guitar work, had a great influence on future stars of country music. Uncle Dave Macon, who
traveled through North Carolina and the South, was a very colorful performer, singing everything from traditional folk songs
to community satire to medicine show novelty songs. He became the first big star of the Grand Ole Opry, the first national
country music show. Charlie Poole and his North Carolina Ramblers were among the many popular string bands of the 1920s. The
band featured fiddle, guitar, and banjo, and combined traditional dance tunes with the latest offerings from the New York
song industry. The most popular country music star of the 1920s was the “singing brakeman,” Jimmie Rodgers. Originally
from Mississippi, Jimmie Rodgers spent many years in Texas, and his association with the West led to the increasing popularity
of western and cowboy music.
Authentic cowboy music was, like the music of the Southeast,
rugged and traditional and often sung unaccompanied. Rodgers was
one of a long line of country musicians influenced by southern black music. His combination of blues
with a highpitched yodel earned him the name Blue Yodeler. Nationwide, the early years of country music
recording reflected the effects of the Great Depression. Many people were driven off their farms and became
migrants looking for work. They often ended up in the bread
lines of the cities. Country musicians used commercial success as a way to escape poverty. However,
as they tried to keep up with the new fads, traditional music was neglected. Though traditional music
did continue, the Depression’s disruption of rural life contributed to the decline of such music
in the South. Around the turn of the twentieth century, a new type of African American music had begun
to be heard throughout the South. Whether slow and mournful, harsh and driving, or light and naughty,
these solo songs became known collectively as the blues. The early years of the twentieth century saw a continuous
migration of southern blacks from rural areas to cities and from the South to the North. By the 1920s, a
number of large urban African American populations existed throughout the country. As a result, Memphis,
St. Louis, Atlanta, Indianapolis, Detroit, and Chicago became blues centers.
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