Country Music Style In The 1910's

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We firstly looked at how ‘Country music’ came to be and investigated the ‘Memphis Blues’ style in the 1910’s. This distinctive style founded in the Memphis area in Tennessee was played by black musicians within slavery, this is why it has many ties with blues music. From this the instruments that were used ties in greatly with the ‘jug-bands’ which included washboards, steel guitars, harmonicas, kazoos, acoustic guitars and the jug itself. However evolving ‘skiffle bands’ later dropped instruments such as the jug and others and evolved into different genres.Brushes that were made out of fly swatters were key to playing quiet and give an acoustic sound without amplifiers as it was started with the poorer families that couldn’t afford expensive…show more content…
This uptempo and rockabilly genre uses the ‘chicka boom’ rhythm that is a different term for a jazz quaver (seen at the side) which is played on the 2 and 4 beats and the slapped bass rhythm played on beats 1 and 3 in commontime on the double bass. The best place to find country music was the ‘Grand Old Opry’ which was originally a church that played gospel music that changed into a concert hall for country musicians. However drummers were deemed ‘too loud’ so they were only limited one brush playing a snare drum for the beat. Because poor families could not afford all of modern acoustic instruments in the 1930’s-40’s washboards or spoons were used as a rhythm section. These homemade instruments eventually developed the ‘country skiffle’ on a drum kit which consisted of the hi hat foot chick played on beats 2 and 4 in common time and the ‘feathered’ light bass drums on beats 1 and 3. On top of this the jazz quaver triplet rhythm which misses out the middle quaver within the triplets is layered over the top if a ‘wash’ scraping of the snare drum wasn’t already…show more content…
We explored how this Canadian singer singing about the troubles of Alabama and slavery in his lyrics was offencive to people who truly understood the troubles of Alabama. “I saw cotton and I saw black Tall white mansions and little shacks” juxtaposes the contrasting rich white supremacy against the black poor slaves. In looking at this music futher Neil Young’s ‘Southern Man’ was seen as a typical 1970’s progressive rock ballad it was a contrast to the bluegrass that usually presented these sort of songs. Another controversial verse “Now your crosses are burning fast” talk about the activist events that the KKK did in order to terrorise and scare the black residents, this included placing crosses in the middle of the night and setting them alight on their lawns. The third verse infact talks about the bombing of a Birmingham church “in Birmingham they love the governor” in which afro-american people were having a service, this insidently killed as another act of white terrorism . The following year in 1964 the Civil Rights Act was pushed forward as it gave african american people equal rights and ending racial segregation. The following lines “Now Watergate does not bother me,Does your conscience bother you?” refers to the people who voted the edges racist and sexist president Nixon at the time and what he didn’t do for the rights of african americans. The abuse of his power
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