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30 Jun 07 - 02:35 PM (#2091022) Subject: Origins: Origins of folk and blues From: jimmyt SOrry the title is a bit daft, but I wanted to attract enough wise mudcatters to throw in their 2 cents in this. I have just begun playing blues and Jayne, my wife, has accompanied me to a few gigs. She is a fine musician in her own right and is interested in other styles. This morning, she asked me to define the differences and similarities of the 2 genres. I blustered on for a few minutes mostly about musical form, but the more I thought about it, I felt it was a question that may very well be asked of the people who know more than I ever will in a lifetime about either style. Please feel free to give your opinions. |
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30 Jun 07 - 03:36 PM (#2091072) Subject: RE: Origins: Origins of folk and blues From: Waddon Pete Hello Jimmy, It will be interesting to see how this thread develops! For my sixpennyworth...they both come from the human need to sing. Song is a release of emotion and anyone can do it! It probably also has to do with the inate rhythms that we all carry with us...pulse and heart beat...rhythm of feet on the hard, hard, ground. They style you choose is your decision...but if you sing it unaccompanied when there is no-one else to hear...you are extending tradition that stretches back to when Ug first beat a rock and thought it good! Best wishes, Peter |
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30 Jun 07 - 05:42 PM (#2091153) Subject: RE: Origins: Origins of folk and blues From: greg stephens Blues is a kind of folk, it's a small part of it. That's the first thing. They are not two separate but comparable things. Blues is to folk as England is to the world, not as England is to France. |
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30 Jun 07 - 06:03 PM (#2091164) Subject: RE: Origins: Origins of folk and blues From: Jerry Rasmussen Blues is folk music after a rough day, jimmy.. Jerry |
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01 Jul 07 - 05:52 PM (#2091868) Subject: RE: Origins: Origins of folk and blues From: Azizi If indeed blues is a genre of folk music, it differs from other types of folk music in at least one significant aspect-songs in the other types of folk music have no known composers, but most if not all of blues songs have known composers or at least for early blues musicians who credit themselves as the composer of that piece. Here's an interesting article that I found about W. C. Handy, who was called himself and was known as the Father of the Blues: http://www.perfessorbill.com/ragtime4b.shtml Here's an excerpt of that article: "Growing up in post-Civil War Alabama, the music of Black America and African heritage surrounded young Will Handy. His parents were well enough off to get him music lessons, and his first instrument was the cornet. In his late teens Handy started touring the South with various troupes and shows. According to him, it was in 1892 in Mississippi that he had his first exposure to Delta Blues. He eventually took over one of the groups he traveled with in 1896, and built up a repertoire of light classics, cakewalks, and early rags. Most of their travels were in the Mississippi Delta area through the early 1900's. Although Handy called himself "the Father of the Blues," he did not invent the blues form. He was at least the third composer to use the term "blues" in a song title, preceded three weeks by Artie Matthews' arrangement of Baby Seals Blues. Handy's first blues piece was first put down in 1908 when he was commissioned to write a campaign song for the mayor of Memphis, Edward H. Crump. The song was published as Mr. Crump and went over well. When the blues was finally acknowledged as a publishable genre in 1912, Handy retooled the piece and published under the name Memphis Blues. This time it included "blue notes" (flatted thirds and sevenths) and a more definitive 12 bar blues section. The publication of this and other early pieces like the train oriented Yellow Dog Blues, started a veritable flood of blues-styled compositions... In the 1930's when the playing jobs started to disappear, he wrote his autobiography, Father of the Blues. On a 1938 Ripley's Believe It Or Not radio program, Handy's role was lauded as not only the father, but the inventor of the blues. This incensed one of it's listeners, Ferdinand "Jelly Roll" Morton, who knew better. In a letter that was sent to Ripley and later read on the air, Morton made it clear that it was more likely that HE introduced the blues, not to mention, jazz, to the world, but stopped short of claiming invention rights. In truth, no one man invented the genre, but both certainly spread it throughout the world. While not the originator of the blues, Handy was certainly it's most effective spokesperson, and continued to promote the music form and push for its inclusion in the early 1900s American music vernacular." |
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01 Jul 07 - 05:58 PM (#2091871) Subject: RE: Origins: Origins of folk and blues From: Azizi Oops! For want of hyphens, the kingdom was lost! Well, not really. But let me add those hyphens and an additional word [!!] to that convoluted sentence- If indeed blues is a genre of folk music, it differs from other types of folk music in at least one significant aspect-songs in the other types of folk music have no known composers, but most if not all of blues songs have known composers or-at least in the case of early blues-have musicians who credit themselves as the composer of that piece. [Actually, I'd like to throw that entire sentence out and start all over again. But I hope you get my drift..."drift"=what I was trying to say.] |
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01 Jul 07 - 08:30 PM (#2091959) Subject: RE: Origins: Origins of folk and blues From: Charley Noble Azizi- You are a treasure! Cheerily, Charley Noble |
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01 Jul 07 - 08:47 PM (#2091969) Subject: RE: Origins: Origins of folk and blues From: GUEST,merle http://thebluehighway.com/history.html Look at this site. |
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01 Jul 07 - 08:48 PM (#2091971) Subject: RE: Origins: Origins of folk and blues From: Azizi Charley, So does that mean that you agree with what I wrote, regardless of the way I wrote it? If so, are there other ways that blues differs from [other?] folk genres? What about having a [somewhat] known time period for the beginning of what is now called blues music? Do [other] types of folk music have start dates or decades, and if so what are those dates based on? |
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01 Jul 07 - 08:52 PM (#2091977) Subject: RE: Origins: Origins of folk and blues From: GUEST,merle http://www.scaruffi.com/history/blues.html also this site, I forgot to mention. |
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02 Jul 07 - 05:42 AM (#2092238) Subject: RE: Origins: Origins of folk and blues From: GUEST,Shimrod "...songs in the other types of folk music have no known composers..." An old, old chesnut this - but it's just not true! ANY song can become a folk song - it just has to be selected by the 'folk'. Here in the UK many songs selected by the 'folk' in the Nineteeth Century, and earlier, were published on broadsides (ie. printed song sheets offered for sale). The people who wrote the songs on the broadsides just didn't sign their work, that's all. Presumably it either didn't occur to them to do so, it wasn't the 'done thing' or the broadside publisher claimed ownership of the song once it was committed to print. |
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02 Jul 07 - 06:25 AM (#2092254) Subject: RE: Origins: Origins of folk and blues From: Roger the Skiffler "Blues ain't nothin' but a poor workin' man feelin' bad" (Good Morning Blues: as performed by L. Donegan & many others) RtS |
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02 Jul 07 - 10:53 AM (#2092394) Subject: RE: Origins: Origins of folk and blues From: Leadbelly "When you lay down at night, turning from one side of the bed to the other and can't sleep, what's the matter? Blues got you." - Leadbelly (the original one) |
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02 Jul 07 - 11:02 AM (#2092399) Subject: RE: Origins: Origins of folk and blues From: dick greenhaus Azizi- I think that the known authorship of many blues--at least those that are recognizible songs, rather than collections of floating verses--is a result of the fact that blues are fairly recent creations--largely being disseminated by recordings and radio. |