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“Let's Go Out to the Programs” (1952–1959)

Jerry Zolten

in Great God Aʼmighty! The Dixie Hummingbirds: Celebrating the Rise of Soul Gospel Music

The seven years between 1952 and 1959 were an extraordinarily rich period for the Dixie Hummingbirds and also for African American cultural history. African American artists of every kind continued ... More

The seven years between 1952 and 1959 were an extraordinarily rich period for the Dixie Hummingbirds and also for African American cultural history. African American artists of every kind continued to the forefront of popular entertainment, particularly in the field of music. Although rhythm and blues especially succeeded in the pop mainstream and influenced more popular genres such as rock ‘n’ roll, gospel remained primarily “insider” music, culture bound, and still celebrated mostly within the African American community. Black gospel occasionally did reach multiracial audiences via radio, records, television, and news stories, but throughout the 1950s, the stars of gospel were for the most part stars within the sphere of African American entertainment.Less

Rhythm ‘n’ Blues

Nick Catalano

in Clifford Brown: The Life and Art of the Legendary Jazz Trumpeter

During the 1950s, the black theatre and night club circuit was dominated by rhythm ‘n’ blues. There was an enormous national audience for this music, and as the popularity of big dance bands waned, ... More

During the 1950s, the black theatre and night club circuit was dominated by rhythm ‘n’ blues. There was an enormous national audience for this music, and as the popularity of big dance bands waned, the music also began to interest greater numbers of white audiences. By 1953, black rhythm ‘n’ blues performers were absorbed into the great onslaught of rock ‘n’ roll. One day in late November 1951, one such group, dubbed The Five Blue Flames, and later billed as “Chris Powell and the Blue Flames”, visited Wilmington for a couple of dances. The music consisted of “mostly rhythm ‘n’ blues, jazz, mambo and calypso”, according to Vance Wilson, the tenor saxist with the band at the time. One night, after seeing Clifford Brown play during either one of the Wilmington dances or another of the Blue Flames' appearances in nearby Philadelphia, Chris Powell asked him to join his band. The twenty-two-year-old Brown had to pack his gear and immediately become a road musician.Less

Jungle Madness: Jazz Dance and Exotic Numbers

John Wriggle

in Blue Rhythm Fantasy: Big Band Jazz Arranging in the Swing Era

This chapter considers some of Chappie Willet's approaches to instrumental dance music; including the framing of solo or ensemble virtuosity, the setting of new melodies over familiar chord ... More

This chapter considers some of Chappie Willet's approaches to instrumental dance music; including the framing of solo or ensemble virtuosity, the setting of new melodies over familiar chord progressions, and the stylized representation of performer identity or “exotic” variety. Following historical narratives on big band jazz icons like Count Basie and Duke Ellington, instrumental dance numbers tend to be the swing genre most closely associated with jazz improvisation. But arrangements designed for dancing audiences at venues like the Roseland or Savoy Ballrooms still drew upon many of the same theatrical music signifiers and variety entertainment strategies that marked classics, concertos, or vocal features. And at the same time, in Swing Era variety entertainment, programmatic themes of geographic or cultural exoticism could be represented by individual arrangements or even entire orchestras.Less

It’s Whose Thing?: The Isley Brothers and Rhythm and Blues

Eric Weisbard

in Top 40 Democracy: The Rival Mainstreams of American Music

From their first hit, “Shout,” in 1959, to their number one album Body Kiss in 2003, the Isley Brothers were a constant presence in pop music. Yet their career contains two divergent narratives: a ... More

From their first hit, “Shout,” in 1959, to their number one album Body Kiss in 2003, the Isley Brothers were a constant presence in pop music. Yet their career contains two divergent narratives: a period of crossover success, linked to rock and roll and Top 40, followed by a period of success crossing back to a largely African American audience separated from whites by the rock/soul split. The Isley Brothers remained successful in this latter phase by connecting themselves to Columbia Records and a corporate version of soul culture, which included alongside black music divisions of major record labels the reinvention of R&B radio as formatted “urban contemporary.” Here, and most specifically in relationship to the ballads subformat of R&B known as “Quiet Storm,” black culture became a mediated ritual that crossed new separations: between African Americans divided by economic class and the exodus by some blacks from inner city struggles celebrated in hip-hop. The Isleys illustrate the long history of rhythm and blues in relationship to what Guthrie Ramsey has called Afromodernism: the ideal of reconciling southern agrarian and northern urban black culture, sacred and secular, gutbucket funkiness and Ebony magazine classiness.Less

Rock ’n’ Roll

James Wierzbicki

in Music in the Age of Anxiety: American Music in the Fifties

This chapter discusses the romantic genealogy of rock 'n' roll and how its style resulted from the happy integration of white hillbilly music with black “race music” or, as it came to be known in the ... More

This chapter discusses the romantic genealogy of rock 'n' roll and how its style resulted from the happy integration of white hillbilly music with black “race music” or, as it came to be known in the 1950s, “rhythm and blues.” Supported by recent scholarship that has delved into the files of record companies, analyses affirm that rock 'n' roll represents a blatant appropriation of black music by white entrepreneurs. A postmodern view might regard rock 'n' roll not even as music, but as simply “a marketing concept that evolved into a lifestyle.” The chapter also analyzes how Bill Haley's recording of “Rock Around the Clock” turned the tide of American popular music in late 1955.Less

Ol’ Man Rhythm

Todd Decker

in Who Should Sing Ol' Man River?: The Lives of an American Song

This chapter chronicles up-tempo versions of “Ol’ Man River,” showing how the song survived several transitions in popular music and dance styles and in jazz. The relative tempo of different versions ... More

This chapter chronicles up-tempo versions of “Ol’ Man River,” showing how the song survived several transitions in popular music and dance styles and in jazz. The relative tempo of different versions is compared by measuring beats per minute (or bpm). The song’s capacity to work as dance music in 1920s jazz, 1930s and 1940s swing, 1950s rhythm and blues, and various 1960s rock styles is demonstrated by more than fifty audio examples. Fast versions also reveal the syncopated possibilities inherent in Kern’s tune. Multiple instrumental versions by jazz bands and soloists demonstrate how the tune inspired musical invention in both players and arrangers to the end of the 1960s.Less

The Deep River Boys

Bruce Bastin and Kip Lornell

in The Melody Man: Joe Davis and the New York Music Scene, 1916-1978

This chapter focuses on Joe Davis’s business activities in the early 1950s. It explains that during this time, Davis again ventured into music publishing. He signed and recorded several artists and ... More

This chapter focuses on Joe Davis’s business activities in the early 1950s. It explains that during this time, Davis again ventured into music publishing. He signed and recorded several artists and groups, including the Deep River Boys and the 5 Barons from Philadelphia. Davis was also able to secure business with film company MGM as an independent producer, to start a rhythm and blues catalog.Less

Groove Me: Dancing to the Discs of Northern Soul

David Sanjek

in Transatlantic Roots Music: Folk, Blues, and National Identities

This chapter examines the phenomenon of Northern Soul, addressing four main issues. First, what is the composition of the discography constituted by Northern Soul advocates, and how does it demarcate ... More

This chapter examines the phenomenon of Northern Soul, addressing four main issues. First, what is the composition of the discography constituted by Northern Soul advocates, and how does it demarcate a particular portion of the rhythm & blues repertoire as innately superior to better-known and publicly popular recordings? Second, what relationship is projected between the two nations of the United States and England, and how is the geography from which the music originated imagined? Third, how has the Northern Soul community integrated issues of race, and what determination might be made about the kinds of bonds that elude and perhaps eradicate lines of potential hostility that can originate through the acquisition and acclimation of commercial products? Finally, what specific ideological statements might be intertwined within particular acts of pleasure, and might something be emancipated on the dance floor other than the inhibitions of the audience?Less

From the Albert Hall to a British Counterculture

in Special Relations: The Americanization of Britain?

This chapter describes the Beat-inspired international poetry happening at the Royal Albert Hall in 1965. The Hall in South Kensington held a position of some importance in the iconography of postwar ... More

This chapter describes the Beat-inspired international poetry happening at the Royal Albert Hall in 1965. The Hall in South Kensington held a position of some importance in the iconography of postwar British identity. The Poetry International, or “Wholly Communion” as it came to be known, was “a magnificent shambles.” The British rhythm and blues tradition that Birchall lamented and the psychedelic phenomenon were closely connected to American models. There was significant transatlantic cross-fertilization in the formative influences surrounding psychedelia and “mind-blowing” rock. The counterculture gave birth to antiestablishment radicals in Britain in the late 1960s. The British and American countercultures showed quite similar psychological responses: disillusion and distrust of authority, an indefinitely prolonged period of adolescent turmoil, the demand for the immediate gratification of desire, and what Bettelheim had determined as the neurotic drives of the student leaders.Less

. My Skin Is Black ~ 1965 ~

Nadine Cohodas

in Princess Noire: The Tumultuous Reign of Nina Simone

This chapter discusses Nina's recording session that Newsweek photographer Bernard Gotfryd shot. This session featured more varied songs than the previous spring, including two rhythm-and-blues tunes ... More

This chapter discusses Nina's recording session that Newsweek photographer Bernard Gotfryd shot. This session featured more varied songs than the previous spring, including two rhythm-and-blues tunes from Andy with provocative titles: “Gimme Some” and “Take Care of Business.” The most unusual song, though, was Nina's remake of Screamin' Jay Hawkins's wildly entertaining “I Put a Spell on You,” an original full of hollers, moans, and a rat-a-tat sax that in live performances featured Hawkins emerging from a coffin amid swirls of fake smoke like some voodoo prince. Hal Mooney set Nina amid his trademark strings but also added an evocative sax solo from Jerome Richardson that played off Nina's vocals.Less

Common Routes to New Orleans

in The French Atlantic: Travels in Culture and History

This chapter examines the history of New Orleans as part of the French Atlantic. It explains that New Orleans and Louisiana have been similarly marginalized within French culture and suggests that ... More

This chapter examines the history of New Orleans as part of the French Atlantic. It explains that New Orleans and Louisiana have been similarly marginalized within French culture and suggests that the French Atlantic played a part in the creation of New Orleans rhythm and blues. It discusses the role New Orleans as the pivot or nodal point of the French Atlantic and contends that it was the most distinctly and uniquely marked by Atlantic slavery and its aftermath.Less

Crossing Over Jordan: Navigating the Music of Heavenly Bliss and Earthly Desire in the Lives and Careers of Three Twentieth-Century African American Holiness-Pentecostal “Crossover” Artists

Louis B. Gallien

in Afro-Pentecostalism: Black Pentecostal and Charismatic Christianity in History and Culture

This chapter examines the Pentecostal foundations of three African American male “crossover” artists with deep roots in Afro-Pentecostalism: Sam Cooke, Marvin Gaye, and Donny Hathaway. It relates the ... More

This chapter examines the Pentecostal foundations of three African American male “crossover” artists with deep roots in Afro-Pentecostalism: Sam Cooke, Marvin Gaye, and Donny Hathaway. It relates the experience of these singer-songwriters' crossover from gospel music to secular music, and specifically rhythm and blues. It also considers their struggle to reconcile their religious backgrounds and gospel music genesis with their desires to maintain successful secular careers. Using the experiences of these three music icons, the chapter sheds light on the complicated themes of sexuality and spirituality within the black Pentecostal movement. It shows how Cooke, Gaye, and Hathaway helped close the discourse regarding the chasm between secular and sacred music, especially as African Americans understood and experienced the marketability and commercial success of their musical heritages.Less