I grew up in a musical family. My two older brothers were singers and musicians. Our cousins had a traveling singing group named, “The Hewlett Sisters.” When my sister and I were younger, we traveled with them to many churches in Memphis and North Mississippi. Eventually, they recorded their gospel songs and traveled across the United States.
The history of Black music is inseparable from the history of Black people in the United States. To get into the history of the music, we have to get deeper into the history of the people.
Music can be traced back to the days of slavery, when enslaved people sang spirituals and work songs to express themselves, share their stories, and motivate each other. When our ancestors were brought from the shores of Africa to the Americas, they brought with them the roots of their music. These roots changed history forever.
Amid struggles where Black people were denied common human rights, music became the only part of our ancestor’s culture where they could find comfort.
During slaverythere were songs that enslaved people sang to motivate each other and protest the system. Enslaved Africans sang these songs while working on plantations in the United States.
Work Songs and Field Hollersconsisted of various hollers, shouts and cries. The songs were not only a way to navigate the horrors of being enslaved on a plantation; they were also encrypted messages, Bible stories and uplifting words. Field hollers and work songs provided enslaved people with a sense of comfort and community while they endured the inhumanities of slavery. The tense, slightly hoarse-sounding, vocal techniques of the singer stems from West Africa.
Many work songs and field hollers were derived from religion. Others were songs, riddled with emotion that told the stories of their life experiences. However, hollers, shouts, and calls can be distinguished from each other. Shouts and calls were directed specifically at someone or something. For example, some messages were encrypted to let other enslaved people know when a plantation owner was in close proximity.
On the other hand, hollers were not specific to anyone or anything. Hollers could be heard by anyone who was close in range and could hear. Field hollers were used to communicate messages or feelings. These meaningful noises were accompanied by rhythmic movements as well as powerful words. Eventually, working and singing became intertwined.
This was the music of a second generation of enslaved people. In West Africa, singing to accompany one’s labor was quite common as they worked their own fields and land. It was quite different from forced labor in the United States (a foreign land).
Another song form is Call and Response. It also has roots in African musical traditions. Call and response songs, as the name suggests, involve a back-and-forth exchange between a leader (the “caller”) and a group (the “responders”). This dynamic interaction creates a rhythmic conversation that is both captivating and meaningful. The call often sets the tone, while the response amplifies and reinforces the message.
Africans came from an intensely religious culture. Initially enslaved people worshiped in secret, in the woods or bush harbors. Spirituals originated among enslaved and free Black people after they converted to Christianity. They were a form of religious expression and means of resistance and hope.
Enslaved people had to find other ways of worshiping when plantation owners told them they couldn’t worship in the old way.
Gospel music evolved from spirituals in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The Black church has always been a “church of emotion.” African call and response shaped the form of worship. Music and movement has always been an important part of the total emotional configuration of the Black church (Dancing, shouting).
This music is known for the Call and Response Form of Music -One part of a group poses a question or unfinished phase and another part answers it.
Black people helped shape country music. Black musicians taught country music’s “legends” how to play. It started with Blue Grass where stringed instruments and banjos, fiddles were used. These instruments originated in Africa.
Country music was born in the South in the midst of a tumultuous racial climate. In the early 1920s, DeFord Bailey – a talented Black man – appeared on the Nashville music scene with harmonica skills unlike anything before seen. Bailey would later become the first Black American to play for the Grand Ole Opry, the largest and most prestigious platform for country music for decades.
Tee Tot Payne, a guitarist and street performer from Louisiana, was the only teacher and mentor to the legendary Hank Williams, teaching him passing chords and how to write songs.
Gus Cannon (jug band musician in the 1920s) was a mentor for Johnny Cash. He taught him to play the banjo. Cannon is known for his song, “Walk Right In.”
In spite of Black people’s contributions to founding country music, very few Black Country artists have achieved mainstream success. However, the legendary Charley Pride is one notable exception. As the only Black American ever inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame, Pride overcame tremendous racial barriers on the way to the top.
The Blues emerged in the Deep South in the 1860s and resulted from African captives becoming American captives. During this time, the majority of Black people were enslaved in the South.
The term Blues relate directly to the experience of Black people in America. It is the one music Black people made that could not be transferred into a more general significance. The blues is an attitude! It has a deep melancholic and somber tone.
Blues has incorporated spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts, chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads from the Black American culture.
Country blues (also folk blues, rural blues, backwoods blues, or downhome blues) is one of the earliest forms of blues music. The mainly solo vocal with acoustic guitar accompaniment developed in the Mississippi Delta in the early 20th century.
Many changes had taken place in Black Americans. By this time, the singers were backed up by bands or orchestras. Classic Blues was born!
W.C. Handy was a band composer and played trumpet/cornet. He was known as “The Father of the Blues” because he promoted blues to a worldwide audience. In 1914, his first hit was “Memphis Blues.”
Ragtime is a musical style that peaked from the 1890s to 1910s in the Midwest and South. Typically composed for and performed on piano.
Ragtime evolved in the playing of honky-tonk pianists along the Mississippi and Missouri rivers in the last decades of the 19th century.
Jazz evolved from Ragtime and The Blues. It originated in the late 19th century in New Orleans, Louisiana. The music created a sense of identity, originality and social cohesion. Jazz is most commonly played on the saxophone, trumpet, trombone, piano, bass, drums, and guitar.
Rhythm and Blues is a genre of popular music that originated within the Black community in the 1940s. It is the urban contemporary expression of blues. The term was originally used by record companies to describe recordings marketed predominantly to Black Americans. It was infused with pop elements to create the “Sound of Young America.”
Rock and roll evolved in the United States during the late 1940s and early 1950s. It originated from Black American music such as jazz, rhythm and blues, boogie-woogie, and gospel.
While rock and roll’s formative elements can be heard in blues records from the 1920s and in country records of the 1930s, the genre did not acquire its name until 1954. It had a quicker tempo than rhythm & blues and appealed to younger demographics.
The 1960s was a turbulent time in American history. The civil rights movement was in full swing and music became a powerful weapon for change!
The theme song “We Shall Overcome” offered hope and love in the face of oppression.
Many other forms of music such as Hip-hop and Rap evolved from earlier music forms and styles.
As I researched information for our local Black History Month program, I learned music and dance connect communities through shared history and cultural expressions. I think we’ll agree that these rhythmic expressions promote appreciation, respect, and understanding- fostering a sense of community and belonging.
Francie Mae. January 25, 2025
Reference
Jones, Leroi. 1963. Blues People. Negro Music In White America. First Edition. New York. Quill.