Chapter 6+7: pop-music

Bluegrass Music

A "neotraditionalist" style rooted in the acoustic string band tradition, known for its high energy and instrumental virtuosity, pioneered by Bill Monroe and His Blue Grass Boys.

Blues Crooner

• A form of smooth, low singing made possible by new recording technologies and singing techniques.

• Part of the “star singer” phenomenon

Chicago Electric Blues

• Urban blues tradition of the postwar era that was derived from the Mississippi Delta tradition of Charley Patton and Robert Johnson

Country + Western

• The diversification and urbanization of Rhythm & Blues (R&B) and Country & Western (C&W) music.

• Migration of both african americans to cities and white americans to the south widened the audience of these genres 

Covering

• The act of performing another artist song from a different genre or style; significant as it expanded the audience across the US for several genres 

Honky-Tonk music

•  The dominant C&W style ("hard country"), conveying the ethos of the roadside bar. It featured electronically amplified instruments and songs focused on adult themes like infidelity, drinking, and instability.

Jump Blues

• The first commercially successful R&B style, featuring small combos specializing in hard-swinging, boogie-woogie-based party music. Louis Jordan and His Tympany Five were highly influential, achieving crossover hits like "Choo Choo Ch' Boogie"

Payola

• Record companies paid DJ’s to put their records into “heavy rotation”

• Eventually came under legal scrutiny, ending the careers of some prominent record executives and disc jockeys

Rhythm and Blues

• Created in the 1940s by Black Americans bringing their music to urban centers, which fostered the creation of new, city-influenced sounds. Blended blues, jazz, gospel, and boogie-woogie.

Top 40 radio programming

• An attempt to control the uncertainty of the marketplace

Vocal Harmony Groups

• Sometimes called “doo-wop.”

• Roots in sacred music

  • Young singers trained in black churches recorded sacred material, moving the tradition of vocal harmony groups into the R&B market

Benny Goodman

A celebrity bandleader, and a skillful Jazz improviser.. Also a strict disciplinarian insisting his musicians played their parts with perfect precision. Clarinet Player.

Duke Ellington

A Jazz pianist and composer who led an orchestra at the Cotton Club, where he gained his fame and experience/ Helped destroy racial barriers by performing in places that previously banned black musicians. 

Ella Fitzgerald

• “First Lady of Song”

• Highly influential and widely beloved African American Jazz singer 

•  Remembered for clear tone, wide vocal range, and her extraordinary talent for scat singing 

• Used to pretend to forget lyrics in order to scat sing for audiences

Glenn Miller

• -An American big band conductor, arranger, composer, trombonist, and recording artist before and during WWII. Miller had a successful orchestra which had more chart-topping hits than any other band in the swing era with 16 no. 1 record and 69 top-ten hits.

Machito

Havana-born bandleader and singer, also known as Frank Grillo, who led the Afro-Cubans, an ensemble that introduced a more authentic form of Latin music to the United States during the swing era. Sings Nague.

William “Count” Basie

• Jazz pianist born in New Jersey 

• Gained experience as a player and  band leader in Kansas City, Missouri

• Composed and performed One O’Clock Jump

“Big Mama” Thornton

• Singer, drummer, harmonica player and comic on the black vaudeville circut. Deep raspy commanding voice. Projected a stark image of female power rarely if ever was expressed in the 50’s. Recorded “Hound Dog”

Frank Sinatra

• One of the first big band singers to take advantage of changes in the music business

• Started with Tommy Dorsey Orchestra

• Success lay partly in his keen business sense, his access to media exposure, and his sheer stamina

• Old blue eyes. Good Looking.

Kitty Wells

• The first female superstar of country music

• Reputation was spread by Network radio, particularly a series of appearances on the Louisiana Hayride show

Louis Jordan

• Led the Tympany 5, which was a successful Jump Band

• Saxophone player from Arkansas

• Popular with black listeners

Muddy Waters

• Electric guitar player

• Most popular blues musician in Chicago

• Performed as a musician in nightclubs while working in a paper mill

• Master of the bottleneck slide guitar technique

• Rough and emotional voice

Nat “king” Cole

• Cole was the most successful Black recording artist of the postwar era, placing fourteen Top 10 pop hits between 1946 and 1954. He became the first Black musician to host a weekly radio series (1948–1949) and a network television show (1956–1957).

• Song: Nature Boy.

Willie Dixon

• Composed “Hoochie Coochie Man”

• Chess Records’ house songwriter, bassist, producer, and arranger

Bill Monroe

• “Pioneer” of Bluegrass music

• Started his own group the “Blue Grass Boys”