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The Phonograph
The Phonograph was the first device that could capture sound and reproduce the sound. It is a device for mechanical recording and reproduction. It was developed by Thomas Edison in 1877. The receiver consisted of a tin foil wrapped cylinder and a very thin membrane called a diaphragm which was attached to a needle. Sound waves were directed onto the diaphragm which made it vibrate causing the needle to cut groves into the foil. The vibrations played back the recorded sounds. -
Thomas Edison
Thomas Edison was an American Inventor and businessman. He has been described as Americas greatest inventor. He is to thank for discovering the secret to recording sound, the phonograph. Thomas Edison was actually working on two other devices, the telegraph and the telephone when he made the phonograph. He created the phonograph at the Menlo Park Lab in New Jersey in 1877. -
The Black Roots of Rock and Roll
Rock and Roll was an inevitable outgrowth of the social and musical interactions between black people and white people in the South and Southwest. African songs forms used to accompany many aspects of life including work that were adapted by slaves on plantations and Southern work camps. 1880-1900. By the mid-1930's elements of rock and roll could be found in every type of American folk and blues music. -
Country Blues
Country blues is acoustic, mainly guitar driven forms or the blues. Mixes blues elements with country and folk characteristics. After the blues began its growing popularity in the Southern United States it was quickly spread throughout the country starting many regional styles. Country blues is the music of day to day life. -
William Christopher Handy
W.C Handy was known as the father of the blues. He was a composer and a musician. Handy was one of the most influential songwriters in the United States. One of Handy's songs was, "Memphis Blues" which was believed to have 'started the blues craze.' Memphis music's first international star. -
Classic Blues
Classic blues was an early form of blues music. It was performed by female singers accompanied by pianists or small jazz elements. Most of the classic blues recordings were released on small independent labels. Important people involved in classic blues were, Mamie Smith, Bessie Smith, and Ethel Waters. Mamie Smith -
Jazz and Louis Armstrong
Jazz was an improvisational art form of individual expression. Jazz developed alongside the blues throughout the first half of the twentieth century. It was in the 1920's where the first true innovator, Louis Armstrong revolutionized jazz by turning it into a soloists art form simply on the drama and strength of his virtuoso improvisations. -
Recording Technology
Other than the phonograph other recording technologies were the acoustical Process and the electrical process. The acoustical process was the process used before 1925 where an acoustical horn captured the sound of the musicians who huddled in front of it. The sound vibrations were transferred to a stylus that cut grooves onto a wax disc. The electrical process is when microphones are used to convert sound waves into an electrical signal. -
Gospel
Gospel music emerged as a style in the early 1930's from the traditional spirituals that had been a part of black religious culture since the days of slavery. Gospel music had an immense amount of influence of Americans popular music. -
Benny Goodman
Benny Goodman was the first star of the Swing Era. His meteoric rise to fame started at the Palomar Ballroom in Los Angeles on August 21st, 1935 when hundreds of teens showed up to hear and dance to the music they had been hearing on the NBC network radio program. -
Chicago
At this time millions of black folks were heading north to Chicago and other industrialized cities in search of a better life. Boogie woogie was the blues piano style was cultivated in Kansas City and Chicago and created a national fad after it was introduced to the rest of the country in 1938. Boogie woogie was a form of piano blues whose main characteristic is a left handed repeated pattern that imitates the blues guitar. Jazz was another genre that found it way to Chicago. -
Frank Sinatra
Frank Sinatra was the first pop singer to create a unique personal style and image. Sinatra was influenced by jazz singers, Louis Armstrong, and Billy Holiday. He took liberties with melodies and interpreted songs in his own way. His first song, "Polka Dots and Moonbeams" was released in April of 1940. -
Urban Blues
An extrovert and rhythmic style of blues, usually accompanied by a band. An important person in urban blues was Muddy Waters. One of his songs is called, "Rollin' Stone" which inspired the names of, The Rolling Stone Magazine, and the band The Rolling Stones. -
"Caldonia" Louis Jordan
Louis Jordan was a pioneering american musician songwriter and band leader who was popular from the late 1930's to the early 1950's. The song, "Caldonia" was one of his biggest hits ever. Louis Jordan had a lot of success with this song. This song was also one of the songs that was covered by a white singer. -
Race Music
Race music as a term to describe/categorize any records or songs by black artists, including the blues and what would later be known as rhythm and blues. Race Music were the first examples of popular music recorded and markets for African Americans -
Cover
A cover was a new recording of a charting song that seeks to ´cover' up the original song. When a R&B or country record broke through and became a hit, the strategy that major labels used was to quickly record a cover version by a pop singer that had a good commercial appeal.Covers were an effective strategy from 1946-1954 however when white teenagers started demanding the real thing they were no longer an effective marketing approach. -
Rhythm and Blues
Rhythm and blues or R&B was an evolution of the blues that was more dance and commercially oriented. R&B bands often included electric instruments such as bass guitars, guitars, organs, vocalists, and a horn section. -
Doo-Wap
Doo-wap was the acappellla group vocal style that incorporates high falsetto vocal leads, scat singing, rhythmic vocal backings and sometimes lead vocals or spoken verse by the bass singer. In terms of the record sales doo-wap was the most popular black music style in the 1950's -
Elvis Presley
Elvis was born in Mississippi in 1935. In the mid 1950's Elvis Presley was appearing on radio, television, and the silver screen. Presley came from very humble to one of the biggest names in rock'n'roll history. -
Pat Boone
The 'poster child' for this tactic was Pat Boone who made watered down covers of Fats Domino's "Ain't That a Shame" in 1955 and Little Richard's "Tutti Frutti" in 1956. Both of these covers outsold the original versions of the songs.
