The AfroAmer sacred song (negro spiritulas-gospel) tradition appreciation and it's impact thread

[IllmaticDelta]

Boogie Woogie

Boogie-woogie is a style of piano-based blues that became popular in the late 1930s and early 1940s, but originated much earlier, and was extended from piano, to three pianos at once, guitar, big band, and country and western music, and even gospel. Whilst the blues traditionally depicts a variety of emotions, boogie-woogie is mainly associated with dancing. The lyrics of one of the earliest hits, "Pinetop's Boogie Woogie", consist entirely of instructions to dancers:

Now, when I tell you to hold yourself, don't you move a peg.
And when I tell you to get it, I want you to Boogie Woogie!

It is characterized by a regular bass figure, in the left hand. The bass figure is transposed according to the chord changes.


Earliest attempts to determine a geographical origin for boogie-woogie

The earliest documented inquiries into the geographical origin of boogie-woogie occurred in the late 1930s when oral histories from the oldest living Americans of both African and European descent, revealed a broad consensus that boogie-woogie piano was first played in Texas in the early 1870s. Additional citations place the origins of boogie-woogie in the Piney Woods of northeast Texas. "The first Negroes who played what is called boogie-woogie, or house-rent music, and attracted attention in city slums where other Negroes held jam sessions, were from Texas. And all the Old-time Texans, black or white, are agreed that boogie piano players were first heard in the lumber and turpentine camps, where nobody was at home at all. The style dates from the early 1870s."


Railroad connection to Marshall & Harrison County, Texas

A key to identifying the geographical area in which boogie-woogie originated is understanding the relationship of boogie-woogie music with the steam railroad, both in the sense of how the music might have been influenced by sounds associated with the arrival of steam locomotives as well as the cultural impact the sudden emergence of the railroad might have had on newly emancipated African Americans.

The railroad did not “arrive” in northeast Texas as an extension of track from existing lines from the north or the east. Rather, the first railroad locomotives and iron rails were brought to northeast Texas via steamboats from New Orleans via the Mississippi and Red Rivers and Caddo Lake to Swanson’s Landing, located on the Louisiana/Texas state line. Beginning with the formation of the Texas Western Railroad Company in Marshall, Texas, through the subsequent establishment in 1871 of the Texas and Pacific Railway company, which located its headquarters and shops there, Marshall was the only railroad hub in the Piney Woods of northeast Texas at the time the music developed. The sudden appearance of steam locomotives, and the building of mainline tracks and tap lines to serve logging operations was pivotal to the creation of the music in terms of its sound and rhythm. It was also crucial to the rapid migration of the musical style from the rural barrel house camps to the cities and towns served by the Texas and Pacific Railway Company.

"Although the neighboring states of Arkansas, Louisiana, and Missouri would also produce boogie-woogie players and their boogie-woogie tunes, and despite the fact that Chicago would become known as the center for this music through such pianists as Jimmy Yancey, Albert Ammons, and Meade 'Lux" Lewis, Texas was home to an environment that fostered creation of boogie-style: the lumber, cattle, turpentine, and oil industries, all served by an expanding railway system from the northern corner of East Texas to the Gulf Coast and from the Louisiana border to Dallas and West Texas." Alan Lomax, wrote: "Anonymous black musicians, longing to grab a train and ride away from their troubles, incorporated the rhythms of the steam locomotive and the moan of their whistles into the new dance music they were playing in jukes and dance halls. Boogie-woogie forever changed piano playing, as ham-handed black piano players transformed the instrument into a polyrhythmic railroad train."

In the 1986 television broadcast of Britain's "South Bank Show" about boogie-woogie, music historian Paul Oliver, noted: "Now the conductors were used to the logging camp pianists clamoring aboard, telling them a few stories, jumping off the train, getting into another logging camp, and playing again for eight hours, barrel house. In this way the music got around -- all through Texas -- and eventually, of course, out of Texas. Now when this new form of piano music came from Texas, it moved out towards Louisiana. It was brought by people like George Thomas, an early pianist who was already living in New Orleans by about 1910 and writing "New Orleans Hop Scop Blues," which really has some of the characteristics of the music that we came to know as Boogie."

Paul Oliver also wrote that George W. Thomas “composed the theme of the New Orleans Hop Scop Blues – in spite of its title – based on the blues he had heard played by the pianists of East Texas.” On February 12, 2007, Paul Oliver confirmed to John Tennison that it was Sippie Wallace who told Oliver that performances by East Texas pianists had formed the basis for George Thomas's "Hop Scop Blues."

George Thomas and his brother Hersal Thomas migrated from Texas to Chicago, and brought boogie-woogie with them. They were an immense influence on other pianists, including Jimmy Yancey, Meade Lux Lewis, Albert Ammons and many others. Many elements that we now know as elements of boogie-woogie are present in Hersal and George Thomas' "The Fives." According to Dr. John Tennison, "although some Boogie Woogie bass figures were present in prior sheet music, the thing that made 'The Fives' so special was the greater amount and variety of Boogie Woogie bass figures that were present in the music as compared to Boogie Woogie bass figures that had been present in previously published sheet music, such as the 1915 “Weary Blues” by Artie Matthews.

"Albert Ammons and Meade 'Lux' Lewis claim that 'The Fives,' [copyrighted in 1921 and published in 1922] the Thomas brothers' musical composition, deserves much credit for the development of modern boogie-woogie. During the 1920s, many pianists featured this number as a 'get off' tune and in the variations played what is now considered boogie-woogie."

Indeed, all modern boogie-woogie bass figures can be found in "The Fives," including swinging, walking broken-octave bass, shuffled (swinging) chord bass (of the sort later used extensively by Ammons, Lewis, and Clarence "Pine Top" Smith), and the ubiquitous "oom-pah" ragtime stride bass

According to The New Grove Dictionary of Jazz boogie woogie is a percussive style of piano blues, favoured, for its volume and momentum, by bar-room, honky-tonk, and rent-party pianists. The term appears to have been applied originally to a dance performed to piano accompaniment, and its widespread use stems from the instructions for performing the dance on the recording "Pine Top's Boogie Woogie" (1928, Vocalion 1245) by Pine Top Smith. The boogie style is characterized by the use of blues chord progressions combined with a forceful, repetitive left-hand bass-figure; many bass patterns exist, but the most familiar are the "doubling" of the simple blues bass and the walking bass in broken octaves.

The early masters of the boogie woogie style had names like "Stavin' Chain," "Kid Stormy Weather," "Porkchops," "Skinny-Head Pete," "Papa Lord God," "Slamfoot Brown," and "The Toothpick." They were one-man bands, and they all played a similar style of blues piano with a heavy left hand and a walking bass. Cow Cow Davenport is often credited with coining the term "boogie woogie", although Will Ezell might also have had a claim. By the time Davenport came on the scene, the style had been around for more than 30 years, but no one ever called it "boogie woogie." This unmistakable "rolling bass" style of piano playing had a different name in every part of America, "overhand," "the fives," "fast Texas piano," "hop scop," the "dirty dozens," the "sixteens," or the "rocks." The originators of boogie woogie beat played old upright pianos mildewed from humidity and the occasional Saturday night soaking of beer. They were the stars of the drinking joints in the backwoods of east Texas and Louisiana and played in shacks with dirt floors that sold homemade booze and good times every night of the week. Barrels of illicit whisky lined the walls and gave these places (and the piano style they spawned) their name, "barrelhouse." Their audience were men from the timber camps deep in the pine woods, and workers laying track for the railroad.

The sounds of barrelhouse boogie woogie spread out in all directions following the path of the newly emerging railroad lines. The great Eubie Blake remembered hearing Will Turk, one of the early masters, playing with an unmistakable boogie bass line in Baltimore in the 1890s. Around 1900 in New Orleans, when he was just a teenager, Jelly Roll Morton recalled hearing a piano player by the name of "Lost John" from Alabama playing "that rolling bass." About the same time in Shreveport, the great American bluesman Leadbelly heard an old-time Louisiana piano player who called himself "Pine Top" playing boogie woogie. Leadbelly picked up Pine Top's rhythmic style and imitated it on his guitar. Leadbelly said, "That's what I wanted to play, that boogie woogie piano bass. I always wanted to play those piano tunes. I got it out of the barrelhouses." In 1904, Stavin' Chain was playing boogie in dance halls in Donaldsville, Louisiana, and Charlie Mills was playing it on the riverboats around New Orleans. In 1909, W.C.Handy heard boogie woogie in a saloon on Beale St. in Memphis, and in 1911, George Thomas wrote his Hop Scop Blues, and took it to New Orleans where it became the first boogie woogie-style tune to be published on sheet music in 1916. In 1928 Clarence 'Pinetop' Smith released "Pine Top's Boogie Woogie", using the phrase for the first time on record, and launched a fad that swept the world in the 1930,s and 1940's. The boogie woogie craze was one of the most spectacular evolution's in popular music to occur until Elvis Presley's Blue Suede Shoes. In many ways, boogie woogie is the father of rock and roll. To quote Little Richard: "Everything I play is boogie woogie...rock and roll is just up-tempo boogie woogie!"

Speckled Red stated that "dancing was the life of the party." After a few drinks, they were tap dancing or doing the black bottom or the buck and wing, while others were doing a "hands on" dance that is their hands were all over each other's body.

Pianist Romeo Nelson, while playing at one of these exclusive house parties in Chicago, was asked to play his hit record of "Getting' Dirty Just Shakin' 'fiat Thing." It was a time and place where anything goes. People got so drunk that they were performing sexual acts on the floor, on the couch, against the wall in plain view for all to see. The people we're talking about at these parties are the "so-called" high-class society group, who, when they are sober would look down their noses at the low class (as they would call them) singers and musicians.

During the 1920s the prime time of the classic blues singers, the guitar was the main instrument associated with the blues. There were however, several blues pianists from the south. Some of them were capable of playing both instruments. Skip James played the piano and guitar equally well as demonstrated on the Paramount hit record of "Little Cow and Calf is Gonna Die Blues." In the late 1920s and into the early 1930s, southern blues piano players were moving out of the south and into the northern cities where the action was taking place. There was always a piano in brothels, and saloons often referred to as barrelhouses, where the clientele would invariably he the hard drinking lumberjacks and shipyard workers. The piano player would be entertaining the group while playing the blues. Hardly a night would go by without a fight among the patrons who couldn't hold their liquor. Because of this frequent occurrence, the piano blues style came to be labeled as barrelhouse music. Some of the pianist working in barrelhouses were Speckled Red, Roosevelt Sykes, Memphis Slim, Champion lack Dupree and Eurreal 'Little Brother' Montgomery. Barrelhouse music was the product of the black American blues musicians.
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Barrelhouses blues was played with a left-hand vamp played very heavy or "stomping" which always required four steady beats to a bar. Occasionally, a "walking bass" in 4/4 meter would he employed in barrelhouse blues.

Texas pianist Will Ezell's "Barrel House Man." "The Dirty Dozen" by Speckled Red and Charlie Spann's "Soon This Morning" are excellent examples of barrelhouse music, and probably the most influential of all barrelhouse music was Charles "Cow Cow' Davenport's "Cow Cow Blues" with his heavy left hand walking bass.

Meade 'Lux' Lewis was among the first to introduce the fast piano playing blues to be called "boogie-woogie" along with new urban blues that were growing in popularity. Although boogie-woogie was played in the same brothels and beer joints with barrelhouse blues, there was a noticeable difference in their styles. Boogie-woogie music was primarily played for dancing with a faster tempo than barrelhouse. The left hand played the bass notes in regular octaves or in broken octaves.

Although boogie-woogie was played in the early 1920s, "The Rocks" by Clay Cluster in 1923, Meade 'Lux' Lewis' "Honky Tank Train Blues" and Charles 'Cow Cow' Davenport's "Cow Cow Blues" followed shortly afterwards. But it was Clarence 'Pine Top' Smith's biggest selling record in 1929 of "Pine Top's Boogie-woogie that started the influx of record sales in the 'race' record market. Romeo Nelson's "Head Rag Hop," "Indiana Avenue Stomp" by Arthur 'Montana' Taylor and Charles Avery's "Dearborn Street Breakdown" soon followed.

 

[IllmaticDelta]

Example of early Gospel piano








This one sounds like Rock and Roll!

 

[IllmaticDelta]

you can hear the Black Gospel piano styles in these secular Soul songs

 

[Poitier]

@IllmaticDelta you need to create a website fam

 

[IllmaticDelta]

Also another big influence on the style is based on the Hammond Organ and a combo of Jazz + Blues.

@ 3:17

 

[IllmaticDelta]

Church chords on a Hammond Organ

 

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[IllmaticDelta]

Clapping On Two and Four

African American approach to performance has many aspects, some of which, such as improvisation and emotional intensity, are frequently cited. This essay will address two seminal, albeit frequently overlooked, characteristics of public performance in the Black cultural context. The first aspect is the use of the music as a language and the second is the function of performance as a means of achieving social stability and cohesion.

A Black, or more precisely, African-heritage, approach to public performance necessarily includes music. Even with the visual arts, masks and costumes dance, i.e. they are made to move rhythmically. Indeed, Black music is often characterized as rhythm-driven.

Jazz, blues, and their sacred cousin, gospel music, all have a rhythm-device in common: the back-beat. Indeed, the back-beat, a heavy emphasis on two and four, is a hallmark of African American music and remains dominant as a rhythmic device into the 21st century. An interesting note about the back-beat with respect to gospel music is the flipping of rhythmic emphasis. In the then-popular waltz form, the emphasis was usually ONE-two-three, ONE-two-three. But in gospel, when three-four time is used, as it frequently is, the practictioners usually clap on two and three, thus getting a one-TWO-THREE, one-TWO-THREE rhythm. The back-beat.

None of the other popular musics of the African diaspora (whether from the Caribbean, Central America, or South America) employs a heavy back-beat unless the particular form in question, such as salsa, reggae, or soca, is a form that was significantly influenced by Black music from America. This absence of the back-beat is distinctive especially given that most African diaspora music heavily uses drums, or quasi-drum instruments (steel pans for example). This is a curious development that is made even more curious by the fact that for the most part the drums of the diaspora remained hand-drums and it was in the United States that the mechanical drum, or the drum kit, commonly called the trap drum or traps, was developed. So the place where the drum had the least continuity in terms of usage and the direct retention of African poly-rhythms is the place where the back-beat was emphasized and the drum kit was developed!

The majority of African Americans are descended from peoples of West and Central Africa, from peoples whose spoken language was often tonal and for whom singing accompanied nearly every aspect of daily life—particularly work and ritual activity. The American insistence that the Negro speak English and the American prohibition against the use of African languages would seem to mitigate the retention of tonality as a part of language, but again, similar to the emphasis of the back-beat in a culture where the drum was outlawed, tonality is asserted as a prominent feature of Black music. Specifically, instrumentalists developed techniques to make their horns sound like they were talking, singing, or laughing while simultaneously singers developed techniques to make their voices sound like instruments. In essence, that which was suppressed reappears as a dominant characteristic.

http://www.louisianafolklife.org/LT/Articles_Essays/clap_on_2_4.html


...the Gospel roots you rarely hear talked about/people tend to forget


Musicologist Steve Baur takes us through the history of the backbeat.

host Bob McDonald presents the people behind the latest discoveries in the physical and natural sciences go to CBC .ca/ works podcast downloads and more will

dwell in music and music theory the beach is the basic unit of time. now the backbeat if the accent on the offbeat, and the element of music that has driven popular American music since the early nineteen fifties but the history behind the backbeat contains the story of the people beating back against violent oppression musicologist Steve Bauer has spent the last few years researching the history even associate professor of in the music department at Dalhousie University. need drinking right now. welcome to Main Street thief makes for having me, so I just gave a definition of the backbeat but what your definition of the backbeat. how would you phrase it out pretty close to yours of the backbeat refers to emphatic accents on the so-called weak beats typically played by a drummer in the context of popular music since the mid- twentieth century typically Western music? music is in four four meter we count for beads to measure and historically Western music is emphasized. the first and third beats as the so-called strong beats one two three four one to the backbeat is an inversion of that one two three four that becomes popularized with rock 'n roll music in the nineteen fifties, but it has a long prehistory before it erupts onto the mainstream is a drama yourself. I know this is the sort of thing that makes your heart saying and how you beat out where the back seat come from in and. time to research dealing with him. I'm looking mostly at late nineteenth century early twentieth century and the recording industry doesn't come along until early twenty century. so what happens in nineteenth century as it is up to speculation but I've found what I consider the three most important streams for the development of the backbeat one being the prison work songs in African-American prisons in the South the other being African American church music. the gospel tradition with Bartleby percussion clapping out backbeats and finally the genre of popular music called the hokum blues that emerges in the nineteen twenties, where back beats seem to be central, essential so that genre. I knew Brad 's early recordings with you. I'm starting out with one that deals with the backbeat in prison yards. can you talk about that how it's being used therein and set up to hear the clip absolutely well in the South during eighteen seventy seven prisons used actually contractor their prisoners out to private companies for labor, so working was part of being a prisoner and you would be working usually with shovels axes you name it a whole be outdoor labor and we find after American prisoners this time starting to use these tools of oppression as musical instruments actually creating a rhythmic backdrop to their workday and unlike typical Western music where one in three year emphasized they tended to emphasize the second and fourth beats the so-called backbeat the so-called weak beats and in this context I'll I would say the backbeat functions as as a means of resistance you can make this work you can force us in these horrible conditions but working to make a groove. nonetheless and oh, using tools of oppression as music was written to allow Afro-American prisoners at this time in and again, we don't get recordings of his delivered the nineteen forties. one I brought in this from the early nineteen forties, but it represents a turn, a practice that had been going on for decades before and we hear these lyrics often having to deal with the oppressive conditions of the work camp emphasized with these forceful percussive backbeats. each line. it's accented with with the percussive hit on to them for an in a and in a

to you all you love him and on to

that that is a will

soon the context the back the

occurs in situation when the body is under horrible present certain stances and through this kind of musical confirmation the situation though the labor cancer art the possibility of the body being aside of pleasure rather than a side of pain and oppression is made possible through the back be this this rhythmic accompaniment to the workday at the name that's the team lead away. that's pretty strange. yes pretty strain it refers to the train that takes you home after you've served your time in prison would be pretty told as well. at the time the backbeat is present in the world of African-American gospel that right, particularly in so-called Pentecostal or sanctified churches where there's a notion that spirituality is and should be a fully embodied experience in African-American religious traditions. we don't have the kind of mind, body or mind spirit split that we have in the West as a more holistic understanding of human nature and when African-Americans are forced to adopt Christianity under slavery. they put their own spin on it and in gospel churches, particularly the Pentecostal sanctified churches, we find that body percussion is part of the religious experience in fighting this. to possess you not just spiritually but actually physically being possessed and the rhythmic clapping that we here in the gospel churches is a means to achieve this kind of spiritual/ physical transcendence to the clip. I do this is Betsy Johnson and her Memphis sanctified singers, and this is part of. she belonged to the Church of God in Christ, which is one of the biggest Pentecostal churches. it centered in Memphis which of course is to be one of the centers for rock the development of rock 'n roll and here we hear her congregation clapping out to them for as she sings that she's got the key to the kingdom in him and him and him and will him and him and him and a

and will I and all you and in a that old recordings from nineteen twenty seven cell using the body as as the instrument to to Anna and Pfeffer backbeat absolutely and and in this case music number one enables the spirits to to possess one and also was a sign of having the spirit in you. this kind of rhythmic fully embodied performance, so I also at this time the backbeat finding its way into the blues. that's right and in my research and due to the particular strain of the blues that seems to be the earliest genre of commercial popular music that incorporates the backbeat the so-called hokum blues which is a genre blues that incorporates lyrics that have thinly veiled double entendre was referring to sex and in this case we hear the backbeat in a way replicating the rhythms of sex often the songs have lyrics that have to do with the world of prostitution. many of the performers participated in that world both both male and female performers and the recording abroad in today is right Lil' Johnson and barrelhouse Annie comes from nineteen thirty seven Chicago and so-called must get mine in front and it tells the story of a woman who works in the bakery and she's selling her jelly rolls jelly roll being a long-standing metaphor for the female ripped up reproductive organ in this tradition, wink wink wink nod nod and as she says yes also you might my jungles but you are not on credit. yet the pay first sign that letter that ran up and down in a row and all in him and him and I know now that you and how long is the name, you're going up the river is gone knowing that they will him and him. what is the real thing. I am, and him and in him and mine 's see into this research. well I got into because of what I keep these call G from the outside. really, I'm a drummer, and when I go to graduate school, I learned that there's really no room for drugs in the world musicology. historically the field is called. he's been very conservative, and has been unwilling to deal with popular music. that all changed in that eighties and I was very fortunate to be at UCLA at a time when they brought in one of the pioneers of musicology who was making it okay to study popular music and since popular music is become a legitimate area of study within my field of musicology, there's been an explosion of research and popular music history, but most of it has not dealt with rhythm, which as we know is central to the effect of popular music release many genres of popular music, so I saw a hole in the scholarly canon that needed filling why the backbeat specifically because it's so ubiquitous it is arguably since the mid- nineteen fifties the most prevalent and common musical device in popular music and completely unstudied to this point okay, so he is done in this work. this look into this area in the last eight years. what is your water. semi- your biggest takeaways from your time spent looking at well first and foremost all musical conventions are rooted in social history sometimes difficult social histories and we need to honor that and that all musical prices have the potential to carry social meanings, and I've laid out three areas here, where the backbeat I I would consider Kerry 's very significant social meanings, and I think if we fail to remember that if we takes her knees go conventions for granted and ignore the history of them were missing the opportunity for a greater understanding and a deeper musical experience. thanks a lot for coming in today and speaking me my pleasure

http://www.voicebase.com/voice_file/public_detail/257908 ---> (click on it)

 

[IllmaticDelta]

the off-beat-backbeat (1 2 3 4 ). That's one of the defining rhythmic qualities of Black Gospel music. This offbeat rhythmic quality in Black Gospel is described perfectly below by the famous White Southern Gospel group, The Jordanaires...


3:04-->4:00




White people/europeans are programmed to clap on the 1 and 3

On October 6th, 1993, the blues musician Taj Mahal gave a solo concert at the Modernes Club in Bremen, Germany. The concert was later released as the album An Evening of Acoustic Music. On the recording, Taj Mahal begins to play “Blues With A Feeling,” and the audience enthusiastically claps along. However, they do so on beats one and three, not two and four like they are supposed to. Taj immediately stops playing and says, “Wait, wait, wait. Wait wait. This is schvartze [black] music… zwei and fier, one TWO three FOUR, okay?” He resumes the song, and the audience continues to clap on the wrong beats. So he stops again. “No, no, no, no. Everybody’s like, ONE, two, THREE, no no no. Classical music, yes. Mozart, Chopin, okay? Tchaikovsky, right? Vladimir Horowitz. ONE two THREE. But schvartze music, one TWO three FOUR, okay?” He starts yet again, and finally the audience claps along correctly. To reinforce their rhythm, Taj Mahal continues to count “one TWO three FOUR” at various points during the song.

 

[IllmaticDelta]

This clapping on the 2/4 of black sacred music became the beat to global pop around the world

The Tyranny of the Backbeat

What's a backbeat? Nearly all popular music these days, certainly all that derives from rock, is in 4/4 meter, meaning that beats come in 4 beat packages. Normally the first beat is stressed, which helps to define the package. In rock, the 2nd and 4th beats are stressed instead. This is a kind of syncopation in that it places the accents in an unexpected place. But it is so ubiquitous now, that it is like a rigid Procrustean bed that all music is forced to lie on. Well, a lot of music at least!

http://themusicsalon.blogspot.com/2012/03/tyranny-of-backbeat.html



The basic Rock beat aka the "Backbeat" came straight out of the Black Church. It went into R&B and started the "Rocking" era which then became known as "Rock N Roll". This is why white racists called Rock n Roll jungle music from the African jungles because they knew the "beat" was black in origin.









Birth Of Rock Drumming: Backbeats & Straight Eighths


"
When rock and roll first hit the scene in the early 1950s, it was hailed as a musical revolution, but also caused a lot of controversy. Teens loved the big sound and crazy energy of rock, while many of their parents were horrified by it. So what made rock so different from its predecessors that it caused such strife? Answer: big changes in the groove. The next few MIH columns will focus on these various changes, and show how the turbulent early years of this new music craze created a drumming blueprint that we follow to this day.

The first rock element we’ll explore is the backbeat, the accented stroke that you hear on beats 2 and 4. Backbeats had always been a part of the drummer’s vocabulary, and you can hear examples in early jazz, swing, and bebop. In all these cases, however, the drummer would only lay down backbeats near the end of a song, at the emotional high point. Generally, it was considered bad form for a drummer to play loud all the way through, not to mention unmusical.

By the end of the 1940s, some early R&B recordings, most famously “Good Rockin’ Tonight” by Wynonie Harris, started to break these barriers by incorporating backbeats from start to finish. The risk paid off, as kids actually preferred dancing to a heavier beat, and kept “Good Rockin’” at the top of the charts for six solid months. The die was cast, and within a few years, continuous backbeats became a defining element in rock and every other pop style to emerge thereafter. It’s a trend we still follow today.

Another important rhythmic milestone that led to rock’s dominance was the shift from swung to straight eighth-notes.

Previous forms of American popular music – including New Orleans jazz, swing, and rhythm and blues – all had their rhythmic foundation in the “swung” eighth-note, a bouncy feel based in triplets. In the mid-’50s, however, certain R&B musicians found that by speeding up the feel of a boogie-woogie shuffle, you could “straighten out” the bounciness and create a relentless, driving “chuck-chuck-chuck” of eighth-notes that is now the recognizable trademark of rock.

Interestingly, the move toward straight eighths did not originate with drummers, but with other instrumentalists, notably piano player Little Richard, and guitar players Chuck Berry and Bo Diddley. Earl Palmer, who played on many important early rock recordings, described it thusly:

“The only reason I started playing what they come to call a rock and roll beat came from trying to match Little Richard’s right hand. With Richard pounding the piano with all ten fingers, you couldn’t very well go against it. I did at first – on ’Tutti Frutti’ you can hear me playing a shuffle. Listening to it now, it’s easy to hear that I should have been playing that rock beat.”

Fred Below, who played on most of Chuck Berry’s hits, did just the opposite, playing a shuffle against Berry’s straight-eighth guitar strumming on tunes like “Johnny B. Goode.” The result is an unusual “in-between” feel that has also come to be associated with the 1950s rock sound, and can be heard on the likes of Elvis Presley’s “Jailhouse Rock,” and Jerry Lee Lewis’ “Whole Lotta Shakin’ Going On.”

As the 1950s wore on, the straight-eighth feel became increasingly popular with teens, and by the arrival of The Beatles, in 1964, it had become the dominant groove in rock."

http://www.drummagazine.com/features/post/birth-of-rock-drumming-backbeats-straight-eighths/

 

[IllmaticDelta]

Gospel-Blues (Guitar Based)

Stylistic origins Spirituals, blues, hymns
Cultural origins Late 19th century African Americans
Typical instruments Originally guitars and drums, later pianos, organ, electric guitars
Gospel blues or holy blues is a form of blues-based gospel music that has been around since the inception of blues music, a combination of blues guitar and evangelistic lyrics

There has always been a point, both stylistically and philosophically, where the sacred (gospel music) and the profane (blues, the devil's music) strike an uneasy alliance. Consisting almost entirely of performers who are lay preachers or street-corner evangelists, Blues Gospel features use of blues guitar patterns that are tightly interwoven to the most heartfelt statements of religious conviction. Embracing everything from ragtime fingerpicking and knife-edged slide techniques to crudely strummed rhythm patterns, the style owes less allegiance to a particular kind of guitar than to using the instrument's possibilities to propel its lyrical message. Though its proponents are few, there are few sounds in the blues that are as alternately spiritual or as bone-chilling as blues gospel music.

 

[IllmaticDelta]

 

[IllmaticDelta]

Some more gospel blues (non-piano)

 

[IllmaticDelta]

The frenzy spirit you see in the Pentecostal/Holiness/Sanctified church goes back to the african based Ring Shout

The immediate impetus for the development of this new, energetic, and distinctly black gospel music seems to have been the rise of Pentecostal churches at the end of the 19th century. Pentecostal shouting is related to speaking in tongues and to circle dances of African origin. Recordings of Pentecostal preachers’ sermons were immensely popular among black Americans in the 1920s, and recordings of them along with their choral and instrumental accompaniment and congregational participation persisted, so that ultimately black gospel reached the white audience as well. The voice of the black gospel preacher was affected by black secular performers and vice versa. Taking the scriptural direction “Let everything that breathes praise the Lord” (Psalm 150), Pentecostal churches welcomed tambourines, pianos, organs, banjos, guitars, other stringed instruments, and some brass into their services. Choirs often featured the extremes of female vocal range in call-and-response counterpoint with the preacher’s sermon. Improvised recitative passages, melismatic singing (singing of more than one pitch per syllable), and an extraordinarily expressive delivery also characterize black gospel music.

http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/239517/gospel-music/284950/Black-gospel-music

 

[IllmaticDelta]

In the black church tradition and Gospel-Blues you get stuff like



^^Soul singing roots
















^Soul singing roots and frenzy feeling of the African rooted ring shout combined with the back beat and blues driven guitar that gave rise to Rock music.