Barney Kessel - Ain't Got No

At some point in my own education I discovered the limitations of just theorizing about the music, sitting in your room and mulling over lyrics you could never fully decipher or going to see Lightnin’ Hopkins perform at a college concert... The way that we had been introduced to the music, the blues was dead almost by definition because we had encountered it only on records, we never heard it on the radio, it wasn’t presented, like rock & roll, say, at shows. It seemed somehow as if it was something that had been tucked safely away in the past, even if in many cases it was the very recent past, a subject for historical study, however passionate that study might be.

The light only dawned for me with the coming of soul music... It has long been my firmest belief that in order to write, fiction, nonfiction, it doesn’t matter, you need to make the empathetic leap. But, really, in order to live you have to make that same leap, whether or not in certain harsh literary and political circles empathy has become a dirty word... And the music in almost every case sprang directly from the living tradition of the blues, and of course, the church, from which the blues ultimately sprang. There is no music like that music, Baldwin also wrote, no drama like the drama of the saints rejoicing to equal the fire and excitement that sometimes, without warning, fill a church, causing the church, as Leadbelly and so many others have testified, to rock.

Source: Searching the Desert for the Blues by Peter Guralnick

Barney Kessel - Ain't Got No

Recorded in: London, November 1968

Released in: 1969

Genre: Jazz, Soul Jazz

"Kessel was rated the No. 1 guitarist in Esquire, DownBeat, and Playboy magazine polls between 1947 and 1960. Both Kay Musical Instrument Company and Gibson Guitars manufactured Barney Kessel artist signature guitars."

See previous Song of the Day

World Party - Stop Holding On

One of the things that characterizes early blues music is an unusual amount of repetition and a distinctive song form. American music in the first two decades of the twentieth century, whether the popular music of Tin Pan Alley or the religious music of the mainline black churches, gravitated towards a sixteen bar verse format, with popular music often adding a sixteen bar bridge. Blues, by contrast, offered itself in a three line, twelve bar format, and without a bridge... a bridge bearing blues and the exception that proves the rule. By the mid 1920s, with the advent of recording and especially with the popularity of Blind Lemon Jefferson as a recording star.

Vocalizations are an important element of blues expressiveness, along with AAB structure and call and response procedure. A fourth aspect of blues expressiveness is something I will call blues idiomatic language. By this I mean the rich linguistic stew in which members of the blues subculture, musicians, audiences, and assorted hangers on, conduct their daily lives, on and off the bandstand... African retentions show up in blues language, as DeSalvo notes, the words hip and cat both have Wolof origins, but even more important is the freewheeling all American lingo of the underground economy that helped folks on the receiving end of Jim Crow survive and occasionally prosper... looking to steal from the best, like all songwriters, nicked words and phrases from the numbers runners, hookers, drag queens, thieves, junkies, pimps, moonshiners, hoodoo doctors, dealers, rounders, and con artists who made up the street set.

Source: Blues Expressiveness and the Blues by Adam Gussow

World Party - Stop Holding On

Written by: Karl Wallinger

Genre: Alternative, Rock

Released by: Seaview Records

"World Party were a British musical group, which was the solo project of its sole member, Karl Wallinger. He sings and plays most of the instruments himself, using multi tracking to create the studio sound. Lyrically, many of his songs feature thoughtful and occasionally political sentiments."

See previous Song of the Day

Ten Years After - Hear Me Calling

Through music, many young children are able to implement more diverse customs to society. Music is a means of enculturation and socialization helping the youngsters of the culture to integrate into their societies. Similarly, children singing songs from foreign countries can also be informed of unfamiliar cultures and increase their knowledge and understanding of those cultures. It is important that children would be able to learn about other cultures to become conventional through the exposure of different cultural songs. With the fulfillment of children becoming more accustomed to different cultures, many would be able to contribute different outlooks within society. As more schools implementing diversity, cultural music has become more apparent.

Music teachers can encourage children to explore the musical traditions of their own cultural heritage as well as those of other countries. More schools with music programs have been striving to supply students with more culturally different musical traditions, thus educating young children to be more accepting of others while being proud of their own cultures. Music reflects every day aspects and problems that are present in different countries... Though the expression of music we are able to cope with the different and various aspects that plague our lives.

Through diversity that is represented in the music industry, it contributes to the acceptance of different cultures around the world. Along with educating young children more about the different cultures around the world, it is also important to encourage these children to learn and accept their own cultures. This newly found knowledge allows us to become more accepting of the abundant cultures around the world within our society.

Source: Music Around The World by Sparks, Nevada

Ten Years After - Hear Me Calling

• Written by: Alvin Lee
• Genre: Pop, Rock, Blues
• Released on: November 29, 1968

"Originally from Nottingham in the UK, Ten Years After is made up of 5 virtuoso musician under the leadership of Alvin Lee. Between 1968 and 1973, the band had eight Top 40 albums in the UK and twelve albums in the US Billboard 200."

See previous Song of the Day

Smashing Pumpkins - Being Beige

Sometimes the people held on to old forms, like lining hymns, in which the preacher sings the first line and the congregation follows... or spirituals, which the whole church sings, preferring them to a fancier program by the choir, to which the congregation passively listens. Bringing choirs and organs and musical directors into the southern folk church silenced the congregation and the spiritual in the once folky Baptist and Methodist churches, so that the folk moved out and founded the song heavy sects of the Holiness movement.

Use of instruments likewise expressed traditional preferences. Strict old fashioned groups, like the Primitive Baptists, simply banned all instruments as tools of the devil, and this conservatism fostered the preservation of the older songs with scales and with ornamentation. The fiddle and the banjo were called the devil's stalking horses, the square dancers and jollifications where they were played were out of bounds for the straitlaced, and church members who persisted in playing or following this music could be brought before the congregation and put out of church. Until very recently, perhaps the Fifties, therefore, the piano and the harmonium were seldom heard in most folk churches. Stringed instruments, however, met a friendlier reception among white folk religionists, the guitar, the banjo, and then little combinations, first in old timey, then in bluegrass style, appeared in the evangelical churches and on recordings. Groups like the Carter family commonly sang sacred songs on their audio and recording dates... and the serious convert could have the string music he enjoyed, without feeling a threat to his religion.

Source: The Gospel Ship: Baptist Hymns & White Spirituals From The Southern Mountains

Smashing Pumpkins - Being Beige

• Composed by: Billy Corgan
• Released in: 2014
• Genre: Rock, Alternative Rock

"The Smashing Pumpkins was formed in 1988 by frontman Billy Corgan, lead vocals and guitar,  D'arcy Wretzky, bass, James Iha, guitar, and Jimmy Chamberlin, drums, with their music containing elements of gothic rock, heavy metal, dream pop, psychedelic rock, progressive rock, and shoegazing."

See previous Song of the Day

Transitioning from Newspapers to Radio

 Transitioning from Newspapers to Radio

Image by Nihal Demirci Erenay

Style

A newspapers is written so that it may be edited from the bottom up. As old editors liked to say, a page form is not made of rubber. It won’t stretch. What doesn’t fit is thrown away. Historians trace the inverted pyramid, which is not the traditional style of British or other foreign newspapers, to the American Civil War, when correspondents, fearing that the telegraph would break down before they could finish transmitting their dispatches, put the most important information into the first paragraph and continued the story with facts in descending order of news value.

The radio must be consumed sequentially, that is, the listener does not hear the second song without hearing the first. The eighth song waits on the first seven, which means in practice that all seven are chosen to be interesting to a significant number of listeners and are presented at a length, which maintains that interest. In addition to the inevitable centrality of thinking which affects broadcasts, unlike the newspaper reader, the listener is unable to stop to review and reconsider the song. The eye can go back, the ear can go only forward with the voice of the newscaster.

Image by Ananya Mittal

Evolution

In the 1830s, the major daily newspapers faced a new threat from the rise of penny papers, which were low priced broadsheets that served as a cheaper, more sensational daily source. They favored news of murder and adventure over the dry political news of the day. While newspapers catered to a wealthier, more educated audience, the penny press attempted to reach a wide swath of readers through cheap prices and entertaining, often scandalous, stories. The penny press can be seen as the forerunner to today’s gossip hungry tabloids.

Broadcast technology, including radio and television, had such a hold on the American imagination that newspapers and other print media found themselves having to adapt to the new media landscape. Print media was more durable and easily archived, and it allowed users more flexibility in terms of time, once a person had purchased a magazine, he or she could read it whenever and wherever. Broadcast media, in contrast, usually aired programs on a fixed schedule, which allowed it to both provide a sense of immediacy and fleetingness. Until the advent of digital video recorders in the late 1990s, it was impossible to pause and rewind a live television broadcast.

In Music

The emergence of rock journalism coincided with an attempt to position rock music, particularly the Beatles' work, in the American cultural landscape. The critical discourse was further heightened by the respectful coverage afforded the genre in mainstream publications such as Newsweek, Time and Life.

Image by Anthony Rosset

Coverage

News items, stories in which a topical event is signaled and described, were the commonest form of popular music coverage in the US, France, and the Netherlands in 1955. In Germany, announcements, short information pieces of ten to thirty lines, publicizing the availability of a new product, were the commonest form of popular music article at the time. However, a substantial number of popular music reviews were published in 1955, albeit to a lesser extent in Germany, these include reports on products, typically albums or live performances, that contain evaluative elements, in addition to descriptive ones.

Due to the limited amount of space given to popular music in 1955, the actual number of reviews are small. In the US, reviews focus almost exclusively on reviews of jazz albums. The popular music reviews published in France and Dutch in 1955 concentrated primarily on live performances and to a lesser extent, jazz.

Years	Companies	Station Owned	Newspapers Daily	Newspapers Weekly
1999			1483	7471
1998			1489	7267
1997			1509	7191
1996			1520	7655
1995			1543	9011
1994			1548	9067
1993			1556	9177
1992	8679		1570	8293
1991			1586	8546
1990			1611	8420
1989			1626	7622
1988		652	1642	7438
1987	8970	643	1645	6750
1986		729	1657	6857
1985		772	1676	6811
1984		779	1688	6798
1983		793	1701	6855
1982	8846	814	1711	6806
1981		834	1730	7238
1980		809	1745	7159
1979		801	1763	7357
1978		792	1756	7980
1977	8867	763	1766	8506
1976		769	1762	8735
1975		755	1756	8824
1974		750	1768	8711
1973		694	1774	8804
1972	8116	674	1751
1971		703	1749	8888
1970		841	1748	8903
1969		828	1758	8855
1968		755	1752	8858
1967	8094	742	1749	8915
1966		736	1754	9785
1965		735	1751	8989
1964		723	1763	9761
1963	8331	702	1754	9739
1962			1760	9774
1961		720	1761	9783
1960			1763	8979
1959			1755	9812
1958	7900		1761	9768
1957			1755	9854
1956			1761	9813
1955			1760	9126
1954			1765	9960
1953			1785	10173
1952			1786	10381
1951			1773	10514
1950			1772	9794
1949			1781	10386
1948			1780	10511
1947	8100		1769	10523
1946			1763	10424
1945			1749	10430
1944			1744	10504
1943			1754	10967
1942			1787	11474
1941			1857	11617
1940			1878	10860
1939			1888	11516
1938			1936	11421
1937			1983	11592
1936			1989	11288
1935			1950	11438
1934			1929
1933			1911	4218
1932			1913
1931			1943	6313
1930			1942
1929			1944	7075
1928			1939
1927			1949	6661
1926			2001
1925			2008	6435
1924			2014
1923			2036	5903
1922			2033
1921			2028	6059
1920			2042

For more information about newspapers and radio:

Writing Style Differences in Newspaper, Radio, and Television News

The Evolution of Media

Music journalism

Change and continuity in newspaper coverage of popular music since 1955

For daily/weekly newspaper data (1920 - 1999, unfinished)

For weekly/monthly/quarterly periodical data (1920 - 1999, unfinished)

See previous post

Cocteau Twins - Tranquil Eye

Nomads, by tradition, move around the Sahara region in northwest Africa, through the Sahel, to the Niger River. They wear tunics, turbans, veils, and other loose clothing to let air flow underneath, while still protecting them from the relentless desert sun. The history of the Tuareg people spans centuries of migration, miscegenation, and cultural mixtures. All of this, of course, explains the rise of musical expressions such as Tishoumaren or Assouf, known as desert blues, a magical fusion of rock instrumentation and regional roots, Tuareg, Malian, and North African music.

If we’re going to get into the desert blues, we have to start with its pioneers. Tinariwen’s origins date back to 1979 when Ibrahim Ag Alhabib formed a band to play at parties and weddings. They had no official name, but people began to call them Kel Tinariwen, The Desert Boys. During his childhood, which he spent between refugee camps and exile neighborhoods in Algeria and Libya, Ibrahim saw a western movie in which a cowboy played the guitar.

Source: Desert Blues: A Musical Journey Through The Tuareg Culture by Santiago Delucchi

Cocteau Twins - Tranquil Eye

• Genre: Electronic, Rock, Shoegaze
• Released on: Violane album
• Released in: June 1996

"The former members of Cocteau Twins have remained active musically in the years since the band's demise. In 2022, Elizabeth Fraser, Robin Guthrie and Simon Raymonde were awarded with the Visionary Award by The Ivors Academy."

See previous Song of the Day

James McMurtry - 60 Acres

In the Carolinas, African American musicians around the first decade of the twentieth century developed a style of music known as the Piedmont blues. An important form of traditional music in North Carolina, the Piedmont blues is characterized by a guitar style that contains a distinct bass line played on the lower strings of the guitar as well as a melody picked on the higher strings. The bouncy, fingerpicked guitar style of Piedmont blues distinguishes it from Delta blues, which is often slow and mournful. Vocals, often paralleled by the melody played on the guitar, tell about the triumphs and trials of everyday life, such as work, love, heartbreak, loneliness, and the pitfalls of drinking and other overindulgences.

Within the Piedmont blues tradition, women developed a distinctive sound, and many of the best exponents of this tradition were North Carolinians, including Etta Baker of Morganton, Alga Mae Hinton of Johnston County, and Elizabeth Cotten of Carrboro. Cotten's inimitable picking style and heartbreaking vocals... evoked the hard life shared by many southern, rural African Americans.

The blues continue to thrive in North Carolina. The rise of the Chicago blues, which featured electrified instruments, led to the formation of full blues bands by the 1950s, and eventually these influences migrated to the state... The Durham Blues Festival, one of the first blues festivals held in the South, began in 1973 and features nationally recognized blues acts. Raleigh... and Greensboro all offer steady diets of local performers and blues societies for aficionados.

Source: Blues by Charles Holden and Bruce Baker

James McMurtry - 60 Acres

• Written by: James McMurtry
• Genre: Pop/Rock, Country
• Release on: March 23, 2004

"James McMurtry earned his highest Billboard 200 chart position in 2008 and notched Americana Music Award nominations. He won the Americana Music Association’s Album of the Year, with We Can’t Make It Here named the organization’s Song of the Year."

See previous Song of the Day

Meshell Ndegeocello - Aquarium

Vocal harmony groups performed in the 1930s and ’40s with jazz bands and as independent groups... featured smooth harmonies based on barbershop, jazz, and sacred music. These groups, as well as the Ravens, Old Man River, 1947, established the model for the 1950s teenage a cappella groups that popularized the vocal harmony style on inner city street corners and the stoops of crowded apartment buildings as well as in parks and school gyms. Many of these bird groups... sang in a romantic style emulating the Orioles... who began recording in the late 1940s. Although they primarily sang a cappella, producers added sparse instrumentation, including guitar and drums played with brushes, to their commercial recordings... The addition of orchestral arrangements, sing along choruses, and Latin rhythms to rhythm and blues made this sound more compatible with the musical tastes of mainstream American adults. The producers for Motown added these pop production elements over a rhythm and blues foundation and incorporated the lyrics of young professional songwriters to produce the crossover Motown’s Sound of Young America.

In the mid 1950s, record labels began producing rhythm and blues music for consumption beyond African American communities, referred to as Uptown R&B. Targeting mainstream audiences, producers applied crossover formulas to the productions of vocal harmony groups. They, for example, replaced rhythm and blues elements with familiar pop production formulas, sing along refrains replaced call and response structures, pop vocal harmonies substituted for those associated with the blues and gospel traditions, orchestral arrangements, strings, marimba, tympani, and percussion, replaced rhythm and blues combos, and Latin flavored rhythms, especially the chacha beat, substituted for swing rhythms and heavy backbeats on 2 and 4... Artists also recorded pop standards known as Tin Pan Alley songs written by professional songwriters hired by music publishers beginning in the early 20th century. They wrote ballads, novelty songs, vaudeville and dance songs, among other styles. Some of the most frequently recorded pop standards include Over the Rainbow, Stormy Weather, Summertime, Georgia On My Mind, and At Last.

Source: Rhythm & Blues by Portia K. Maultsby, Ph.D. 

Meshell Ndegeocello - Aquarium feat. Ron Blake Sabina

• Released on: The Spirit Music Jamia: Dance of the Infidel album
• Written by: Meshell Ndegeocello
• Genre: R&B, Soul

"Meshell Ndegeocello is a German born American singer/songwriter, rapper, and bassist. Her music has been featured in a number of film soundtracksand with the debut release of her 13th studio album, Ndegeocello joined the Blue Note label."

See previous Song of the Day

Ian Brown - Home Is Where The Heart Is

Talking to artists about how they had adjusted to the pandemic yielded information that normally doesn’t come up during artist interviews. While some musicians lost their main source of income, others were able to continue with their regular day jobs that, given the generally low pay for gigs, often allowed them to be active in the blues.

Others were forced to turn to webcasting. In Clarksdale, Lucious Spiller was one of the first to do these shows and was likely the most active, for a year he played every Wednesday night, on Thursday afternoons, a time amenable to Europeans, and on most Saturdays, about as often as he normally performed. Aside from a fall off after the first weeks, support for the gigs, which was almost enough to pay the bills, remained steady until things began to open up in May of 2021.

About five years ago, Clarksdale reached the milestone of live music seven days a week, 365 days a year, but that ended abruptly... The contemporary Southern soul market is largely structured around multi artist shows at large civic arenas, and it was only on July 9, 2021, when the first arena show resumed, the Southern Soul Live event during the 18th Annual Jackson, Mississippi, Black Rodeo at the Coliseum.

Source: Blues During the Pandemic by Scott Barretta

Ian Brown - Home Is Where The Heart Is

• Released on: Solarized album
• Genre: Electronic, Rock
• Vocals: Ian Brown

"Ian Brown is an English singer and multi instrumentalist. He was the lead singer of the alternative rock band The Stone Roses in 1983. Following their split in 1996, he began a solo career, releasing seven studio albums."

See previous Song of the Day

Kofi - Things May Come

If the west begins in Fort Worth, the South begins in East Texas, in the rich bottomlands along the Colorado, Brazos, Navasota, and Trinity rivers, where cotton has been king, it seems, forever. The blues came from cotton... and while Mississippi gets most of the credit for creating the blues, with native sons like Robert Johnson, Muddy Waters, and B. B. King, Texas is where some of the earliest blues pioneers lived and played, including the man who would become Johnson’s teacher, though the two never met.

Musicians in rural East Texas had to be versatile. They had to play to the whims of black and white folks on the streets of towns like Navasota and Wortham, and they had to keep the dancers happy at Saturday night suppers that went on into Sunday morning. They called themselves songsters or musicianers, and they sang and played spirituals, vaudeville tunes, work songs, prison songs, English ballads, local sagas, children’s songs, and eventually, the blues. Most were born into unimaginable hardship and degradation... They are all linked, by style, blood, or friendship, but mostly by place. These were men of the land, farmers and sons of farmers, and the songs they sang were their versions of the songs they grew up hearing and playing. They changed the words to fit their lives, and they made something new.

Source: Birthplaces of the Blues by Michael Hall

Kofi - Things May Come

• Producer: Mad Professor
• Released in: 1994
• Released on: Friday's Child album

"Kofi is a British lovers rock singer. She had hits on the British reggae charts and topped the British reggae charts in 1990. The 1988 British Reggae Industry Awards ceremony saw Kofi winning the awards for Best Female Vocalist. Kofi went on to achieve further awards in 1989, establishing her status as one of the queens of Lovers rock."

See previous Song of the Day

Paul Rodgers - Shadow Of The Sun (Original)

Memphis is a textbook example of how changing attitudes toward its musical past helped turn its economy around. By the 1990s city officials were indifferent to its many legacies because they assumed the stories were known and there was nothing new to say. That changed when Kevin Kane became head of the Memphis Convention & Visitors Bureau. He switched the city's slogan from Give Me Memphis to Home of the Blues and Birthplace of Rock 'n' Roll and rebranded the city to highlight its music heritage. That meant creating an entertainment district along historic Beale Street where music is played seven nights a week to 4.5 million visitors each year, courting the Smithsonian Institution in Washington to build the Memphis Rock 'n Soul Museum... and helping the Blues Hall of Fame.

In Chicago, the dialogue between City Hall and music leaders has traditionally been weak. All these clubs were on the South Side or West Side, and none were touted by the city as tourist attractions... Blues fans would come from Europe and around the country, and have no way to find out that these clubs even existed... the indifference is directly connected to the historic segregation of the South and West sides, resulting in marginalized development compared to downtown. Chicago's much ballyhooed 2012 cultural plan makes no mention of music, nor its blues, jazz or gospel heritage.

In New Orleans... the city supports its live music scene through zoning laws like one that makes it easier for restaurants to host bands without a live entertainment license... New Orleans became friendlier to its music institutions and more aware of its heritage when it started tabulating data in 2002 that showed how music contributed to the local economy. Critical to the uptick in numbers, a better relationship between the creative community and City Hall.

Source: The Blues is Chicago's Most Famous Cultural Export. Why Don't We Do More to Promote It? by Mark Guarino

Paul Rodgers - Shadow Of The Sun (Original)

• Released: 1997
• Genre: Rock, Blues
• Written by: Paul Rodgers

"Paul Rodgers is a multi faceted creative force in the genres of Rock, Blues and Classic Rock. He has produced over 125 million records sold and helped redefine Rock ’N Roll in the process. Rodgers’ latest effort caps the 50 Year Anniversary of his first major band Free which is recognized as one of the biggest selling British Rock bands in history and has solidified the members as British Hard Rock Pioneers by Rolling Stone Magazine."

See previous Song of the Day

The Fall Up - Need to move

Blues scholar David Evans breaks down early blues performance styles into three regionally differentiated approaches, one that includes East Texas and adjacent portions of Oklahoma, Arkansas, and Louisiana, a second stylistic region in the Deep South extending from the Mississippi Valley eastward to Central Georgia, and a third style, often referred to as Piedmont blues, that encompasses the East Coast from Florida to Maryland, stretching westward through the Piedmont, the Appalachian Mountains, and the Ohio River Valley to central Kentucky and Tennessee. Geographically, the Lower Chattahoochee Valley fits within the Deep South, but musically its blues is much closer to the fingerpicking Piedmont style, which often features alternating bass notes or an alternating bass note and chord, in the manner of ragtime, with spectacular virtuoso playing in the treble range. Mitchell recorded several Lower Chattahoochee blues artists covering songs by Blind Boy Fuller, one of the most popular of the early Piedmont blues musicians. 

It would be a mistake to think of Lower Chattahoochee blues just as an extension of the Piedmont style because many other elements have coexisted in its musical tradition. For example, Mitchell recorded instrumental dance songs like Pole Plattin and 16-20 that were vestiges of the African American string band tradition... Lower Chattahoochee blues should not be considered a unique regional sound, but what makes it distinctive is the way in which musicians blended vernacular and popular musical elements... Every small town had at least one blues singer, Mitchell recalls in an interview. It was astounding, to go down the counties on either side of the Chattahoochee River in Alabama and Georgia and find this rich of a musical tradition.

Source: Blues in the Lower Chattahoochee Valley by Steve Bransford

The Fall Up - Need to move

• Duration: 5:23
• Release date: December 23, 2020
• Genres: Post punk, pop

"The Fall up is a trip hop duo formed by the encounter of a musician/composer teeming with ideas and a singer/songwriter with a unique voice. The Fall Up members include Phil Lhommede, composer, multi instrumentalist and Juliette Chalard-Deschamps, author, singer, and performer."

See previous Song of the Day

Al Green - Talk to Me

With increasing middle class prosperity, the 1920s saw a rise in consumer oriented culture. As buying on credit became the norm, families purchased new, or newly affordable, technologies such as cars, washing machines, refrigerators, radios, and toasters. Women, both black and white, enjoyed new means of self expression during the decade that started with being granted the right to vote. Some paid more attention to clothing and cosmetics, wore scandalously short dresses, men’s hats, and smoked cigarettes. Women, and men, enjoyed the new freedoms afforded by developments in birth control and its gradual acceptance in society.

The blues queens embodied these changes in society. They were glamorous pop stars who performed and appeared in photographs wearing glitzy dresses and jewelry. They headlined large shows that included dancers, comedians, and other entertainers... No longer beholden to the tropes of minstrelsy, blues queens presented themselves as sophisticated professionals. Race records advertisements sometimes included minstrel imagery, but many featured realistic portraits of the artists.

Before the advent of race records, companies marketed all different music styles in one catalog, separating only classical music. They made and sold records aligned with their perception of the tastes of the urban middle class, primarily vaudeville, Tin Pan Alley, brass bands, classical, opera, and Broadway. The new race records applied the principles of ethnic niche markets on a much grander scale.

Source: Blues Queens and Race Records in the 1920s by Matthew Sabatella

Al Green - Talk to Me

• Written by: Joe Seneca
• Released on: Green Is Blues qlbum
• Released on: April 1969

"Al Green was known as both a hitmaker and an artist who released consistently engaging, frequently excellent, critically acclaimed albums. His hits continued uninterrupted through the next two years, all becoming Top Ten gold singles."

See previous Song of the Day

Andrew Hill - Laverne

During the 20th century, this melancholy music was the sound of the rural South. The blues came out of the life of struggle... It came out of what was going on in the Delta, whether it was weather or slavery and sharecropper lives that were difficult.

As a music form, the blues has certain distinct features. The melody usually goes up and down a six note scale. If you’re starting on a C, that scale would go C, E flat, F, G flat, G, B flat, C. The lyrics tend to follow what’s known as an AAB pattern, with the first line of each verse repeating itself, The thrill is gone, the thrill is gone away / The thrill is gone, the thrill is gone away. The B line usually answers or resolves whatever is in the A line, You know you done me wrong, baby, and you’ll be sorry someday.

The blues also evokes a particular response in the listener... Rock arouses and pumps up, it is intense and rebellious. R&B soothes and often seduces, its lyrics tend to be externally focused. Blues is more introspective and complex, its lyrics tend toward describing one’s internal state.

Source: Keeping the Blues Alive by Touré

Andrew Hill - Laverne

• Release date: October 17, 1974
• Genre: Jazz, Post-Bop
• Released on: Invitation album

"After a flurry of recordings for Blue Note during the 1960s, Andrew Hill didn't make another album as a leader until this Steeplechase studio session in 1974. Not that the pianist was inactive during this five-year stretch; he was performing concerts, teaching at Colgate University, and also writing for string quartets and symphony orchestras."

See previous Song of the Day

Swing Out Sister - Certain Shades of Limelight

Strong trembling sounds, melisma, changing the note of a syllable while it is being sung, wavy intonations, elongated notes, long pauses between sentences, glissandos, and a certain nasality are characteristic features of reciting and singing in the Islamic world... Middle Eastern singing is tense sounding and has a harsh, throaty, nasal tone, with a certain flatness.

Unsurprisingly, music was among the cultural exchanges that took place between North Africa and the western Sahel, defined here as the area stretching from Senegal/Gambia to northern Nigeria. Music in North Africa was distinctly different from music in the Middle East, having been influenced by the indigenous black populations living in the southern parts of the Maghreb and later by non Muslim victims of the trans Saharan slave trade. Often employed as musicians, these enslaved West Africans brought their music and rhythms to North Africa. In western Sahel, especially in the urban zones, Muslims adopted, adapted, and transformed the Islamic musical style. Much cross fertilization occurred on both sides of the desert.

In the Muslim areas of West Africa, the lower caste of professional musicians attached to courts or wealthy families developed a repertoire of genealogies, praise songs, and epics. They sang solo, or sometimes in groups, in a declamatory style, with wavy inflections, melisma, humming, tremolo or vibrato, and throbbing or quavering effects. This style, centuries old, continues to be heard in contemporary music. Professional singers accompany themselves or are accompanied by musicians playing string instruments, such as lutes, one string fiddles, the kora, a twenty one string harp, and balafons, xylophones.

Source: What Islam Gave the Blues

Swing Out Sister - Certain Shades of Limelight

• Released on: Where Our Love Grows album
• Released: 2004
• Genre: Electronic, Jazzdance

"The group presently comprises Andy Connell and Corinne Drewery, though it began as a trio in the United Kingdom, formed by Connell and Martin Jackson in 1985."

See previous Song of the Day

The Allman Brothers Band - Woman Across the River

A story doesn’t do any good unless it is told, and singing is how the blues story is told. When sung, the blues offer a ritualistic way to affirm the essential worth of human existence. After facing the indignities of life, one can release the pain and frustration by stomping the blues, knowing full well that the expression is temporary and most likely ineffectual in terms of changing anything in a fundamental way. The stomp lasts Saturday night, and then you get up Sunday, go to church and repent, and start the cycle all over again. The blues, therefore, acknowledges that there is more to trouble and suffering than simply being in a bad mood or having a lousy string of luck, rather, these conditions are simply the structure of existence, for which the blues provides a kind of cathartic metaphysic, identifying what is real but in terms that are concrete, not abstract, and encompassing a full range of human expression.

Linked to improvisation, the ability to worry the line is a powerful resource for living in an unpredictable world. The sampling, mixing, and mashups of contemporary hip hop are the most recent extensions of the blues impulse to worry the line. Neither race, gender, class, ethnicity, nor age limit this power. The blues... is an Omni American response that influences the dominant culture in significant ways. The blues is not proprietary but imitative and contagious, shaped by procedure and custom but primarily by improvisations. The blues provides a context for transforming a miserable existence into a heroic life. Just as worrying the line is really a matter of innovation and improvisation, the blues isn’t about staying blue but about moving beyond the tragic and pathological dimensions of life through a brave confrontation and affirmation of what remains possible. The blues is art as celebration, an act of stylizing a particular existential condition into significance.
Source: Worrying the Line: Blues as Story, Song, and Prayer by Kimberly R. Connor

The Allman Brothers Band - Woman Across the River

• Released on: One Way Out - Live at the Beacon Theatre album
• Written by: Bettye Crutcher, Allen A. Jones
• First release in: 1968

"The Allman Brothers Band are highly respected and well received by legions of fans. Lead guitarist and band leader Duane Allman has been recognized as one of the greatest blues and rock guitarists in history."

See previous Song of the Day

Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers - Straight Into Darkness

Throughout its history, the sounds that have come to define R&B have derived from a range of musical characteristics, instrumentation, and ensembles, ranging in size from tight piano trios to large groups with full rhythm and horn sections. Performed with a core of acoustic instruments in the 1940s, R&B was plugged in and electric from the late 1950s forward.

Rhythmically, R&B now encompasses a wide breadth from blues shuffles with a back beat to boogie woogie, modified rumba rhythms, and syncopated variations of eight beat rhythm patterns that are the hallmark of rock ’n’ roll, and more. Even slow R&B ballads feature a palpable rhythmic pulse, while up tempo songs might include polyrhythmic arrangements to create rhythmic density. At its core R&B is dance music that compels the listener to respond. It is the creative melding and mixing of antecedent song forms including blues, gospel, swing, and other harmonic structures with new innovations that keep the evolving sounds of R&B contemporary.

While R&B music was not explicitly political from the late 1940s through the 1950s, its appeal across racial divides served as an emotion and psychological bond that linked American youth of all races and ethnic backgrounds. By the late 1950s, social and cultural changes were occurring that set the stage for the coalescence of civil rights activism and ethnic consciousness in the decade to come.
Source: Tell It Like It Is: A History of Rhythm and Blues by Mark Puryear

Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers - Straight Into Darkness

• Produced by: Jimmy Iovine, Tom Petty
• Released in: 1990
• Genre: Rock, Classic Rock

"Formed in 1976, Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers originally comprised of lead singer and rhythm guitarist Tom Petty, lead guitarist Mike Campbell, keyboardist Benmont Tench, drummer Stan Lynch and bassist Ron Blair."

See previous Song of the Day

Copyrights and Public Domain

Copyrighting and Public Domain Music

A song is the combination of melody and words. Each is protected by copyright, the melody as a musical work and the lyrics as a literary work. One or the other could be used separately and still be protected.


Image by Markus Spiske


Public Domain Music
Public domain essentially covers creative works that are no longer protected by intellectual property laws, compositions and musical recordings in which the claim to intellectual property has either expired, been forfeited, or been waived.

Most people recognize the term public domain in reference to published works, including sheet music or musical recordings, which once were protected by copyright, but the copyright expired several decades after the artist’s death or a considerable length of time after the work’s creation. Once copyright expires on a work like a recorded song, you can use it for any purpose without paying the publisher, the artist, or another institution.

The Two Types of Copyright Protected Works

When you record a song, you may be creating two works that are protected by copyright, a musical work and a sound recording. These works are subject to different rules and are commonly owned and licensed separately.

A musical work is a song’s underlying composition along with any accompanying lyrics. Musical works are usually created by a songwriter or composer. And a sound recording is a series of musical, spoken, or other sounds fixed in a recording medium, such as a CD or digital file, called a phonorecord. Sound recordings can be created by the recording’s performer, the producer, etc. Note that there is no public display right for sound recordings and the public performance right is limited to digital audio transmissions, for example, digital streaming.

Image by Dee

Involved Rights
The length of copyright protection varies from country to country, but music, along with most other creative works, generally enters the public domain 50 to 75 years after the death of the creator. A recording in 2023 could be protected by copyright even though the underlying composition lies in the public domain. Copyrights for music cover the authors, composers, and lyricists. The performer and live performances, publishers, record companies and other users of recorded music, and downloading music.

Year	Copyrightings Issused	Musical Compositions	Sound Recordings	Albums Released	Notes
2022	484589		70129	1567
2021	403593		69539	1804
2020	367307		183060	2107	sound recording total includes all performing arts
2019	547837		83658	2284
2018	560013		77216	2583
2017	452122		59247	2831
2016	414296		42444	3011
2015	443823		42977	3448
2014	476298		65463	3795
2013	496599		72377	4007
2012	509122		74348	3949
2011	670044		107680	4528
2010	636400		78000	4756
2009	381300		42000	5364
2008	232100		24200	5550
2007	524700		53700	5850
2006	515200		50800	6061
2005	515200		49900	5584
2004	642000		68000	5258
2003	514100		47000	4952
2002	501000		37100	4456
2001	580800		50300	4286
2000	497600		34200	3405
1999	569900		38000	3816
1998	531900		31600	3641
1997	539400		35700	3447
1996	525800		29900	3311
1995	577800		34000	3132
1994	496100		35900	2966
1993	525600		32400	2703
1992	556300		33100	2447
1991	663700		36800	2347
1990	643500		37500	2150
1989	618300		28300	2056
1988	585300		28600	1820
1987	582200		31900	1798
1986	561000		29000	1636
1985	539800		22700	1624
1984	502700		21600	1510
1983	488200	128,000	21700	1460
1982	468100	125,400	13900	1553
1981	471100	125,000	13500	1522
1980	464700	120,200	12800	1476
1979	429000	108,300	10700	1448
1978	415700	114,800	9100	1409
1977	452700	131,200	10600	1337
1976	411000	118,500	9,000	1291
1975	401300	114,800	8,900	1235
1974	372800	104,500	9,400	1120
1973	353600	95,300	6,700	1154
1972	344600	97,500	1,100	1126
1971	329700	95,200		1040
1970	316466	88,949		1086
1969	301258	83,608		1037
1968	303451	80,479		906
1967	294406	79,291		813
1966	289866	76,805		763
1965	293697	80,881		704
1964	278987	75,256		681
1963	264845	72,583		621
1962	245776	67,612		653
1961	247014	65,500		573
1960	243926	65,558		555
1959	241735	70,707		549
1958	238935	66,515		435
1957	225807	59,614		474
1956	224908	58,330		375
1955	224732	57,527		228
1954	222665	58,213		114
1953	219506	59,302		61
1952	203705	51,538		41
1951	200354	48,319		21
1950	210564	52,309		33
1949	201190	48,210		20
1948	238121	72,339		15
1947	230215	68,709		16
1946	202144	63,367		20
1945	178848	57,835		6
1944	169269	52,087		8
1943	160795	48,348		4
1942	182232	50,023		14
1941	180647	49,135		14
1940	176997	37,975		13
1939	173135	40,961		7
1938	166248	35,334		4
1937	154424	31,821
1936	156962	33,250
1935	142031	27,459		1
1934	139047	27,001		1

More about Copyrighting music and laws:
What Musicians Should Know about Copyright
When Does Music Become Public Domain?
What Constitutes A Song? Copyright Works In A Song
Public domain music


Click here to download a list of copyrights issued in America

See previous post