Skip to main content

The White Stripes - Party of Special Things to Do

And this was just the beginning. By the end of 1955, rock and roll, as performed and consumed by both blacks and whites, had emerged as a distinct musical style, rather than simply a euphemism for the black r&b which spawned it and with which it continued to overlap. In late 1956, Billboard reported that 25 of 125 pop chart entries during the first 50 weeks of the year had been black r&b/rock and roll records. Many others were either white cover versions of black songs or by white artists performing in styles obviously derived from black music. In 1957, the independent record companies responsible for recording much of this material accounted for an astonishing 76 per cent of the year’s hit singles. In 1958 more than 90 per cent of the 155 records appearing on the national Rhythm and Blues charts during the year also appeared on the pop charts.

Taken together, the rise of these Independents and the unprecedented popularity of black and black-derived styles with young white audiences threatened the traditional distribution of power and influence within the music industry. According to Charles Hamm, “At no other point in the two- hundred year history of popular song in America had there been such a drastic and dramatic change in such a brief period of time”. The powerful alliance of Tin Pan Alley music publishing houses, professional songwriters, network radio stations and major recording labels, which had long dominated the popular music business, was challenged and for a while bested by a new breed of song publishers, black-oriented radio stations, distributors, and record labels.

Most of the Independents involved in the production of r&b had emerged in the mid 1940s, after the Majors, responding to the enforced economies of the Depression and then war, had curtailed minority ranges like black music and concentrated on the more lucrative mass market for white popular music. After the Second World War, however, a disparate group of entrepreneurs moved into the market niches created by these cutbacks, encouraged by the fact that the cost of entry into the business of record production remained relatively low. A thousand dollars was enough to hire a studio (typically at $50 an hour), book musicians, pay American Federation of Musicians (AFM) dues, have a master tape prepared, and press 500 singles at 11 cents a shot.
Source: Just my soul responding Rhythm and Blues, black consciousness and race relations by Brian Ward


The White Stripes - Party of Special Things to Do
  • Released December 2000
  • Genre Garage rock
  • Cover of a song by Captain Beefheart

"Between the releases of their seminal albums De Stilj and White Blood Cells, the iconic duo released a 7-inch for Sub Pop’s Singles Club series taking on a hero of their own: Captain Beefhear."


Gorillaz - Baby Queen

  • Released by: Parlophone UK
  • Release date: November 2022
  • Genres Synthpop, Trip Hop, Alternative

"Previously the best-known '"cartoon bands" were animated versions of The Monkees and The Beatles that kids could watch on Saturday mornings. But Gorillaz (initially called just "Gorilla") was to be an ambitious musical project with eclectic, genre-bending tunes, unique visuals, and a detailed backstory for how the virtual band came to be."

See previous Song of the Day

Labels:
Location: United States

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Ry Cooder - Available Space

It all started with gospel music. After the American Civil War, in the mid 19th century, people moved north from the plantations to the cities, St Louis, Chicago and Memphis. By the end of the 19th century the syncopated rhythms of ragtime and the improvisational nature of jazz had arrived. Hard times in the great depression of the 1930s drove many swing jazz big bands out of business. Jump blues filled the gap. Patrons of dance halls needed small groups who could match the volume and atmosphere of the departed big bands. Singers would shout and saxophonists would honk. This gave performers names like shouters and honkers. Jump blues was an uptempo jazz tinged style of blues. Usually characterised by a vocalist in front of a large horn driven orchestra or medium sized combo with multiple horns. The style had a driving rhythm, intensely shouted vocal and honking tenor saxophone solos. There was also less reliance on the guitar as a lead instrument. It also had a hard, rhythmic drive and...
Post a Comment
Read more

Lester Young - Ghost of a Chance (Take 1)

Philadelphia was well positioned to play a leading role in popular music. The city had long been one of the nation’s most important musical centers, with strong traditions in both European derived and African American music dating back to the eighteenth century. In the early twentieth century Philadelphia saw a dramatic increase in its Black population as a result of the Great Migration. By the 1940s, Philadelphia’s large and diverse Black population had created thriving scenes in jazz and gospel music. From these traditions a new kind of music emerged in the 1940s, in Philadelphia and across the nation. Usually played in small combos called jump bands, the music featured rollicking dance rhythms coupled with fairly simple blues based harmonies and melodies. The adaptation of this style, known as rhythm and blues or R&B, by white musicians essentially created rock and roll. In Philadelphia in the late 1940s and early 1950s, jump bands played dance halls, nightclubs, and corner bars...
Post a Comment
Read more

The Uncommon Vinyl Sizes & Speeds

The Uncommon Vinyl Sizes & Speeds The standard sizes and speed for vinyl records are 12" and 7" both played at 33 1/3 RPM or 45 RPM. RPM means revolution per minute, the number of times the record rotates a minute. Image by Mink Mingle Unusual Sizes for Vinyl 2 in (5.1 cm) Recorded at 10-20 seconds each side. 3 in (7.6 cm)   Also known as 8ban for 8cm Bandai, these were developed in Japan by record pressing company Toyokasei. Records in this format continue to be manufactured. 3 inch singles are made available exclusively. 4.7 in (12 cm)  Although dubbed a 5 inch record, to be usable in most compact disc players, the record can be no bigger than 120 mm. 5 in (13 cm) Children's records records were manufactured in this size from the early 1900s all the way up to the late 1950s and underground punk bands in the 1990s. 6 in (15 cm) From the late 1940s to the early 1960s. The 78 RPM speed was used for some children's records of this size well into the 1960s...
Post a Comment
Read more