Skip to main content

Magic Sam - Chi-Town Boogie

Dancing in Your Head their refusal to abide by traditional values, their racy lyrics, the sexual innuendo of their rhythms, the goings on where they perform, their references to black magic and other vestigial descendants of African belief systems. In their turn, the feelings of blues folk toward their religious brethren have run an apparently bewildering gamut. Many blues greats shuttled between the sacred and the profane. Some of them, like Skip James, lapsed into silence for decades because they wouldn't sing the devil's music once they returned to the church... Interestingly, there's also a small but dynamic tradition of spiritual blues singers. Some are collected on Preachin the Gospel.

This meeting of the sacred and profane has flowed in the other direction as well. The '40s harmonies of groups like the Mills Brothers and the Ink Spots were gospel derived, and paved the way for the '50s doo woppers who likewise crossed gospel into pop. Sixties soul music and soul jazz also grew directly out of gospel, which turns on pyrotechnic vocal exhortations and improvisations.
Source: Dancing in Your Head Jazz, Blues, Rock, and Beyond  by Gene Santoro


Magic Sam - Chi-Town Boogie
  • Genre: Blues, Chicago Blues
  • Recorded in: Unknown

"Magic Sam he was signed by Cobra Records and became well known as a bluesman after the release of his first record, "All Your Love", in 1957. He was known for his distinctive tremolo guitar playing."

See previous Song of the Day

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

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 ...

The Waterboys - Carolan's Weird Welcome

The blues developed during the mid 20th century as technology brought new instruments like the electric guitar, better microphones, and amplifiers to the live music scene. This new form of electric blues started in the Mississippi Delta and Chicago, but soon spread to other parts of the United States. Blues rock and British Blues developed, and soon the blues had spread to most popular genres. Rock was born from the blues, and hard rockin’ blues music is still a staple of club bands around the world. Early British rockers were avid collectors and imitators of early blues records. There’s no denying the blues stylings of modern stars like Adele. Pop star Christina Aguilera loves singing traditional blues songs, most notably her rendition of At Last at Etta James’s funeral. An incredible fusion of traditional African music, African American songs, and folk music, the blues had a worldwide impact that continues to flow through the melodies and harmonies of musical artists today. With its ...

Cannonball Adderley - Willow Weep for Me

The positivity and uplifting effect of the musical product is more likely to mean the musician is cheering themselves and everybody up rather than that the musician is telling us they are happy. This can largely be applied to attitudes to the performance of jazz and other Black cultures in the Western world. Whilst some of the aforementioned jazz pioneers, like Ella Fitzgerald, stayed clean, several had a history of drug abuse... which often resulted in premature deaths. Louis Armstrong, who used the infinitely safer drug marijuana throughout his 69 years... Whilst drug use was not uncommon among musicians in general, this pattern that many of the greats of jazz died young due to addictions speaks of a consistent level of turmoil, and alludes to their common experience of racism as a depressive factor in 20th Century America. Source: A Soft Reminder of Where Jazz Came From by Tom Platts Cannonball Adderley - Willow Weep for Me Released in: September 1955 Genre: Jazz Label: Savoy "...