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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

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Location: United States

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