Skip to main content

Electric Light Orchestra (ELO) - Stare

Thus, as cultures develop and change, specific dances, folk art, songs, or history are sometimes lost to progress. Efforts to preserve cultural artifacts are often difficult, if not impossible. Information about blues singers’ lives is often unavailable or lost because many of the blues singers were mostly rambling sorts who didn’t leave behind much in the way of estates, memoirs, letters, or other personal papers or belongings. Fortunately, performances are a means to preserve specific songs, dances, and history... the emergence of a tourist market frequently facilitates the preservation of a cultural tradition which would otherwise perish. The performance of native dances in Hawaii, for example, allows that community to retain an important aesthetic component of its culture. In the same way, blues festivals preserve one of the Delta’s best known cultural artifacts.

Interviews with festival spectators seem to support the theme of preservation... Festival promoters create themes or slogans to stress the importance of preserving one of America’s oldest musical genres. For example, the theme for the 24th Annual Mississippi Delta Blues and Heritage Festival was Taking It Back to Where We Started. The front cover of the festival program underscores this preservation theme, sporting a drawing of a transient 1920s blues family in motion. In the foreground, a family of three is pictured walking down a dirt road. On the left, the father is dressed in overalls with a guitar strapped to his back. On the right, the mother is carrying a basket, presumably filled with food and water. In the middle, a young boy is holding the hands of both parents. In the background, many of the images found in Delta blues songs are present, a large green field, a barn, and a fast moving train. The festival theme is positioned underneath the drawing, thus accentuating the relationship between preservation and a Delta that no longer exists.
Source: *Blues Tourism in the Mississippi Delta: The Functions of Blues Festivals by Stephen A. King


Electric Light Orchestra (ELO) - Stare
  • Released on: Elogram album
  • Released in: April 2016
  • Genre: Electronic

"In 1968, Roy Wood, guitarist, vocalist and songwriter had an idea to form a new band that would use violins, cellos, string basses, horns and woodwinds to give their music a classical sound, allowing rock music to pick up in a new direction. The orchestral instruments would be the main focus, rather than the guitars."


*PDF Link to Blues Tourism in the Mississippi Delta: The Functions of Blues Festivals by Stephen A. King

See previous Song of the Day

Labels:
Location: United States

Comments

Post a Comment

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 ...
Post a Comment
Read more

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 ...
Post a Comment
Read more

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 "...
Post a Comment
Read more