Skip to main content

Leon Bridges - Blue Mesas

Most theories on modern popular music center on the premise that this music is controlled to serve the economic and political interests of the businesses that create and distribute it. Such an early influential treatment was offered by Theodor W. Adorno. Adorno placed popular music within the capitalist state as a product that is mass produced for public consumption. For his examples of popular music, he used popular songs from his native Germany and Tin Pan Alley songs from America. Adorno theorized that music mediated between the state and its citizens. The corporate apparatus created music that affirmed government hegemony, packaged it as a commodity, then mass produced it. Popular music stripped the audience of power by making them passive receptors of its sounds.

Blues music’s rhythms give a good example of its oppositional quality. Blues songs feature syncopation, the accenting of beats or pulses typically unaccented in metric music. African music had long cultivated polyrhythms, with layers of rhythms that complemented and played off each other like a musical conversation. A dominant meter, around which most Western music is centered, was never the intention. This metrical patterns in blues was both an active preservation of African rhythms and song structure and a conscious undermining of the rhythms of most Western music... Different approaches to rhythm reflect the natures of the different cultures. The polyrhythms of African music suggest the timing of the natural world and the human body. Western rhythms are more like artificial, regularized time units necessary to an industrial society, like a mechanized machine. African rhythms reflect a culture not regulated by clock time and one that used music to get out of time, as in the attainment of ecstatic states of consciousness during religious rituals... the first pulse being the action of a body to raise a hand to strike and the second louder pulse being the sound created when the hands hit the instrument, be it drum, guitar, or piano. An example of this would be the syncopated work songs associated with chain gangs or railroad workers. The rhythms of the songs sung by the workers reflected the natural syncopation of their work, the action of lifting a hammer up and a second louder sound of the hammer hitting a railroad spike.


Leon Bridges - Blue Mesas
  • Released on: Gold Diggers Sound album
  • Release Date: July 23, 2021
  • Genre: R&B, Soul

"Leon Bridges albums resulted in four Grammy nominations and a win in the category of Best Traditional R&B Performance. Bridges soon expanded his audience with featured appearances on songs by artists ranging from the similar traditional roots."

See previous Song of the Day

Labels:
Location: United States

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Jackson Browne - Kisses Sweeter than Wine

Europe has a rich history of embracing blues and jazz music. In the early 20th century, American jazz musicians began touring Europe, introducing the continent to a new sound that was unlike anything they had ever heard before. Jazz became an instant hit among European audiences, and many European musicians began incorporating jazz elements into their music. Today, jazz festivals are held all over Europe, attracting thousands of fans from all over the world. In addition, many European cities have thriving blues scenes, with local bands and musicians performing regularly. Blues and jazz have also made their way to Asia, where they have found a devoted fan base. Japan, in particular, has a thriving jazz scene, with many Japanese musicians achieving international recognition. In addition, China has also seen a rise in the popularity of jazz music in recent years. Jazz festivals are now held in major Asian cities such as Tokyo, Shanghai, and Hong Kong, attracting jazz lovers from all over ...
Post a Comment
Read more

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 s...
Post a Comment
Read more

Roy Haynes - Satan's Mysterious Feeling

Sun Studio, located at 706 Union Avenue, was started by one of the fathers of rock ‘n roll, Sam Phillips, in 1950. It was the commingling of the Memphis Recording Service and Sun Records that formed Sun Studio, and until 1969... The studio’s claim to fame is that it is where the first rock ‘n roll record was produced, Rocket 88, in April 1951. Stax Records was born in 1957. The original Stax was named Satellite Records until it changed its name to Stax in 1961. The company brought to the forefront American and Memphis soul, as well as gospel, funk and the Delta blues. Its most famous act was Otis Redding, and after his death in 1967, the studio struggled to stay in competition with Detroit’s Motown. The music of Memphis has evolved from its long, rich history. The legends of the past have created a legacy that newer artists can only hope to imitate but never really duplicate. A walk along Beale Street should invoke the memory of the great musicians who have come to and played in Memphi...
Post a Comment
Read more