Anomale Used Blog

The first determinative episode in the history of African American music can be found in a significant eighteenth century incident. On September 9, 1739, enslaved people from the kingdom of Kongo, which covered parts of today’s Congo and Angola, staged an uprising in Stono, South Carolina. Their goal was to reach St. Augustine in Spanish Florida, where the authorities guaranteed freedom to any runaway. They marched with Colours displayed and two Drums beating. As their numbers grew, they set to Dancing, Singing, and beating Drums, to draw more Negroes to them. In the end, the uprising killed twenty whites and forty Africans. It is absolutely necessary to the safety of this province, that all due care be taken to restrain the wanderings and meetings of negroes and other slaves, at all times, and more especially on Saturday nights, Sundays and other holidays, and their using and carrying wooden swords, and other mischievous and dangerous weapons, or using or keeping of drums, horns, or o...

Reggae is accredited for shaping diverse musical styles around the world. It has specifically impacted rock and pop music, where artists use its rhythms, instrumentation, and vocal styles in their own songs. Additionally, reggae also has an influence on hip hop and rap, typically seen by integrating reggae beats and socially conscious lyrics relating to current event issues. Beyond its influence on music, reggae has also made a significant impact on fashion and art. The vibrant red, gold, and green colors of the Rastafarian flag, as well as the style of dreadlocks, inspired fashion trends worldwide. Furthermore, reggae’s iconic message of love and unity against oppression has shaped artistry in many forms, such as visual art, graffiti, and street art. Source: Reggae: More Than a Music Genre by Aviv Kotok The Cure - Jumping Someone Else's Train Released: Nov 20, 1979 Genre: Rock Released in: Italy and U.K. "On April 19, 2009, the band performed at the Coachella Festival in Cali...

R&B music often incorporates urbane, rocking, jazz based music with a heavy, insistent beat. R&B songs are usually melodic with a steady, semi predictable beat that uses a bass track. R&B music usually consists of piano, guitars, bass, drums, saxophone, and sometimes background vocalists. R&B and Reggae are both African based genres and because of that they have similar elements. They both have similar persistent beats often in 4/4 time. They also incorporate piano and bass guitar. Reggae originated in Jamaica... and it derived from the Jamaican phrase rege-rege, meaning rags or ragged clothing, it is used to describe a raggedy style of music that grew up in Jamaica around that time. Reggae is a genre of music that has roots in other genres as well as American Rhythm & Blues, calypso, and African music. Reggae was also developed out of rock steady music as audiences demanded a more steady beat and less all-l instrumental music. Reggae rose to acclaim in the 1970s an...

With the blues festival, which began in 1992, Lewis and Welch made it their mission to expose many of the surviving mid century blues greats to new audiences. Yes, the festival would bring in the big splashy names like Ray Charles or B.B. King, but they also made the point of giving a stage to lesser known greats. After about a dozen years, the Phil and Bill show came to an end when Welch bought out Lewis to become the club’s sole owner. Welch remodel the club, opening up its old L shaped confines to include new space in the club as well as a patio behind it. He also began to branch out into other forms of music and the club quickly became a regular landing spot for bands. Everything from New Orleans flavored R&B to Nashville country to Grateful Dead inspired California jam rock found a home at Moe’s. The club championed groups and performers that local audiences never would have encountered otherwise from the Native American blues rock Indigenous to the gonzo Russian novelty surf ...

Punk appealed to lower and middle class teenagers in Britain who grew up detesting the lifestyles and traditions of their parents. They felt they had no control over their lives and were destined to stay in poverty because of a class ridden social system. The youth saw rock as being played by wealthy stars and weren’t interested. They were anti fashion, wearing torn clothes with safety pins holding them together. Anarchy was enthusiastically supported by many British punk fans. Singer Joe Strummer had a more melodic approach to his vocals, combining this melodic sensibility with a rough, unpolished vocal timbre, fitting to the aggressive tone of the music. Since punk was such an aggressive style of music, it didn’t create a wide appeal to general population. The revitalized energy was appealing though, and many characteristics of it were integrated into a new style called New Wave. New Wave used the pulsebbased rhythms of punk, monotone vocals, and emotional alienation of punk music, b...

Mento music placed a strong emphasis on a rhythm created by the combination of drums, banjo guitars, flutes, and horns. Mento is described as having a performance mode with a rhythmic impulse, with a response type of singing that is African in origin, while the scale patterns, harmonic concepts, and verse and chorus song types are British. But, when performed, it was quintessentially Jamaican. Mento is regarded in some circles as the Jamaican equivalent to calypso. While some of the songs were aired regularly, others were banned as they were thought to be too sexually explicit. In the late 1950s, more young Jamaicans emerged as singers and musicians and began recording their music. Around this time a young politician of Lebanese descent, Edward Seaga, who developed a keen interest in Jamaican music and artists, established a modern recording studio that released early recordings of blues artists... In 1962, Seaga sold the company to Byron Lee, who renamed it Dynamic Sounds which woul...

One of the reasons why reggae music is so therapeutic is because it often features lyrics that are focused on positive themes and messages. Whether it’s Bob Marley singing about the power of love, or Peter Tosh promoting social justice, reggae music has a way of touching the soul and lifting the spirit. In addition to its positive lyrics, the rhythmic beats and bass heavy sound of reggae music have been shown to have a calming effect on the body and mind. The repetitive nature of the music, combined with its slow and steady beat, can help to create a sense of relaxation and peace. Source: Black History Month Special Beat The Blues: The Healing Power Of Reggae Music Reggae Music by Reggae North Judee Sill - Lopin' Along Thru the Cosmos Released on: Judee Sill album Written by: Judee Sill Released on: September 15, 1971 "Judee Sill was an American singer songwriter. She was the first artist signed to Asylum. She released her eponymous debut album in 1971." See Previous Song...

Today, young African Americans find strength in hip hop music, which I consider a modern evolution of the blues. Hip hop was born out of the same conditions that gave birth to the blues. Poor and disenfranchised black and brown youths were seeking ways to express their humanity amid poverty and abandonment. If the blues was our healing, today, hip hop is a more potent medicine meant to help cope with today’s societal struggles. The line that connects blues and hip hop is strong and clear. It was not uncommon for me to perform Blues festivals as the only African American act on the bill. Many times I’d see major Blues events featuring acts that are not even blues, much less featuring African American acts. That’s not to say non African Americans shouldn’t participate in the celebration of blues culture, but imagine having a Celtic music festival without featuring a traditional Scottish, Irish or Welsh act or a mariachi music festival without a Mexican mariachi band. Ideally, blues festi...

The impact of reggae and Rastafari on the worldwide cultural universe is colossal. It is not an overstatement to say that almost the whole world have been culturally influenced by reggae music and its Rastafarian message. How can we explain such a scattering? It would seem that Jamaican large migrations as well as Bob Marley’s huge success have played a major role in spreading these fundamental elements of Jamaican culture throughout the world. Besides, foreigners appear to be captivated by reggae music because of its militant, rebellious and spiritual message as well as its positive and universal message dealing with the concept of unity. Rasta symbols such as dreadlocks, Ethiopian colours, ganja or military clothing also play an important part in charming foreign audience. The great importance of reggae and Rastafari in the worldwide cultural universe raise the question of the place of reggae and Rastafari in Caribbean studies in France. Like rock, punk or hippie movements, reggae an...

Upton Blues Festival has continued to grow and capture of the imagination of festival goers across Worcestershire and its surrounding counties.... People come from Worcester, Cheltenham, Gloucester, and all around to experience the festival. Beyond booking on to the festival's campsite, Upton Blues Festival is entirely free for visitors making it the largest blues festival of its kind in the UK... As many as 11 of Upton's pubs and bars... feature live acts... but the festival will have five stages on offer. Riverside and Meadow stages are the biggest, but the Under the Bridge stage is new for this year and directed towards a younger crowd alongside keen blues fans... Some people hear blues music and think this festival isn’t for them, but the blues genre is so wide and we're trying to attract younger people to the festival this year. Source: Upton Blues Festival set to take over the whole town by Matt Taylor Ronnie Wood - Ghost of a Man Released on: September 17, 2021 Recor...

A lot of what is now called Jamaican doo wop is, in fact, a straight copy of the US style of vocal harmony singing, but that is not to say that the records don’t sound sweet and soulful, elaborates Gladdy Wax, a reggae aficionado and broadcaster, who has been running his own British sound system for more than 40 years. A great vocalist like Alton Ellis, say, who would later become known as the king of rocksteady, had a distinctive voice from the start, whatever style he was singing in. The same is true of a lot of Jamaican singers who started out in the 1950s, their voices shine from the start. Elsewhere, although there is nothing as mesmerising as US doo wop classics... A Thousand Teardrops by the Rhythm Aces & the Caribs features some wondrous harmony singing tied to a deftly understated backdrop created by the Caribs, an in demand session group whose core members hailed from Australia and would later play a crucial role in shaping the imminent ska sound... Like their American ro...

In January 1965, the University of Michigan Jazz Band went on tour traveling to a multitude of Latin American countries and served as a case study to see the far reaching effects of cultural diplomacy... Both archival and oral history evidence indicate that the Michigan jazz band's tour succeeded in building vital imagined connections across international borders. The jazz band tour was a force that sew the essential role of musicianship in fostering new transnational sensibilities. There is a concentration of African American population in the Caribbean so seeing the Rhythm and the Blues, Caribbean Awards source we can see the outreach that the Blues has had. In The Music Education in the Caribbean and Latin America, A Comprehensive Guide, it goes into ways the music education system in Latin American and Caribbean islands incorporate the importance of the Blues into their school system. A new method of Caribbean literary analysis draws from the blues tradition in African American...

What the blues expresses, of course, is not just feelings, most blues songs, from Back Water Blues and Sweet Home Chicago to Sweet Rough Man and Mean Old World, spend considerable lyric energy representing the conditions, the challenging, despair and/or euphoria inducing situations, that give rise to the feelings. Blues songs often state a problem, let it simmer and intensify, then pose a provisional solution. What generates the solution, as often as not, is the blues ethos: the blues philosophy of life. The blues ethos, as a concept, is multipronged, not unitary. It is a handful of attitudes and strategies for coping gracefully with the worst that life can throw at you... How do you generate an elegance of earned self togetherness, so that you have a stick to it ness in the face of the catastrophic and the calamitous and the horrendous and the scandalous and the monstrous? The blues condition undergirding the poem is failed or unrequited love, the you in the first line who does not, o...

Music is an integral part of human life... music is not simply a distraction or a pastime, but central to our identity and evolution as a species. Levitin, 2006, revealed how music influences cognition by calling attention to powerful ways music is harnessed in advertising, films, ceremonies, and everyday human interactions. Humans create music and art in order to represent ideas that are important in life. Music plays an important and ongoing role in shaping people’s cognitive, social, and cultural understandings, which in turn, influences how people navigate their lives. Individual musical development is shaped by a range of cognitive, social and cultural factors that remain fluid and are constantly changing. Over the lifespan, musical development is characterized by time related changes in musical abilities, motivations, functions and musical activities. Older non professional musicians have unused musical potential, which can be activated at any time through learning and practice. ...

Musically, reggae is easier to hear than to define. One frustrated American drummer who found the oddly sprung rhythm difficult to master described it as inside out rock and roll with accents on the second two beats, and you break your back just trying to keep it going. Most Jamaican musicians demur when asked for a definition of the word reggae... Reggae mean comin’ from d’ people, you know. Ever'day ting, like from d’ ghetto. Majority beat. Regular beat that people use like food down there. We put music to it, make a dance out of it. I would say that reggae mean comin’ from d’ roots, ghetto music. Means poverty, suffering, and in the end, maybe union with God Reggae appears to have evolved in the mid sixties from the confluence of key native rhythms... with American soul music that is heavily broadcast throughout the Caribbean from the States, especially James Brown and Otis Redding. Lyrical inspiration ranged from the traditional, calypso tinged island gospel to Clint Eastwood s...

There have also been plenty of blues festivals and events in Ireland, which have brought the styles to a greater number of people. The Cork Jazz Festival is a massive annual offering that attracts thousands, while there’s also the Dublin Blues, Roots, and Brass Festival that brings in local and international blues enthusiasts. The events are a prime opportunity to celebrate the heritage of these music varieties and showcase some of the best talents around. The influence of reggae and blues music in Ireland goes beyond the music scene and has had a broader impact on the entertainment industry. It’s clear that the incorporation of these genres into Ireland’s entertainment landscape has helped bring diversity and richness to the culture of the country. This has, in turn, led to the attraction of more diverse audiences to Irish entertainment. Companies that offer entertainment to people in Ireland now must consider this diversity, and market their offerings to a broad spectrum of consumers...

If any country could be identified solely by its music, Jamaica would probably be a prime example. Over the years, reggae music has become one of the most identifiable art forms in Jamaica, but this was not always the case. Reggae rose to prominence in the late sixties, and much of its roots are in American music. While R&B and doo wop certainly influenced the burgeoning genre, many of the major players in the earliest days were jazz fans. During the late 1940s and early 1950s, the musical landscape of Jamaica looked quite a bit different than it would years later... in those days, there was no Jamaican music. Popular music was generally from Latin America, Cuba, or The United States. Mento, which is often confused with calypso, was probably the closest to true Jamaican music. Things took a turn, however, when Hedley Jones, a musical and electronics jack of all trades came along. Local markets served as a gathering place for entertainment on any given evening. While there were a fe...

With the arrival of the sounds of Fats Domino, James Brown, Otis Redding, Brook Benton and Ray Charles, the music was analyzed, taken apart, joked about and put together again. When jazz, blues, and R&B was played, it was usually speeded up by local musicians, who grew up with a scattered pace of mento. Over time American R&B and soul music became the leading music of the Caribbean. The rise of American music in Jamaica helped to bring about the notorious sound systems. The Jamaican radio was controlled by the government and was then seen as far too conservative for the people and the black blues that the Jamaicans wanted to hear. Programming did not reflect the preferences of the population, and people continued to complain that the radio stations did not play what the public really wanted. R&B records were hard to come by, led alone good records, and far too expensive for most Jamaicans So, the sound systems came into play. Mysteriously, by the early 1960’s, the major R...