Overview
In this Suggested Path, students investigate how musicians often serve as voices for the various racial, gendered, generational, and class communities they represent. The path begins with lessons examining how Chuck Berry, the Beach Boys, and The Who each uniquely spoke for youth culture in the 1950s and 1960s. Students then learn about Latino, African, Italian, and Native American communities through lessons on Richie Valens, Muddy Waters, Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, and Link Wray. Lessons on Iggy Pop, The MC5, James Brown, Parliament-Funkadelic, and N.W.A. examine how new music trends arose from working-class communities and disenfranchised neighborhoods. Finally, students encounter how artists such as Aretha Franklin, Joni Mitchel, Carole King, Mary Wells, and Kesha have spoken towards women’s issues as they have developed over the decades.
Lessons
lesson:
Chuck Berry
Why is Chuck Berry often considered the most important of the early Rock and Rollers?
lesson:
The Sound of the Suburbs
How did the music of the Beach Boys reflect the suburbanization of postwar America?
lesson:
The Who’s Generation
How did the Who represent “My Generation” in mid-1960s England?
lesson:
The Sound of Blue Collar Detroit
How did Rock and Roll serve as an expressive tool for the working-class youth of Detroit?
lesson:
Divergent Paths in the 1990s: Gangsta Rap and Conscious Hip Hop
How did Gangsta Rap and Conscious Hip Hop respond to the social and political conditions of the 1990s?
lesson:
Ritchie Valens
How did Ritchie Valens meld traditional Mexican music and Rock and Roll?
lesson:
The Blues and the Great Migration
How did the Great Migration spread Southern culture, helping to give the Blues a central place in American popular music?
lesson:
Italian-American Vocalists Before Rock and Roll
How did the careers of Italian American vocalists in the first half of the 20th century reflect the experiences of Italian American immigrants and attitudes toward them in the wider American culture?
lesson:
The Indigenous Roots of Rock and Roll
What does Link Wray’s biography say about how Native Americans lived in the first half of the 20th century, and what role did Wray’s upbringing have on his music?
lesson:
Soul Music and the New Femininity
How did Aretha Franklin represent a new female voice in 1960s popular music?
lesson:
Female Singer-Songwriters in the Early 1970s
What did the success of the female Singer-Songwriters of the early 1970s reveal about the changing roles of women in the United States?
lesson:
Private: “Praying” and the #MeToo Movement
In what ways might Kesha’s legal battle and her song “Praying” reflect larger issues present in the #MeToo movement?