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The Great Migration is at the heart of this chapter. The lessons that will be introduced in the second phase of the RRAS project will explore the experiences of the southern African Americans who made their way north to settle in cities like Detroit, Cleveland, New York, Chicago, and others. A vast population relocated, these people took traditions associated with life in the American South and made them into something new. The urban context, new technologies, and the experiences of the migration all affected the music and its character. Muddy Waters, Howlin’ Wolf, Sonny Boy Williamson — the characters have names that are as evocative as the music they made. And the music did nothing short of change the course of popular music.
A significant part of the lessons that will come relates to the independent record labels that released the music of the artists mentioned above and others. In particular, Sun Records of Memphis and Chess Records of Chicago are an object of focus. Operating on the margins of the music business, these independent labels were the site of some of the most significant racial mixing of the pre-Civil Rights era. If Sun and Chess specialized in recording African-American artists, they would soon find themselves at the center of the Rock and Roll revolution. It was Muddy Waters who sent Chuck Berry to Chess, Sam Phillips of Sun who made the first recordings with Elvis Presley. There was, as the lessons will demonstrate, a fine line between the Blues recordings of Chess and Sun and the recordings that would soon dominate the Pop charts in the era of early Rock and Roll. The tides of the Great Migration will forever be felt in Rock and Roll.
lesson:
The Birth of the Electric Guitar
How did the electric guitar transform Blues music from the 1940s forward?
Video
video:
Got My Mojo Working
The Great Migration is at the heart of this chapter. The lessons that will be introduced in the second phase of the RRAS project will explore the experiences of the southern African Americans who made their way north to settle in cities like Detroit, Cleveland, New York, Chicago, and others. A vast population relocated, these people took traditions associated with life in the American South and made them into something new. The urban context, new technologies, and the experiences of the migration all affected the music and its character. Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf, Sonny Boy Williamson -- the characters have names that are as evocative as the music they made. And the music did nothing short of change the course of popular music. A significant part of the lessons that will come relates to the independent record labels that released the music of the artists mentioned above and others. In particular, Sun Records of Memphis and Chess Records of Chicago are an object of focus. Operating on the margins of the music business, these independent labels were the site of some of the most significant racial mixing of the pre-Civil Rights era. If Sun and Chess specialized in recording African-American artists, they would soon find themselves at the center of the Rock and Roll revolution. It was Muddy Waters who sent Chuck Berry to Chess, Sam Phillips of Sun who made the first recordings with Elvis Presley. There was, as the lessons will demonstrate, a fine line between the Blues recordings of Chess and Sun and the recordings that would soon dominate the Pop charts in the era of early Rock and Roll. The tides of the Great Migration will forever be felt in Rock and Roll.
video:
I’ll Be Back Someday
The Great Migration is at the heart of this chapter. The lessons that will be introduced in the second phase of the RRAS project will explore the experiences of the southern African Americans who made their way north to settle in cities like Detroit, Cleveland, New York, Chicago, and others. A vast population relocated, these people took traditions associated with life in the American South and made them into something new. The urban context, new technologies, and the experiences of the migration all affected the music and its character. Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf, Sonny Boy Williamson -- the characters have names that are as evocative as the music they made. And the music did nothing short of change the course of popular music. A significant part of the lessons that will come relates to the independent record labels that released the music of the artists mentioned above and others. In particular, Sun Records of Memphis and Chess Records of Chicago are an object of focus. Operating on the margins of the music business, these independent labels were the site of some of the most significant racial mixing of the pre-Civil Rights era. If Sun and Chess specialized in recording African-American artists, they would soon find themselves at the center of the Rock and Roll revolution. It was Muddy Waters who sent Chuck Berry to Chess, Sam Phillips of Sun who made the first recordings with Elvis Presley. There was, as the lessons will demonstrate, a fine line between the Blues recordings of Chess and Sun and the recordings that would soon dominate the Pop charts in the era of early Rock and Roll. The tides of the Great Migration will forever be felt in Rock and Roll.
video:
Rollin’ Stone
The Great Migration is at the heart of this chapter. The lessons that will be introduced in the second phase of the RRAS project will explore the experiences of the southern African Americans who made their way north to settle in cities like Detroit, Cleveland, New York, Chicago, and others. A vast population relocated, these people took traditions associated with life in the American South and made them into something new. The urban context, new technologies, and the experiences of the migration all affected the music and its character. Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf, Sonny Boy Williamson -- the characters have names that are as evocative as the music they made. And the music did nothing short of change the course of popular music. A significant part of the lessons that will come relates to the independent record labels that released the music of the artists mentioned above and others. In particular, Sun Records of Memphis and Chess Records of Chicago are an object of focus. Operating on the margins of the music business, these independent labels were the site of some of the most significant racial mixing of the pre-Civil Rights era. If Sun and Chess specialized in recording African-American artists, they would soon find themselves at the center of the Rock and Roll revolution. It was Muddy Waters who sent Chuck Berry to Chess, Sam Phillips of Sun who made the first recordings with Elvis Presley. There was, as the lessons will demonstrate, a fine line between the Blues recordings of Chess and Sun and the recordings that would soon dominate the Pop charts in the era of early Rock and Roll. The tides of the Great Migration will forever be felt in Rock and Roll.
video:
Smokestack Lightnin’
The Great Migration is at the heart of this chapter. The lessons that will be introduced in the second phase of the RRAS project will explore the experiences of the southern African Americans who made their way north to settle in cities like Detroit, Cleveland, New York, Chicago, and others. A vast population relocated, these people took traditions associated with life in the American South and made them into something new. The urban context, new technologies, and the experiences of the migration all affected the music and its character. Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf, Sonny Boy Williamson -- the characters have names that are as evocative as the music they made. And the music did nothing short of change the course of popular music. A significant part of the lessons that will come relates to the independent record labels that released the music of the artists mentioned above and others. In particular, Sun Records of Memphis and Chess Records of Chicago are an object of focus. Operating on the margins of the music business, these independent labels were the site of some of the most significant racial mixing of the pre-Civil Rights era. If Sun and Chess specialized in recording African-American artists, they would soon find themselves at the center of the Rock and Roll revolution. It was Muddy Waters who sent Chuck Berry to Chess, Sam Phillips of Sun who made the first recordings with Elvis Presley. There was, as the lessons will demonstrate, a fine line between the Blues recordings of Chess and Sun and the recordings that would soon dominate the Pop charts in the era of early Rock and Roll. The tides of the Great Migration will forever be felt in Rock and Roll.
video:
Influences
The Great Migration is at the heart of this chapter. The lessons that will be introduced in the second phase of the RRAS project will explore the experiences of the southern African Americans who made their way north to settle in cities like Detroit, Cleveland, New York, Chicago, and others. A vast population relocated, these people took traditions associated with life in the American South and made them into something new. The urban context, new technologies, and the experiences of the migration all affected the music and its character. Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf, Sonny Boy Williamson -- the characters have names that are as evocative as the music they made. And the music did nothing short of change the course of popular music. A significant part of the lessons that will come relates to the independent record labels that released the music of the artists mentioned above and others. In particular, Sun Records of Memphis and Chess Records of Chicago are an object of focus. Operating on the margins of the music business, these independent labels were the site of some of the most significant racial mixing of the pre-Civil Rights era. If Sun and Chess specialized in recording African-American artists, they would soon find themselves at the center of the Rock and Roll revolution. It was Muddy Waters who sent Chuck Berry to Chess, Sam Phillips of Sun who made the first recordings with Elvis Presley. There was, as the lessons will demonstrate, a fine line between the Blues recordings of Chess and Sun and the recordings that would soon dominate the Pop charts in the era of early Rock and Roll. The tides of the Great Migration will forever be felt in Rock and Roll.
video:
Walk in My Shoes
The Great Migration is at the heart of this chapter. The lessons that will be introduced in the second phase of the RRAS project will explore the experiences of the southern African Americans who made their way north to settle in cities like Detroit, Cleveland, New York, Chicago, and others. A vast population relocated, these people took traditions associated with life in the American South and made them into something new. The urban context, new technologies, and the experiences of the migration all affected the music and its character. Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf, Sonny Boy Williamson -- the characters have names that are as evocative as the music they made. And the music did nothing short of change the course of popular music. A significant part of the lessons that will come relates to the independent record labels that released the music of the artists mentioned above and others. In particular, Sun Records of Memphis and Chess Records of Chicago are an object of focus. Operating on the margins of the music business, these independent labels were the site of some of the most significant racial mixing of the pre-Civil Rights era. If Sun and Chess specialized in recording African-American artists, they would soon find themselves at the center of the Rock and Roll revolution. It was Muddy Waters who sent Chuck Berry to Chess, Sam Phillips of Sun who made the first recordings with Elvis Presley. There was, as the lessons will demonstrate, a fine line between the Blues recordings of Chess and Sun and the recordings that would soon dominate the Pop charts in the era of early Rock and Roll. The tides of the Great Migration will forever be felt in Rock and Roll.
Print Journalism
article:
Chess Records: The Original Blues Brothers
"WOW, YOU guys are really getting it on!" exclaimed Chuck Berry, observing the Rolling Stones cut 'Down The Road Apiece', a track he'd recorded himself just a few years earlier. It was June, 1964, and this youthful British beat band were happily messing around at the Chess studio in Chicago as their older black musical idols watched on, intrigued. In the background Little Walter and Sonny Boy Williamson argued loudly about a woman from Kentucky. Muddy Waters, whose song 'Rollin' Stone', had supplied the English band with its moniker, even helped them bring in their equipment. Later on, they chatted...
article:
The Sun King: Sam Phillips
BACK IN THE MID-'50s, the Sun Records studio at 706 Union Avenue was the epicenter of a sudden, wrenching shift in world consciousness. Tremors had been felt for several years, and then, one afternoon in early 1954, Sam Phillips was busy with routine work in the tiny studio when Destiny walked in. Actually, Destiny, in the person of a handsome, painfully shy but flashily dressed young man with longish hair and greasy sideburns, paced up and down the sidewalk outside for some time before summoning the courage to actually walk in the door. Phillips, a thirty-one-year-old radio engineer from Florence,...
article:
…Howlin’ for the Wolf
"I was just a country boy, glad to get some sounds on wax" IT WASN'T unexpected; not like the sudden shock when a man is wiped out is his prime by ice on the wings, vomit in the throat, or a wayward bullet; but there was still a sense of irretrievable loss that came with the news of Howlin’ Wolf’s death. He'd been ill for a long time now. Overweight and subject to heart attacks, he'd been in and out of hospital since the late sixties and more or less inactive for the last couple of years. Now the news reports...