Blues lesson from John Lee Hooker into the present

We discovered  this very cool picture at the BB King Museum in Indianola, Mississippi, one of the finest cultural, musical, and historical collections about the blues that we have seen. We studiously copied the chart on the picture behind the display case glass until we were able to find the actual picture, thanks to the power of Google. Guessing from John Lee's young face, his clothing style, and the chart above him, he appears to be approximately 30 years old, which would make the year about 1947. Note that rock 'n' roll doesn't exist and country music, here called "hillbilly," wasn't known as country until the 1940s.

The fun part of studying a drawing like this 70 years later, is making the additions to the flow chart.

The blues previous to about the mid-1950s was called "race music," then its moniker was changed to "rhythm and blues," to  reach out to a larger audience. Rock-and-Roll was a direct offshoot from this and hillbilly/rockabilly, so we can make the mental line drawing there. Thank goodness rock didn't carry forward the name "race" music, as this seems terribly anachronistic today. It's funny that what was considered mainstream back then is now rock 'n' roll.

So where does rap or hip-hop go on this chart, and where did they originate? Well...looking at our chart, there are strong connections to rip-rap and field hollers, or work songs. We do know that in the 1970s, rap became a form of African American teenager street art; and this early, simpler style is considered "old school" in contrast to the more complex rap of today.

Some of  this music owes its roots to reggae from Jamaica, which by the way, gets its name from a slang word that means loose woman: "streggae." It seems that reggae got its start sometime in the 1960s, partly from the power of Jamaicans listening to American clear channel radio, playing rhythm and blues, jazz, rock 'n' roll, and country. (Do you remember my blog about the good ol' days of the power of clear channel radio?!) African influences also were strong in creating the reggae sound.

John Lee Hooker, in the 1940s, would have been blown away at how multi-cultural musical genres combined in such magical ways. The music even came back to the "popular" circuit in the 60s and 70s through the Beatles in the song, "Oh-Blah-Di, Oh-Blah-Da," and Three Dog Night's, "Black and White."

So much can and should be written about the reggae branch of our tree, but I'll have to let it slide for now...back to rap...the word "rap" was the hip way to express the simple act of speaking in the 1960s; it didn't come into use musically for another decade. Rap used to be called "Disco Rap," until Keith Cowboy was teasing a friend somewhere in the mists of the funky 70s, who was going into the army. Keith rapped out "hip/hop/hip/hop," mimicking the cadence of soldiers marching. That, they say, is history...

Speaking of history, one of the first examples of rap in modern rock/folk music was the song "Subterranean Homesick Blues" by Bob Dylan, written in 1965. I've included a video link here which cannot be directly embedded due to copyright issues...oh! and who do you see in a cameo side shot in this film?