American popular music is a kaleidoscopic mélange of styles and dreams. Its vibrancy reflects the mating of cultural diversity to artistic and creative freedom. The stories in this book illustrate how Americans, borrowing from diverse musical traditions, have contributed to humanity’s universal language.

INTRODUCTION
By Michael Jay Friedman

Popular music, like so much of American culture, reflects a kaleidoscope of contributions, a cross-fertilization of styles, and a blending of dreams. It could hardly be otherwise in this nation of immigrants. Arguably the United States is a perfect musical laboratory: take people from every corner of the globe, give them freedom to create. Distribute their effort: by sheet music, phonograph, radio – or, for the younger reader: by Blu-ray Disc, mp3, Internet stream.

And what results! European ballads recast with African poly-rhythmic textures or blended with a Cuban-flavored habanera or a more “refined” rumba. “Cold” bop. “Hot” jazz. “Acid” rock. “Gangsta” rap. We might speak less of a singular American popular music than of a constellation of mutually- enriching American popular “musics.” Elvis Presley borrows from African-American blues, and black Motown stars recast “white” pop.

Ask Khmer-American rapper Prach Ly, also known as “praCh,” about American popular music and he’ll speak of growing up with Snoop Dog, Dr. Dre, Run DMC, and Public Enemy on the radio and of cutting his first album in his parents’ garage. Lacking a mixing board, Prach used a karaoke machine and sampled old Khmer Rouge propaganda speeches for his powerful musical condemnation of the Cambodian genocide. ... 

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CONTENTS
Introduction .............................................................................................. 3
Chapter 1: Streams of Tradition: The Sources of Popular Music ......................... 6
Chapter 2: Popular Music: Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries ............. 12
An Early Pop Songwriter: Stephen Foster ........................................... 19
Chapter 3: Popular Jazz and Swing: America’s Original Art Form ...................... 20
Chapter 4: Tin Pan Alley: Creating “Musical Standards” ..................................... 26
Chapter 5: Early Music of the American South: “Race Records” and
“Hillbilly Music” ....................................................................................... 30
Chapter 6: Rhythm & Blues: From Jump Blues to Doo-Wop ................................. 34
Big Mama Thornton ................................................................................ 39
James Brown and Aretha Franklin ........................................................ 40
Jazz Gallery ............................................................................................. 44
Chapter 7: Country Music: Songs of Tradition and Change ................................ 56
Hank Williams ......................................................................................... 61
Chapter 8: Rock ’n’ roll : A Generation’s Identity .................................................. 62
Bob Dylan ................................................................................................. 70
Chapter 9: Music: The Business ................................................................................ 72
Bill Haley and “Rock Around the Clock” .............................................. 65
Chapter 10: Music Technology: Innovations and Controversies ............................ 76
The Electric Guitar .................................................................................. 80
Chapter 11: Hip-Hop: The “Rapper’s Delight” ......................................................... 82
Prince ........................................................................................................ 88
The Message ........................................................................................... 89
Chapter 12: World Music Collaborations: Crossing Cultural Boundaries ............ 90
Glossary .................................................................................................... 94

GLOSSARY
a cappella Vocal singing that involves no instrumental accompaniment.

A&R Abbreviation for “artists and repertoire.” This is the department of a record company whose responsibility it is to discover and cultivate new musical talent, and to find material for the artists to perform — naturally, with an eye toward commercial potential. As many artists today write and record their own material, the latter function of A&R has atrophied to some extent.

arranger A person who adapts (or arranges) the melody and chords of a song to exploit the capabilities and instrumental resources of a particular musical ensemble. For example, a simple pop tune originally written for voice and piano may be arranged for a jazz “big band” with many horns and a rhythm section.

ballad A type of song consisting usually of verses set to a repeating melody (see strophic form) in which a story, often romantic, historic, or tragic, is sung in narrative fashion.

blue notes Expressive notes or scalar inflections found primarily in blues and jazz music. The blue notes derive from African musical practice; although they do not correspond exactly to the Western system of major and minor scales, it is helpful to imagine them as “flatter” or “lower” versions of the scale degrees to which they are related, and thus one speaks of “blue” thirds, fifths, and sevenths (see Chapter 5).

blues A genre of music originating principally from the field hollers and work songs of rural blacks in the southern United States during the latter half of the nineteenth century. Themes treated by blues lyrics included the oppressive conditions suffered by African Americans; love gone wrong; alienation; misery; and the supernatural. The lyrics are often obscured by a coded, metaphorical language. The music of the blues is rich in Africanisms and earthy rhythms. Originally an acoustic music, the blues moved to the urban North in the mid-twentieth century, becoming electrified in the process (see Chapters 5 and 7).

bridge A passage consisting of new, contrasting material that serves as a link between repeated sections of melodic material. A bridge is sometimes called a release (see discussion of Tin Pan Alley song form in Chapter 4).

cadence A melodic or harmonic event that signals the end of a musical line or section, or of the piece as a whole.

chord The simultaneous sounding of different pitches.

chorus A repeating section within a song consisting of a fixed melody and lyric that is repeated exactly each time that it occurs, typically following one or more verses.

coda The “tail end” of a musical composition, typically a brief passage after the last complete section that serves to bring the piece to its conclusion.

composer A person who creates a piece of music. Although the term may be, and often is, used to describe the creators of popular songs, it is more commonly applied to those who create more extended, formally notated works of music.

counter culture A subculture existing in opposition to and espousing values contrary to that of the dominant culture. The term is most often used to describe the values and lifestyle of some young people during the late 1960s and early 1970s (see Chapter 10).

counterpoint The sounding of two independent melodic lines or voices against one another.

dialect A regional speech variant; one may allude to regional musical “dialects” to describe stylistic variants of the same basic musical genre, as with Mississippi Delta blues or East Texas blues.

dissonance A harsh or grating sound. (The perception of dissonance is culturally conditioned. For example, the smaller intervals employed in certain Asian and Middle Eastern musics may sound “out of tune” and dissonant to Western ears; within their original context, however, they are regarded as perfectly consonant.)

distortion A buzzing, crunchy, or “fuzzy” tone color originally achieved by overdriving the vacuum tubes of a guitar amplifier. This effect can be simulated today by solid state and digital sound processors. Distortion is often heard in a hard rock or heavy metal context.

DJ Disc jockey (deejay); one who plays recordings (as on a radio program).

feedback Technically, an out-of-control sound oscillation that occurs when the output of a loudspeaker finds its way back into a microphone or electric instrument pickup and is reamplified, creating a sound loop that grows in intensity and continues until deliberately broken. Although feedback can be difficult to manage, it becomes a powerful expressive device in the hands of certain blues and rock musicians, most notably the guitarist Jimi Hendrix. Feedback can be recognized as a “screaming” or “crying” sound.

groove Term originally employed by jazz, rhythm & blues, and funk musicians to describe the channeled flow of swinging, “funky,” or “phat” rhythms.

habanera a slow, tango-like Cuban musical style, elements of which were integrated into jazz by New Orleans-based musicians including Jelly Roll Morton.

hook A “catchy” or otherwise memorable musical phrase or pattern.

lyricist A person who supplies a poetic text (lyrics) to a piece of vocal music; not necessarily the composer.

major refers to one of the two scale systems central to Western music (see minor); a major scale is arranged in the following order of whole- and half-step intervals: 1-1-½-1-1-1-½. (This pattern is easy to see if one begins at the pitch C on the piano keyboard and plays the next seven white notes in succession, which yields the C major scale: CDEFGABC.) A song is said to be in a major tonality or key if it uses melodies and chords that are constructed from the major scale. Of course, a song may (and frequently does) “borrow” notes and chords from outside a particular major scale, and it may “modulate” or shift from key to key within the course of the song.

melisma One syllable of text spread out over many musical tones.

minor Refers to one of the two scale systems central to Western music (see major); a minor scale is arranged in the following order of whole- and half-step intervals: 1-½-1-1-½-1-1. (This pattern represents the so-called natural minor scale, often found in blues and blues-based popular music; it is easy to see if one begins at the pitch A on the piano keyboard and plays the next seven white notes in succession, which yields the A minor scale: ABCDEFGA. The two other minor scales in common usage — the melodic minor and harmonic minor scales — have ascending and descending forms that differ somewhat from the natural minor scale.) A song is said to be in a minor tonality or key if it uses melodies and chords that are constructed from the minor scale. Of course, a song may (and frequently does) “borrow” notes and chords from outside a particular minor scale, and it may “modulate” or shift from key to key within the course of the song. In comparison to the major scale, the minor scale is often described as having a “sad” or “melancholy” sound.

MP3 A variant of the MPEG compression system, which allows sound files to be compressed to as little as one-twelfth of their original size.

payola The illegal and historically widespread practice of offering money or other inducements to a radio station or deejay in order to ensure the prominent airplay of a particular recording.

polyrhythm The simultaneous sounding of rhythms in two or more contrasting meters, such as three against two, or five against four. Polyrhythms are found in abundance in African and Asian musics and their derivatives.

producer A person engaged either by a recording artist or, more often, a record company, who directs and assists the recording process. The producer’s duties may include securing the services of session musicians; deciding on arrangements; making technical decisions; motivating the artist creatively; helping to realize the artistic vision in a commercially viable way; and not unimportantly, ensuring that the project comes in under budget. A good producer often develops a distinctive signature sound, and successful producers are always in great demand. They are often rewarded handsomely for their efforts, garnering a substantial share of a recording’s earnings, in addition to a commission.

R&B Rhythm & blues. An African American musical genre emerging after World War II. It consisted of a loose cluster of styles derived from black musical traditions, characterized by energetic and hard-swinging rhythms. At first performed exclusively by black musicians and aimed at black audiences, R&B came to replace the older category of “race records” (see Chapter 7).

ragtime A musical genre of African American origin, later exploited to great advantage by white performers, that emerged in the 1880s and became quite popular at the turn of the century. Ragtime is characterized by melodic accents that fall on “off” or weak beats; it is highly syncopated. Scott Joplin is the recognized master of this genre, having composed numerous rags for the piano (see Chapter 2).

refrain In the verse-refrain song, the refrain is the “main part” of the song, usually constructed in AABA or ABAC form (see discussion of Tin Pan Alley song form in Chapter 4).

release See bridge. reverb Short for “reverberation”— a prolongation of a sound by virtue of an ambient acoustical space created by hard, reflective surfaces. The sound bounces off these surfaces and recombines with the original sound, slightly delayed (reverb is measured in terms of seconds and fractions of seconds).

Reverberation can occur naturally or be simulated either electronically or by digital sound processors.

riff A simple, repeating melodic idea or pattern that generates rhythmic momentum; typically played by the horns or the piano in a jazz ensemble, or by an electric guitar in a rock ’n’ roll context.

rockabilly A vigorous form of country and western music (“hillbilly” music) informed by the rhythms of black R&B and electric blues. It is exemplified by such artists as Carl Perkins and the young Elvis Presley.

rumba a ballroom dance of Afro-Cuban origin with a basic pattern featuring two quick sidesteps and one slow forward step per bar, and the syncopated, 4/4 time musical style associated with this dance.

sampling A digital recording process wherein a sound source is recorded or “sampled” with a microphone, converted into a stream of binary numbers that represent the profile of the sound, quantized, and stored in computer memory. The digitized sound sample may then be retrieved in any number of ways, including “virtual recording studio” programs for the computer, or by activating the sound from an electronic keyboard or drum machine.

scat singing A technique that involves the use of nonsense syllables as a vehicle for wordless vocal improvisation. It is most often found in a jazz context.

slap-back A distinctive short reverberation with few repetitions, often heard in the recordings of rockabilly artists, such as the Sun Records recordings of Elvis Presley.

soli (plural of solo) Band textures achieved by having a small group of players within the band play certain passages of music together. Soli playing contrasts with tutti sections, wherein the entire ensemble plays (see the discussion of swing bands in Chapter 3).

strophes Poetic stanzas; often, a pair of stanzas of alternating form that constitute the structure of a poem. These could become the verse and chorus of a strophic song.

strophic A song form that employs the same music for each poetic unit in the lyrics.

syncopation Rhythmic patterns in which the stresses occur on what are ordinarily weak beats, thus displacing or suspending the sense of metric regularity.

tempo Literally, “time” (from Italian). The rate at which a musical composition proceeds, regulated by the speed of the beat or pulse to which it is performed.

timbre The “tone color” or characteristic sound of an instrument or voice, determined by its frequency and overtone components. Timbre is the aspect of sound that allows us, for example, to differentiate between the sound of a violin and a flute when both instruments are playing the same pitch.

tonic Refers to the central or “home” pitch, or chord, of a musical piece — or sometimes of just a section of the piece.

tremolo The rapid reiteration of a single pitch to create a vibrating sound texture. This effect can be produced by acoustic instruments or by electronic means.

tutti Literally, “together” (from Italian). A passage in a musical piece wherein all the instruments of the ensemble (band or orchestra) are playing simultaneously.

verse In general usage, this term refers to a group of lines of poetic text, often rhyming, that usually exhibit regularly recurring metrical patterns. In the verse-refrain song, the verse refers to an introductory section that precedes the main body of the song, the refrain (see discussion of Tin Pan Alley song form in Chapter 4).

vibrato An expressive musical technique that involves minute wavering or fluctuation of a pitch.

waltz A dance in triple meter with a strong emphasis on the downbeat of each bar.

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