Category Archives: – Pre Blues era

– The Irish African and the African Irishman

Abstract: It is commonly said that black face minstrelsy is the first popular-professional musical business in America. I am only at the beginning of grasping its full impact on later music evolution as the blues. But before starting this exercise it is essential to understand that black face minstrelsy was not a one dimensional phenomenon. […]

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– The story of Peg Leg Joe : carpenter, sailor and conductor on the Underground Railroad

Abstract : Just as blues later, slave songs communicated messages and were often a cry of despair bathed however in hope. This article highlights the role played by one such a slave song, “Follow the Drinking Gourd”, in the guidance of the slaves on the road of hope and freedom which constituted for them the […]

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– Roll, Jordan, Roll: The Slave song Lucy McKim taught the world

Abstract : The article puts the spots on Lucy McKim, whose role in the documentation of the sounds of slavery is largely underestimated. The publication at her initiative of two slave songs in 1862 is situated against the historical context of the battle at and the experiment of Port Royal. The major significance of this […]

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– Blind Slave Plays Bach

Blind James Campbell, Blind Blake, Blind Jim Brewer, Blind John Davis, Blind Boy Fuller, Blind Arvella Gray, Blind Joe Hill, Blind Lemon Jefferson, Blind Tom Wiggins, Blind Willie Johnson, Blind Willie McTell, Blind Joe Reynolds, Blind Joe Taggar, Blind Willie Walker, Blind Blake. What do these men have in common? They are all Afro-Americans musicians […]

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– To be blue is to sing the blues

Abstract: The article aims at gathering some of the statements and arguments in the over debated question on the balance of the European and African cultural elements in the blues. It finds that the different positions in the debate bear a remarkable resemblance to two theoretical schools in the cultural anthropology, namely the cultural evolutionist […]

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