Yesterday night was on a TV channel here in Belgium a pretty well documented programme about the Mississipi river and several states where it flows. Blues music has been evoked. This was said: Blues and Gospel are the same origin. Blues is born in the cotton fields, the songs helped the hard- workers to bear their pain in efforts; they didn't address to anybody else, it was just among them, as a mutual encouragement reflex behavior. Now Gospel has the same premises (unhappiness) but addresses to god in order to make the life bearable. What do you think about that shortcut?
Last Edited by on Mar 23, 2012 11:01 AM
This kind of borders on the topic of religion, but from a musical standpoint, and from the standpoint of being a gospel player, I would agree that there are similarities in both styles of music.
Gospel can really be any style, just with different lyrics, so it's hard to pin down exactly what someone's definition of gospel is. Growing up with a dad who loved country music, and 5 brothers and sisters who all liked different styles, I was exposed to it all being the youngest - christian, country, pop, southern rock, blues, etc.
I wouldn't say that all gospel music is focused on unhappiness or trials, though some of it is, nor is all blues focused on unhappiness. Some blues is very happy in my opinion.
To me, the most depressing music is country... lol. But that's just me.
Last Edited by on Mar 23, 2012 11:32 AM
my brother just downloaded the gospel songs of blind willie mctell by mark miller and backed by buddy greene on harp who had some beautiful bluesy fills backing mark...must have been quite an honor to be recommended by buddy greene,todd!blind willie did blues,ragtime and gospel....he is one of my alltime favorites
you mean negro spirituals gospel can be any religious music even middle of the road contemporary xtian music.
negro spirituals were subliminal messages of rise up refuse resist and revolt. and focuses mainly on the bloody and war ridden old testament not the new. moses let my people go, they identified with this. and the slave owners didnt know swing low sweet charriot was the underground railroad or that home/heaven was actually north and freedom.
if you can play negro spirituals in first position then you can play them on the black keys of a piano with one hand. its all pentatonic. blues is microtonal like north african string music. bluegrass wails are exactly like southern african singing. ive experienced some similarity in wailing notes but blues and negro spirituals are two different animals. church music was traditionally played inside the house on piano, blues traditionally played outside the house and in jooks as the devils music. and typically on guitars theres a saying thick as fiddlers in hell. if you werent playing god music on piano inside a house or church you were playing blues and up to no good. negro spirituals are about struggle, blues typically about self indulgence, pride, bragging, and sometimes an unfaithful woman. ive tried to play negro spirituals in 2nd position but i cant see the point they were composed on piano without any bent notes they should stay that way. i only play them in first. i see no similarty in the two at all and i play and enjoy both.
Billy, it never came into my mind to merely THINK playing gospel with an harmonica, but whenever I hear that music, I like it even if I don't understand it. Do you have a sample of your Gospel playing?
I hear different things in different gospel tunes. What Billy refers to as spirituals seem often to speak of hope, sometimes a desperate hope. Others seem to speak of happiness for salvation already received. I don't think they're all speaking to the same audience.
I think it can be hard to distinguish between Gospel and the blues sometimes. Sometimes blues is the dark side of gospel music. I was listening to Robert Johnson last night (hadn't seen this post yet), and these lyrics stuck in my mind because they painted such a dark, violent picture of a man who knows he's turning his back on his god:
"Early this mornin', when you knocked upon my door Early this mornin', ooh, when you knocked upon my door And I said, "Hello, Satan, I believe it's time to go"
Me and the devil, was walkin' side by side Me and the devil, ooh, was walkin' side by side And I'm goin' to beat my woman, until I get satisfied"
To me, it's easy to imagine that song springing from the same conditions that inspired this beautiful song, (performed here by Taj Majal). Is this gospel, or blues? I don't know of another song that speaks more powerfully of desperation and hope. Spiritual blues?
i see no need to split hairs here. i'm in agreement, blues is a body of music derived from both field hollers and spiritual music. there is something in the spirit of people which transcends the box we all are sometimes put in.
in my current incarnation i am in a blues and roots duo with my wife Jolene, who became a guitarist and singer in support of me some years ago, and has definitely become half or more than half of the duo. the reason i mention this is, dec. 31st of 2010, she sustained an injury to her neck and shoulder playing guitar which caused her to not play for some months. it was a nerve pinch we think brought on by 2 hours of practice a day most days. during that time and before she was hurt, we had agreed to be in a show in southwest arkansas, mostly blues and blues rock. we had intended to intro the show with blues, roots, maybe some ragtime or vaudeville type material which we were adapting to the duo form. instead, since she couldn't play guitar, we hit on doing "gospel blues" ala son house and others, a capella, just voice, harp, and hand clap/tambourine. i went in with some reservations since i am not a reformer or recruiter for any particular belief system or faith. the surprise was how well received our set was that evening! i think it strikes a deep place in most peoples' hearts or souls whatever their background. my point is, blues as a body of work does include much of the soul of men. whether we call it gospel or spiritual or whatever, there are elements of many different influences in what we call blues today. aside from the early spiritual element, one can find influences from as far away at least as hawai, let alone scottish and english folk elements. of course african as well and pretty recently Adam posted an article about the Natchez indians and their probable musical influence on the slaves being housed and traded along the mississippi at Natchez.
blues has become a very large and varied body of music. some of what we play today in a blues show might cause Memphis Minnie or Robert Johnson to spin in their respective graves, but i think the intent is the same, to soothe one's own soul and to spread good feeling among our fellows. and possibly make a buck here or there.
we play on the street when it's nice out and my day job allows it. it's one of our favorite things to do since nobody governs what we play, how we play it, how long our sets are, or anything. but the thing we find most attractive is, call it what you will, something in our usual everyday music gets peoples' feet tapping, head bobbing, hip swinging. from toddlers to octagenerians we see a good response out of people from all ages and economic brackets. millionaires down to street folks. dropouts to degreed profs. janitors to corp moguls.
the boiled down basic truth is, call it what you want to. music is truly good for the soul. ---------- http://www.reverbnation.com/jawboneandjolene
https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100000386839482
Last Edited by on Mar 24, 2012 9:14 AM
well i dont have a soul and i play blues and NEGRO SPIRITUALS not gospel. i sing gospel songs only in the disciples of christ church. no i dont have a sample yet but like this little light of mine is about the underground railroad and some safe house. the place was on a hill in ohio the slave would light a candle someone would see it and a group of people would come down the hill to the light and CARRY ME HOME. chariot and train are key words for the underground railroad to freedom so playing harp like a train goes back to this. its just not imitation of a train. when i play this little light of mine on guitar its the same changes as blues but different i have microtonal frets none of them are used. its 12 note scale like a piano. more a country folky rythm.
yeah pinched nerve got that cant play bo diddley anymore. i need a slimmer guitar hate to go electric but may have to. so i mainly play hooker beats flicking my index finger and not not moving my arm. its caused by bone spurs in the spine. it was so bad all i played was diddley bow for a long time, and i got a throttle rocker to ride my bike. xanax is good for skeletal pain and ibuprofin forinflamation. a diet with tumeric and ginger is good. and stop sleeping with pillows put a rolled towl under your neck and lower back.
burdens are lifted at calvary is gospel dem dry bones is a negro spiritual. i never said it goes by race amazing grace is the only pray for my own soul negro spiritual written by a white sea captain who smuggled slaves. negro spirituals never had a hymnal the slaves would get in a circle and have a shout. call and response the rythm would get so confusing and the lyrics so wailed and drones they were undecipherable to the overseer. usually an illiterate endentured servant themselves. this is how they talked in codes. they thought they communicated with drums and outlawed drums. they couldnt outlaw religion because it was the foundation of american slavery that god condoned its practice. getting IN THE SPIRIT convulsing in ecstacy like voodoo possession was part of this circle and is still done today in black baptist churches and goes straight back to african palo mayombe. no scroll up where did i say asiatics and north europids cant sing negro spirituals? gospel music has actual music notes and hymnals negro spirituals dont and any negro spiritual can be played on only the black keys with one hand. thats all i said.
I'm not a religious person, but I love old church music, from Handel's Messiah, on up through Sacred Harp/Shape Note stuff, Gospel, Spiritual... just amazing stuff.
The newer it gets the less interesting it gets though. I tried to find a link to a song we did in choir, 'Lord, Listen to Your Children Playing' but all the versions I found on YouTube were pretty lifeless. It's funny, sometimes it takes a movie to get a big enough budget to do some music right. I'm particularly partial to 'O, Brother Where Art Thou' and 'Cold Mountain', although since the issue of race is out there, I'd say they probably lean more towards what was historically white music.
brother where art thou is a rewrite of homer, and features melungeons my people tri racial isolates. eg elvis, marylin monroe, abe lincoln, tennessee earnie ford. blue grass/old timey is far from exclusively white.
billy aside from your knowledge about music, Jo is playing a telecaster now mostly instead of a big epiphone emperor regent jazz body single humbucker. it was a really great guitar even unplugged, which is how we recorded our last cd and that cd has sold well locally and went to memphis for ibc as well. the telecaster is working out well though, it's a true work horse blues guitar. into a little tube amp but we're considering a bigger amp, still tube.
billy you know a lot more actual history than i do, i think. my post was based on my own ideas and opinions which are based on some things i've picked up over my years in the south and studying this music and how it has evolved from what it once was into what it is now.
i am curious about melungeons? ---------- http://www.reverbnation.com/jawboneandjolene
Quote Todd >”To me, the most depressing music is country... lol. But that's just me”.
Whilst Christian religious music has strong influences in almost every genre it certainly can be happy, uplifting or at times depressing or downright dirge. But I think this is the case with lots of music ie a generalisation.
I disagree with Todd re country music as I am a big fan. I don’t much like a lot of the newer stuff & I don’t at all find country depressing. It’s the same as any other genre some good and a lot bad. I can however listen to country all day & find much of it enjoyable.
Whilst I really like some blues I have a short tolerance to how much I can listen to before I find it enduring. I guess in blues all I listen to is the skill of the harp player as I don’t like a lot of blues involving singing. I find some depressing which is the case with lots of music. To be honest I saw gaining blues skills on the harp as a pathway into country & bluegrass.
The influence of gospel music in Bluegrass is profound. Just flicking through my Parking Lot Pickers list of 300 songs/tunes I reckon close on 100 are gospel related. But my liking of Bluegrass isn’t motivated by any religious leanings. I like the music as a lot is related to country, and I enjoy the company of other bluegrass musicians.
theres lots of theories on melungeons. the french found them in the mid 1600s and didnt know how they got there. theres theories about turkish pirates, turkish and jewish refugees from the spanish inquisition to the cananary islands and then america. but the most obvious is overlooked. america was once the spanish main and theres a whole spanish history thats not taught in schools, only british american history is taught. it was common for spain to leave sailors behind to start colonies even columbus did this. spain was under the ottoman turks at one time so there were plenty of turks portuguese moroccans south american natives and africans serving in the spanish navy all over the present day usa. im sure they had no problem having sex with the local women, im sure the natives wanted the euro gene because they werent immune to euro diseases. in the 1840s there were exiles after a big purge in germany of turks morovians gypsies and jews that arrived in a boat to ohio. the penn dutch were in the area at the time when asked what they were they said duesch meaning german the locals said oh ok youre the black dutch and the name stuck. melungeons typically had dark skin jet black hair and brilliant blue eyes. but were considered mulattoes ( my great grandad couldnt vote until 1965). when the irish and scots came mid 1800s they were considered low class and mixed with melungeons so now we have scottish and irish last names. around the early 60s we got lighter i look nothing like my grandfather who was always mistaken for greek or italian. some of my great uncles looked like charlie patton. thats about all i know i dont beleive in turkish pirates or ancient phonecians i think it goes back to spanish america, integrated troops, and the ravage of euro disease in the new world.
i'm an ear player too billy. fascinating info on melungeons. i know someone who could be a part of that heritage although she grew up in oklahoma and arkansas. enough time goes by and people moving around, who can say. my ancestry is european as far as i can tell. i grew up in the northeast and it's a wonder i found my way to blues at all. my mother's father emigratd to the usa at age 5 around the turn of the 1900's. he played harp for me at an early age and sang to me, everything from marching songs to country blues, when i was 4 years old. that probably sealed my fate of becoming a harp player myself. my first harp was one he had given to my father the year i was born. last of 6 kids, maybe he was trying to give my dad something else to do? but i lost my dad when i was 4 and gramps was the only one who could ease my pain for a long time after dad died. then at age 16 i inherited that harmonica, so it was kind of a legacy that i decided to take on. i spent a lot of years in the dark and barely scratching the surface of being a harpman. the past 12 or 15 years have been real eye openers harpwise in my life. at 57 i feel like a kid sometimes when i hear guys like kim wilson, james harman, william clarke, not to mention the older greats.
i think like this, the more i learn about the origins of the music i love and the people who played it, the richer i am. although i have no direct connection to those folks as far as i know, my heart has had its share of hard times and pain. blues has been my great solace and comfort many times over. my goal in life is to play and learn and keep the tradition alive as long as i am able.
billy, thanks for some great information here. you opened my eyes a little wider!
i looked up melungeon and arkansas and found this.
http://www.yvwiiusdinvnohii.net/lit/molung.html
they are there but i dont buy this anglo indian theory. we have a skull feature that no one but turkik people have. if your freind has the anatolian bump in back of the head shes a melungeon. i had a lady freind in yakutia russia the sakha speak the old form of turkish known she and all her freinds and family have this bump. when i was in turkiye my gf had one they were telling me everyone (on earth) did. which isnt true and i didnt know i was melungeon at the time. when i meet a native american its the first question i ask. the answer is always no. it only yes if they had rumors of being native in their family but no clear roots to a specific tribe. but that link i posted i wouldnt pay any mind to it completely writes out any spanish activity in the usa.ask your freind if shes got a bump. mine is so large i thought it was a tumor or horn that started growing and stopped.
