Themes in Gospel Songs in Rhythm and Blues Context - Essay Example

? Themes in gospel songs in rhythm and blues context al affiliation Themes in gospel songs in rhythm and blues context Black popular music tradition is referred to as Rhythm and blues. Since 1940s – 1960s, this kind of music was known as black pop-music. It is strictly termed as rhythm and blues. From early 1960s’, rhythm and blues influenced gospel music in quite a number of ways. Many artists were seen to copy new styles with gospel musicians adopting the method used by artists of rhythm and blues. The artists fussed secular words and gospel words to form gospel music. This led to repetition of gospel music in a rhythm and blues context. Blues music can be said to be that music that developed from a blue note. Blues emerged as a result of self expression of the African-American community members in the United States of America, from gospel music, work songs, chant songs, and rhymed songs mainly meant to describe desperate moods of the African-Americans. At that time, according to Charles (2004) black music was termed as inferior. Blues music never needed other accompaniments during performances but, after some time they accepted the use of rhythm groups and horns rather than just the gutter alone. The general format of blues music can be traced back to the African music format of chorus answer format. It was noted that bluesmen like Skip James, Charley Patton, and Georgia Tom Dorsey are known to gain influence from spiritual songs. Gospel music developed in the early 1930s where most of the artists started performing gospel music in churches. Musicians such as King, Ruth Brown and Ray Charles are the leaders on transformation of country blues to modern blues and the developments of music blues from Soul. They are also credited for the improvement of vocal techniques that are applicable in the today’s contemporary world. Blues music was accused and named as having a great relationship with the devil's works. Over the years, it was known to incite violence among the city dwellers in the urban areas. According to Charles (2004), the artists protect the view, and there is no difference between blues, and other form of music. In gospel music, they use Jesus and blues they use baby. Arnold Show presents the golden year of the R& B music. During this time, the blues musicians who played the music came from the same place. For instance, the Chicago blues, all the musicians came from Chicago. It is also noted that blues is blues and that the tune does not change that s why gospel themes have been repeated severally (Arnold, 1996). Ruth Brown and Dinah Washington are recorded as the first female R&B artists to perform blues and rhythms in a church setting. They succeeded in their music but, faced numerous challenges from the white community. In the long run, they ended up performing on stage as white singers. Ruth and Andrew (1996) indicate that this fact led to the success of their music both among the blacks and whites. Charles (2004) noted that he has been popular R&B artist for a long of time from 1930 to 2004. He is a singer, pianist, arranger, saxophonist, and bandleader. He is known to develop gospel music fused with, melodies, singing styles, harmonic and rhythmic patterns of gospels and secular remix. These influenced several singers to follow his procedures of fusing secular music with gospel music. Jerry Wexler, another R&B artist is known to have his music pass through the period of race till the modern era, where his music is known to influence many teenagers in the society. It was evident that the problem of fussing gospel music and secular music was rampant and, it became difficult for blacks to sell their music to the whites. The whites concentrated on selling their popularly known music and, never had any interest in Negro music. The demand of negro music was mainly from black buyers, the reason why gospel music kept repeating itself in blues and rhythm contexts. With the improvement of blues music, the whites started buying black music and the market moved from being for blacks alone to all the races. Consequently, gospel music unrelented repeating itself in blues and rhythm context. According to Jerry (1993), he noted that gospel derived dynamics were another group of R&B. They were a group of girls of deep southern souls. They sang in churches and their blues comprised of instrumentation in the gospel lyrics. With this fusion of the gospel and wild music, the church was scandalized. The churches constituted of women and young girls blues that over the years continued to become popular in churches. A notable group of singers are the Chicago based sisters were the first to incorporate secular tunes to gospel tunes in churches. Gospel music is characterized by numerous repetitions in the choruses that make the music have a repetitive process where one leads and the rest of the congregation repeat the chorus. This characteristic is common in blues and rhythm. Most gospel music is repeated in blues for the reason that they offered hope to the blacks at that time of history. When repeated the message is understood by a wider audience that listen to the gospel music. In addition to this, the blues music was noted to bring harmony among races since even the whites listened to gospel blues music. Blues and rhythm are complicated; they do not have basics. Blues have hundreds of versions of the same tune. The gospel music infused in blues get repeated on several occasions in different versions of blues. Most of the blues artists have the habit of mixing several styles in their music. In instances when gospel music is infused into the blues and rhythm, it has to be repeated for the purpose of understanding and interpretation by its listeners. Some artists even mix several African perceptions about religion and African blasphemy into their music. Rhythm and blues context has continuously experienced repeated chorus of gospel music. This is mainly to give the songs a symbol of life in that something gets repeated several times, for understanding by the audience, making them believe they will get to heaven. The structure of gospel music is like blues. That is why they get repeated in blues and rhythm. Blues take language and images from the church which is call and response in nature that leads to repetition. In conclusion, we can argue that the themes from gospel songs continually repeat themselves in the rhythm and blues context. From the above discussion, we are justified to argue the rhythm and blues have borrowed from gospel songs in many aspects ranging from composition, way of delivery amongst others. Some of the rhythm and blues songs may be confused for some gospel songs. Majority are almost complete replicas of gospel songs; if one is not so keen, they may be made to believe that rhythm and blues songs are gospel songs. References Arnold, S. (1996). The golden years of Rhythm and Blues. New York: Simion and Schuter Adult Publishing Group. Charles, K. (2004). Urban blues. Chicago: Chicago University Press. Jerry, W. (1993). Rhythm and Blues Life in American Music. New York: Random House Inc. Ruth, B & Andrew, Y. (1996). The Autobiography of Ruth Brown and Andrew Yale. U.S.A: Penguin Group USA, Inc. Read More