Building On The Roots
Throughout the 20th century, the records of blues, hillbilly and folk artists of earlier times have been available for all to hear, providing a starting point for later performers to build on in their times.

While this ethnic and regional music continued to evolve as an oral tradition, it was no longer necessary to follow these singers from one gin joint, music hall, or saloon to another in order to hear what they had to say.

Once the records existed, the music could be discovered by each new wave of performers. Through the lyrics and performances of these songs, the recordings captured an impression of the lives, times and places of these singer/songwriters.

Bessie Smith learned to sing the blues by going on the road with Ma Rainey, but Billie Holiday could listen to Bessie’s records, and Aretha could build her music on what she heard in the records of Billie and Bessie.

Not only have late 20th century singers been able to look through the phonographic window to the past, so too have instrumentalists. Eric Clapton (and so many others) could sit with Robert Johnson and pick up classic licks, even though Clapton was born seven years after Johnson died.

Click to enlarge.

Few pop music artists are void of influences from artists of the past.

Records have connected all the times since the turn of the 20th century into a continuum, but with all the times of the past available at the same time just by playing a record.

As Simon Frith wrote some years ago, “Popular music came to describe a fixed performance, a recording with the right qualities of intimacy or personality, emotional intensity or ease. ‘Broad’ styles of singing taken from vaudeville or the music hall began to sound crude and quaint; ...

This change also coincided with a different type of music entrepreneur, the record producer, who, unlike the music hall operator, had little contact with the audience or any experience with trying to please the public on the spot. For the record industry, the audience was essentially anonymous…”

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