Deep Blues (1st Reading)

I received a rather poor education in history at my high school (my teacher was suspended for a semester and others were coaches=gone about half the time) so reading up about the history of blues actually taught me a lot about U.S. history. The prologue dragged a bit for me though it did a nice job of relating the information to a character that is very well-known for his musical contributions (Muddy Waters). Reading about the origination of different styles/influences of blues music was enjoyable because I love listening to music but again know very little about the specifics or history of it. Several of the people mentioned (namely Charles Peabody, Alan Lomax, and W.C. Handy) sounded familiar, but I didn't really know anything about them.

Since I never really took music classes, I was a little bit lost while Palmer talks about AAA and AAB formats as well as the flattened third "blue note." I love listening to guitar music so it was interesting to learn about some of the styling such as using sliders and picking the guitar to make "rhythmic accents [that] talked back to the singer." Anyone know how to play guitar and want to try to teach me a little bit??

I also enjoyed reading about how blues music in the south developed from it's African origination in Senegambia and how it spread and changed in different areas of the states. I'm thinking about going into International Studies and for the most part love reading about different cultures (and want to actually go and experience them) so it was interesting to read about how some of our words and instruments came from Senegambia and the Wolof people like the banjo ("halam") and words like jive and hip cat...good times.

Sunday night I went to the movie at Nic's house (along with a total of about ten people). We watched O Brother, Where Art Thou which has an amazing soundtrack. I love the deep soulful music that gets played as well as the rowdier dance songs that were mixed in there a little bit. The movie portrayed several types of music which shows the diversity of music at all times but I could often find some rhythm or tone that made the music feel connected and relevant in its mix. A lot of the music in the movie portrayed stylings that were described in the reading which made the movie more interesting than it had been before (I had seen part of the movie before Sunday) because I could relate to the music better.

I started streaming music from Pandora while writing this so I'll just toss in that so far it's decent...kind of hit or miss. "Tombstone Blues" by Robert Peterson was pretty good. His voice reminds me of Ray Charles', but he's accompanied by a guitar instead of piano. I'm not a fan of Jimmy Burns' "Through All Your Faults." The rest of the songs thus far have been alright, lots of soulful stuff.