The Most Taboo Music In America: Blackface Minstrel Music (L'Abri Lecture - Byrne Power)
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- Опубліковано 23 лют 2024
- A lecture from my 2017 visit to the L'Abri Fellowship in Huémoz Switzerland. I had run into a few students there in 2016 who seemed full of the utopian ideas of a perfect world. So upon my return in 2017 I thought I'd just go for broke and discuss the most difficult subject in American music history: Minstrel music.
It is my contention that we won't really understand American music until we can start to deal with this very long lived phenomenon. This was the most popular music in America for decades. It lasted almost 150 years. And it is one of the fountainheads of American music. Black and white completely mixed up. Both racism and flattery mixed together in one savory and unsavory stew. This is a glimpse into an utterly alien world long forgotten and now considered taboo to even envision.
And yet without it there would be no ragtime, no barbershop quartets, no Broadway musicals, no jazz as we know it, certainly no country music, no bluegrass, no rockabilly, no rock music, no Chuck berry, no Michael Jackson, no Rolling Stones, no Eminem, no Elvis Presley. We'd still be dancing Scottish jigs and reels. (Not that that's such a bad thing.) The point is that this strange 'cultural appropriation' is the foundation of most forms of American music. That is a troubling thing. And that is a good thing. Life isn't neat and tidy. So enter the world of the Interlocutor and Be Seated! The show is about to begin.
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#musichistory #americanmusic #minstrelmusic
Excellent video, please continue with more history of music if you can. Thank you.
This is a very well done and incredibly in-depth video on a topic which is very hard to find information about. Thank you!
Thanks. You caught me doing my job.
Subscribed and hoping for more historical deep-dives into strange and taboo topics. Have been listening to this while working on a related project.
Glad to have you. Your wish is my command.
Hint: Check out my main channel - The Anadromist. There should be enough to keep you busy for a while until I get more transferred over here.
I’m taking a jazz class in school right now and we just touched on this. I’m so curious to learn more about it.
Perfect timing with the upload
I am pretty sure they didn't dig very deeply. Enjoy!
Wow, great video. I'd love to see a similar video about other parts of American culture like food, fashion and dance.
Thanks for the good words. I will do more videos on American music here. But this isn't really the place for the broader cultural examination.
I do have a couple other channels though. They don't specifically deal with aspects of American culture, but sometimes they get close.
I live in the country of Georgia (not the US state). I have a channel called Georgian Crossroads I have 3 or 4 videos contrasting Georgian culture to American. Check those out.
Then there is my main channel called The Anadromist. This is more a channel for ideas. But I certainly do have more examinations of current culture. Also there is a recent series of my recent trip back to Alaska.
Check those channels out. Meanwhile much more American musical (and film) culture will be found here. Stick around. And if you have any specific questions feel free to ask.
Love this video.
Thanks. I'm guessing you saw my conversation with Andy Edwards.
@@TheAnadrome nope. I’m just an American music fan. So far I watched this and another documentary you did, and I love them both. I make my own music that is a representation of my love of old timey, 60s and punk. I’m done with politics, and just into American History, the good the bad the ugly.
That was fascinating! Until now 95% of my knowledge of this music came from Bugs Bunny cartoons. I owe it to myself and continuing growth as a musician to learn a lot more about this music. My only criticism is that Native Americans were not mentioned however, their influence on American music came to be through African Americans.
Thanks for your comments. In my research, apart from more recent examples like Link Wray, Neil Young, certain kinds of flute playing, and the ever present tom tom and pow wow cirlces, I really haven't found much evidence for the influence of Native American music as a major flavor in American music. (Apart from a few country novelty songs.)
My research points to black and white as the central ingredients, with all other influences, German, Scandinavian, French, even Spanish (which does have a noticeable influence of cowboy music), etc. etc being minor flavors in the larger American music story. They are there. But the uniqueness of American music is in its black and white mixture.
Now if you know of primary sources that would suggest otherwise I'd be interested to know. I can;t think of any recordings that would suggest otherwise. Maybe there are descriptions from the 19th Century or earlier in some journal or book? Interestingly Native clothing had much more of an affect upon American fashion than Black American clothing. And it is fascinating that such a set of influences are different from each other.
Charley Patton was a huge influence, mixing black and native music styles.