Word: urbanizing
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1960-1969
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...just what of all this Blues is being revived today. This is a simpler matter because one can say with reasonable confidence that the Blues coming out of the contemporary rock-scene is a version of the Blues form which has been developing in Chicago and other Northern urban centers sinces World War II. However, this Blues, primarily dominated by electric guitar, had its origins, in turn, in the Mississippi Delta. We must examine the Mississippi Blues form first...
This music is raw, rude and visceral and is delivered with relentless power. Yet in its own way it reflects the hard, fast, brutal realities of the modern urban ghetto which produced it. This music reached its peak in the late fifties and early sixties when Bluesmen like Elmore James, Sonny Boy Wiliamson, The Muddy Waters Band, B. B. King and others sold thousands of records in the black ghettos of the North and dusty darktowns of the South. Depits its success in black communiites, it was considered too raw, earthy and sexual for the white teenage audience...
...this Blues alternately called Chicago Blues, Urban Blues or Rhythm & Blues, which is being copied in the Blues revival...
...comparison has some interesting implications. Johnson is the fountainhead of modern Blues. He is the greatest figure in Mississippi Delta Blues which became Chicago Blues through Bluesmen like Elmore James and was transformed into Modern Urban Blues by B. B. King. Hendrix may, in truth, be the spiritual heir of Robert Johnson. He is the most innovative and modern guitarist on the contemporary Rock scene. King may be the most perfect Blues guitarist alive but his style is of another era. If Blues is to continue to exist it must evolve and Hendrix seems to be leading that revolution...
Turner, whom a former member of the Johnson administration called "one of the cement-pourers," replaces Lowell K. Bridwell. Bridwell had the reputation of being a friend of cities like Cambridge, which have been fighting urban highway plans for years...