Irma Thomas released it on the album Our New Orleans 2005 - A Benefit Album in 2005. Back-Water Blues was one of the best known works of the Empress of the Blues, Bessie Smith, recorded for Columbia Records in 1927 with James P. Johnson on piano. Nose To Tail - Dragon Ball Z Raging Blast 2, Mushihimesama Futari - Sea of Frozen Crystals. Most of us dont remember the great Mississippi River Flood of 1927, but when I read this poem a few years ago during a gathering on the behalf of Hurricane Katrina in August 2005, the same issues resoundedneighborhoods destroyed, slow government response, the African American neighborhoods were hit the hardest. Smith (on vocal with James P. Johnson on piano) recorded it as "Back-water Blues" on February 17, 1927, in New York City. According to the Theorytab database, it is the 5th most popular key among Major keys and the 5th most popular among all keys. Bessie Smith is the best-known of the female "classic blues" (or "city blues") singers from the 1910s and 1920s (others include Ma Rainey, Ethel Waters, Clar. Her ability to use \"blue notes\" and other vocal embellishments, along with a loose melodic phrasing, became hallmarks of jazz and blues inflection that other musicians (singers and instrumentalists) emulated. Though, after repeated listening and reading of blues standards like Backwater Blues, call and response became more than an AAB tercet on page/to my ear. Total loading time: 0 Play the music you love without limits for just $9.99 $3.33/month. Major keys, along with minor keys, are a common choice for popular songs. Bemoaning the fate of losing a home to flood waters after five days and nights of rain, Smith laments: 'Thousands of people ain't got no place to go.'. The vocals to be the focus and the 'response' to be more complex, At times it can sounds almost 'half-spoken'. Feature Flags: { Backwater Blues tells the story of how the speaker is forced out of her home due to flooding waters. Marilyn Chin (1955- ) was born in Hong Kong, grew up in Oregon, and received her MFA from the University of Iowa. When it thunders and lightnin' and the wind begin to blow. She lets the chords of the instruments dangle off of her words, resulting in a beautiful piece that focuses primarily on the lyrics. 7 available keys. Backwater Blues is written in the key of E Major. Bessie Smith (1894-1937) began her professional career as a blues singer in cabarets in 1912. In this blog post I am going to be looking at and analysing a track by famous New Orleans jazz musician, Louis Armstrong. Back-Water Blues 65th in 1927. Kevin Young was born in Lincoln, Nebraska. The flood was a devastating ordeal. And the rain begin to pour. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. The blues artists who wrote and sang in this era there are famous names in this era such as Muddy Waters, Robert Johnson, Howling Wolf, and of course, Bessie Smith, who is one of my favorites. Jazz- Review Questions. Backwater Blues gefllt bisher niemandem. Yeah, when it's thunderin' and lightnin'. Third, Mamie Smith became the first Black blues singer to record a blues record in 1920. Train with real songs. 'Back-Water Blues', composed by Bessie Smith and recorded by her on 17 February 1927, has long been associated in the popular mind and even by some writers with the great flood of the lower Mississippi River and its tributaries that occurred that year. Sheet music arranged for Piano/Vocal/Guitar in C Major (transposable). Following her death, Smiths legacy continued on as she inspired new artists to display who they truly were. Furthermore, Baraka notes that Africanisms (retentions of African culture throughout the African diaspora) were not limited to US Black people but that the culture of the Americas contains and is itself influenced by Africanisms. The conjunct melody made me want to sing along with her! 15Label: Route 16Year: 1990This CD is from my own collection. Bemoaning the fate of losing a home to flood waters after five days and nights of rain, Smith laments: Thousands of people aint got no place to go. While many latter-day listeners have equated this song with the disastrous 1927 flood of the Mississippi River, Smith actually recorded this before that particular flood had occurred. Blues on Yellow Marilyn Chin from Rhapsody in Plain Yellow. Poet, writer, teacher, and political activist Amiri Baraka was born Everett LeRoi Jones in 1934 in Newark, New Jersey. View all Google Scholar citations This is historically problematical because that flood began two months after Smith recorded her song. The scene is set with the terrific storm by the female speaker, so depressed that she cant even get out of the door. On September 26, 1937, Smith was en route to a show in Memphis, Tennessee with her companion of many years, Richard Morgan, when he sideswiped a truck and lost control of their car. Almost a million people became homeless for a time. Writer(s): Smith Smith continued on to become very successful with hits like St. Known as the\"Empress of the Blues,\" Bessie Smith's first recording, \"Down-Hearted Blues,\" from 1923, was very successful, and helped her to become the leading African-American performer of the time. Backwater Blues is written in the key of E Major. We were grounded by Amiri Barakas claim in Blues People, in which he conveyed that in the context of Black American culture, music explains history as history explains music. "When it rains five days, and the skies turn dark as night (x2). How does the music reflect the lyrical content of the piece? Bessie Smith is the best-known of the female \"classic blues\" (or \"city blues\") singers from the 1910s and 1920s (others include Ma Rainey, Ethel Waters, Clara Smith, and Mamie Smith). Bessie Smith. Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, courtesy of the Rock Hall Library and Archive, https://www.rockhall.com/inductees/bessie-smith. This personal depression by extension is about the depression of an entire people, marginalized in the back waters, stricken with poverty, homelessness, suffering social injustice, discrimination, and now hit with this catastrophic natural disaster. The repetition of her lyrics depict just how saddening her situation is- she is in the middle of losing everything. Of course, we Americans have historical amnesia. And I can't live there no more. Teach music and songwriting in ways that keep students engaged, excited, and inspired. } What characterizes a blues performance? The blues poems was more here on American soil, and so I study the blues poems closely and write blues poems to pay homage to all those African American blues masters. The despair is deep, is deeply personal, but it is also metaphorical and speaks to the despair of an entire community. The third-sixth verses have the traditional AAB blues pattern, which helps emphasize what she is saying during each verse. Not only did she sing, she was also an actress and comedian. Render date: 2023-05-02T09:42:40.381Z [3] However, that flood was at its worst some two months after the song was written. Print and download Backwater Blues sheet music by Bessie Smith. The song has a homophonic texture due to the use of instruments and vocalization in unison. The beat does not change because each verse follows the same AAB pattern, which results in the same rhythm continuing on. Second, the first published blues composition is accredited to W.C. Handys Memphis Blues in 1912. The rhythm and beat remain constant throughout the song. What are the introductory chords that illustrate this? 04 January 2007. I love writing blues poems. "Backwater Blues" (1927) . Datenschutzbestimmungen. Backwater Blues does not sound as much like the blues as Down Hearted Blues to me, but it is still distinguishable as the blues due to the sad content of the song. He attended Rutgers University and Howard University, spent three years in Jericho Brown's first book,Please(New Issues, 2008), won the American Book Award, and his second book,The New Testament(Copper Canyon, 2014), was named one of the best poetry books of the year SterlingAllenBrown devoted his life to the development of an authentic black folk literature. View Official Scores licensed from. In terms of chords and melody, Backwater Blues is more complex than the typical song, having above average scores in Chord Complexity, Melodic Complexity, Chord-Melody Tension and Chord Progression Novelty. The third line either comments or reverses the first two lines. Big Bill Broonzy released it on the album Folk Blues in 1954. Through an examination of Smith's touring itinerary, the testimony of fellow entertainers who toured with her, newspaper reports, and other documents, it can be shown that the song was composed about a flood of the Cumberland River that struck Nashville, Tennessee, on Christmas morning, 1926. In order to interrogate said materials, six recordings by different musicians were chosen and meticulously transcribed. The blues poems remind us that the American poetic tradition can be traced to African American oral tradition; that great art, great poems come from deep suffering that is personal, historical, and political and could be read on the page as well as sung out loud. The piano's bass part keeps the rhythm of the piece steady but when doing the 'response', the right hand can complicate this and create interest. Bessie Smith tabs, chords, guitar, bass, ukulele chords, power tabs and guitar pro tabs including backwater blues, careless love, nobody knows you when youre down and out, taint nobodys business . While many latter-day . The a rhyme glues the three-line stanza together. There's thousands of people ain't got no place to go. Considering these notes about the blues inception, the blues endured and scoredif not directly then through derived musical formsthe majority of the United States early nation-building and cultural formation. The first line sets the scene, the second line repeats the first for emphasis. I am majoring in biology and love helping my community! Thematically, write about whatever you feel must be sung. Study with Quizlet and memorize flashcards containing terms like backwater blues, libretto, step interval and more. Entire black neighborhoods were wiped out. In this recording of \"Backwater Blues,\" we can hear these techniques at work, and they stand in contrast to the very structured twelve-bar blues form of the song. Back Water Blues by Irma Thomas was written by Bessie Smith and was first recorded and released by Bessie Smith in 1927. homophonic texture. I believe the blues represents a range of human experience that can speak on and to that thing that nearly ended someone but the very fact of them living to sing about it encapsulates the blues. Bessie Smith (Down Hearted Blues, 1923) Jazz Legend. Youtube, uploaded by RagtimeDorianHenry, 3 Jun 2009, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=go6TiLIeVZA. Bessie Smith, "Backwater blues", 1927The song "Backwater Blues" is a blues and jazz standard. In our workshop, In the Voice and in the Deep, Blues Poetry, participants and I studied blues music, history, aesthetics, and ultimately blues poetry. As an attempt to escape poverty as a teenager, she joined the Moss Stokes Company with her brother and Gertrude Ma Rainey, the Mother of the Blues. Ma Rainey served as the most influential person during Smiths pre-professional career. She made almost 200 recordings, including duets with Louis Armstrong and Joe Smith. For examples of innovative uses of these devices in poetry, visit Jericho Browns Duplex, Evie Shockleys Fukushima Blues, and Kevin Youngs Langston Hughes.. The song is called "West End Blues" and was recorded by Louis Armstrong and His Hot Five in 1928. There were reports that officials behaved in a discriminatory fashion. He studied under Seamus Heaney and Lucie Brock-Broido at Harvard University and, while a student there, became a member of the Dark Room African diasporic culture and the aesthetics of the blues. The rhythm remains constant throughout the song, allowing the melody to flow peacefully during the piece. The poem moves to personal depression. It was covered by Brother John Sellers, Toni Lynn Washington, Meschiya Lake and The Little Big Horns, The Kenny Wayne Shepherd Band and other artists. The elements of voice, musical instrument, and audience formed a living tercet in which the blues singer and musician resound one another to deliver that final line blues statement. Smith, Bessie. Carl Van Vechten Estate/Library of Congress, Washington D.C., photograph by Carl Van Vechten, 1936, https://www.britannica.com/biography/Bessie-Smith. C, F7, C, C7, F7, C. Lyrics powered by www.musixmatch.com. Great cover of blues classic Backwater blues on The Kenny Wayne Shepherd Band 2011. album How I Go A modified 12 bar blues. One subscription across all of your devices. Brown, who alongside Langston Hughes was a pioneer of blues poetry in the 1920s. Este es un disco muy bueno; una gran voz, la Reina del Blues Dinah Washington, y unos temas espectaculares, las canciones de la gran Bessie Smith. Smith did not cut any corners in her songs- she told everyone how the world really was and how she felt about it. I make it a point to learn the African American poetic tradition. The call and response between vocals and piano does what? Down Hearted Blues, her first recording, sold nearly 800,000 copies, firmly establishing her as a new singer in the blues genre. There's trouble taking place in the lowland that night, Learn how and when to remove this template message, "Bessie Smith's 'Back-Water Blues': the story behind the song", https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Backwater_Blues&oldid=1150358087, This page was last edited on 17 April 2023, at 18:17. Updated September 9, 2020. Chris Fisher-Lochhead. The rhythm and beat remain constant throughout the song. Death. La Bouche) [2023 Mix] [Extended Mix] Songtext. I cant do justice to this poem, to Backwater Blues, by just reciting it myself. Hier geht's zu meiner Musik auf Spotify:https://open.spotify.com/artist/1EV1CjZHtzJGK5SZyEyKst?si=ya1BsYRcTpSlZeVFtMKekAMeine Musik auf Deezer:https://deezer. Cause my house fell down and I can't live there no more. There aint no place for a poor old girl to go. The first two lines are of almost equal length. As a poet who writes in English I know that every time I write a sonnet I pay homage to the high European tradition and to master poets like Shakespeare, Dunn, Keats, Petrarch. She earned her title by displaying her powerful voice to the public for everyone to hear. Create beats, songs, and musical ideas with built-in music theory and AI from over 30k songs. Hostname: page-component-75b8448494-knlg2 As musicologist Dr. David Evans has noted, Back-Water Blues was recorded in February 1927, before the great disaster of April. The lyrics are in the often-used AAB blues format. There is one integral line throughout the stanza. After discussing blues history, we went over Bessie Smiths Backwater Blues, then Langston Hughes Too Blue, and concluded our study with Jericho Browns Duplex (specifically A poem is a gesture toward home). [2], The song has long been associated with the Great Mississippi Flood of 1927. Her lyrics aid the audience in understanding why she is down. "When it rains five days, and the skies turn dark as night (x2) There's trouble taking place in the lowland that night." Harmonically, what is the piece based on? Bessie Smith had a powerful impact on future blues and Rock and Roll singers, like Billie Holiday, Aretha Franklin, and Janis Joplin. Following her death, Smith received numerous awards and honors for her achievements, including: Bessie Smith- American Singer. Encyclopedia Britannica, written by The Editors of Encyclopedia Britannica, 22 Feb 2019, https://www.britannica.com/biography/Bessie-Smith.
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