The Geography of Music

Paper Summary:

This paper selects two musical styles and explores their cultural geography, while considering the extent to which they demonstrate diffusion, place creation/environment and resistance/expression. The styles discussed are American Rhythm-Blues of the 1950s (i.e. McKinley Morganfield "Muddy Waters" and Chester Burnett "The Wolf") and British Rocking-Blues of the 1960/70s (i.e. Led Zeppelin and the Rolling Stones). The geography of music is a fairly new phase of geography and music study, it has only been fully developed in the last 30 to 40 years. Much study has been done into cultural geography's effect of global music and this paper concentrates on American music, which relies heavily on place creation, diffusion, environment and expression to create memorable music that remains viable and fresh for decades.

From the Paper:

"Developed from jazz, blues, and countless other forces, the first rock and roll songs are attributed to bands like Bill Haley and the Comets and Elvis Presley. Historian Barlow continues, "Hence, blues diffusion can be traced to African-American rhythm and blues, soul, and even rap musical styles. Moreover, they can be traced to the flowering of rock and roll, and then rock music, among white youth" (Barlow 61). As rock and roll music grew in popularity, it was simply natural that different cultures would develop their own forms of the music, and this is true with rock, which led to offshoots around the world, including British rockin' blues by bands such as Led Zeppelin and the Rolling Stones. Rock too is a form of social protest, and so, it defines a time and a place in culture and society, just as the blues defined an earlier era, and then helped create other defining musical styles."

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