Faults of Religion

The Blues and what followed, normally the what followed part is all too often not accompanied and by the blues part. This may leave some people confused about how every thing in popular music today got started. It started with Elvis Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis, and Chuck Berry, and their Rock-n-Roll right? Wrong, popular music started with the blues, now because so many people leave that rather large fact out of the equation, titles seem to get tossed around, and the crown lands on a slicked back white kids head, rather then that of its rightful owner. There is only one king in music, that’s the King of the Delta.

In my opinion everything started with one man, and one style of music. It’s in my most professional opinion that in some way everything in music we enjoy today came from Robert Johnson or is some how linked to the Delta Blues.

The most influential musician was a black man who’s dead at 27 and had composed only 29 songs, with only two pictures, two marriage certificates, and one death certificate, left at his departure. Robert Johnson at 26/27 year old who between the years of 1937-1939 completely changed music forever. Robert Johnson set a new foundation of blues, for millions of artists from anywhere to rock-n-roll, country, and even rap to build off of. Despite the concrete evidence which lies in countless songs recorded over the last 70 somethin’ years, there are still those who began the story of music with rock-n-roll. What people don’t seem to understand is that by all definition Robert Johnson is as rock-n-roll as it gets. His short lived life is scandals, sex, and drugs, like all good musicians. Johnson’s music sometimes fast and his lyrics are that of love and sex. Robert Johnson, like other great musicians, namely Jimmy Page and Eric Clapton, composed music of the highest most impressive caliber. Coming strait from the most reliable blues expert today, Eric Clapton “To completely copy it would be a life’s for any musician.”- Eric Clapton. “So technically proficient it needs two people to play what he plays and sing at the same time.” -Eric Clapton.

Though Robert Johnson died mysteriously and at a young age, he aside from Martin Luther King was the most accomplished black man to ever live. Every other or so generation, has maybe one or two great artist, and along side with Woody Guthrie and Bob Dylan, Robert Johnson will last true all generations.

Shortly after Robert Johnson’s reign, other blues musicians began to burst on to the music scene. None as quite important as Robert Johnson, but never the less they all played an important part in kick starting America into a new way of life. Lead Belly, a bluesmen, which connected the line between folk and blues. Lead Belly traveled and played along side the legendary folk singer songwriter Woody Guthrie, who has written over a thousand songs, one of them being “This land is your land, this land is my land”. While riding the rails and surviving the great dust bowl depression with Woody, Lead Belly had a direct and lasting influence on the original vagabond, who brought this country together with song.

From the blues came rock-n-roll which started in black peoples night clubs and radio stations. Tunes that terrified parents and integrated kids. This music was a dangerous threat to every parent, for it jeopardized and the control they had over their kids. Rock-n-roll inspired the young community to rebel against everything which had previously restricted them. So in a way rock-n-roll broke a restraining cycle, which had America’s youth spinning in the same dogmatic direction for decades.

The right music can change the world. Rock and blues opened the endless possibilities of sex, freedom, and integration to millions of white youngsters, who previously influenced by only their parents would never have considered the fact that a black man could be equal or a woman could have sex without being a whore. In a way popular music set the standard for American morality.

Before Elvis Presley thrusting and gyrating his hips on national television in front billions of young Americans. The average teenager might have thought twice about defying their parent and the authorities, with out that change most of the population who change the world in the 60’s may have not opened there minds to new things like civil rights and integration.

The transaction that the blues and R&B took started with a white disk jockey named Allen freed. On his Moon Dog show he played what was then referred to as race music, and thus introduced black peoples music to the youthful white audience. It wasn’t long until curious white kids started showing up at what would usually be an all black audience events. Allen Freed organized a plan to integrate R&B fans forever. Allen conducted a concert called Moon Dogs Coronation Ball. And its no coincidence that the word coronation means ceremony to officially put someone on a throne. This concert created a new music royalty.

Unfortunately this show was over soon after it started; the concert sold more tickets then open room or seating. So when many of the customers were shut out, they began to break thought the windows and doors. Though the first rock-n-roll concert seemed to be a bust, it was really a huge stride in music history. The Moon dog Coronation Ball set a new demand for rock-n-roll.

Shortly after what most people referred to as the rock-n-roll, started, the true form of the blues seemed to have burned out through commercialization.