Appropriations of blues and gospel in popular music

Abstract

Appropriations of blues and gospel – taking musical and textual elements and recombining them in new contexts – is a topic bound up with issues of race, identity, culture, and social and economic class, as well as music history and theory. Viewed benignly, such appropriations are part of the inevitable evolution of musical styles and cultural values, both within societies and between classes and races. In a broader view, however, they are emblematic of the exploitation found throughout history in encounters between groups of peoples. In the United States, black musical expressions in blues and gospel have been appropriated by the recording industry for the mass white audience throughout the twentieth century, in a tension between music as identity and culture and music as mass-marketed, profitable diversion. Of the many aspects to the role of blues and gospel in U.S. society, I am concerned here with their contexts within the legacy of slavery, and the appropriation of musical elements by other genres. How do blues and gospel songs give rise to styles – rhythm and blues, rock'n'roll, doo-wop, rock, heavy metal, soul, funk, disco, rap, ska, reggae, pop-gospel, contemporary Christian, and others – which continue to dominate all forms of media today? Categorization, crossover, fusion Writing about music involves categorization to facilitate comparisons of styles, but unless we discover a musical area equivalent to the Galapagos Islands, we inevitably find that musical styles result from many influences which defy clear boundaries. The terms “crossover” and “fusion,” while useful, rely on such categorization and thus need qualification. The roles of Chuck Berry and Elvis Presley in the rise of rock’n’roll (r&r) in the 1950s are often cited in relation to appropriation, crossover, and fusion, and will serve as examples.