![]() ![]() Or should we say Afro-American music? For Bayles says that most of what is distinctive about Americas major genres is due to the imprint, however light or heavy, of the black idiom. So imprinted: spirituals, ragtime, New Orleans jazz, country, much of our folk-song, blues, swing jazz, ∺merican Songbook pop, modern jazz, jump, black gospel, rhythm and blues, rockabilly, soul, and funk.īayles is not unaware of the necessary qualifications one must make here, of mixtures that have nothing to do with black influence, or, of stereotypically purely black elements having other roots, such as the way black gospel is unthinkable without considering its historical origins in (bi-racial) Pentecostal doctrine/practice. ![]() How did that loss occur? Ill provide a sketch here, but buy the book for the full story-in telling it, Bayles provides what amounts to a pretty comprehensive history of American popular music. For its final chapter, she borrows the title of a William Bell song, You Dont Miss Your Water til the Well Runs Dry, so as to refer to the pop-music situation that has held from late 70s on. Martha Bayles is the author of the best book on pop music I know, Hole in Our Soul: The Loss of Beauty and Meaning in American Popular Music. ![]()
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