History of Rock and Roll Lesson 3/30/15

"Blue Eyed Soul Day 2" 

1. Watch the clip of Booker T. and the MGs playing "Green Onions." In your notebooks, or looseleaf books, write a reaction to their performance.  
1. How do you think Booker T. and the MGs embody what Dan Penn likes about Soul music?  What aspects of the song, the performance, or the group presentation to back up your answer.   
2. The kind of interactions between the white and black creative communities that Penn treasured were complicated interactions. In the late 1960s many walls separated the black and white population.
3. Watch an excerpt of an interview with Jim Stewart, the founder of Stax Records, the label that released Booker T. and the MGs' recordings. 
1. Encourage students to reflect freely on what they heard in the interview. 
4. Did something happen in music culture, in the worlds of men like Dan Penn and Jim Stewart, that was different from life in the culture at large?

R&R History Lesson 3/26/15

ESSENTIAL QUESTION

How did black artists and white songwriters and musicians interact in the Soul era, and what contributed to that interaction?

OVERVIEW

"I'd been digging black records for years and suddenly I got a chance to be involved in making them, even to go get a hamburger, that was all right with me – just to be there. And by being there I started getting lucky with some songs."

-- Dan Penn

If any single theme dominates this history of Rock and Roll, it is the theme of popular music culture as a place and an experience that allows a degree of racial mixing beyond what American everyday life offers. Again and again, new moments in Rock and Roll's ongoing history come when the boundaries that too often organize the races as separate are broken down. Most commonly, it has been black music that provides the primary materials, the inspiration and the talent that kicks off these changes, these moments. But oftentimes the contributions are the result of a kind of dialogue across racial lines. Booker T. and the MGs, a four-member Memphis combo comprised of two black and two white musicians, represents well the ideal form this dialogue can take. To be sure, their moment, 1960s Soul, is rich in examples.

This lesson looks at that juncture in Soul's history, when popular music and the Civil Rights movement seemed almost to be working in support of one another. Aretha Franklin, Otis Redding, Sam and Dave, the Motown acts; so much was happening, and so much was "crossing over," getting to a wide, appreciative white audience. But the focal point here is not what was happening at the front of the stage. Rather, this lesson goes behind the scenes, to see where young white musicians and writers were working with African-American performers to create something that was truly born of a dialogue.

The focus here is one particular songwriter-producer-musician: Dan Penn. Only 14 when he had his first hit, "Is A Bluebird Blue," recorded by Conway Twitty, Penn was entranced by black music, Ray Charles and Bobby "Blue" Bland among his very favorites. As the epigraph above suggests, Penn found a way to get close to the world associated with just such artists, not caring if he was allowed in simply because he'd be an errand boy if one was needed. Along the way, he wrote some of Soul music's most enduring songs, including "I'm Your Puppet," "Out of Left Field," "Dark End of the Street," and "Do Right Woman." The artists recording those songs included Aretha Franklin, Percy Sledge, James Carr, and James and Bobby Purify, all African-American singers. As a white songwriter, Penn was writing for those voices, and he would be the first to tell you: "I mean, white singers are okay, but black singers are better. You don't even have to think about it."

Our aim here is not to assign greater value to white or black voices but to consider the musical results when a class of young white musicians and writers felt unambiguously that black voices were better, and they started writing songs for those voices. In that moment, a dialogue was underway.

PROCEDURE 

1. Read the Rock's Backpages article about Dan Penn. Make notes as you read of any details you feel are significant.
2. When you are done, please answer the following questions: 
• Were you surprised that the songwriter of "Do Right Woman" is a man?
• Were you surprised that he is white?
• Based on what you read, why do you think Dan Penn wrote "Do Right Woman"?
• What part of the country was Penn from? Can you speculate on how that might have affected his musical interests?
• What does Penn say about the importance of white and black artists coming together?
• In Penn's view, did that collaboration across race lines allow for something special?
3. Compare two versions of another Dan Penn original, "I'm Your Puppet," the first recorded by James and Bobby Purify, the second recorded byDan Penn.
4. After you listen, make two lists describing what you hear in each version. 
5. Answer the following question: which version do you think Dan Penn might have preferred and why?

History of R&R Lesson 3/24 "The Roots of Country Rock"

ESSENTIAL QUESTION

How did Country Music influence Rock and Roll and the musicians who made it?

OVERVIEW

Long before there was a thing called Country Rock, Rock and Roll was deeply entwined with Country music. One could go so far as to say that without Country, there would be no Rock and Roll, Soul Music would be different in character, and the Rolling Stones would be a another band altogether. So, in some respects, the merger of Country and Rock shouldn't have surprised anyone when, in the late 60s and 70s, Bob Dylan released Nashville Skyline, the Byrds released Sweetheart of the Rodeo, the Flying Burrito Brothers formed, bands such as the Eagles came together, and the term "Country Rock" was put into circulation. When it comes to Rock, Country had, simply put, been there all the while. However, what the above acts did, in this particular historical passage, was to give Country a new emphasis.

This micro lesson looks to some of the early cross-pollination between Country and Rock and Roll. Taking Chuck Berry's "Maybellene" as an example drawn from early Rock and Roll, students will have the chance to see and hear Bob Wills and his Texas Playboys perform "Ida Red," the song Berry said provided source material for "Maybellene." In addition, students will watch two clips of Johnny Cash performing, engaging in a discussion of why it was that Bob Dylan might have felt a kinship with Cash, enough so that he asked Cash to record a duet of "Girl from the North Country," the track that would open Dylan's Nashville Skyline.

Elvis Presley, Buddy Holly, the Everly Brothers, Jerry Lee Lewis: all grew up with Country. Jerry Lee Lewis, when citing his three greatest influences, put Jimmie Rodgers, the so-called "Father of Country Music" at the top of the list. In the years following his Rock and Roll career, Lewis would even change his direction and pursue what became a wildly successful Country career. Bob Dylan, years after Nashville Skyline, would bring together a group of artists for a Jimmie Rodgers tribute album. And Hank Williams is regularly cited as one of Rock and Roll's founding fathers, by the likes of Keith Richards and Bruce Springsteen. Among African-American artists, the influence of Country was also strong. Taking Ray Charles' album Modern Sounds in Country Music as a kind of case study, students will consider just what an artist associated with R&B did with a song that came straight out of Country. And, finally, students will have a chance to write their own responses to this question: why did early Country matter to musicians in both the black and white communities?

Part I: 

1. Play the clip of Bob Wills and his Texas Playboys performing "Ida Red." 

2. Read the excerpted lyrics for both "Ida Red" and "Maybellene." 

3. In your opiniont, what was it that Chuck Berry took from "Ida Red" when writing "Maybellene," lyrically, musically, and otherwise? 

Part II:
Based on the previous exercise, answer the following reflection questions: 

• What is at the heart of the narrative in "Ida Red" and, similarly, what is at the heart of the story in "Maybellene"? What elements do they share as stories?
• Why might the story within "Maybellene" have had an appeal in mid-century America? What do you think cars meant to the people in the listening audience?
• Do the songs have similar human themes? Is there romance involved?
• What musical sections of "Ida Red" are reminiscent of what you hear in "Maybellene"? Do the verses seem at all alike?
• Is the instrumentation of the two different? If so, in what ways?
• How do the performance style, the tempo, and the vocal presentation compare?

Today's Lesson 3/19/15 - Singer/Songwriters and the Environmental Movement

ESSENTIAL QUESTION

How did the singer-songwriters of the 1960s and 70s address the concerns of the environmental movement?

OVERVIEW

We are stardust
We are golden
And we’ve got to get ourselves
Back to the garden

-- Joni Mitchell, “Woodstock” (1970)

In 1962, marine biologist Rachel Carson published Silent Spring, a chilling account of the damage done to the environment by pollution, particularly in the form of chemicals and pesticides. Eight years later, on the first “Earth Day,” Americans all over the country joined in protests over the degradation of the country’s air and water, launching an environmental movement that continues today. Popular music began to reflect the same concerns.

This influence was particularly apparent in the work of the Singer-Songwriters. Some made assertive statements about protecting the land from the ravages of corporate greed: As Jackson Browne sang in “Before the Deluge,” “Some of them were angry at the way the earth was abused/By the men who learned how to forge her beauty into power.” In “Big Yellow Taxi,” Joni Mitchell lamented that “They paved paradise and put up a parking lot,” and invoked a world where “They took all the trees / Put 'em in a tree museum / And they charged the people a dollar and a half just to see ’em.” Mitchell explicitly called attention to the insecticide DDT, a specific concern at the heart of Silent Spring. 

At the same time, many Singer-Songwriters expressed a more general unease about America’s increasing urban sprawl and suburbanization, and a longing for a closer connection to the land. “In my mind I’m gone to Carolina / Can’t you see the sunshine / Can’t you just feel the moonshine,” sang James Taylor in “Carolina in My Mind.” In “After the Gold Rush,” Neil Young painted a portrait of “a fanfare blowin' to the sun / That was floating on the breeze / Look at Mother Nature on the run in the 1970s.”

In this lesson, students will analyze a series of songs articulating a connection to nature and the environment — a longing to “get ourselves back to the garden” — and examine the ways in which they reflect a growing attention to environmental issues in American culture. 

Procedure: 

1. Read Handout 1: Rachel Carson, Silent Spring

1. Answer the questions below:
• How does Carson describe America in the first two paragraphs? How do the people interact with the environment in this world?
• What does she describe happening to America in the rest of the chapter?
• How does Carson develop the idea of the “voices of spring”? How is each voice developed? What does she suggest ultimately happens to these voices?
• How does Carson build her argument? How does her introduction of each “voice” build toward her conclusion?
• Do you think Carson is effective in painting a picture of what is happening to the environment? Why or why not?
• What do you predict the rest of Carson’s book deals with?
• Why do you think this book resonated with so many readers in the early 1960s?

History of Rock and Roll Lesson 3/16/15

Today's lesson will wrap up our exploration of the contributions of female singer-songwriters to rock music in the 1960's and 1970's.  Here's what you have to do.   

1. Watch the clip of Carole King appearing with Jane Fonda and feminist Gloria Steinem on The Merv Griffin Show in 1982 (the interview begins at approximately 5:10 on the video, so you can advance to that point). Gloria Steinem is a well-known feminist writer and activist and the co-founder of Ms. Magazine.
2. Respond ot the following questions. 
   • What does Steinem say about the role played by women’s music in the 1970s?
   • Why do you think King (who has made very few television appearances over the years) wanted to appear with Steinem?
   • What does King say about her role in the women’s movement of the 1970s? Was she actively involved?
   • How does Steinem respond? What does she mean when she tells King, “You’re living it”?
   • Overall, do you think the music made by King and the other women in this lesson was political? Was it making a statement about changing roles of and attitudes toward women? Or was it just women making music that people wanted to listen to?
• What do you think women performing as Singer-Songwriters in this era contributed to popular music? Think about music today and the styles it includes, the themes it addresses, and the performers who are most successful.
3. How did the female Singer-Songwriters of the 1970s reflect changing attitudes toward women?
   Should their work be thought of as political, or were they just musicians making good music?
   
4. compare the female Singer-Songwriters of the early 1970s to those popular today, such as Adele or Taylor Swift. In what ways is their work similar? In what ways is it different? Think about the musical styles as well as the themes they address in their work. Have these newer artists achieved popularity primarily with girls and women, or do they speak to a wider audience?

3/12 History of Rock and Roll

ESSENTIAL QUESTION

How did Aretha Franklin represent a new female voice in 1960s popular music?

OVERVIEW

When Aretha Franklin belted out, “What you want, baby I’ve got it,” in her 1967 recording of Otis Redding’s song “Respect,” millions of listeners could not help but agree. She had it. With a voice unadorned yet undeniably powerful, she quickly rose up the Pop charts. For many listeners, it may have been the first time they had heard of Aretha Franklin. However, when that single and the album on which it was included, I Never Loved A Man The Way I Love You, were released on Atlantic Records, it was certainly not her first recording project. She was a veteran artist who had released more than ten studio albums prior to that point. Aretha had been a Gospel ingénue as a young child, recording her first album at the age of fourteen. When “Respect” was released in 1967, she was coming out of a five-year recording contract with Columbia Records where she had released a string albums that revolved around a jazz-pop style. But there was a new energy to her Atlantic debut, backed by the famous Muscle Shoals rhythm section, “The Swampers.” The recordings made more of her Gospel heritage, blending those roots with an R&B feel that resulted in the 1960s Soul sound that we have come to know.  When "Respect" reached Number 1 on both the R&B and Pop charts, and Aretha garnered her first two Grammy Awards, it was clear the “Queen of Soul” had arrived.

Like many African-American vocalists, Aretha’s first foray into music was through her church. She was raised in Detroit, where her father, C.L. Franklin, was the preacher for the thousand-member New Bethel Baptist Church.  Black churches were not only centers of religious experience, they were also centers of social activity, giving a sense of community to a population affected by the upheaval of the Great Migration. The Great Migration changed the fabric of the nation, with millions of African-Americans moving to the North, seeking jobs and freedom. Vibrant black churches, like the New Bethel Baptist Church, flourished during the 1940s and 1950s in northern industrial cities.  Aretha’s musical style had roots in this history. Her father was nicknamed “the man with the million-dollar voice.”  He was a close friend with other pivotal, itinerant preachers, such as Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., and famous Gospel performers, including Mahalia Jackson and Clara Ward. Growing up, Aretha would often sing in church with her siblings, (her sisters, Erma and Carolyn, would eventually sing background vocals on albums throughout her career, including the famous “sock it to me” phrase on “Respect”). At eighteen years old, however, Aretha made a break from Gospel music. With the blessing of her father, and following the footsteps of Sam Cooke who had made a similar transition before her, she signed a record contract with Columbia to record secular popular music.

By 1967, the Civil Rights movement had cast a light on human rights issues, opening up a dialogue on women’s rights as well.  Just a few years prior, in 1964, Congress had passed Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, banning discrimination not only on the basis of race, but also on the basis of religion, ethnicity, and/or gender. Women, and in particular minority women, had long been excluded from certain institutions of higher learning, from job opportunities, from equal pay, and even from fair and equal government representation. In 1966, the National Organization for Women (NOW), a grassroots group for women’s rights, was founded. There was a need for strong, feminine voices in a male-dominated society, voices that could redress the largely unspoken sexism of the time. Gospel, which as a musical genre had always elevated the female voice with singers like Mahalia Jackson and Sister Rosetta Tharpe, provided a natural answer to the call. And Aretha, despite her move into the Pop arena, was in possession of a raw, riveting style. Her soulful blend of Gospel and R&B would prove to be just what some Americans needed to hear.

Today's Lesson 

1. Watch the 1968 film Aretha Franklin - ABC News Closeup 2. Complete Handout 1: Aretha Franklin Entry Ticket Prompt 

IF YOU DO NOT FINISH THE VIDEO IN CLASS, PLEASE FINISH FOR HW. 

3/10 - Female Singer/Songwriters Continued

1. Listen to clips of the following songs: 
   • Joni Mitchell, "Woodstock" (1971)
   • Janis Ian, "At Seventeen" (1975)
   • Carole King, "(You Make Me Feel Like a) Natural Woman” (1971)
2. Carefully read the handouts for Joni Mitchell, Janis Ian, and Carole King.
3. Answer the questions on each handout.  

History of Rock 3/9

ESSENTIAL QUESTION

What did the success of the female Singer-Songwriters of the early 1970s reveal about the changing roles of women in the United States?

1. Read  Handout 1: Excerpt from Lyrics to "My Guy" and play the brief video of singer Mary Wells performing the song in 1965.
2. Answer 
• What is the song about? What kind of mood does it create?
• Explain to students that “My Guy” was written by Smokey Robinson, who also co-wrote the Temptations’ hit song “My Girl.” Ask: Why do you think he titled the song “My Guy” and not “My Boy”? What does this suggest about attitudes toward women in this period?
• Do you think a man is qualified to write a song expressing a woman's feelings about her relationship with a man? Why or why not? Was something lost in an artistic way when women were not writing their own songs to sing?
• Look at the lyric "I'm sticking to my guy like a stamp to a letter.” Overall, what does the song suggest about female roles? About what is worth singing about? About what is important in life?
3. Play the video clip of another hit from that era, the Shirelles performing "Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow?" in 1964. Note that the song was co-written by Carole King and her then-husband Gerry Goffin. Answer 
   • What is the overall mood of the song? Is it similar to “My Guy?” In what ways? In what ways is it different?
4. Play the video clip of King performing the song, which was included on her 1971 album Tapestry.  Compare the two versions of the song, and then answer: 
   • Compare the performers’ appearances. How are they dressed? What kind of facial expressions do they offer? What image of themselves are they presenting?
   • What overall tone/mood does each version convey?
   • Compare the vocal styles of each performance. How are voices used in each version?
   • What are the performers in each video doing while singing? What message(s) do their actions convey? (Note: Be sure students notice that King is playing the piano, while the Shirelles are not playing instruments.)
   • Would you classify the performers in each version as “girls” or “women”? Why?

History of Rock n Roll Lesson 3/5/15

1. Play the first short clip from the 2008 BBC documentary Motor City's Burning: Detroit from Motown to the Stooges.  and answer the following questions. 
   • Is the sound of the song in any way similar to that of "High School”? If so, in what way(s)?
   • Does the song have a similar message to that of "High School”? In what way(s)? Be as specific as you can.
   • What happens musically in this clip? Does the sound change or develop much? How might the sound reflect what is being said in the lyrics?
   • Overall, what ideas do you think the band is trying to express in this song?
2. Play the second short clip from the documentary Motor City's Burning, of the Stooges’ Iggy Pop explaining his musical influences, and answer:
   • What did Iggy Pop find so impressive about the machine at the Ford Rouge plant? What did it represent to him?
   • Why would a band want to imitate this sound? Would someone who feels powerful in his or her everyday life be likely to feel the need to express him or herself this way?
   • What kind of person would say -- or what kind of experiences would lead someone to want to say -- “to hell with all this finery”?
   • How did the music of the Stooges and MC5 reflect that the residents of Detroit are “tough people”?

History of Rock and Roll Lesson 3/2/15 - Detroit

In the history of popular music, some cities play a more significant role than others. New York and Los Angeles, by virtue of size, location, and proximity to the music industry, figure larger than anyplace else. In the midst of the British Invasion, London achieved a similar status. Nashville, too, carved out a special place, due to the fact that Country music's writers, performers, and most significant institutions settled there. New Orleans and Memphis, of course, are places with deep history that loom large. But out there in middle America are cities of real significance to the Rock and Roll story. Cleveland, Chicago, and Detroit are among them. Robert Plant of Led Zeppelin recounted the band's manager, Peter Grant, saying, ""If you blow it in Cleveland, you're finished. Don't even start." The heartland, for bands like Zeppelin, was a testing ground.

In this chapter, Detroit is singled out as a case study. Lessons will explore Detroit from a number of angles. The protagonists are diverse: John Lee Hooker, Bob Seger, Mitch Ryder, Berry Gordy, the Stooges, the MC5. In the age before the Internet, cities like Detroit could establish a regional identity that had its own logics. Artists could be stars in their region and almost unknown elsewhere, because radio and press were more regionalized. Bob Seger broke out as a major regional act well before he extended that reach with "Night Moves" and other national and international hits. Everything you needed was there at home, and every act that seemed to matter would come through.

A destination for African Americans coming north during the Great Migration, Detroit had a rich black culture that informed its Blues, R&B, and Soul offerings. And the quality of that music affected the white performers, from Mitch Ryder to Iggy Pop. The lessons coming in the second phase of this project will look at years in which a rich cross-cultural dialogue took place through music, with Motown Records, "The Sound of Young America," serving as a kind of emblem of what was possible. But they also look at the current status of the so-called "Rust Belt." So many years later, with the American auto industry largely gone, Detroit suffers. The city's music, whether that of the White Stripes or Eminem, has carried on, but never as it did in the golden age of the city's musical life.

Activity: 

1.  Read Handout 1: Detroit Job Description.  Based on the description, complete the chart, and the questions that follow.  

2. WATCH  1965 promotional video about the city of Detroit.  Then answer the questions below. 

• What image of the city does the video project? What words come to mind?
• How does the video use music to create a particular impression about Detroit?
• According to the video, what was the prosperity of Detroit built upon in the mid-1960s?
• What was the main industry in Detroit at this time?

3. LISTEN

“Hello, Detroit,” by Sammy Davis Jr..  Then, answer the questions below:

• What is the overall mood of the song?
• How does the song's image of Detroit compare with the image presented by the promotional video?
• Ask students why Berry Gordy might have been a Detroit "booster."