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." 

Introducing Hard Rock - Assessment

1. Read Charles Shaar Murray's extended essay 
2. Based on that, write a three-paragraph description of Hard Rock's main features.  In other words, what are the main components of hard rock music?  What are the "essential elements?"  

History of Rock and Roll Lesson 2/12/15 - "The Roots of Heavy Metal"

ESSENTIAL QUESTION

What are the musical and cultural roots of Heavy Metal?

OVERVIEW

In the late 1960s, the British industrial city Birmingham was a blue-collar factory town with limited options for young people. In the early 1970s, the economic growth that Britain had seen after World War II began to slow, and unemployment started to rise. This period of economic decline continued into the late 70s and early 80s, marked by inflation, labor strikes, and general economic decline.

Black Sabbath, arguably the first Heavy Metal band, sprang from Birmingham and gave voice to this experience of desolation. As Andrew L. Cope writes in Black Sabbath and the Rise of Heavy Metal Music, "One cannot dismiss simply as coincidence that the dark, angry and serious forms of music evident in the early work of Black Sabbath seem to correlate to the . . . dead end, working-class factory life of the industrial Midlands." 

As have many other forms of Rock and Roll, Heavy Metal reflected the mood of disenfranchised youth on the margins of society. Metal in Britain grew out of the same conditions as Punk; speaking in a simlarly anti-establishment voice, both could be considered a form of protest music. But over time, Heavy Metal evolved into a musical movement that embraced escapism and fantasy in a way that Punk did not.

Musically, Heavy Metal has deep roots in the Hard Rock of the 1960s, and by extension in the Blues, as filtered through the work of such bands as Led Zeppelin and Cream. (It could be said that the factory life influenced the musical sound of Heavy Metal as well as its general tone: Black Sabbath guitarist Tony Iommi's thick, grungy sound was the result of a factory accident in which a machine sliced off the tips of two fingers on his right hand. To compensate for his injured fingers, Iommi loosened the strings, resulting in a darker sound.)

While taking cues from Hard Rock, Metal took its musical ideas into new territory, where an emphasis on volume and distortion came to represent a vision of power that resonated deeply with Metal's overwhelmingly male fan base. In this lesson, students will investigate the musical and social roots of Heavy Metal, using their findings to write reviews of early Metal performances.

You will take on the role of music journalists from the early 1970s. You will write a review of an early Heavy Metal performance. You will begin by working to gain a better understanding of early Heavy Metal by visiting a series of stations that offer information about different aspect of Metal’s social and musical roots.

1. Review Handout 1: Questions for Viewing Stations. 
2. At your own pace, proceed through the stations below.  Answer the questions on the worksheet for each station.
   
   
   • Station 1: Videos of Metal's Early Influences—Hard Rock
     • Handout for Station 1
     • The Kinks, “You Really Got Me”
     • Marshall Amplifiers
     • Led Zeppelin, "Communication Breakdown"
     • Jimi Hendrix, "Purple Haze"
   • Station 2: The Working-Class Roots of Heavy Metal
     • Handout for Station 2
   • Station 3: The Influence of the Blues on Early Heavy Metal
     • Handout for Station 3
   • Station 4: Images of Birmingham in the 1950s and 1960s
     • Handout for Station 4

History of Rock and Roll Lesson 2/11/15

Hard Rock didn't emerge as something cohesive, something planned, or something immediately obvious in its musical-historical importance. As the epigraph above suggests, it began with something as unlikely as a knitting needle in a speaker cone. Only in retrospect did it appear that significant events had taken place that together led to something deserving of a name. And the name it got was "Hard Rock." By that time, however, the Kinks, widely celebrated as having given the movement its birth moment with "You Really Got Me," were exploring other musical territories. They may have set things off, followed by the Who with "I Can't Explain," but another group represents Hard Rock's dramatic entrance better than either of those British acts: the Jimi Hendrix Experience.

This lesson presents Jimi Hendrix and his band as a Hard Rock case study. In contrast to British groups like Cream (which featured Eric Clapton, a former member of both John Mayall's Bluesbreakers and the Yardbirds, on guitar) and Led Zeppelin (featuring former Yardbird Jimmy Page), Hendrix came out of the American Rhythm and Blues scene. But as a member of that scene, he was not a solo artist or a celebrated member of a group (as were Clapton and Page) -- he was as true sideman, in the shadows. Hendrix, then Jimmy James, played guitar for the Isley Brothers, King Curtis, and Little Richard, among others.

Importantly, though Hendrix's later style would go well beyond what he did as an R&B sideman, he would always retain a little of his musical past in the rhythmic approach he took to "lead" guitar. In a song like "The Wind Cries Mary," one can hear a rhythm guitar player raised on Soul and R&B, no matter that the guitar is featured, front and center, in a way that would be unusual on a Soul or R&B recording.

This lesson will consider the manner in which Hard Rock pushed overdriven, distorted guitar to the front. It will contrast an R&B style, often driven by keyboards and horn sections, with Hendrix's "Purple Haze," where the guitar takes center stage, with only drums and bass as accompaniment. The lesson will also explore the way Hendrix was received -- not as a journeyman from the world of R&B, but as a phenomenon that seemed to arrive as if from nowhere.

1. Read Peter Jones' 1966 review of Jimi Hendrix and his band. Consider Jones describes what he hears and sees in the Jimi Hendrix Experience.
   • What adjectives does he use to convey a sense for what Hendrix's sound is like?
   • Is it loud? Is it dance music? Is it similar to that of any other performer?
   • If you don't know Jimi Hendrix's work, can you determine, based on the article, what it might sound and look like?
   • Do you get any sense for Hendrix's past as a sideman?
2. Watch a clip of the Jimi Hendrix Experience playing "Purple Haze."
3. Once the clip has played, answer  the following questions:
   • After seeing and hearing Jimi Hendrix play, would you suggest to Peter Jones anything he could do to make his review more accurate?
   • What are the featured elements in the music and in the performance?
   • How is Hendrix's approach with "Purple Haze" different from the approach of Steve Cropper, the guitar player with Sam and Dave?
   • If Jimi Hendrix had played and performed as he did here while backing Little Richard, what do you think Little Richard might have said?

History of Rock and Roll Lesson 2/9/15

Here is your assignment for today.  You will need your headphones to complete the first part. 

1. Listen to Chuck D’s group Public Enemy perform “Fight the Power.”  This song, released in 1989 by Motown Records, is an example of how “Social Soul” songs of the early 1970s had an impact on later Hip Hop tracks.  Similar to “Freddie’s Dead,” “Fight the Power” was composed as a soundtrack for a film.  In this case, it is Spike Lee’s Do The Right Thing which explores racial tension and the inequity of urban life in Brooklyn, New York.  After listening, answer the following questions:

• Chuck D, the founder of Public Enemy, describes the influence of Curtis Mayfield during the interview you watched earlier.  How is “Fight the Power” similar to Mayfield’s “Freddie’s Dead”?
• Think about the three songs we've listened to; "Fight the Power," "Freddie's Dead," and "What's Goin' On?" Which of the three songs is most important to you?  Which one can you identify with the most?   What do you like about the song in terms of its music, tone, and emotion?  How does it convey its message? 

2. Read Handout 6: Kerner Report.   After reading the Kerner report, answer the following questions. 

• What does the Kerner Report identify as the cause of civil unrest in American cities? 
• The Kerner Report famously states “Our nation is moving toward two societies, one black, one white—separate and unequal.”  Think about your own community today.  Do any recommendations made in the report still apply today?  Why or why not?
• How does this report relate to what you have learned regarding African-American life in the ghetto during the late 1960s and early 1970s?

History of Rock n Roll Lesson 2/4/15

Part I: 

To gain a deeper understanding of how these themes reoccur in Soul music, you will play the full video of Marvin Gaye performing "What's Going On" for a benefit in 1972 (the song was released the previous year, in 1971)  When the President of Motown Berry Gordy first heard the track, he did not want to release the song. He generally wanted Motown artists to steer clear of making political statements. But Gaye insisted and prevailed. Gaye’s lyrics to this song were partly inspired by stories from his younger brother, Frankie Gaye. Frankie had returned from a three-year tour of duty in Vietnam and would often share with his older brother about the atrocities he had seen there. 

After watching the video, and listening to the song, answer the following. 

• What historical events do you think are addressed in “What’s Going On”? Do you see any links with the events described in the Gallery Walk? 
• Refer back to the Handout 2: Marvin Gaye Lyric Comparison  As Marvin Gaye stated, “With the world exploding around me, how am I supposed to keep singing love songs?” What did he mean by this?

Part II: 

You will be listening to the song, "Freddie's Dead," written, and performed by an artist named Curtis Mayfield. This song was originally released in 1972 for the soundtrack of the film Super Fly.  The song depicts a character in the movie that meets his untimely death after dealing drugs.

Carefully read  Handout 5: “Freddie’s Dead” Lyrics.  Play the video of Curtis Mayfield performing “Freddie's Dead” in 1973. Based on the song and the lyrics, answer the following:

• Where do you think Freddie lives?  From the text of this song, what do you think his life is like?
• Does this song make you think of a particular historical event from the Gallery Walk?
• Consider Marvin Gaye’s “What’s Going On.”  How are these songs similar?  How are these songs different?  Think about their musicality, along with their message and tone. 

Part III: Summary 

Chuck D was the founder and leader of the groundbreaking Hip-Hop group Public Enemy.  Listen to a  clip from 2008 of Chuck D discussing the influence of Curtis Mayfield and "Freddie's Dead".  After listening to Chuck D's interview...

• Describe the impact of “Freddie’s Dead” on African-American communities living in urban America, according to Chuck D.
• As Chuck D states, “It was almost like [Curtis Mayfield] was the soundtrack to our everyday lives.” What do you think he means by this?

History of Rock and Roll Lesson 1/30/15

ESSENTIAL QUESTION

How did changes in the Soul music of the early 1970s reflect broader shifts in American society during that time?

OVERVIEW

The early 1970s were an unsettling time in America.  The nation was divided about U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War, and Americans were still reeling from the 1968 assassinations of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Sen. Robert F. Kennedy.  Race riots in cities like Watts, Newark, and Detroit indicated a high level of tension and frustration. During the Civil Rights movement, African Americans had fought hard for equal rights, but in the early 1970s, many of those rights were still unrealized.  Not surprisingly, the Soul music of this era, according to Hip Hop pioneer Chuck D, was “darker,” reflecting national tensions. 

Motown recording artist Marvin Gaye addressed some of these realities with his album What’s Going On, speaking directly about Vietnam and the political upheaval of the time.  Meanwhile, Curtis Mayfield, who with his group The Impressions had recorded the hopeful Civil Rights-era anthem “People Get Ready,” began producing new songs that captured the raw facts of ghetto life.  When Mayfield released the soundtrack album for the movieSuper Fly in 1972, it seemed to epitomize the direction in which music was moving.  The age of Funk was coming. “The groove was so thick you had to get with it,” recalls Chuck D.  Though Hip Hop would not enter the picture until the late 1970s, this period of “Social Soul” in the early 1970s was planting the seeds for Hip Hop’s deep groove and social awareness.
In this lesson, students will examine photographs, live recordings, video interviews, and a government report in order to learn about the historical and cultural context of the Soul music recorded in the 1970s.

Activity #1 

Marvin Gaye was a celebrated Motown recording artist who pushed musical boundaries during his career.  An extended Marvin Gaye biography is available on our site.  You will be listening to two songs from Marvin Gaye, and carefully analyzing the lyrics to those songs.  

1. Play “How Sweet It Is (To Be Loved By You)” released in 1964, and “What's Going On” released in 1971.

2. Carefully read  Handout 2: Marvin Gaye Lyric Comparison 

• Compare and contrast the two songs.  Are they similar in any way (e.g. vocals by the same artist, recorded for the same label)?  How are they different?  Think about their musicality, along with their message and tone.
• Note the dates the songs were released.  Can you identify any historical events that transpired took place in between the release of these two songs? 

Activity #2 

In this lesson, you will examine photographs, live recordings, video interviews, and a government report in order to learn about the historical and cultural context of the Soul music recorded in the 1970s.

1. Carefully study the photographs by clicking on the following link
2. On looseleaf, or in your notebooks, carefully answer the following questions, as contained in the following worksheet. 
3. Write a reflection, based on the following questions: 

• Are there any historical events that you learned about for the first time today?  Are there any events from the late 1960s that surprised you?
• Which photograph has the biggest impact on you and why?
• What common themes could you come up with in your groups?  How are these stations related, if at all?

History of Rock and Roll Lesson 1/26/15 and 1/28/15

"Say it Out Loud."

Today's lesson focuses on the evolution, and growth of "soul music" in the late 1960's and 1970's.

Please click here for a link to today's lesson.  You may answer the questions on looseleaf, or download the file to your google docs file.  Please finish the assignment by the end of the period.  If you do not finish by the end of the period, you must finish the assignment for HW, and email it to me, at michael.tesler@wjps.org.  Thanks!

Day 2: 1/28/15 
1. Read  Handout 2: Biography of James Brown
2. Answer the questions below.  You may answer them on looseleaf, or create a google doc.

1. According to the author, what effect did the release of “Say It Loud” have on Brown’s career? How did Brown react? 
2. Why do you think it was important for Brown to make this record? Why was it important for the African-American community at that time?

3. Play the video James Brown, "Man to Man,"
4 . After watching the video, answer the questions below.  

• How does the audience react when Brown says, "I'm a man, a black man, a soul brother?"
• Does Brown seem to be conveying the same message that Smokey Robinson did in his interview? How is his message different?
• What do you think Brown means by saying he is struggling against the old "colored man" and replacing him with a "black" man?  
• How does Brown see his responsibility as an artist? Does he feel he has a particular responsibility to the African-American community? 
• Based on the song, the reading, and the video, how would you summarize the way Brown feels about himself as an African American?  

Day 3: 1/29/15
1. Play the video video of the interview with singer Harry Belafonte in 1967 and discuss:

• What is Belafonte's attitude toward the African-American community? How is his message similar to that of James Brown?
• Do Brown and Belafonte see themselves purely as entertainers? Do they see themselves as people whose job it is to simply make music to entertain African Americans and whites alike?  How does being African American influence the way they see themselves and their roles in society?
• How might the attitudes of Brown and Belafonte have been influenced by challenges to the Civil Rights movement and historical events between the early 1960s, when Motown and artists such as Smokey Robinson began recording, and the later 1960s, when dissatisfaction in the African-American community escalated into riots in places such as Los Angeles, California, and Newark, New Jersey, and the more militant political messages of Malcolm X and the Black Panthers became more popular? 

2. Read  Handout 3: Poetry Excerpts from Amiri Baraka and Nikki Giovanni

• What are the similarities between the poems and “Say It Loud.”
• What do you notice about the language and style of the two poems, as well as the language and style of the lyrics to “Say It Loud?" 
• Based on the language and style of the poems, and well as the language and style of "Say It Loud," what can you conclude about African-American self-expression?

3. Review the picture of  Diana Ross and the Supremes from 1966.  Compare it to a picture of Ms. Ross from 1968, 

• What conclusions can they draw from this dramatic change in Ross's look?

History of Rock and Roll Lesson 1/9/15

Learning Target: I will understand how artists have used musical events to promote change. 

In this lesson, we will investigate ways in which artists including George Harrison, Bob Geldof, and others drew on the experiences of the 1960s to harness the inherent power of musical performance to promote awareness and encourage activism. Students will look at the messages, methodologies, and historical contexts of both the Concert for Bangladesh and Live Aid and will refer to these events to develop a proposal for a benefit performance of their own.

Procedure: Here's what you have to do.  

1. Among the most celebrated examples of protest events is the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom in 1963.  View the clip of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. delivering the “I Have a Dream” speech. The March on Washington was one of the largest political rallies for human rights in the history of the United States. Estimates of the number of participants varied from 200,000 to 300,000.  Based on the clip, and your knowledge of history, answer the questions below, in your notebooks.

• Why was the March on Washington such an effective and memorable protest event? 
• How do you think attending an event like this would have felt? How would it have felt watching it on television?
• Do you think most of marchers and speakers shared a similar set of values?

2.  Carefully study the  images of the March on Washington (1963) and the  Woodstock Festival (1969).  Then, answer the questions below in your notebooks. 

• What do you notice about these images? 
• What do they have in common?
• What are some reasons people might have attended the March on Washington?
• What are some reasons people might have attended Woodstock? How might their reasons have been different than those of the marchers?
• Think back to the phrase used to advertised the festival – “Three Days of Peace and Music.” What kind of political values do you think the attendees of Woodstock might have shared?
• What does the photo of the Woodstock suggest about the popularity of live Rock and Roll music in 1969?

3.  Carefully watch the railer for the Concert for Bangladesh (1971).  George Harrison was a former member of the Beatles. This video is from a year after the Beatles broke up at the height of their popularity in 1970. Discuss as a class:

• At the beginning of the clip, how does George Harrison respond to the reporter who asks “Of all of the enormous problems in the world how did you choose this one to do something about?”
• While not shown in the clip we just watched, Harrison also said the following statement at the press conference announcing the Concert for Bangladesh:

“Ravi [Shankar] came to me and he said if he was to do a concert, maybe play to so many thousand people, but to the size of the problem, the money, the funds that would be made would just be so small. So that’s where I came on. I can generate money by doing concerts and by making albums.”

• As a former Beatle, why was Harrison such a valuable spokesperson?

History of Rock n Roll Lesson 1/7/15

1. Please watch clips of Vietnam War protests from 1969, which are taken from unedited, behind-the-scenes footage. 
• Write a short description of what appears to be going on in each segment of the video 
• note when and how music is used by the protestors.
2. While the nature and visibility of protests changed, antiwar sentiment itself was not new in the 1960s. 
1. listen to recordings of two popular songs from the World War I era, “Over There” (1917) and “I Didn’t Raise My Boy to Be a Soldier” (1915). Then, answer the questions below. 
1. How do the two songs present contrasting views toward the war? 
2. Which is more like the Saturday Evening Post cover in the motivational activity? 
3. Which has more in common with the protest songs of the 1960s?

History of Rock n Roll Lesson - "The Summer of Love"

Hello!

Here is your assignment for today, 12/5/14.

1.  Carefully review, or read the set of documents contained here.

2. After analyzing the documents, answer the questions that correspond to each document.  You can find the questions by clicking here

Here's a link to the movie trailer for document 5
 http://teachrock.org/lesson/the-san-francisco-scene-1967/

Good Luck! .