The Great Migration (Part 2)

Delta State UniversityCleveland, Mississippi

Alan P. Marcus, Ph.D.Assistant Professor

Towson UniversityDepartment of Geography

Email: amarcus@towson.edu

Tinariwen (Tuareg people from Mali, Nortwest Africa): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ij7nm7UYpU&feature=related Tinariwenhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WcqlOq1cjjc

Mississippi Fred McDowell: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j2dKNgu0_z0 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mtlVSedpIRU&feature=related Rolling Stones (Sticky Fingers 1971): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mUCoQryE7-k&feature=related

Black Keys (Junior Kimbrough tribute):http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ku_nvKyUV0&feature=related

Diaspora, diffusion, distribution•Influences from Northern African Berbers (e.g.; instruments), music from the Middle East (e.g.; Arabic music, and Islamic monotone tone and cadence, calls for prayer), Syncretic musical and cultural movement in West Africa (animistic components).•West African slaves bring calls, field hollers, Blues in the Mississippi delta.•Post-world war radio station in UK, playing American music, mostly blues and jazz. London, Liverpool, and Newcastle.•When the Beatles arrived in US in 1964, Americans become familiar with black American music. The blues returned to the US.

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SPATIAL DIFFUSION

• The process by which a concept, practice, or substance spreads from its point of origin to new territories

• Two types-- Relocation diffusion-- Expansion diffusion

FoodDiffusion southern culture:later known as Soul Food

Blues: Muddy Waters (from MississippiTo Chicago and then the world!)

Great Resource: A Library of Congress Resource Guide for the Study of Black History & Culture

The African-American Mosaic

http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/african/afam011.html

“Chicago, Illinois. Newsboy selling the Chicago Defender, a leading Negro newspaper 1942”

http://www.loc.gov/pictures/resource/fsa.8d03176/

“Narrating” the migration to the “Promised Land

The geographic isolation and discriminatory school policies imposed on urban blacks gradually lowered the quality of their public education system and inspired the use of stopgap measures to solve such problems as overcrowding. For example, the Ida B. Wells housing project community center was used to alleviate overcrowding in the kindergarten classes of the Chicago school system. Ida B. Wells housing project, Chicago, Illinois, April 1942

Jack Delano, Photographer Photomural from gelatin-silver print FSA-OWI Collection Prints and Photographs Division (121)

http://www.pbs.org/wnet/jimcrow/stories_events_migration.html

http://www.pbs.org/wnet/jimcrow/themap/index.html

RELOCATION DIFFUSION

• Sequential diffusion is a process in which items being diffused are transmitted by their carrier agents as they evacuate the old areas & relocate to new areas.

• The most common form of relocation diffusion involves the spreading of innovations by a migrating population.

RELOCATION DIFFUSION

RELOCATION DIFFUSION

EXPANSION DIFFUSION

• The spreading of an innovation or idea through a fixed population in such a way that the number of those adopting grows continuously larger, resulting in an expanded area of dissemination

• Two types-- Contagious Expansion-- Hierarchical Expansion

CONTAGIOUS EXPANSION

• The distance-controlled spreading of an idea, innovation, or some other item through a local population by contact from person to person

• Analogous to the communication of a contagious disease

CONTAGIOUS EXPANSION

CONTAGIOUS EXPANSION

CONTAGIOUS EXPANSION

HIERARCHICAL EXPANSION

• A form of diffusion in which an idea or innovation spreads by “trickling down” from larger to smaller adopting units

HierarchyHighest

Lowest

Intermediate

HIERARCHICAL EXPANSION

HIERARCHICAL EXPANSION

HIERARCHICAL EXPANSION

HIERARCHICAL EXPANSION

HIERARCHICAL EXPANSION

The diffusion to the UK, the influence of delta in rock and roll:Lonnie Donegan singing “Jack o Diamonds” and other songs made popular in UK in the 1950s – keep in mind these were all songs mostly by Leadbelly and traditional African-American songs from the Deep South, some about “bad men” such as Stagolee, and O’Riley, and John Henry – who in the songs would take a stand against authority (resistance?). Donegan changed his first name from Tony to Lonnie, in honor of Lonnie Johnson, a 1930s bluesman, who’d been in England on a tour (as early as 1917!) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_O4qkHMv678&feature=related

Quarrymen (1957) when Paul met John: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DSGvznibHdA&feature=relatedhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hSdgFc5g4f0&feature=related

Early Jimmie Page (years before Led Zeppelin – influence of Skiffle): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cKUyHpoWnT4

(Skiffle craze in UK) *Back to the US. Think: DIFUSSION and MOVEMENT

1950s and 60s – Diffusion of Rock’n’Roll and Blues – start of the SKIFFLE CRAZE (blues, trad. And Leadbelly songs)Discarded from the US and welcomed in the UK

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9sBpayeHBY0&feature=relatedBill Wymans’ Blues Odyssey. The Impact open G tuning – diffusion (queue at 2:40mins)

Lonnie Donegan’s 1956 hit (a Leadbelly song): “Rock Island Line”

Newcastle

Liverpooll

London

Animals

BeatlesGerry &thePaceMakers,The Hollies

Rolling Stones,The Kinks,The Who,The Yardbirds

1960s– “British Invasion” - Brought US American music “home” and Americans heard it as if it were listening it for the first time

Note the influence of OPEN G tuning, and delta blues style of playing, and, characterstic of blues songs: three stanzas, first two repeat -rhymes, and cadence – structure of blues (also listen and read lyrics to: “Just can’t keep from crying sometimes”, by Blind Willie Johnson).

Take for example, the Everly Brothers’ “Wake Up Little Suzie”, here seen playing “Open G tuning” - Don Everly learned this tuning from Bo Diddley (a Mississippian), and Everly, in turn taught it to Keith Richards (Rolling Stones), who later used this tuning on most Stones classic songs (e.g.; “Can’t you hear me knocking,” “Honky Tonk Women,” “Start me up,” etc.)….these being only just one of many ties, of course, between the Rolling Stones and blues (one being that the band is named after a Muddy Waters song “Rolling Stone”): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rsix-xK7S20&feature=related

An estimated 20,000 Confederates from the USA emigrated to São Paulo, Brazil, right after the Civil War. It was the biggest political exodus in U.S. history.

The Descendants of Confederates. Santa Barbara D’Oeste, São Paulo

The story of Robert Johnson:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-RNGZMh3TDQ

Mississippi Delta Blues Bar– past logo was a confederate flag, with a poster of a local Lynyrd Skynyrd cover band:http://www.deltabluesbar.com.br/index.php

Mississippi Delta Bar:http://www.msdelta.com.br/

• Definition: Shared patterns of learned behavior

• Components:– Beliefs– Institutions– Technology

CULTURE

• The source areas from which radiated ideas, innovations, and ideologies that change the world beyond

CULTURE HEARTH

Julian Huxley/Leslie White3-part structure of cultural subsystems:

(1) Ideological (mentifacts): mythologies, legends, philosophy, language/religion

(2) Technological (artifacts): Tools, objects, housing, clothes

(3) Sociological (sociofacts): interpersonal relations, military, politics, economics.

• Culture is learned, it is not biological/genetic

•The composite of human imprints on the earth’s surface.

•Carl Sauer’s definition: “the forms superimposed on the physical landscape by the activities of man”

CULTURAL LANDSCAPE

“Ain’t Gonna Let Nobody Turn me Around” “Green Onions” BookerT “My Baby Left Me”(Elvis)

“Mannish Boy”(Muddy Waters)

Memphis

Stovall Plantation

Hopson Plantation /Riverside Hotel

WC Handy Tutwiler Railroad Station

Dockery Farm Poor Monkey’s Lounge

Fannie Hamer Robert Johnson Gravesite

The Blues and Cultural Landscapes of the Mississippi Delta (Photos/Music arranged by Alan P. Marcus)

Lorraine Motel Stax

Sun Studios

Charley Patton: “High Water Risin” Son House: “Grinnin in your Face” Howlin Wolf “Killing Floor”

RJ“Crossroads”

Bessie Smith: “Nobody loves You When You’re Down and Out”

Sonny Boy Williamson: “Its so Sad to be Lonesome”

“Freedom Highway” Staple Singers

the Lebanese in the Delta:http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=18547399

Mississippi Chinese: http://mshistory.k12.ms.us/articles/86/mississippi-chinese-an-ethnic-people-in-a-biracial-society

Mississippi Italians:http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=50371535793#!/group.php?gid=50371535793&v=wall

Delta Jews:http://www.amazon.com/Delta-Jews-Alfred-Uhry/dp/B000A26M5U

Compare original blues versions with later versions Examples of cultural diffusion – from the Mississippi Delta, from black America to the UK and back to the US –adapting, adopting, changing and editing according to forces of the industry and illustrating geographical movement from point of origin to point of destination. What other contemporary versions can you find which are blues songs originally?

1.Original Version….Robert Johnson “Love in Vain” (1938): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dPdfPxAF8BM

Rolling Stones version (live 1969): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sk7_GOpz528

2. Original Version Robert Johnson: “Cross Road Blues (1938): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qD2jXjV9Z8A

Cream version (1968): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ejPi8D8LFnI&feature=related

3.Original version….Big Mama Thornton “Hound Dog”: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V_nNNIYTy9g&feature=related

Hound dog 1956 Elvis version: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rOvUdZgl7vo&feature=related

4.ORIGINAL version….Big Joe Turner “Shake and Rattle and Roll” (note the original lyrics were edited in later versions): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=20Feq_Nt3nM

Bill Haley and his Comets (note the “sanitized "for white audiences): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LQweaS328bc&feature=related

Elvis version: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dCBT7PfAEgc

5. ORIGINAL version….Little Richard “Tutti Frutti” (1956): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X7pjP_XkK4U

Pat Boone (marketing the same song for “white” audiences – devoid of dancing in Richard’s style): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vv-LAbMbEn4

6.ORIGINAL version….Muddy Waters, “I just want to make love to you”: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RnlvHP1AXPoRolling Stones: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qMaN2ljz1OUFoghat, 1970s band version: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ziiDkT165zI&feature=relatedAlso, their almost identical song “Slow Ride” 1970s hit, a virtual carbon-copy of the same song: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GcCNcgoyG_0&feature=related\