Footsteps articles from September 2005

Footsteps archives from September 2005

B.B. King & Lucille.(Musicians)
September 1, 2005... The blues is the source. It contains all the basic feelings of human beings: pain, happiness, fear, courage, confusion, and desire, told in simple stories.--B.B. King Blues musician Riley B. King, better known as B.B. King, has performed...

The blues.(music)
September 1, 2005... Have you ever been confronted with a difficult decision? Have you had to choose between two paths leading in opposite directions? If so, you have had the blues that Robert Johnson sang about in one of his most famous songs. "Crossroads Blues."...

Father of the Blues.(Blues musicians)
September 1, 2005... W. C. Handy is known as the "Father of the Blues" not because he created the music, but because he was the first person to draw national attention to it. William Christopher Handy had always been close to the blues. Born in a small log...

'Gimme a pigfoot'.(Bessie Smith history)
September 1, 2005... For an African American girl from a poor family, opportunities were few in the 1890s in Chattanooga, Tennessee. As a youngster, Bessie Smith sang and danced on street corners, collecting change from passersby. At 18, in 1912, she joined a group...

Blues in 'B'.
September 1, 2005... Twenty words and names from the articles in this issue are hidden in the word search below. See how many of them you can find. Words run up, down, backward, forward, and diagonally. BB King Beale Street Bessie Smith bottleneck Bukka White...

Masters all.
September 1, 2005... The recording industry was in its infancy in the 1920s. Music was recorded on discs that were sold to people who owned phonographs. Most records were sold by mail order or by businesses that carried phonograph machines, such as furniture stores...

Play the blues: washtub bass.(Brief Article)
September 1, 2005... Washing clothes may not be fun--but playing a washtub bass is! This one-string bass for playing the blues is based on an African instrument known as a ground bass. Blues musicians made this instrument from an old washtub, a broomstick, and...

The ins and outs of the guitar.(Blues guitar music)
September 1, 2005... Encouraged by the popularity of recordings by women blues singers such as Ma Rainey and Bessie Smith, record companies in the 1920s scoured the South to find more singers. They discovered a number of men who played guitar--Blind Lemon...

Play the blues: diddley bow.
September 1, 2005... Amazingly, the musical geniuses who created the blues also invented the instruments they played! In addition, they often built these instruments using only scrap materials. Now, you can build one of their favorite instruments: a one-string...

The harmonica.(Brief Article)
September 1, 2005... Because the harmonica was expensive, portable, and relatively easy to learn, certain styles of American popular music embraced it during the early part of the 1900s. Blues musicians were probably drawn to the harmonica for its ability to...

Play the blues: blues kazoo.(harmonica)(Brief Article)
September 1, 2005... The harmonica (or "mouth organ") first came to America from Germany at about the time of the U.S. Civil War (1861-1865). Blues musicians loved to play them. But, when they could not find a store-bought harmonica, these clever musicians had a...

Jug bands.(band music)(Brief Article)
September 1, 2005... Have you ever clapped out a rhythm with a pair of spoons? Or buzzed your tongue and lips into your cupped hand to set a hip-hop beat? Then you understand the origin of "jug bands." A jug band makes music with jugs, washboards, washtubs,...

Play the blues: the jug.(music of the blues)(Brief Article)
September 1, 2005... Here's how to fill an empty bottle with the music of the blues. Blues greats called this homemade instrument "the poor man's tuba." And while it's simply an empty bottle, if you learn how to play it, you can use it to make some serious music....

Setting the mood.(blues music)
September 1, 2005... What is the blues? It is a complex music, but there are certain elements that define it. I can join fellow blues musicians anywhere and have them improvise or "jam" with me without even practicing a song. I could tell them we are playing...

Blues shuffle.
September 1, 2005... Ready to play some blues? Here's a song made just for you and the instruments on pages 17, 20, 23, and 25.

What's what at Duke & Peacock.
September 1, 2005... Before World War II, a handful of huge record companies dominated the music industry. After the war, most rhythm and blues records were produced by a number of independent record companies (or "labels") that began springing up across the...

Big city blues: where it's at.
September 1, 2005... Like ripples of water after a pebble is dropped, blues music spread outward from its center in the Mississippi Delta. Between the 1920s and the 1940s, hundreds of thousands of African Americans left their homes in the rural South in search...

Bonnie Raitt.(guitarists)
September 1, 2005... A nine-time Grammy winner and a member of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Bonnie Raitt is one of the best slide guitarists performing today. She started playing guitar at the age of eight, and it was not long before she played the blues. On her...

The blues goes international.(blues music )
September 1, 2005... American culture-fast food, fashion, movies, and especially music--can be found almost anywhere in the world. In fact, blues music has often been more popular overseas than in the United States. From 1917 to 1941--the years between World...

Koko Taylor.(Blues musicians)
September 1, 2005... SOMETIMES CALLED "THE QUEEN OF CHICAGO CLUES," KOKO TAYLOR HAS BEEN SINGING FOR MORE THAN 40 YEARS. Her roots go back to Memphis, Tennessee, where she was born Cora Walton in 1935. Cora's family nicknamed her "Koko" because she loved...

Ruth Brown.(Blues musicians)(Brief Article)
September 1, 2005... With a career that has lasted 60 years, singer Ruth Brown is one of the legends of rhythm and blues music. She helped pioneer the style during the 1940s and 1950s, recording so many hit songs for Atlantic Records that the newly launched company...

The legacy of the blues.(Blues Music)
September 1, 2005... Today, blues music lives on as a small but significant segment of the music industry. While the top artists in pop, rap, and rhythm and blues (R&B) music might sell millions of copies of each release, a successful blues album might sell, for...

Mixing piano with blues.(Then and Now)(Brief Article)
September 1, 2005... Because the piano is so large and so difficult to transport, the traveling blues performers of the rural South tended to avoid the instrument. In cities, however, blues bands could incorporate pianos that were commonly found in clubs into their...

Working with a master: the Delta blues education program.(Then and Now)(Brief Article)
September 1, 2005... There is a sharp-dressed man in Clarksdale, Mississippi, known as "Mr. Johnnie." His full name is Johnnie Billington, and he is a master blues musician from the Mississippi Delta. Mr. Johnnie has devoted his life to teaching children how to...

African Americans in the Performing Arts.(edited by Darlene Clark Hine )(Brief Article)(Book Review)
September 1, 2005... African Americans in the Performing Arts, edited by Darlene Clark Hine (Facts On File, 1997, www.factsonfile.com), uses a bibliographic format to introduce readers to women whose talents greatly influenced the musical world. An excellent...

Black Stars: African American Musicians.(book by Eleanora E. Tate)(Brief Article)(Book Review)
September 1, 2005... Black Stars: African American Musicians by Eleanora E. Tate (John Wiley, 2000, www.wiley.com) offers interesting-to-read, accurate biographies of legendary as well as lesser known artists whose music has contributed to the U.S. music scene....

Blues Revue.(bimonthly publication)(Brief Article)
September 1, 2005... Blues Revue (www.bluesrevue.com/800-258-7388), the world's largest print publication devoted to the full spectrum of the blues, is published bimonthly. The best way to keep abreast of all that's new--and old--with the blues, each issue includes...

Brain Quest: Black History.(book by Barbara C. Ellis )(Brief Article)(Book Review)
September 1, 2005... Brain Quest: Black History by Barbara C. Ellis (Workman, 2001, www.workman.com) includes more than 600 questions, with answers, that will challenge your knowledge of African American heritage. An example: Name the black mathematician who was a...

Cobblestone resources.
September 1, 2005... The following issues of FOOTSTEPS and its sister magazines APPLESEEDS and COBBLESTONE complement this issue on "Singin' the Blues" and are available from Cobblestone Publishing: Becoming a Musician (APP0301) The Great Migration...

Let's find out.(african americans history)(Brief Article)
September 1, 2005... African healing therapies saved the lives of many enslaved people. Mostly female, these healers gained positions of respect and authority in their communities. Although some of their methods were scorned as superstitious nonsense, white...

Capture the sounds: 1st blues on record.(AFRICAN AMERICANS IN THE NEWS: PAST AND PRESENT)(Brief Article)
September 1, 2005... In the summer of 1933, 18-year-old Alan Lomax and his father, John, got into their Model A Ford and headed down the back roads of the rural South. They collected music that most of the world had never heard--gospel, blues, zydeco, and Tex-Mex....