Troping the Blues: From Spirituals to the Concert Hall

Floyd, Samuel A.

doi:10.2307/779405

Cited by 4 publications

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“…32-33) Note that each of the references in quotes is taken from actual spiritual texts, and Floyd documents each one of the spirituals in the footnotes of the article. Floyd (1993) continued with a similar treatment of the train trope, as handled by bluesmen at the end of the 19th century and at the turn of the 20th. (The asterisks are my indications of where Floyd made reference to a blues tune without directly quoting the lyrics.…”

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confidence: 98%

“…The aim of this essay is to pursue the idea of a black musical tropology, expanding on Samuel A. Floyd, Jr.'s (1993) work in "Troping the Blues: From Spirituals to the Concert Hall." In that article, Floyd presents what I call "tropes of transit," which include chariot and train tropes that appear in spirituals and blues tunes, respectively.…”

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confidence: 99%

“…The concept of musical signifyin(g) is carefully detailed and developed in Floyd's (1995) seminal work The Power of Black Music, but the idea of black musical tropes is also good ground for continued inquiry. Floyd's (1993) "Troping the Blues" is a pioneering piece that initiates discourse on the notion of black musical tropes. In his seeking to "demonstrate the applicability" of Gates's intertextual theories "to black music over time and across genres" (p. 32), Floyd explored the texts of selected spirituals and blues songs.…”

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Extensions on a Black Musical Tropology: From Trains to the Mothership (and Beyond)

Maxile

2011

Journal of Black Studies

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This essay uses as its foundation the work of Samuel A. Floyd, Jr. in his article, “Troping the Blues: From Spirituals to the Concert Hall.” Whereas Floyd drew connections between the chariot of the Negro spiritual and the blues train, I extend this line of musical tropology into gospel trains, soul trains, and the mothership (as evoked by funk musician George Clinton). Through surveys and analyses of selected songs by artists from differing generations such as Sister Rosetta Tharpe, Gladys Knight, and Erykah Badu, I demonstrate how the verbal trope of the train has expanded over time and genres while also exploring various manifestations of freedom and liberation motifs as they surface in secular and sacred forms.

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Extensions on a Black Musical Tropology: From Trains to the Mothership (and Beyond)

Maxile

2011

Journal of Black Studies

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Implication, Quotation, and Coltrane in Selected Works By David N. Baker

Maxile¹

2013

J Soc American Mus

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This article explores composer David N. Baker's use of elements of jazz and vernacular music to articulate formal structures and suggest extramusical commentaries in his concert works, with particular focus on the Sonata for Cello and Piano and the Sonata I for Piano. Themes of homage to and respect for jazz saxophonist John Coltrane resonate through these works. Various features bring the jazz legend to mind, but Baker's compelling play with implication and quotation provides fertile ground for studying musical signification and the use of vernacular emblems within Western compositional structures and the concert music of African American composers. Conventional analytical methods are combined with readings of referential symbols to work toward interpretations that address both structural and expressive domains. This approach allows discussions of compositional techniques to intersect with cultural and philosophical considerations. By addressing issues of musical structure and expressivity, this article seeks to move beyond commonplace surface-level descriptions of black vernacular emblems in the concert music of African American composers.

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DeFord Bailey in Country Music's Multiracial Canon

Parler¹

2020

Journal of the American Musicological Society

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DeFord Bailey (1899–1982), an African American harmonica virtuoso, performed regularly on the Grand Ole Opry radio program from 1926 to 1941 and afterward fell into obscurity. Decades later, however, he was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame (2005), overseen by the Country Music Association (CMA), amid calls to diversify a predominantly white country music canon. Motivated by racially progressive ideals and seeking to rehabilitate the genre's image, many fans and industry advocates misrepresented Bailey's achievements in the surrounding conversations, or they relied upon essentializing notions of black music in their advocacy on his behalf. Resistance to his candidacy for the Hall was cited as evidence of the industry's institutionalized racism. While his eventual induction allowed the CMA some room in which to refute that charge and promote a multiracial narrative for the genre's history, consistent with its long-standing desire to cultivate middle-class respectability, that same multiracial narrative obscured Bailey's role in the production of a distinctly white image for country music in the 1920s and 1930s. Highlighting this discrepancy, this article compares the historical and contemporary reception of Bailey's music and legacy, drawing upon newspaper accounts, Opry promotional materials, archival interviews, and commercial recordings. Opry broadcasts played host to blues, blackface, and other racially coded repertoires; Bailey's blues-based style did not distinguish him from his white Opry peers. Opry marketing worked assiduously to present a singular white image for the show and its repertoire, marginalizing or obscuring Bailey's racial identity in its programming and publicity. In this manner, Bailey's career has paradoxically been made to serve narratives asserting both the whiteness and the multiracialism of country music.

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Troping the Blues: From Spirituals to the Concert Hall

Cited by 4 publications

References 6 publications

Extensions on a Black Musical Tropology: From Trains to the Mothership (and Beyond)

Extensions on a Black Musical Tropology: From Trains to the Mothership (and Beyond)

Implication, Quotation, and Coltrane in Selected Works By David N. Baker

DeFord Bailey in Country Music's Multiracial Canon

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