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Health & Fitness

Overlooked Roots of Modern Music

Overlooked critical makers of modern music

This interval in the awards season brings us the awards for music, the Grammys.  Music, like any other art form, has seminal root artists.  Roots are sometimes neglected and need to be reexamined.  This blog is on three frequently overlooked root artists in American music with tree limbs of jazz, country and rock and roll. 

Sidney Bechet is often overlooked as a Jazz pioneer in favor of his contemporary, Louis Armstrong.  Bechet made the mold for New Orleans style jazz and the clarinet, setting the styles that continue today and still permeate Mardi Gras.  The clarinet provided the basis for the saxophone.  Bechet started the concept of the solo, playing chords and riffs that are heard today in the electric guitar.  Very smooth.  Bechet is best known for the sensuous 'Eqyptian Fantasy' and 'Petite Fleur'. 

Jimmie Rodgers is the true root of country and folk from Gene Autry to Taylor Swift.  (He is not to be confused with the singer of the same name in the late 50s with the pablum of 'Honeycomb' and 'Kisses Sweeter than Wine'.)  Rodgers’ style predates Woody Guthrie, with the same types of themes of everyday life and wandering around the country.  Most people are familiar with 'I'm in the Jail House Now' or 'T for Texas', and fail to realize he recorded with Louis Armstrong.  Rodgers' music is heard today in the sound of greats like Merle Haggard, Elvis and Brad Paisley.

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Bob Wills, especially Bob Willis and the Texas Playboys, is the first American fusion group: jazz, folk, electric instrumentation and sometimes even horns.  Commonly associated with the term 'Western Swing', Wills is 'still the king'. 'Faded Love',  'Blues for Dixie', 'San Antonio Rose' and 'Corrina, Corrina' are standards.  It is easier to list artists  not influenced by Wills than artists influenced by Wills. Wills is one of the few people in the Country Music and Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

I'll admit I have a preference for these three roots.  For example, one of my fine memories is a Lyle Lovett concert on the banks on the Mississippi in Saint Louis with the sun setting and Lyle Lovett singing 'Blues for Dixie' .   

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I'd appreciate hearing from readers on their music roots.

This music is available at the Chelmsford and other local Public Libraries as part of the Merrimack Valley Library Consortium, can be purchased at sites like iTunes, Amazon and streamed by the Spotify application.

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