So Far

     Since I arrived in England on the 12th of June I have seen the national observatory, I have touch a piece of rock 4.5 billion years old, and seen a 71 year old Beatle that is still rockin. The first three days in London were great and really can't wait to get back there next week. The things that we experienced since coming to Harlaxton are amazing. We have gone to Liverpool to see Ringo Starr and His All Star Band which included Ringo, Rick Derringer, Edgar Winter and others. The show was two hours of continues music with each performer taking his turn. I have been to Down House the home of Charles Darwin. We have been to the University of Cambridge to see Christ College the Sedgwick Museum and The Fitzwilliam Museum.I have been to Nottingham in search of Robin Hood, who everyone tells me is still alive, but as near as I can figure is about five hundred years old. Robin or not the castle and dungeons were worth the trip. I am writing this after just returning from the north sea on what the people assured us was a rare sunny and warm day. On the boardwalk we ran into a man from Nottinham that assured us that he was indeed Robin Hood.

British Music Experience

     I found the  British Music Experience is a perfect way to take the knowledge that I have and combine it with new input allowing me to arrange and organize it in a way that gives better understanding of the chronological order of the various genre. The British Music Experience gives you a unique opportunity to be exposed to fifty years of the evolution of music. The expectations are high from the first time the building comes into sight. The unique architecture of the facility with its tent like structure and muraled exterior walls raise the hope that what will be experienced in side will be as unique as the outside. Upon entering the building you find what appears to be more shopping mall than museum. After taking an escalator up several floors you have the experience of entering the museum. You soon realize, in my opinion, that the inside is every bit as extraordinary as he outside. The rooms are designed to give you the entire experience of the decade you are in. The musicians, actors, models current events are all on display to help you understand the music and the part it played in the shaping of the time. You have the oppertunity to move at your own pace and have a hands on experiene that you can control. Working your way through the various displays allows you to see certain trends that were developed through, and because of the music. Everything from clothing styles to hair styles to dances were easily followed through the various exhibits.  I believed that this enabled me to explore the impact that music had on the racial divisions not only in America , but throughout the world. This was a trend that after I originally noticed it, began to jump out of every display. The early blues players had primarily a black audience. The early skiffle bands, although not called skiffle at the time, rose from the poor blacks in the American south who used whatever they had to make music. The audience they reached with their wash boards and tubs was still an all black audience. The Skiffle style of music would   disappear in the U.S. by the late forties having been replaced with various types of Blues and Jazz. However, the style found new legs in the late forties and fifties with largely white audiences in England. Lonnie Donegan  was one of the best known of the genre and continued to play Skiffle until his death in 2002. However, in the fifties the Skiffle sound had gone from the black players in America, with black audiences, to white players in England, with white audiences.There was still not a sound or personality to bridge the race gap.The segregation of audiences was even evident  in churches in America and in Europe. The great early influences on the Beatles were people like Elvis Presley, Chuck Berry, and Little Richard who all came from segregated church backgrounds. Even people like Jerry Lee Lewis came from a segregated church background. Jerry lee played piano with his cousins Jimmy Swaggart and Mickey Gilley. Jimmy Swaggart stayed with Gospel music and Mickey Gilley was primarily country. Although all three were innovative in their styles, Jerry Lee was the one that musically was singing black music.
      When you have Elvis and Jerry Lee on one side, among others, and Chuck Berry and Little Richard on the other, all singing the same music, there had to be a change. However, change was slow in coming even though the music was received by blacks and whites, the theaters in the U.S. and England were still segregated. The distinction between rich and poor among the youth of both countries had begun to be fractured by the music that bound them together.Little Richard and Chuck Berry found themselves on maim stream television shows with white audiences. Elvis Presley had a harder time because Elvis was not acting "white" he was singing black music with a sexual edge that was excepted, and even expected, from blacks but caused an uproar from the fundamental Christians when a southern white boy was singing and moving the way Elvis did. The problem is that the racial breakthrough that was taking place was shot lived. As the artist that we are discussing began to disappear it left a vacum that would eventually be filled by groups like the Beatles. The one thing that these groups have in common is that they were white and had primarily white audiences. The black musicians drifted back to Jazz and eventually to the Detroit Motown sound. The racial devide in music was now as strong as ever. As I went from display to display I was surprised to see the amount of times the music almost came together and then suddenly took off on separate paths. The black artists had a easier time secureing white followings I believe because whether we admitted it or not the minstal show mentality was still alive. If we fast forward to today there are only a few white rappers that are any good and only a few black artist that even try to appeal to white audiences.
      Looking at the displays from the fifties and seeing the way young people pushed against the police to dance together no matter what color makes me see the contribution of the early rock performers. The people that were influenced by this music are the same people that eventually pushed through the civil rights bill and battled the injustice of the Vietnam War. Maybe the music of those few short years had nothing to do with it and then again who knows..
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