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RIP Charlie Daniels

That sort of backwoods folk fiddle playing is all but extinct now. Once upon a time in the Appalachias and Ozarks if locals had some free time the men would play violins and the women would play pianos. No electronic entertainment in those days, so everybody knew how to play a musical instrument. When settlers went to California they kept their violins even after tossing out most everything else in the desert. The town of Fiddletown, California, was so named because the miners all kept their violins and would fiddle every chance they got, and visitors to the town noted how the air was always full of fiddle playing.

The story of that song also mimics old Appalachian/Ozarkian folk legends about the Devil appearing to men and offering "gifts" in exchange for their souls. Sometimes the areas where major roads crossed, or "crossroads", were considered portals to Hell and legends abounded of travelers being met with "black dogs" that turned into Satan who then would make his offer.
 
That sort of backwoods folk fiddle playing is all but extinct now. Once upon a time in the Appalachias and Ozarks if locals had some free time the men would play violins and the women would play pianos. No electronic entertainment in those days, so everybody knew how to play a musical instrument. When settlers went to California they kept their violins even after tossing out most everything else in the desert. The town of Fiddletown, California, was so named because the miners all kept their violins and would fiddle every chance they got, and visitors to the town noted how the air was always full of fiddle playing.

The story of that song also mimics old Appalachian/Ozarkian folk legends about the Devil appearing to men and offering "gifts" in exchange for their souls. Sometimes the areas where major roads crossed, or "crossroads", were considered portals to Hell and legends abounded of travelers being met with "black dogs" that turned into Satan who then would make his offer.

It’s not only white country, but also black blues songs which have these same themes


Jimmie Rodgers was both the hero to blues singer Howlin’ Wolf and country singer Hank Williams Sr.

This is because Jimmie Rodgers was a badass, but in today’s way of viewing things he can’t be included in any serious discussion because he was white. But he actually was both the most influential country singer and the most influential blues singer of the late 20s/very early 30s, but you have to ignore the most influential blues singer of the time due to the color of his skin. But, nevertheless, he was the best of the best at both blues and country

Here is a blues song of his talking about his tuberculosis which killed him less than 2 years after this recording





YouTube

YouTube
 
Yes, @Jumpback, there was quite a bit of intersectioning between black and white folk legends and music, even during the height of Jim Crow starting in 1898 with the destruction of the black ghetto in Wilmington, North Carolina, and lasting until the murder of Emmett Till in 1955. It was a time when a black man could be lynched simply for crossing the wrong set of railroad tracks, but blacks listened to white artists and white kids hacked headphones into record player circuits to play black blues records.

The commonality of folk legends likely extends far back into the pre-ACW period. In the 30s several unusually talented black blues musicians were widely rumored to have sold their souls to Satan for their skills.

By the early 50s there was so much interest in black music that had become known as "rock and roll" among white kids that record company bosses started searching for a white man who could sing like a black man. The winner of the search was a young white guy from Tupelo, Mississippi, named Elvis Presley.

I don't know how much influence The Devil Went Down To Georgia per se had on early rap, but as you noted there was quite a tradition behind it. Black anthropologists have noted the striking similarities between rap and the drum-accented chanting of tribes in West Africa where most American slaves came from. The foreign slave trade ceased in 1808 and the slaves were technically freed in the spring of 1865, a short enough time span for West African traditions to survive slavery and be carried to black "free towns" that sprang up afterwards as refuges for freed slaves. It's likely that fiddle music replaced the African percussion music among whites.

The Devil Went Down To Georgia is a wonderful song, but very few have any inkling of the long traditions of Deep Southern music and folklore behind it, and the contributions of whites and blacks.
 
Yes, @Jumpback, there was quite a bit of intersectioning between black and white folk legends and music, even during the height of Jim Crow starting in 1898 with the destruction of the black ghetto in Wilmington, North Carolina, and lasting until the murder of Emmett Till in 1955. It was a time when a black man could be lynched simply for crossing the wrong set of railroad tracks, but blacks listened to white artists and white kids hacked headphones into record player circuits to play black blues records.

Here is a 1930 blues song by the white “Father of Country Music” who came from Mississippi, accompanied by black Louis Armstrong who came from New Orleans on trumpet. I really like this recording other than wishing that Rodgers didn’t yodel. This was voted one of the 500 songs that shaped rock and roll.

 
By the early 50s there was so much interest in black music that had become known as "rock and roll" among white kids that record company bosses started searching for a white man who could sing like a black man. The winner of the search was a young white guy from Tupelo, Mississippi, named Elvis Presley.

It is completely true that record company bosses gave Elvis black recordings to remake in the form of “Hound Dog” and “That’s Alright”

But Chuck Berry had a completely opposite take on this, playing country music to black audiences to the point where he got ridiculed for being a black hillbilly, until the black audiences realized that this music was actually fun to dance to

Chuck Berry - Wikipedia

“The band played blues and ballads as well as country. Berry wrote, "Curiosity provoked me to lay a lot of our country stuff on our predominantly black audience and some of our black audience began whispering 'who is that black hillbilly at the Cosmo?' After they laughed at me a few times they began requesting the hillbilly stuff and enjoyed dancing to it."”

So two of the earliest Rock and Roll hits were a white guy (Elvis) singing a black song, and Chuck Berry’s heavy reinterpretation of a country song into making “Maybelline”

Chuck Berry, who was probably a lot more of an influence on groups like the Beatles and The Rolling Stones was, more or less, a country musician despite being black.

 
It is completely true that record company bosses gave Elvis black recordings to remake in the form of “Hound Dog” and “That’s Alright”

But Chuck Berry had a completely opposite take on this, playing country music to black audiences to the point where he got ridiculed for being a black hillbilly, until the black audiences realized that this music was actually fun to dance to

Chuck Berry - Wikipedia

“The band played blues and ballads as well as country. Berry wrote, "Curiosity provoked me to lay a lot of our country stuff on our predominantly black audience and some of our black audience began whispering 'who is that black hillbilly at the Cosmo?' After they laughed at me a few times they began requesting the hillbilly stuff and enjoyed dancing to it."”

So two of the earliest Rock and Roll hits were a white guy (Elvis) singing a black song, and Chuck Berry’s heavy reinterpretation of a country song into making “Maybelline”

Chuck Berry, who was probably a lot more of an influence on groups like the Beatles and The Rolling Stones was, more or less, a country musician despite being black.

Any chance we can let this thread continue as a tribute to the late Charlie Daniels instead of a lesson on music?
 
Any chance we can let this thread continue as a tribute to the late Charlie Daniels instead of a lesson on music?

I love Charlie Daniels music, but this is just how my brain works and I think the man himself would have enjoyed this conversation

Daniels father was a huge fan of Jimmie Rodgers fan and he worked with Bob Dylan who was another huge Jimmie Rodgers fan, Daniels credits Dylan’s confidence in him for a lot of things. Charlie Daniels was originally an R&B singer.

And Daniels place in history as one of the best of talking lyrics or rap in a long country tradition of this is really a thing, and whether or not he influenced rap is a question that I don’t think the guy would have minded being asked. He was actually pretty liberal in the 70s, and if he somehow was an influence on rap (which is honestly pretty questionable) I think the man would have found this to be a great honor

My head just really goes to these things. But despite the strangeness of my head, all the the things I say are related. Very literally, no Jimmie Rodgers=probably no Charlie Daniels Band and I don't think the man himself would question this

Jimmie Rodgers Museum to have free admission Thursday

"My dad was a huge Jimmie Rodgers fan," Daniels said. "Country music claims him, but he was so much more than that. He went across the board."

Daniels recalled visiting the Jimmie Rodgers Museum, and noted that Rodgers' own influences included blues, folk, even rag time.”

Inside Charlie Daniels' Improbable Ride Into the Country Music Hall of Fame

““Bob Dylan said nine words that changed my life,” recalls Daniels. “He said, ‘I don’t want another guitar player. I want him.’ That most certainly changed my outlook, my belief in myself — I mean, just everything.”

Jimmie Rodgers

BOB DYLAN:
The most inspiring type of entertainer for me has always been somebody like Jimmie Rodgers, somebody who could do it alone and was totally original. He was combining elements of blues and hillbilly sounds before anyone else had thought of it. He recorded at the same time as Blind Willie McTell but he wasn't just another white boy singing black. That was his great genius and he was there first... he sang in a plaintive voice and style and he's outlasted them all. ”
 

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