Classification Essay: American Music
Are you a music fan? Of course you are, everybody is. Music is a big part of everyone’s life nowadays. Music is definitely a very big part of my life. I am a guitar player and I play in a country band. Although I play in a country band, my musical tastes are very eclectic. Most teens my age are into hard rock, metal, pop, hip-hop, etc. I like these genres, however I enjoy more mellow styles. My favorite musical styles are country, blues, and classic rock.
If you ask most teens what their favorite style of music is, you will probably hear country the least. Country is probably my favorite though. Most people think that is weird, but I was raised listening to country music. It is a style that is easy to relate to. Most country songs tell stories that almost everyone can understand. Most people stereotype country songs as talking about drinking, divorce, mammas, and dogs. They go much deeper than that. Country is derived from the root of all modern music, the Blues.
Slaves started the Blues in the 1800’s. They sang of their pain, anger, toils, hardships, and frustrations. They poured their souls into their songs. After the turn of the century Blues branched out into two categories, Delta Blues and Chicago Blues. The Delta Blues were the acoustic, soulful blues that the slaves sang just a few decades earlier. One of the most famous Delta Bluesmen was Robert Johnson, who was fabled to have sold his soul to the devil in exchange for becoming a famous musician. Muddy Waters founded the Chicago Blues, an electrified version of the Delta Blues. This led to a revolution in music, which brought about a new form of music that we refer to now as classic rock.
Classic rock also brought a revolution, the music of today. However, most of the musical innovations that are used today came about in the1960’s and 1970’s. It was the heyday for these innovations, but it was also the heyday for the music itself. There were many bands that came out of that era. The sad thing is that there are very few of them around today. Bands like Black Sabbath, Aerosmith, and Lynyrd Skynyrd are only a very few that have endured through the years.