Today we’re taking a step back from our multi-show, extended listen to the music of NYC to review where we’ve been and how we got here – our story so far. Because there is a chronology driving that larger story that’s easily lost in what seem like stand-alone shows, an occasional recap may be helpful. We began by following the northern migration of African-Americans from the Jim Crow south up the Mississippi corridor to the relative freedom of Chicago in the first half of the 20th century. There was another arm of the migration at the same time up the east coast of the US, and we followed that one from Atlanta to the Piedmont and Tidewater regions, on up to NYC, helping it become the music capital of the US in the first half of the 20th century. And we stayed in the NYC awhile exploring its rich musical stew. Today, we’re going to tie all those weekly stories together and recap our story of the northern migration of African-Americans and their music in the early decades of records and radio. Our story so far...
The story after this follows the rise and fall of Rock & Roll AM Radio in the 50's and 60's, as popular music began to move west from NYC to Detroit and Chicago, and on to the West Coast. We've finished that trek last week, and now we'll take a break - a hiatus - of indeterminate length and come back with the story of the western arm of the Great Migration of African-Americans and their music from Louisiana and points east to Texas, and then on to LA in a migration that included whites and nortenos too after WWII. We'll also listen to those that stayed behind, forging regional musics. We'll eventually catch the music of the islands, from Hawaii to Jamaica, look at the history of the different instruments in the band in American music, and go who knows where from there. There's a lot of story to come, but we'll leave it there for now. Keep roots music alive! And we'll see you when...