Uncategorized – High Brown Songs

The Minstrel Show

This is a long story to tell. Many of us are curious about the history of it.

There were traces of minstrelsy before 1843. I speculate that these grew out of plays where black characters were played by white actors. When plays were musical, this required the white performer to imitate black music and dance. It was fairly easy access to encounter black music in those days.

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African-American Subject Songs

Banned on YouTube. We have received strikes for hate speech which endangers our channel. Thus, we’ve had to delete many of the videos which contain epithets in title or lyrics. You will find audio mp3s for them here on this website. This is a very important collection musically. We pledge to grow it much bigger over the next few years.

Something uniquely American

African music and European music combined most notably in the Caribbean. Black slaves performed the music on plantations for The Minuet, cotillion, and quadrille. I believe African-Americans started the practice of quadrille prompting around 1820 which later became square dance calling.

White Men with Banjos

When did blackface clowns first appear with banjos? This instrument was needed for the act. But where could one acquire a banjo in the 1830s? Did they make them? How did they learn how to play and what would the playing style have been? A great deal of assistance would be needed by good banjo makers and players.

Behind Every Star

The creation of American jazz, blues, swing, rap, and hip hop started long ago when African song and dance was combined with European styles. In the West Indies and throughout the Americas wherever slaves were kept, there was an interaction between white and black. I think of it as understudy. Two films show blacks in charge of plantation music, Gone With the Wind and Twelve Years a Slave.

Category: Uncategorized