For this assignment, I chose two musical terms: “boogaloo” and “folk music.” The reason I wanted to look up “boogaloo” was because I had never heard it before, and wanted to find out more about it. I’m not quite sure why I chose “folk music;” perhaps because I’m still curious about how this evolved from its earliest days. It’s always fun to go back into the past. My mother is big on genealogy, and I’ve occasionally worked with her on it over the years, so I’ve encountered very old sources of information, and they never fail to fascinate me. The language is the same but also quite different in some ways, mainly in word choice. The search can be almost as fun as the find, and that’s what I felt about this assignment.

Sources

Google NGRAM Viewer – I really like this feature and am so glad to know about it now. The graph is so helpful in getting an overall picture of the timeframe and patterns of usage.

Google Books – The advanced search feature with the date ranges is especially useful when trying to find the earliest references of a topic. This is not a place for getting a lot of free information, but it at least gives good book sources if that is what you are looking for.

ProQuest Historical Newspapers – This was fun. There is something about old newspaper articles that brings a subject to life. The date range feature is so useful. The only downside is that the optical reader is not always accurate, but you can still get many good returns on a search.

Chronicling America at Library of Congress – I’m so disappointed. I tried and tried to access this site, but always got this message: “Chronicling America has encountered an unexpected error while processing your request. The details of this error have been logged, and our troubleshooting specialists will be notified. We apologize for any inconvenience.” In lieu of this source, I used “America’s Historical Newspapers” database, which I accessed through the GMU Library System.

Boogaloo

As I mentioned before, I had never heard of this term! It seems to have multiple meanings. I found references to a type of dance that was big in the 1960’s, and also references in which the term seems to be synonymous with “soul” music. In the Google NGRAM Viewer, there were a few references in the 1940’s, but I couldn’t find any indication of what that was about. The references were between 1939 and 1945, which makes me wonder if there was some slang use of the term during WWII? The references to the dance or soul music started in the late 1950’s, spiked upward during the 1960’s, then dipped back down in the 1970’s. Then in the 1990’s it went back up to the 1970 level, and there was a huge spike in the late 1990’s. I couldn’t tell from this source which of the “hits” on the graph was referencing the dance and which was referencing soul music.

In the ProQuest Historical Newspapers database, the earliest reference I found was a Top 10 Record List from May 22, 1965. The song “Boo-Ga-Loo” by Tom and Jerrio was number six on the list. I listened to it on YouTube, and it was a nice, upbeat, fun song. I thought it maybe had a displaced beat (1 2 AND 3 4), but the next newspaper article that I found – a Chicago Tribune article from February 26, 1967 –  mentioned that the Boogaloo dance can be done to any “one-two-three rock beat.” The article is entitled “Boogaloo is now!” and it describes the dance craze that seemed to hit the United States during that year. According to the article, “no one can agree on where or how it happened,” although “it’s definitely got a Latin flavor.”

There wasn’t much I could find in Google Books, although there is a book from 2005 called Boogaloo: The Quintessence of American Popular Music, by Arthur Kempton. In this case, the word “boogaloo” is being used to reference soul music, so at some point the two terms became synonymous. Although the title mentions “American” popular music, the description of the book calls it a book “on the art, influence, and commerce of Black American popular music,” and Publisher’s Weekly described it as “a grand and sweeping survey of the history of soul music in America.” So the title can really be translated to say Soul Music:  The Quintessence of Black American Popular Music.

I had many hits through the America’s Historical Newspapers database, most of which were from 1968 into the mid 1970’s. Many were casual references to the Boogaloo dance and the teenage craze for it, and gave the distinct impression that there were many annoyed parents out there who were sick of hearing about it and seeing their teens performing it. There were also a number of references to a movie made in the 1980’s called “Breakin’ 2 Electric Boogaloo,” which did not seem to get any good reviews.

Folk Music (or Folk Songs)

This is a very broad category, and it’s hard to tell exactly when the references started. According to Google NGRAM Viewer, a few references showed up in the early and mid-1800’s, but these turned out to be false hits (perhaps a problem with the optical reader?). The main references started in the 1880’s, with a big upsurge until the mid-1940’s. Then there was a slight drop, another spike in the late 1950’s/early 1960’s, a slight drop, another spike in the 1970’s, a slight drop, then a relatively steady line from the 1980’s through the 1990’s. After reading Miller’s book, Segregating Sound, I can understand what would cause the upsurge in the early decades of the 1900’s, which was when the American Folklore Society was established and there was great interest in gathering folk songs from around the country. I’m not sure what caused the later drops and spikes, except for maybe the usual pattern of something going in and out of favor in society.

I found some very interesting items in Google books. There were a number of books on Folk Songs from other nations, which I briefly skimmed through. One in particular had a definition of the folk song that caught my attention and emphasized how different the world was back then. The following quote is from The History of Music, from the Christian Era to the Present Time, written by Frederic Louis Ritter (O. Ditson & Company, 1883):

“The folk-song is an outgrowth from the life of the people. It is a direct naturalistic efflux of popular lyric song; unassisted by art, it is true, but yet the product of innate artistic instinct in the people, seeking a more lofty expression than that of every-day speech for those feelings which are awakened in the soul by the varied events of life. The first authors of the folk-song are, with very few exceptions, unknown: they were either men or women of the people, who with unembarrassed simplicity, and unaware of the laws of art, described with free originality that which lived and moved in the soul of the people…On one side purely human feeling, on the other side national character, are truthfully reflected in the folk-song; in it the characteristics of a nation are so faithfully displayed that it not only betrays its origin, but also enables us to judge, through its distinguishing features, of the relationship existing between different races of men.”

Ritter describes a folk song as one in which human emotion and national character are “truthfully reflected,” which I think is a very nice way to put it. I found it interesting that he mentions how folk songs enable us to “judge…the relationship…between different races of men.” Would this be an example of the Racial Nationalism point of view?

The 1895 Pamphlets Relating to Performances of Popular, National, and Folk Music in Minnesota was an early reference to American folk music. Unfortunately, there was no further information on this volume, but this would seem to be a common type of pamphlet from back then. Another book that showed up was the 1907 Folk Songs of the American Negro, written by Frederick Work (another person from Miller’s book).  The 1914 book Afro-American Folksongs: A Study in Racial and National Music, written by Henry Edward Krehbiel, was “written with the purpose of bringing a species of folksong into the field of scientific observation and presenting it as fit material for artistic treatment.” This sounds so much like the mindset of the American Folklore Society, as described in Miller’s book. Although it sounds like a condescending attitude towards African Americans, at least there was recognition of the importance of documenting the music. Yet another of Miller’s references came up in the Google Books search – Dorothy Scarborough’s 1925 book On the Trail of Negro Folk-songs. It was a strange feeling to encounter all these “acquaintances” from the past!

The ProQuest Historical Newspapers database came up with a number of articles, two of which I will mention here. The July 5, 1893 edition of the Chicago Tribune had an article describing the Women’s Musical Congress, with the day’s program including “Indian and Folk Song Music” as well as an address on “Folk Song in America.” The March 16, 1895 issue of the Boston Daily Globe contained an article on “Folk Songs of the Negroes,” during which “Capt R. R. Molen Explains to the Folk Lore Society the Origin and Nature of the Melodies.” The descriptions that these old articles give of the people seem so unusual now, such as “five negro students and a handsome young Winnebago Indian.” This article contained many quotes that I’d like to include here, but I’ll keep it minimal. It is clear that they are showing respect for the folk songs of Negroes, but at the same time the condescending tone comes through loud and clear: “It is a true body of folk songs, the outgrowth of the conditions that surrounded in the past an oppressed and humble, but highly-emotional race, who expressed all emotions whether of joy or sorrow, of love or anger, naturally and spontaneously through the medium of rhythmic and musical sounds.” The article pointed out that some of the music was not really folk music but “is in some cases an imitation by white ‘nigger minstrels’ of some of the wilder or more ridiculous of the shouts or religious songs of the negroes…” Wow. It’s one thing reading Miller’s comprehensive book on these ideas, but reading newspaper articles of the real happenings is like a slap in the face. It’s so strange to go back to these older times when people thought so differently, and to try to understand why they thought that way.

America’s Historical Newspapers database had thousands of articles with references to folk music or folk songs, with 1869 being the earliest. The articles I looked at were about musical programs or lectures that included folk songs. One that caught my eye described a lecture by a “Mr. Elson” on “National Music” in the Macon Telegraph (Macon, Georgia) on March 23, 1887. This brought to mind our discussion in class on the United States searching for its national identity. Mr. Elson points out that “although all folksong comes under the bead of national music, the world has come to consider such music essentially national which awakens patriotic feelings…our own land, which possesses liberty in the highest degree, has the least national music worthy of comment…we find that our national music is not as powerful as that of older nations, and that much of it is really not our own.” This is quite a look into how the nation felt back in the late 1800’s as the United States was still struggling with its identity. This was an important backdrop to life at that time, although our national identity is something people now tend to take for granted. (Although with our current election nightmare I wonder if our national identity is going through a crisis. I won’t say anything more about that!)

The four sources I was able to use for this assignment provided me with very useful and different views of information sources – the graph from Google NGRAM Viewer, the daily slice of life in the newspaper articles, and entire books devoted to the subjects. For me, the most powerful of all are the newspaper articles, not only for the information they contain but mainly because of their depiction of real life. The people feel so real, and there is such an acute sense of being in that time. All in all, this was a fascinating step back into the past, which is so often like stepping into a whole different world! It is so important to do this, and try to understand the context in which something evolved, and why people thought the way they did. Many times we tend to judge things based on our current modern mindset, which gives a distorted view.

Professor O’Malley pointed out something today in class that really resonates – that we have “an obligation to weigh and measure information.” He pointed out that history books used in schools are written by a group of people about whom we know nothing. Everything written (or spoken) has some kind of bias, even if it’s unintentional. Every human has their own unique mindset, built upon experiences in life, and even when we are fed the same information we have our own way of shaping and processing that information. Not only do we need to sort out others’ biases, but we also need to be careful of our own. Thinking about the history books made me think of Miller’s description of the evolution of the American Folklore Society, and how the folklorists didn’t portray an accurate picture of what Southern folks were really about – instead they molded what they found into their own preconceived notions of what Southern folklore (in their minds) must be about. I find this particular example so sad, especially the idea of dressing Muddy Waters up in overalls and having him in bare feet. Not only was this an inaccurate depiction, it was also very disrespectful. Unfortunately, that was the way much of society viewed Southern folks, especially African Americans back then. Even though we currently still have societal issues between Whites and African Americans, at least there has been a great deal of (painful) progress.

Back to the idea of having to weigh and measure information – once you start to think about this, you see all kinds of examples (which is a good thing for the sake of awareness). The photo manipulation during the Civil War that Professor O’Malley spoke about in class makes me wonder just how often throughout history that kind of thing went on. I suspect it was a common occurrence. It’s appalling that photographers would deliberately heighten the impact of their photos by moving bodies around, or piling them together just for the sake of drama. This is bad journalism, but it seems as though the desire for more attention and more money is too often at work. I’m studying Celtic Art, and bias is a definite issue, because the Celts did not keep written records themselves until the Christian Era began, and we have to rely on reports from the Romans, among others. The Romans, including Julius Caesar, in some cases seemed to be recording solidly accurate information, such as in what they looked like and what they wore. But there were obvious biases as well, for example in describing them as total barbarians, which was not the case.

People need to be aware of biases and manipulation. In addition to Miller’s examples in Segregating Sound, Carr goes into this issue in The Shallows, pointing out all the free access to tremendous amounts of information that people now have. This is probably the biggest challenge yet in attempting to weed out inaccurate information, not only because of the amount of data, but also because of the skill with which it can be manipulated. Information can easily be made to appear authentic by sneaking it into an academic or scientific format, or citing fake or weak credentials. It’s mind-boggling how many ways there are to disguise misinformation. One more thought about photo manipulation – these days it goes way beyond moving bodies around to make the aftermath of a battle look more dramatic and gruesome. With tools such as Photo Shop, photos can be endlessly manipulated. How can we possibly stay on top of that? It’s pretty frightening!

Miller’s book Segregating Sound and our class lectures have provided so many different themes and sub-themes that my brain is swirling. The main theme in Segregating Sound is the musical “color line” that evolved in the South during the 1880s to 1920s (and beyond), that grew out of segregation, the establishment of the American Folklore Society, and the invention of the Talking Machine by Edison. Each of these areas leads to many sub-themes (folklorists, authenticity, isolation, white people’s motivations in performing in minstrel shows, and many others) and questions. For example, why did it take so long for the music industry to look at the South as a market for music, when they were able to successfully create numerous international markets? Why did the American Folklore Society promote themselves as a “scientific authority” when they were fitting the information that they gathered into their own preconceived mold? What weird impulses led to minstrel shows and boundary transgression? But there is one sub-theme that I really wanted to address, which is the fascinating concept of displacement in time and space. We encountered this idea in Carr’s book The Shallows, when he was discussing inventions that changed the way humans think, such as maps, books, and mechanical clocks. These were more than conveniences for people – they actually changed the way people thought, and the way they viewed the world. Carr’s analysis of how the Internet is affecting the human brain is another indication of displacement in space and time for people, a dramatic shift in how people process information. Miller’s book has many examples of less comfortable sorts of displacement. Segregation had a huge impact on African-Americans, so much so that many of them found life intolerable in the South, which led to the Great Migration of the early 1900’s. Many went north, others became traveling musicians to escape the Jim Crow South, with its forms of oppression such as the “imprisonment” some sharecroppers experienced on the plantations, and the horrors of the “spectacle” lynchings. This is a physical and mental displacement, and while it led to success for some, it must have been a terrible ordeal for others in many ways. Leaving the rural South and migrating to a big city with completely different customs and a totally foreign atmosphere would be very disorienting. Like the ones mentioned in Carr’s book, advances in technology during this time would also cause a sense of displacement. Time zones, the telegraph, the railroad, the talking machine, the industrial development of southern rural areas (such as in the mountains), and the ability to order items by  mail are just a few examples of the huge shift people of the South were experiencing in the late 1800s and early 1900s. In addition, folklorists who collected songs in the interest of recording them for posterity descended on the South, yet they mostly manipulated what they found to fit their own ideal picture of folklore. For example, John Lomax portrayed Muddy Waters as “unclean” and primitive, and he insisted that Ledbetter be photographed in overalls and bare feet, instead of a suit, which is what he wanted to wear. This insistence on publicly portraying a stereotype instead of reality must have been frustratingly disorienting. Lastly, this displacement extends to music, in the displacement of the beat found in various forms such as early jazz, reggae, and swing. This was a deliberate displacement that came out of experimenting with music to create a new kind of expression. This is such a complicated topic, as are all of the themes found in Miller’s book, but they are ones that are worth exploring. Miller’s book provided a tremendously eye-opening look at an era that was far more complex than most people would think.

I found Muddy Waters so intriguing in our class lecture that I had to look up more about him. When he was a young man, living and working on Stovall Plantation, there were a number of folklorists who were traveling through the South collecting folk songs. As Miller pointed out in his book Segregating Sound, many folk songs were connected to labor, such as railroad workers and miners. But for others, such as Muddy Waters, music was an escape from the drudgery of working. Poor Muddy hated farming, and he finally “escaped” from life at Stovall to pursue his career as a blues musician. I listened to some of his recordings, and compared earlier and later versions of two of them. The first was I Be’s Troubled, which is the one we listened to in class. I wanted to hear it again, and then compare it to a later version of the same song performed by Muddy. The early one showed a picture of a young Muddy sitting on a porch with his guitar. He has a “closed in” expression, and looks wary as he is approached by Alan Lomax, who was collecting folk songs. In this early version of the song, Muddy’s voice sounds a little hesitant and serious. You can sense tension in it, and it’s somewhat subdued, as though he was singing to himself. Even his guitar playing sounded subdued. At this time he must have really been searching for where he was going with his music in a crazy Jim Crow south. In the later (1976) version, Muddy sounded more confident, polished, and “solid,” There is more bounce and freedom to the playing and the singing, and more elaboration on the guitar. He seems to know what he’s about now.

Next I listened to an early version of Baby Please Don’t Go, another great song of his. In this version, he has several band members playing with him, and the playing is slower, less bouncy, more laid-back (or perhaps more tentative?). Then I watched a very fun later version, in which he brings Mick Jagger and Keith Richards on stage with him to join in on Baby Please Don’t Go. There is such a sense of comfort and belonging and comraderie between these musicians. Muddy seems to be where he was going with his music. His voice is smooth and polished, and the playing is more energetic. The whole performance was so authentic and you wanted it to go on and on. What a fascinating thing it is to be able to listen to the early and later versions of songs, and see and hear the progression and development in Muddy’s sound.

Today’s class was extremely interesting. People hardly ever think about the enormous impact of technologies of the past, and the extent to which they changed not only people’s lives, but also how they viewed the world. For example, it’s hard for us now to imagine what the world was like before electricity or telephones. We never had to do without them, although we do get a glimpse into that world when there is a power outage. But that’s different too – for us, it’s a temporary halt in the flow of electricity. We know what electricity does in our lives, we’re familiar with it, we depend on it. Before it was discovered and packaged for homes, businesses, everywhere, people couldn’t even imagine what it would be like to have it. To them it was the most natural thing in the world to use candles or gaslight, and to live with the dark in a way in which we never have to. Professor O’Malley described the “displacement in space and time” that people experienced when new technology like this was implemented. How disorienting each new technology must have been, even if it improved their lives!

The internet is a modern-day “displacing” technology. Just framing it in our minds in a way we could understand was an enormous challenge – at least for non-techies. And then there was the learning curve. And now it seems like a tremendous information overload. We can access just about any information we want or need. It’s almost instant. Is the instant access to so much information from all over the world really a good thing? In many ways it is, but we also have to get used to that displacement in time and space. We have to get used to experiencing what someone else is experiencing because we can see things happening in real-time, or nearly real-time. It has an incredible impact on people – not only do we have to handle the emotions of our own situations (good or bad), but we also have to take on the immediacy of being exposed to other people’s situations (good or bad). This can be extremely overwhelming and disorienting.

Another aspect of this displacement in time and space is that there is so much information being thrown around that people don’t always know what information they can trust. There is a huge amount of misinformation out there, and we can’t always tell what is accurate. For example, if someone tweets out a message that contains wrong information, and then that message gets retweeted by that twitter account’s followers, and then their followers retweet, suddenly there can be thousands of people receiving wrong information without necessarily knowing it. And websites can be just about as misleading as they want to be. Along with all the wonderful benefits of the internet comes the responsibility of trying to discern good information from bad.

As was discussed in class, this displacement in time and space happens in so many areas, such as movies. The Saving Private Ryan example showed the disconcerting effect of being an omniscient observer, seeing the action from impossible points of view. I think we’ve been exposed to this for so long that it’s natural for us. However, I still vividly remember (and always will) the shocking effect that the movie Das Boot had on me (and I presume many others). I realize now that what I was feeling was a disturbing, almost cruel displacement. All through the movie we are “living” with a German U-boat crew as though we were one of them, getting to know them as real people, and becoming attached to them. The last scene, where the US swoops in to bomb them as they are getting off the docked U-boat, was like a huge slap in the face or punch in the stomach. I found myself shouting (internally) No! No! Don’t bomb them! The movie had done such a thorough job of displacement that the roles were completely reversed in the viewer’s mind. Suddenly the US military had become the bad guys. I got the point – they’re all real people in a war, and each side believes in its cause. But I still can’t help feeling rather resentful at being so shockingly manipulated, without even realizing it until after the big punch at the end. It felt like a betrayal. I’m extremely glad that we learned about this in class, because now I will be more aware of how the viewer is being controlled.