March 2012 saw a selection of Cape Town’s electronic music scene come together in celebration of its existence. Through a series of development workshops, Satellite events and a core 3 day festival the process of presenting an annual look into the multi facets of South Africa’s electronic music scene had begun. This festival attempts to capture and showcase global artists that shape trends in South Africa and more importantly who are the South African artists that are shaping trends globally.

The second Capetown Electronic Music Festival took place February 15th-17th 2013 at the V&A Waterfront. The film team from the documentary TechnoMECCA traveled to South Africa to document the event in an attempt to document the Detroit Techno diaspora and to interview the festival headliner Richie Hawtin. For 3 days we got the opportunity to see and film top notch South African DJ/Producers, at work and behind the scenes. They had a gorgeous location, awesome crowds, and the performances were nothing short of amazing.But, my favorite part so far was an offsite workshop Bridges for Music sponsored. They brought big name DJ/Producers: Richie Hawtin, Black Coffee, and Neskerone out to a community center in Langa Township just outside of Capetown. Neighborhood kids with limited advantages got a chance to meet these key figures and learn a thing or two during a live DJ demonstration and informative Q&A sessions. The exchange of information and ideas was both inspiring and insightful. There was a great response from all in attendance and I got to see with my own two eyes how these types of events greatly impact such communities.

Related articles

• TechnoMECCA teams travels to the Capetown Electronic Music Festival(technomecca.com)

FAME Music was established in 1959 in Florence, Alabama and has gone on to be the heartbeat of the Muscle Shoals Sound with entities including FAME Publishing, FAME Recording Studios, FAME Records and Muscle Shoals Records. FAME moved to Muscle Shoals in 1961. FAME has worked in the studio with some of the Greatest artists in Rock music history. Artists such as Aretha Franklin, Little Richard, Wilson Pickett, Etta James, Otis Redding, the Osmonds, Jerry Reed, Alabama, Mac Davis, the Gatlin Brothers, Bobbie Gentry and many others. More recently FAME has recorded projects for Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit, Matisyahu, Band of Horses, Drive by Truckers, Bettye Lavette, and Jamie Johnson to name a few.

In the last 50 years, FAME has been involved in recording or publishing records that have sold over 350 million copies world wide.

FAME Publishing was founded in 1959 by Rick Hall, Billy Sherrill and Tom Stafford. In 1961, Rick Hall took over as sole owner of FAME. In late 1961 Rick Hall produced Muscle Shoals’ first hit record on Arthur Alexander. The song, “You Better Move On”, was later covered by the Rolling Stones. In 1961 FAME moves its studios and offices to the current location on Avalon Avenue in Muscle Shoals. Jimmy Hughes has a huge hit with “Steal Away” on FAME Records, the first record done at the new location.

At Last! (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

FAME Publishing has had songs cut by Tina Turner, Gary Allan, the Beatles, Jet, Elton John, Sara Evans, Ronnie Milsap, BB King, Tim McGraw, the Dixie Chicks, All 4 One, Earl Thomas Conley, Aretha Franklin, Duane Allman, Arthur Alexander, Joe Simon, James & Bobby Purify, Joe Tex, Marty Raybon, The Tams, The Sweet Inspirations, Arthur Conley, Etta James, Bettye Swann, Tommy Roe, Clarence Carter, Lou Rawls, King Curtis, Marty Stuart, Donny Osmond, Candi Staton, John Hiatt, Little Richard, Bobbie Gentry, Paul Anka, Odia Coates, Otis Redding, Travis Wammack, Sami Jo, Terri GibbsElla Washington, The Osmonds, Linda Davis, Billy Joe Royal, Spencer Wiggins, James Govan, Marcel Strong, Clyde McPhatter, Don Covay, Soul Survivors, Baker & Myers, Dan Penn, Travis Wammack, Vern Gosdin, T. G. Sheppard, The Forrester Sisters, Lobo, Alabama Shenandoah, The FAME Gang, Andy Williams, Mac Davis, Larry Gatlin & The Gatlin Brothers, Jimmy Hughes, Dobie Gray, Wayne Newton, Liza Minnelli, Marie Osmond, Tom Jones, Wet Wiilie, Odia Coates, Willie Hightower, Wilson Pickett, Jerry Lee Lewis, The Drifters, George Jones, Ronnie Dunn (Brooks & Dunn), Wild Cherry, Bill Medley, Solomon Burke, Ray Stevens, Jerry Reed, Billy Ocean,

The Sound of Wilson Pickett (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Bill Haley & The Comets, Brooke Benton, Bettye Lavette, Ava Aldridge, John Paul White, James LeBlanc, Gary Nichols, Heartland, Billy Currington, Darryl Worley, Wayd Battle, Laura Lee, Waylon Jennings, The Shooters, Bobby Womack, Bobby Hatfield, Paul Thorn, Band of Horses, Drive By Truckers, Jason Isbell, Bobby Moore & the Rhythm Aces, The Ugli Stick, Spooner Oldham, Leann Rimes, Huey Lewis and Travis Tritt.

FAME’s current songwriter roster includes multi-award winning writers Brad Crisler and James LeBlanc. Along with Gary Nichols, Jason Isbell, Dylan LeBlanc, Angela Hacker, and the Ugli Stick.

According to his obituary at NPR.org, he “was one of the music industry’s most influential hip-hop artists, working for big-name acts like A Tribe Called Quest, De La Soul, Busta Rhymes and Common.” Renowned producer Pete Rock placed J Dilla on his list of the top five producers of all time, while the editors of About.com ranked him #15 on their list of the Top 50 Hip-Hop Producers. Andy Kellman of Allmusic stated that—by 2004, after being active for well over a decade as a producer — J Dilla had accomplished enough to be considered “an all-time great.” J Dilla made the “Elite 8″ in the search for The Greatest Hip-Hop Producer of All Time by Vibe. Also, The Source placed him on its list of the 20 greatest producers in the magazine’s twenty-year history.

As highly regarded, as he is now, Yancey’s career had a slow start…In 1992, he met experienced Detroit musician Amp Fiddler, who was impressed by what Jay Dee was able to accomplish with such limited tools. Amp Fiddler let Jay Dee use his MPC, which he learned quickly. In 1995, Jay Dee and MC Phat Kat formed 1st Down, and would be the first Detroit hip hop group to sign with a major label (Payday Records).  That same year he recorded ‘Yester Years EP’ with 5 Elementz (a group consisting of the late Proof, Thyme and Mudd). Ultimately, in 1996, he formed the group Slum Village with T3 and Baatin, and recorded the group’s legandary debut, Fan-Tas-Tic (Vol. 1) Just as his music was becoming increasingly popular, Yancey died in 2006 of the blood disease TTP and later in 2006 Baatin followed leaving a lasting legacy and a near “Harlem Renaissance” level musical legacy for a Detroit neighborhood.

“Where we come from is a place we call Conant Gardens, Motown” ~from Slum Village song “Conant Gardens”

Another historical fact about Conant Gardens from prior to modern hip-hop, was that in 1863, anti-slavery societies developed the land now known as Conant Gardens. Shubael Conant was the founder and first president of the Detroit Anti-Slavery Society.

For Juan Atkins the move from Detroit was out of necessity to keep him out of trouble by getting him out of the tough schools on Detroit’s East Side.

“…The decision to move out of Detroit was that I was a bad high school student. I was getting kicked out of school…I think at the heart of the decision was to get me and my brother out before it was ‘too late’…Among the things that Atkins learned in Bellville High School was the theories of Alvin Toffler and his peers in a “Future Studies” class…’I was never really good at sports… so I just made music’…Perhaps inspired by early high school social club parties Atkins picked up the DJ bug and started the DJ collective Deep Space which would follow him well beyond graduation…” Techno Rebels: The Renegades of Electronic Funk By Dan Sicko, Bill Brewster

Alexander Robotnick, Martin Circus and Kraftwerk all broke out to Detroit’s ears via this store; Thomas takes great pride in his place near the center of Detroit’s vinyl dance culture for more than 20 years.

Here’s Mix with a sampling of the music that was the mainstay of the record store:

Today, though, the store seems caught in 1990. Though there are current R&B and hip-hop records in the bins, the vinyl hit wall contains still-in-the-plastic 12-inch singles and (now) old-school techno compilations from a different time, long before the explosion of white labels, bootlegging, digital downloading or the advent of Apple’s iPod.

Thomas argues that it is a conscious attempt at exploring the history of the art form, which he says has not been very easy. He talks of the rampant drug problems and gang wars that raged through the city in the 1980s. Thomas’s eyes grow wide as he explains how the scene splintered into subgenres and the music became, in Thomas’s words, “diluted” in the 1990s. “We lost the people who wanted to live the music.” More… (Waxing on Detroit)

via MetroTimes.com By Carleton S. Gholz

For more info listen to Gilles Patterson (BBC) interview Sir David Rodigan 0n the history of Reggae and Dancehall:

Reggae is most easily recognized by the rhythmic accents on the off-beat, usually played by guitar or piano (or both), known as the skank. This pattern accents the second and fourth beat in each bar (or the “and”s of each beat depending on how the music is counted) and combines with the drums emphasis on beat three to create a unique feel and sense of phrasing in contrast to most other popular genres focus on beat one, the “downbeat”. The tempo of reggae is usually felt as slower than the popular Jamaican forms, ska and rocksteady, which preceded it. It is this slower tempo, the guitar/piano offbeats, the emphasis on the third beat, and the use of syncopated, melodic bass lines that differentiates reggae from other music, although other musical styles have incorporated some of these innovations separately. via Wikipedia

Model 500 (Part 2)

Rick Wade

Thanks to Derrick May, founder and ambassador worldwide, Movement took place for the first time outside American boundaries on June 15th 2006 in Torino to celebrate Winter Olympic Games closure ceremony.

Movement Torino and Movement Detroit since then collaborates to internationally consolidate the brand both on the artistic and the communication and partners interaction side, giving both cities benefits in culture and in tourism.

Movement aim is to become Italian most beloved Clever Entertainment format.

In his seventh edition Movement 2012 will spread his program during September and October, with renewed attention to artistic quality offer, territorial promotion, youth training, innovation and sustainability.

Movement 2012 will be in Torino from October 27th to November 3rd!

Watch the film “Beat This!: A hip hop history” for more info on the origins of Hip Hip.

Hip hop is a form of musical expression and artistic culture that originated in African-American and Latino communities during the 1970s in New York City, specifically the Bronx. DJ Afrika Bambaataa outlined the four pillars of hip hop culture: MCing, DJing, breaking and graffiti writing. Other elements include beatboxing.

Since its emergence in the South Bronx, hip hop culture has spread around the world. Hip hop music first emerged with disc jockeys creating rhythmic beats by looping breaks (small portions of songs emphasizing a percussive pattern) on two turntables, more commonly referred to as sampling. This was later accompanied by “rap”, a rhythmic style of chanting or poetry presented in 16 bar measures or time frames, and beatboxing, a vocal technique mainly used to imitate percussive elements of the music and various technical effects of hip hop DJ’s. An original form of dancing and particular styles of dress arose among fans of this new music. These elements experienced considerable refinement and development over the course of the history of the culture.

Jamaican born DJ Clive “Kool Herc” Campbell is credited as being highly influential in the pioneering stage of hip hop music, in the Bronx, after moving to New York at the age of thirteen. Herc created the blueprint for hip hop music and culture by building upon the Jamaican tradition of toasting—impromptu, boastful poetry and speech over music—which he witnessed as a youth in Jamaica.

Herc and other DJs would tap into the power lines to connect their equipment and perform at venues such as public basketball courts and at 1520 Sedgwick Avenue, Bronx, New York, a historic building is thought of by many as the place “where hip hop was born”. Their equipment was composed of numerous speakers, turntables, and one or more microphones. By using this technique DJs could create a variety of music. Via Wikipedia

“The building, at 1520 Sedgwick Avenue, would be just another one of the flurry of Mitchell-Lama buildings that have changed hands over the past few years, were it not for its community room. It was there, in 1973, that Clive Campbell, known as D.J. Kool Herc, started turning the tables at community parties, producing a sound, a rhythm and a style that spilled out into the nearby parks and streets and, later, to the world. Mr. Campbell was living in the building at the time with his sister, Cindy Campbell.” Via NY Times

Many questions remain for those interested in taking the challenge to research the origins of Hip Hop:

• Do you agree with this description of the history of Hip Hop?
• Were there other places or specific locations that were important to the development of Hip Hop?
• Were there other people who could claim to the the originators of the art from?

Take the challenge to research, refine, and submit a new version of this entry. For more info email: david[at]musicorigins.com

More blues singers seem to have come from the state of Mississippi, especially the Mississippi Delta, than all the other Southern States combined. These include Son House, Robert Johnson, Charlie Patton, Muddy Waters, Skip James, Bukka White, John Lee Hooker, and B. B. King.^[2]

The first marker location seen here, was placed at Holly Ridge in 2005. It is dedicated to Charlie Patton as the “Father of the Mississippi Delta Blues”.^[4]

The second marker is located in front of the Second Whispers Restaurant on Nelson Street in Greenville, a stop on the chitlin’ circuit in the early days of the blues.^[5] This historic strip which in the 1940s and 1950s drew crowds to the flourishing club scene to hear Delta blues, big band jump blues and jazz.

The third marker ceremony was at the WGRM radio station location in Greenwood where B. B. King first broadcast.^[5]

The Mississippi Blues Trail added the Mississippi State Penitentiary (Parchman) to its list of sites at 10 AM on Tuesday September 28, 2010; Parchman received the trail’s 113th historical marker.^[6]
Mississippi Blues Trail

View Mississippi Blues Trail in a larger map

More on the Origins of Blues music:

The first publication of blues sheet music was Hart Wand‘s “Dallas Blues” in 1912; W. C. Handy‘s “The Memphis Blues” followed in the same year. The first recording by an African American singer was Mamie Smith‘s 1920 rendition of Perry Bradford‘s “Crazy Blues”. But the origins of the blues date back to some decades earlier, probably around 1890.^[31] They are very poorly documented, due in part to racial discrimination within American society, including academic circles,^[32] and to the low literacy rate of the rural African American community at the time.^[33] Chroniclers began to report about blues music in Southern Texas and Deep South at the dawn of the 20th century. In particular, Charles Peabody mentioned the appearance of blues music at Clarksdale, Mississippiand Gate Thomas reported very similar songs in southern Texas around 1901–1902. These observations coincide more or less with the remembrance of Jelly Roll Morton, who declared having heard blues for the first time in New Orleans in 1902; Ma Rainey, who remembered her first blues experience the same year in Missouri; and W.C. Handy, who first heard the blues in Tutwiler, Mississippiin 1903. The first extensive research in the field was performed by Howard W. Odum, who published a large anthology of folk songs in the counties of Lafayette, Mississippi and Newton, Georgia between 1905 and 1908.^[34] The first non-commercial recordings of blues music, termed “proto-blues” by Paul Oliver, were made by Odum at the very beginning of the 20th century for research purposes. They are now utterly lost.^[35] Other recordings that are still available were made in 1924 by Lawrence Gellert. Later, several recordings were made by Robert W. Gordon, who became head of the Archive of American Folk Songs of the Library of Congress. Gordon’s successor at the Library was John Lomax. In the 1930s, together with his son Alan, Lomax made a large number of non-commercial blues recordings that testify to the huge variety of proto-blues styles, such as field hollers and ring shouts.^[36] A record of blues music as it existed before the 1920s is also given by the recordings of artists such as Lead Belly^[37] orHenry Thomas^[38] who both performed archaic blues music. All these sources show the existence of many different structures distinct from the twelve-, eight-, or sixteen-bar.^[39][40]

The social and economic reasons for the appearance of the blues are not fully known.^[41]The first appearance of the blues is often dated after the Emancipation Act of 1863,^[32]between 1870 and 1900, a period that coincides with Emancipation and, later, the development of juke joints as places where Blacks went to listen to music, dance, or gamble after a hard day’s work.^[42] This period corresponds to the transition from slavery to sharecropping, small-scale agricultural production, and the expansion of railroads in the southern United States. Several scholars characterize the early 1900s development of blues music as a move from group performances to a more individualized style. They argue that the development of the blues is associated with the newly acquired freedom of the enslaved people. According to Lawrence Levine, “there was a direct relationship between the national ideological emphasis upon the individual, the popularity of Booker T. Washington‘s teachings, and the rise of the blues.” Levine states that “psychologically, socially, and economically, African-Americans were being acculturated in a way that would have been impossible during slavery, and it is hardly surprising that their secular music reflected this as much as their religious music did.”^[43]

There are few characteristics common to all blues music, because the genre took its shape from the idiosyncrasies of individual performances.^[44] However, there are some characteristics that were present long before the creation of the modern blues. Call-and-response shouts were an early form of blues-like music; they were a “functional expression … style without accompaniment or harmony and unbounded by the formality of any particular musical structure.”^[45] A form of this pre-blues was heard in slave ring shouts and field hollers, expanded into “simple solo songs laden with emotional content”.^[46]

Blues has evolved from the unaccompanied vocal music and oral traditions of slaves imported from West Africa and rural blacks into a wide variety of styles and subgenres, with regional variations across the United States. Though blues, as it is now known, can be seen as a musical style based on both European harmonic structure and the African call-and-response tradition, transformed into an interplay of voice and guitar,^[47][48] the blues form itself bears no resemblance to the melodic styles of the West African griots, and the influences are faint and tenuous.^[49][50] In particular, no specific African musical form can be identified as the single direct ancestor of the blues.^[51] However many blues elements, such as the call-and-response format and the use of blue notes, can be traced back to the music of Africa. That blue notes pre-date their use in blues and have an African origin is attested by English composer Samuel Coleridge-Taylor‘s “A Negro Love Song”, from his The African Suite for Piano composed in 1898, which contains blue thirdand seventh notes.^[52] The Diddley bow (a homemade one-stringed instrument found in parts of the American South in the early twentieth century) and the banjo are African-derived instruments that may have helped in the transfer of African performance techniques into the early blues instrumental vocabulary.^[53] The banjo seems to be directly imported from western African music. It is similar to the musical instrument that griots and other Africans such as the Igbo^[54] played (called halam or akonting by African peoples such as the Wolof, Fula and Mandinka).^[55] However, in the 1920s, when country blues began to be recorded, the use of the banjo in blues music was quite marginal and limited to individuals such as Papa Charlie Jackson and later Gus Cannon.^[56]

Blues music also adopted elements from the “Ethiopian airs”, minstrel shows and Negro spirituals, including instrumental and harmonic accompaniment.^[57] The style also was closely related to ragtime, which developed at about the same time, though the blues better preserved “the original melodic patterns of African music”.^[58]

The musical forms and styles that are now considered the “blues” as well as modern “country music” arose in the same regions during the 19th century in the southern United States. Recorded blues and country can be found from as far back as the 1920s, when the popular record industry developed and created marketing categories called “race music” and “hillbilly music” to sell music by blacks for blacks and by whites for whites, respectively. At the time, there was no clear musical division between “blues” and “country,” except for the ethnicity of the performer, and even that was sometimes documented incorrectly by record companies.^[59][60] Though musicologists can now attempt to define “the blues” narrowly in terms of certain chord structures and lyric strategies thought to have originated in West Africa, audiences originally heard the music in a far more general way: it was simply the music of the rural south, notably the Mississippi Delta. Black and white musicians shared the same repertoire and thought of themselves as “songsters” rather than “blues musicians.” The notion of blues as a separate genre arose during the black migration from the countryside to urban areas in the 1920s and the simultaneous development of the recording industry. “Blues” became a code word for a record designed to sell to black listeners.^[61]

The origins of the blues are closely related to the religious music of the Afro-American community, the spirituals. The origins of spirituals go back much further than the blues, usually dating back to the middle of the 18th century, when the slaves were Christianized and began to sing and play Christian hymns, in particular those of Isaac Watts, which were very popular.^[62] Before the blues gained its formal definition in terms of chord progressions, it was defined as the secular counterpart of the spirituals. It was the low-down music played by the rural Blacks. Depending on the religious community a musician belonged to, it was more or less considered as a sin to play this low-down music: blues was the devil’s music. Musicians were therefore segregated into two categories: gospel and blues singers, guitar preachers and songsters. However, at the time rural Black music began to get recorded in the 1920s, both categories of musicians used very similar techniques: call-and-response patterns, blue notes, and slide guitars. Gospel music was nevertheless using musical forms that were compatible with Christian hymns and therefore less marked by the blues form than its secular counterpart.^[63]
[via Wikipedia]

Many questions remain for those interested in taking the challenge to research the origins of Blues:

• Where was it first called Blues music?
• Where exactly were Blue’s sung? Where was it first played?
• What musicians made it popular?