Chord Changes.
When you are living in these times and are caught up with modern music it is easy to forget where a lot of it all began. The Rap, Hip-Hop, Metal and Grunge of today all evolved from genres of long ago.
Frank Sinatra, Fats Waller and Billie Holiday were all singing about love and social issues decades before the acts of today. Without the blues riffs of Muddy Waters, Howlin’ Wolf and Lightning Hopkins there would have been no Hendrix. And if Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin had not taken it all to the next level then we would never have had Nirvana, Pearl Jam or The Smashing Pumpkins.
Music is transient. If it had not evolved then we would not have such a wonderful diversity of styles today. Every genre of modern music owes an enormous amount to the singers and musicians of yesteryear. There are many people today who think that music is doing things that are new and original. Of course, in as much as styles go this is true, but the singers of present times are singing about many of the same things as their musical ancestors. Don’t be under the illusion that there are a lot of subjects that can only be sung about by today’s artists…
Take ‘Lady Day’ for example. The life of Billie Holiday was not exactly a bundle of laughs. She had several relationships with violent men and struggled with addiction problems for much of her life. Drink and hard drugs were just as big an issue amongst performers all those years ago. As for subject matter in her songs, you have a listen to ‘Strange Fruit’ and its sad tale of racism in the Deep South.
In fact, musicians had a tougher time of things back then. There were certainly not pampered like the stars of today.
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