Background |
| For reasons of language and culture, Britain and the United States have had a long relationship in popular music. At first, Americans copied British musical tastes before and after the Revolution with British performers setting American precedents. For example, in the first half of the nineteenth century, British songwriter, Henry Russell, put social commentary into many of his songs. He toured the United States, accompanying himself on piano and singing songs about social conditions of the burgeoning industrial society (notably care of the elderly and the diseases that claimed the life of the very young). He was the model for American performers like the Hutchinson family from Vermont, whose songs about the abolition of slavery and Native American and women's rights, brought them into Abraham Lincoln's campaign. |
| Russell was probably working
out of combined tradition of British folk song (broadside ballads and
what would later be called Child ballads) and parlor song, but the Hutchinsons
and others discovered song as a form of social protest. One urban branch
of the evolution of British folk song was the repertoire of songs sung
in taverns. These places of drink, food, and song grew into larger theaters
known as music halls, and the genteel of British cities much maligned
them. |
| The political, military, and
economic relationship between these Britain and the United States changed
gradually over the twentieth century. The cultural shift began around
the end of the nineteenth century as Europeans took an interest in African-American
musical forms such as the rag, introduced to them by American bands. As
American jazz developed, Europeans took an even greater interest. When
they discovered acoustic blues artists like Huddie Ledbetter and Robert
Johnson, they coveted that also, and this last music provided the perfect
introduction to rock and roll. |