MUSIC 3302 - Rhythm and Blues to Funk: Black Popular Music Before Hip Hop

(crosslisted) AMST 3302
(HA-AS, HST-AS)

Fall. 3 credits. Student option grading.

S. Pond.

In this discussion-focused course, we’ll investigate the various sounds of Black popular music in the post-World War II period, its antecedents, interactions with other popular musics, and influences on later developments, principally to the mid-1970s. The historical focus of the course locates rhythm & blues (R&B) as both a personal/interactive expression and as an expression of culture; our investigation, therefore, encompasses style history in light of how R&B affects, and is affected by, notions of ethnicity, class, nationalism, racial politics, aesthetics, gender, and genre. Throughout, we will focus our inquiry through listening to historical recordings. We’ll investigate what has changed over time and try to understand why. To do this, we’ll study writings about music by musicians and non-musicians, study developments in music production and marketing, experience the music hands-on, and do research to add to the body of literature on rhythm-and-blues. (HC)