The Medium is the Message

This blog post is for 10/10/18.

The idea that the older, like Jimmie Rodgers old, was created to help the new immigrants to cities remanence about the country seems to ring true at least for the most part. When looking at even just the names of Jimmie Rodgers song, they reference Tennessee, Texas, Memphis (which is also in Tennessee), Carolina, and Mississippi. These places, if not now then definitely back then, were considered very country or rural. One song even mentions a cowboy, which I would venture to say you can’t find in a city. Even I listen to some current country music because it reminds me of the much different life I had in Texas than here in Northern Virginia. Then, when you look at Merle Haggards song, he mentions directly in “California Cotton Fields” plowing cotton fields. These songs were meant to evoke a rural feeling to them.

I can also see how the different genres of the same song were made in order to appeal to different people. For example, “Whatcha Know, Joe” was made in a “race record” as well as in a more upbeat and country song. So, three versions of the same song were created to appeal to the African American crowd, the northern white crowd, and the southern white crowd. This leads me a little bit closer to the idea that there’s a semi-common origin between music genres. There’s at least a way that they fed off of each other in order to fine tune what sold in certain places and what did not.