1.
Shreveport, Louisiana
–
Shreveport is the third-largest city in the state of Louisiana and the 113th-largest city in the United States. It is the seat of Caddo Parish and extends along the Red River into neighboring Bossier Parish, Bossier City is separated from Shreveport by the Red River. The population of Shreveport was 199,311 in 2010, the Shreveport-Bossier City Metropolitan Statistical Area ranks 111th in the United States, according to the United States Census Bureau. Shreveport is the commercial and cultural center of the Ark-La-Tex region, where Arkansas, Louisiana, Shreveport was established to launch a town at the meeting point of the Red River and the Texas Trail. The Red River was cleared and made navigable by Captain Henry Miller Shreve. A 180-mile-long natural log jam, the Great Raft, had previously obstructed passage to shipping, Shreve used a specially modified riverboat, the Heliopolis, to remove the log jam. The company and the village of Shreve Town were named in Shreves honor, Shreve Town was originally contained within the boundaries of a section of land sold to the company by the indigenous Caddo Indians in 1835. In 1838 Caddo Parish was created from the large Natchitoches Parish, on March 20,1839, the town was incorporated as Shreveport. Originally, the town consisted of 64 city blocks, created by eight streets running west from the Red River and eight streets running south from Cross Bayou, Shreveport soon became a center of steamboat commerce, mostly cotton and agricultural crops. Shreveport also had a market, though slave trading was not as widespread as in other parts of the state. Steamboats plied the Red River, and stevedores loaded and unloaded cargo, by 1860, Shreveport had a population of 2,200 free people and 1,300 slaves within the city limits. During the American Civil War, Shreveport was the capital of Louisiana from 1863 to 1865, having succeeded Baton Rouge, the city was a Confederate stronghold throughout the war and was the site of the headquarters of the Trans-Mississippi Department of the Confederate Army. Fort Albert Sidney Johnston was built on a ridge northwest of the city, because of limited development in that area, the site is relatively undisturbed. Confederate President Jefferson Davis tried to flee to Shreveport, intending to go down the Mississippi, throughout the war, women in Shreveport did much to assist the soldiers fighting mostly far to the east. Winters writes of them in The Civil War in Louisiana, The women of Shreveport and vicinity labored long hours over their sewing machines to provide their men with adequate underclothing, joined by others, the Society collected blankets for the wounded and gave concerts and tableaux to raise funds. Tickets were sold for a ring given by the mercantile house of Hyams. A Confederate minstrel show gave two performances to raise money for the war effort in Shreveport in December 1862, the Shreveport Ladies Aid Society announced a grand dress ball for April 6,1863. That same month students at the Mansfield Female College in Mansfield in De Soto Parish presented a vocal and instrumental concert to support the war, the Red River, which had been opened by Shreve in the 1830s, remained navigable throughout the Civil War
2.
Louisiana
–
Louisiana is a state located in the southern region of the United States. Louisiana is the 31st most extensive and the 25th most populous of the 50 United States and its capital is Baton Rouge and largest city is New Orleans. Louisiana is the state in the U. S. with political subdivisions termed parishes. The largest parish by population is East Baton Rouge Parish, Louisiana is bordered by Arkansas to the north, Mississippi to the east, Texas to the west, and the Gulf of Mexico to the south. Much of the lands were formed from sediment washed down the Mississippi River, leaving enormous deltas and vast areas of coastal marsh. These contain a rich southern biota, typical examples include birds such as ibis, there are also many species of tree frogs, and fish such as sturgeon and paddlefish. In more elevated areas, fire is a process in the landscape. These support a large number of plant species, including many species of orchids. Louisiana has more Native American tribes than any other state, including four that are federally recognized, ten that are state recognized. Before the American purchase of the territory in 1803, the current Louisiana State had been both a French colony and for a period, a Spanish one. In addition, colonists imported numerous African people as slaves in the 18th century, many came from peoples of the same region of West Africa, thus concentrating their culture. Louisiana was named after Louis XIV, King of France from 1643 to 1715, when René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle claimed the territory drained by the Mississippi River for France, he named it La Louisiane. The suffix -ana is a Latin suffix that can refer to information relating to an individual, subject. Thus, roughly, Louis + ana carries the idea of related to Louis, the Gulf of Mexico did not exist 250 million years ago when there was but one supercontinent, Pangea. As Pangea split apart, the Atlantic Ocean and Gulf of Mexico opened, Louisiana slowly developed, over millions of years, from water into land, and from north to south. The oldest rocks are exposed in the north, in such as the Kisatchie National Forest. The oldest rocks date back to the early Tertiary Era, some 60 million years ago, the history of the formation of these rocks can be found in D. Spearings Roadside Geology of Louisiana. The sediments were carried north to south by the Mississippi River
3.
Folk music
–
Folk music includes both traditional music and the genre that evolved from it during the 20th century folk revival. The term originated in the 19th century, but is applied to music older than that. Some types of music are also called world music. Traditional folk music has been defined in several ways, as music transmitted orally, music with unknown composers and it has been contrasted with commercial and classical styles. Starting in the century, a new form of popular folk music evolved from traditional folk music. This process and period is called the revival and reached a zenith in the 1960s. This form of music is called contemporary folk music or folk revival music to distinguish it from earlier folk forms. Smaller, similar revivals have occurred elsewhere in the world at other times and this type of folk music also includes fusion genres such as folk rock, folk metal, electric folk, and others. Even individual songs may be a blend of the two, a consistent definition of traditional folk music is elusive. The terms folk music, folk song, and folk dance are comparatively recent expressions and they are extensions of the term folklore, which was coined in 1846 by the English antiquarian William Thoms to describe the traditions, customs, and superstitions of the uncultured classes. Traditional folk music also includes most indigenous music, however, despite the assembly of an enormous body of work over some two centuries, there is still no certain definition of what folk music is. Some do not even agree that the term Folk Music should be used, Folk music may tend to have certain characteristics but it cannot clearly be differentiated in purely musical terms. One meaning often given is that of old songs, with no known composers, the fashioning and re-fashioning of the music by the community that give it its folk character. Such definitions depend upon processes rather than abstract musical types, one widely used definition is simply Folk music is what the people sing. For Scholes, as well as for Cecil Sharp and Béla Bartók, Folk music was already. seen as the authentic expression of a way of life now past or about to disappear, particularly in a community uninfluenced by art music and by commercial and printed song. In these terms folk music may be seen as part of a schema comprising four types, primitive or tribal, elite or art, folk. Music in this genre is often called traditional music. Although the term is only descriptive, in some cases people use it as the name of a genre
4.
Folk rock
–
It has also been influential in those parts of the world with close cultural connections to Britain and gave rise to the genre of folk punk. By the 1980s the genre was in decline in popularity. When English bands of the late 1960s and early 1970s defined themselves as electric folk they were making a distinction with the existing folk rock. Folk rock was what they had already been producing, American or American style singer-songwriter material played on instruments, as undertaken by Bob Dylan. They drew the distinction because they were focusing on indigenous songs, the result of this hybridisation was an exchange of specific features drawn from Traditional music and Rock music. For example, electric folk groups, while using traditional material as their source for lyrics and tunes. In the same year, The Beatles began incorporating overt folk influences into their music, the Beatles and other British Invasion bands, in turn, influenced the Californian band The Byrds, who began playing folk-influenced material and Bob Dylan compositions with rock instrumentation. The Byrds recording of Dylans Mr Tambourine Man was released in April 1965 and reached #1 on the U. S. and UK singles charts, setting off the mid-1960s folk rock movement. The Beatles late 1965 album, Rubber Soul, contained a number of songs clearly influenced by the American folk rock boom, such as Nowhere Man and If I Needed Someone. Folk rock became an important genre among emerging English bands, particularly those in the London club scene towards the end of the 1960s. Like the American revival, it was often overtly left wing in its politics, most important among their responses were the foundation of folk clubs in major towns, starting with London where MacColl began the Ballads and Blues Club in 1953. These clubs were usually urban in location, but the songs sung in them often hearkened back to a rural pre-industrial past, in many ways this was the adoption of abandoned popular music by the middle classes. This meant that there were, by the later 1960s, a group of performers with musical skill and knowledge of a variety of traditional songs. The result was an interpretation of the song A Sailors Life. The rapid expansion of electric folk that followed in the wake of Liege, five Hand Reel a band formed out of the remnants of Spencers Feat proved to be one of the more successful and influential folk rock bands. Releasing 4 albums with Topic/RCA records they were popular in Europe. He then quit that and eventually formed the Albion Country Band, later the Albion Band, a much smaller group of English bands were formed in emulation of existing electric rock bands. Fiddlers Dram were often dismissed as one hit wonders for their single Day Trip to Bangor, most of their career, from that point until they disbanded in 1979, was one of declining profile and sales
5.
Country music
–
Country music is a genre of United States popular music that originated in the southern United States in the 1920s. It takes its roots from the genre of United States, such as folk music. Blues modes have been used throughout its recorded history. The term country music is used today to many styles and subgenres. In 2009 country music was the most listened to rush hour radio genre during the evening commute, immigrants to the Southern Appalachian Mountains of North America brought the music and instruments of Europe and Africa along with them for nearly 300 years. Country music was introduced to the world as a Southern phenomenon, Bristol, Tennessee, has been formally recognized by the U. S. Congress as the Birthplace of Country Music, based on the historic Bristol recording sessions of 1927. Since 2014, the city has been home to the Birthplace of Country Music Museum, historians have also noted the influence of the less-known Johnson City sessions of 1928 and 1929, and the Knoxville sessions of 1929 and 1930. Prior to these, pioneer settlers, in the Great Smoky Mountains region, had developed a musical heritage. The first generation emerged in the early 1920s, with Atlantas music scene playing a role in launching countrys earliest recording artists. Okeh Records began issuing hillbilly music records by Fiddlin John Carson as early as 1923, followed by Columbia Records in 1924, many hillbilly musicians, such as Cliff Carlisle, recorded blues songs throughout the 1920s. The most important was the Grand Ole Opry, aired starting in 1925 by WSM in Nashville, during the 1930s and 1940s, cowboy songs, or Western music, which had been recorded since the 1920s, were popularized by films made in Hollywood. Bob Wills was another musician from the Lower Great Plains who had become very popular as the leader of a hot string band. His mix of country and jazz, which started out as dance hall music, Wills was one of the first country musicians known to have added an electric guitar to his band, in 1938. Country musicians began recording boogie in 1939, shortly after it had played at Carnegie Hall. Gospel music remained a component of country music. It became known as honky tonk, and had its roots in Western swing and the music of Mexico. By the early 1950s a blend of Western swing, country boogie, rockabilly was most popular with country fans in the 1950s, and 1956 could be called the year of rockabilly in country music. Beginning in the mid-1950s, and reaching its peak during the early 1960s, the late 1960s in American music produced a unique blend as a result of traditionalist backlash within separate genres
6.
Alternative country
–
Alternative country is a loosely defined subgenre of country music, which includes acts that differ significantly in style from mainstream or pop country music. It has been used to describe country music bands and artists that have incorporated influences ranging from rock, bluegrass, rockabilly, honky-tonk, alternative rock, folk rock. Attempts to combine punk and country were pioneered by Jason and the Scorchers, members and figures associated with Uncle Tupelo formed three major bands in the genre, Wilco, Son Volt and Bottle Rockets. Other influential bands included Blue Mountain, Whiskeytown, and Blood Oranges, lyrics may be bleak or socially aware, but also more heartfelt and less likely to use the clichés sometimes used by mainstream country musicians. No Depression, the magazine dedicated to the genre, declared that it covered alternative-country music. Another major influence was country rock, the result of fusing country music with a rock & roll sound, the artist most commonly thought to have originated country rock is Gram Parsons, although Michael Nesmith, Steve Earle and Gene Clark are frequently identified as important innovators. The third factor was punk rock, which supplied an energy, the bands Blue Mountain, Whiskeytown, Blood Oranges and Drive-By Truckers further developed this tradition before most began to move more in the direction of rock music in the 2000s. List of alternative country musicians Heartland rock Red Dirt Southern rock Texas country music Notes Bibliography Alden, Grant, & Blackstock, no Depression, An Introduction to Alternative Country Music. Modern Twang, An Alternative Country Music Guide and Directory, kasten, Roy, Fifteen Things You Might Not Know about The Bottle Rockets, on Their Fifteenth Birthday, Riverfront Times. Hogeland, William, Emulating the Real and Vital Guthrie, Not St. Woody, so what is insurgent country anyway. From American Studies at the University of Virginia
7.
Geffen Records
–
Geffen Records is an American major record label, owned by Universal Music Group, which operates as one third of the Interscope Geffen A&M Records label. On March 23,2017, Billboard. com announced the label was relaunching with longtime A&R Neil Jacobson as President, Geffen Records was started in 1980 by music industry businessman David Geffen who, in the early 1970s, had founded Asylum Records. Geffen stepped down from Asylum in 1975, when he crossed over to film and was named a vice-president of Warner Bros and he was fired from Warner circa 1978, but remained locked in a 5-year contract, which prevented him from working elsewhere. He returned to work in 1980 and struck a deal with Warner Bros. Records to create Geffen Records, profits were split 50/50 between Geffen and the respective distributors. Geffen Records first artist was disco superstar Donna Summer, whose gold-selling album The Wanderer became the labels first release in 1980, the label followed it up with Double Fantasy by John Lennon and Yoko Ono. It was Lennons first new album since 1975, two weeks after it entered the charts, Lennon was murdered in New York City. As the 1980s progressed, Geffen would go on to have success with acts as Kylie Minogue, Enya, Quarterflash, Oxo, Asia, Wang Chung. This prompted Geffen to create a label, DGC Records in 1990. Geffen also distributed the first incarnation of Def American Recordings through Warner Bros. from 1988 to 1990, after a decade of operating through Warner, when its contract with the company expired, the label was sold to MCA Music Entertainment in 1990. The deal ultimately earned David Geffen an estimated US$800 million in stock, following the sale, Geffen Records operated as one of MCAs leading independently managed labels. Geffen Records would distribute releases on the new operations DreamWorks Records subsidiary, Universal Music Group acquired PolyGram in 1999, resulting in a corporate reorganization of labels. Geffen Records, along with A&M Records, was merged into Interscope Records. Although Geffen would continue to exist as a brand, it was downsized to fit into the expansion of Interscope. At the same time, international distribution of Interscope and Geffen releases switched to ex-PolyGram label Polydor Records, meanwhile, DreamWorks Records also folded, with artists such as Nelly Furtado, Lifehouse and Rufus Wainwright being absorbed by Geffen as well. During this time, DGC Records was also folded into Geffen, at the end of 2007, however, Geffen was absorbed further into Interscope, laying off sixty employees. In 2009, it was announced that Geffen Records had signed an agreement with the Holy See to produce an album of Marian songs, jimmy Iovine relaunched the Geffen imprint in 2011, moving its headquarters from California to New York City
8.
Atlantic Records
–
Atlantic Recording Corporation is an American major record label founded in October 1947 by Ahmet Ertegün and Herb Abramson. In 2004, Atlantic Records and its sister label Elektra Records merged into Atlantic Records Group, craig Kallman is currently the chairman of Atlantic Records. Ahmet Ertegün served as founding chairman until his death on December 14,2006, the brothers had become ardent fans of jazz and rhythm & blues music, amassing a collection of over 15,00078 RPM records. He convinced the family dentist, Dr Vahdi Sabit, to invest $10,000 and recruited Herb Abramson, Abramson had worked as a part-time A&R manager/producer for the jazz label National Records, signing Big Joe Turner and Billy Eckstine. He founded Jubilee Records in 1946, but had no interest in its most successful artists, so, in September 1947, he sold his share in Jubilee to his partner, Jerry Blaine, and invested $2500 in the new Atlantic label. When interviewed in 2009 she attributed her reputation to the companys chronic cash-flow shortage, most of the problems we had with artists were that they wanted advances, and that was very difficult for us. We were undercapitalized for a long time, the labels original office in the Ritz Hotel, Manhattan proved too expensive so they relocated to an $85 per month room in the Hotel Jefferson. In its early years Atlantic focused principally on modern jazz although it released some country and western and spoken word recordings. The union action forced Atlantic to use almost all its capital to cut and stockpile enough recordings to last through the ban, Ertegun and Abramson spent much of the late 1940s and early 1950s scouring nightclubs in search of talent. Ertegun composed many songs under the alias A, in early 1949 a New Orleans distributor phoned Ertegun trying to obtain Stick McGhees Drinking Wine, Spo-Dee-O-Dee, which was unavailable due to the closure of McGhees previous label. Ertegun knew Sticks younger brother Brownie McGhee, with whom Stick happened to be staying, so he contacted the McGhee brothers, Ertegun asked about artists royalties, which he paid, which surprised Columbia executives, who did not, which scuttled the deal. On the recommendation of broadcaster Willis Conover, Ertegun and Abramson went to see Ruth Brown at the Crystal Caverns club in Washington and she was badly injured in a car accident en route to New York but Atlantic supported her for nine months and then signed her. Her first release for the label So Long, cut at her second Atlantic session on May 25,1949 with the Eddie Condon band, was a major hit, reaching #6 on the R&B chart. Brown went on to more than eighty songs for the label, becoming the most prolific. So significant was Browns success to Atlantics fortunes that the label became known colloquially as The House That Ruth Built. The Clovers Dont You Know I Love You became the labels first R&B #1 in September 1951 and she hit #1 again in March–April 1952 with 5-10-15 Hours. After she left the label in 1961 Browns fortunes declined rapidly - within a few years was reduced to working as a cleaner and bus-driver to support her children. Brown eventually received a payment of $20,000 and founded a charity
