From The 50 To The 70's

Nicholas Pappas
English 102
Definition Paper Final Draft
March 7, 2011 Defining the Three Allstars From the 50’s to the 70’s, the music genre called rock and roll evolved and attracted a massive audience. Within this genre, some musicians started to meld country, blues, and early rock influences to make a subgenre that primary focuses on the lead electric guitar progressions and vocalization. This subgenre is called southern rock. Origins of this subgenre lie mostly within southern musicians such as Elvis Presley and Little Richard, who influenced bands like Creedence Clearwater Revival to The Allman Brothers Band and Lynyrd Skynyrd in later decades. Although the peak of popularity was in the 1970’s, there are contemporary southern…show more content…
The fact that they chose to sing about material dealing with Southern culture defines them as being the southern subgenre of rock. In one of their songs “Moonshine” from their album Electric Blue Watermelon, the lyrics refer to the old bootleggers in the south that would make moonshine. It gives imagery of “the moonlight shining through the trees” and “honeysuckle on a southern breeze” while reminiscing on the days of moonshine. The chorus goes like this: “I miss the moonshine, and the old times sitting in with the house band, and the bootleggers of the bottomland.” The band’s lyrical material also contributes to them being a blues band. One southern blues artist that influences The North Mississippi Allstars is R.L. Burnsides, who wrote a song called Po Black Mattie. This song is about Burnside’s past lover, who has gotten kicked out of her present lover’s house and the fact that Burnside wants to see her again. N.M.A covered this song and made it much more contemporary compared to Burnside’s acoustic original because of the use of distortion on the electric guitar. Other than the obvious mention about Memphis, this songs lyrical material is Southern rock/ blues because the southern dialect used to tell the story conveys a Southern vibe. Burnside sings about how “Po black Mattie ain’t got no change of clothes” because her “fool got drunk and throw her trunk outdoors.” He then…show more content…
Burnside, the third characteristic that defines them as a Southern rock/blues band is their genuine love and respect for old Mississippi Delta Blues. The love can be heard in their album Hernando. “While I have always been a fan of bands who take the time to write good songs and make sure the album sounds good from a production standpoint, there's always something special about a band who makes it sound easy to some great rockers and The Allstars manage to inject all of their music with the same joyful abandon” (Homewood 1). Homewood says this because the production quality of the album isn’t an A+, but the band doesn’t seem to put production quality as a top priority; instead, the band simply loves playing their unique spin on Delta Blues music. Hernando also features covers of R.L. Burnside’s songs and other classic Delta Blues material; this shows a genuine respect for the blues genre. Other than “Po Black Mattie,” N.M.A cover other Burnside songs including “Snake Drive” and “Goin’ Down South.” This is a video of the Allstars covering a classic Delta blues song called “Station Blues” at Bonnaroo 2004. Click Here. At the beginning of the video, it features dialogue from Luther Dickinson talking about being apart of a long tradition of blues music and that he’s “very proud to be apart of that tradition.” It is obvious in the video that the band has a genuine love for the music because