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BLUES CITY CULTURAL CENTER

Down on Beale Street

Some of the most iconic symbols of American music come to life in DOWN ON BEALE STREET, a

lively musical depicting notable musicians and the culture that gave birth to the blues. Man, the

lead character, guides an aspiring blues singer through the lives of W.C. Handy, Bessie Smith,

B.B. King and other legendary artists who left their historic footprints on Beale Street. Written by Levi Frazier Jr in 1972, DOWN ON BEALE STREET has been presented on numerous

stages in Memphis and at the Richard Allen Culture Center in New York. It was first performed

in 1973 at LeMoyne-Owen College during the W.C. Handy Festival. In 2016, it was performed at

Minglewood Hall for over 2,000 students. Over the years, it has been viewed by over 100,000

people through live performances and cable television.

In African-American Theatre: An Historical & Critical Analysis, theatre historian and critic

Samuel Hay described DOWN ON BEALE STREET as a musical revue that “highlights the

denizens and the good times of such Beale Street spots as the Palace Theatre in Memphis. The

significance of all of these musicals-with-messages is that they finally achieve what Dubois was

seeking when he asked Cole in 1909 to write protest musical comedies for Broadway.”

Arts for a Better Way of Life

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Lesson Overview and Background Information

As a music genre, the blues was originated by African

Americans in the Deep South. Rooted in African rhythms,

spirituals and field songs, it reflected the hard lives and

misery experienced by blacks living in a segregated and

disenfranchised society. W. C. Handy, known as the “Father

of the Blues,” pointed out, "The blues did not come from

books. Suffering and hard luck were the midwives that

birthed these songs. The blues were conceived in aching

hearts." This lesson enables students to explore and

appreciate the historical significance of the blues and its

impact on Beale Street, Memphis and the world. Students

will also come to understand the ways in which music and culture blended to create

opportunities for people of diverse backgrounds and varying degrees of power to find a

common ground through shared experiences.

The Memphis Blues (The Mississippi Blues Trail - http://www.msbluestrail.org/blues-trail-markers/memphis-blues) The bright lights of Beale Street and the promise of musical stardom have lured blues musicians

from nearby Mississippi since the early 1900s. Early Memphis blues luminaries who migrated

from Mississippi include Gus Cannon, Furry Lewis, Jim Jackson, and Memphis Minnie. In the

post-World War II era many native Mississippians became blues, soul, and rock ‘n’ roll recording

stars in Memphis, including Rufus Thomas, Junior Parker, B.B. King, and Elvis Presley.

Memphis blues was discovered by the rest of the world largely

via the works of Beale Street-based bandleader W. C. Handy,

who began using blues motifs in his compositions shortly after

encountering the music in the Mississippi Delta around 1903.

By the 1920s many musicians from Mississippi had relocated

here to perform in local theaters, cafes, and parks. The mix of

rural and urban musical traditions and songs from traveling

minstrel and medicine shows led to the creation of new blues

styles, and record companies set up temporary studios at the

Peabody Hotel and other locations to capture the sounds of Mississippians who came to town

to record, such as Tommy Johnson and Mississippi John Hurt, as well as some who had settled

in Memphis, including Robert Wilkins, Jim Jackson, Gus Cannon, Memphis Minnie, and Joe

McCoy.

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In the decade following World War II musicians from around the Mid-South descended upon

Memphis, and their interactions resulted in the revolutionary new sounds of R&B and rock ’n’

roll. Riley King arrived from Indianola and soon became known as the “Beale Street Blues Boy,”

later shortened to “B. B.” Many of King’s first performances were at talent shows at the Palace

Theater, 324 Beale, co-hosted by Rufus Thomas, a native of Cayce, Mississippi, who, like King,

later worked as a deejay at WDIA. King and Thomas were among the many Mississippi-born

artists who recorded at Sam Phillips’s Memphis Recording Service, where Tupelo’s Elvis Presley

made his historic first recordings for Phillips’s Sun label in 1954. The soul music era arrived with

the Stax and Hi labels in the 1960s, and again many Mississippians were at the forefront: Stax’s

roster included Little Milton, Albert King, Rufus Thomas, and Roebuck “Pops” Staples, while Hi

producer and bandleader Willie Mitchell, a native of Ashland, oversaw recordings by soul and

blues artists Otis Clay, Syl Johnson, Big Lucky Carter, Big Amos (Patton), and others with

Mississippi roots.

Origin of the Blues and Its Global Influence (A Blues History - http://ablueshistory.blogspot.com/2008/02/origins-of-blues.html)

The origins of blues is not unlike the origins of life. For many years it was recorded only by

memory, and relayed only live, and in person. The Blues was born in the North Mississippi Delta

following the Civil War. Influenced by African roots, field hollers, ballads, church music and

rhythmic dance tunes called jump-ups evolved into a music for a singer who would engage in

call-and-response with his guitar. He would sing a line, and the guitar would answer.

This passionate and uniquely American art form known as the blues was born in the steamy

fields, dusty street corners and ramshackle juke joints of the Deep South in the late 1800s. An

evolution of West African music brought to the United States by slaves, the blues emerged as

southern blacks expressed the hardships, heartbreak, religion, passion and politics of their

experiences through a blend of work songs, field hollers and spirituals.

Many early blues songs were never written down, much less recorded, but were passed from

one musician to another and played on whatever instruments were available including clapped

percussions, a variety of stringed instruments, harmonicas, horns and more. By the time the

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blues were first recorded in the early 1920s, guitars and pianos were the most frequent

instruments of choice by blues artists, but the basic 12-bar style and three-chord progressions

have remained essentially the same and continue to define the blues to this day.

As the blues migrated from the south, through the United States and around the world,

countless varieties of styles evolved, including: the raw and passionate Delta (of Mississippi

river) blues of Robert Johnson and Son House, the brassy New Orleans blues, the relaxed and

upbeat Texas blues, the classic blues –a commercially popular, polished style in the1920s which

was performed by women like blues greats Bessie Smith and Mamie Smith-, the jug-band and

vaudeville-influenced Memphis blues, the amplified and urban Chicago blues of Muddy Waters

and Hollin’ Wolf, the rock-heavy 1960s British Blues of John Mayall, Eric Clapton, and the

Rolling Stones, and many more.

By the 1950s and ‘60s, the blues had crossed the Atlantic and young audiences and musicians in

Great Britain launched a blues revival with their reverent admiration of American blues music.

The blues blended into rock, and as rock and roll took center stage on the global popular music

scene, the blues faded into the background for decades for many listeners and record buyers.

But in the early 1990s, a renewed interest in American roots music spurred a resurgence of the

blues and the art form that once inspired Willie Dixon’s remark “The blues is the roots;

everything else is the fruits”. From the crossroads on Highways 61 and 49, and the platform of

the Clarksdale Railway Station, the blues ended headed north to Beale Street in Memphis. The

blues have strongly influenced almost all popular music including jazz, country, and rock and

roll and continues to help music worldwide.

Historic Beale Street

Beale Street Today

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Blues Vocabulary (A Blues History - http://ablueshistory.blogspot.com/2008/02/blues-vocabulary.html)

Here is a sample of some of the words and phrases used in popular blues lyrics. Many of them

have more than one meaning. It’s its own language, essential to understand the meaning of the

songs.

Barrelhouse - a cheap drinking and dancing establishment; a fast-paced style of blues or jazz

music.

Biscuit - a young woman.

Black cat bone - a good luck charm that is carried in a mojo bag.

Boogie - to move quickly, to get going, to dance, to party.

Captain - form of address Southern white men demanded from their black employees; a prison

guard.

Chillum - children or people.

Cold in hand - having no money.

Dry so long - being poor.

Dust my broom - leaving a place; breaking up with a woman.

Eagle flies on Friday - payday.

Easy rider - guitar hung on the back of a traveling blues man.

Flagging (a train, a ride) - to signal for a train or ride to stop; to hitch a ride.

Goin' up the line/ goin' down the line - line meaning railroad route; up the line means going

North, down the line means going South

Hoodoo – voodoo; something that brings bad luck.

Juju - magic or luck.

Juke joint - establishment for eating, drinking, and dancing to the music of a jukebox.

Killing floor - slaughter house where many Southern blacks worked when they migrated to the

North.

Mojo - magic spell, hex or charm used against someone else.

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Nation sack - donation sack carried on the belts of traveling preachers.

Rambling - to move aimlessly from place to place.

Riding the blinds - hitching a ride on the train between cars.

Roadhouse - a drinking establishment outside the city limits.

Rounder - a man that gets around; a scoundrel; a big money poker player.

Stagger Lee - a real life murderer that became a folk hero. He was so bad that flies wouldn't fly

around his head in the summer and snow wouldn't fall on him in winter.

Voodoo - folk magic derived from African religion and practiced chiefly in Haiti.

Grades 6-8 Theatre Standards

Standard 6.0 - Theatrical Presentation

6.1 - Recognize how dance, visual art, and music are used in theatre.

6.2 - Understand the role of the audience and demonstrate appropriate etiquette. Standard 8.0 - Context

8.1 - Recognize the historical impact of theatre, film, television, and/or electronic media on society.

8.2 - Understand the relationship between theatre and society.

Grades 9-12 Theatre Standards

Standard 6.0 - Theatrical Presentation

6.1 - Examine dramatic production as a synthesis of all the arts. Standard 7.0 - Scene Comprehension

7.1 - Respond to a variety of theatrical experiences as an effort to interpret, intensify, and ennoble human experience.

7.2 - Expand the depth and scope of aesthetic judgment by experiencing informal and formal theatre, film, television, and electronic media productions and theatre of diverse styles, periods, and genres.

7.3 - Understand the role of the audience in creating a theatrical experience. Standard 8.0: Context

8.2 - Discover and explore historical motifs and themes.

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Prior to the performance

1. Review the background information from this guide with your students.

2. Discuss with your students the etiquette of being an audience member at a live theatrical

performance. Items for discussion: don’t talk during the play, turn off cellphones & electronic

devices, appropriate responses, no chewing gum, going to the bathroom before the

performance, etc.

3. Encourage your students to engage in the talkback discussion following the performance.

Suggested Activities

1. Allow students to listen to several blues songs. What messages and/or themes can be found

in the lyrics? Discuss how the lyrics of these songs compare to contemporary music genres such

as rock ‘n roll, hip hop, rap, soul and country?

2. Discuss ways in which music has influenced people over time. Have students identify their

favorite musical artists. Why are these artists important to them? What messages are conveyed

in their music?

3. Now that students know and understand how the blues originated, discuss ways in which

their favorite music genre began. For example, what artists popularized rock ‘n roll, hip hop,

rap, soul and country?

4. In the early days of Beale Street, most of the blues performers were male. Discuss gender

roles in music. Are there some genres of music that are dominated by men? By women?

5. Have students write their own blues song. What message is their song conveying? This can be

done individually or as a group project.

Resources

Historic Memphis Beale Street -

http://historic-memphis.com/memphis-historic/beale/bealestreet.html

Beale Street: Tennessee Encyclopedia of History and Culture

http://tennesseeencyclopedia.net/entry.php?rec=67

Interactive Beale Street Map - http://www.bealestreet.com/map-of-beale/

Youtube Video: Blues America, Part 1 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9hZMHLGMpzc

Youtube Video: Blues America, Part 2 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3AoQqTYjFSA