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121-431: The music of New Zealand has been influenced by a number of traditions, including Māori music, the music introduced by European settlers during the nineteenth century, and a variety of styles imported during the twentieth century, including blues , jazz , country , rock and roll , reggae , and hip hop , with many of these genres given a unique New Zealand interpretation. Pre-colonial Māori music consisted mainly of

242-429: A Pacific Island guitar style and hip hop beats to create a uniquely New Zealand-Polynesian sound. This was followed by Che Fu 's album 2 B s-Pacific in 1998 and Urban Pacifica in 1999, a compilation of Pasifika hip hop. Artists including Scribe , Tiki Taane , P-Money and Ladi6 localised rap. In 2005, Savage , a New Zealand Samoan hip hop artist, had back-to-back number one hits with Swing and Moonshine ,

363-484: A banjo or guitar. Regional styles of country blues varied widely in the early 20th century. The (Mississippi) Delta blues was a rootsy sparse style with passionate vocals accompanied by slide guitar. The little-recorded Robert Johnson combined elements of urban and rural blues. In addition to Robert Johnson, influential performers of this style included his predecessors Charley Patton and Son House . Singers such as Blind Willie McTell and Blind Boy Fuller performed in

484-415: A break; the harmony of this two-bar break, the turnaround, can be extremely complex, sometimes consisting of single notes that defy analysis in terms of chords. Much of the time, some or all of these chords are played in the harmonic seventh (7th) form. The use of the harmonic seventh interval is characteristic of blues and is popularly called the "blues seven". Blues seven chords add to the harmonic chord

605-586: A center for electric blues from 1948 on, when Muddy Waters recorded his first success, "I Can't Be Satisfied". Chicago blues is influenced to a large extent by Delta blues , because many performers had migrated from the Mississippi region. Howlin' Wolf , Muddy Waters, Willie Dixon and Jimmy Reed were all born in Mississippi and moved to Chicago during the Great Migration. Their style

726-399: A component of R&B. After World War II, new styles of electric blues became popular in cities such as Chicago , Memphis , Detroit and St. Louis . Electric blues used electric guitars , double bass (gradually replaced by bass guitar ), drums , and harmonica (or "blues harp") played through a microphone and a PA system or an overdriven guitar amplifier . Chicago became

847-470: A cult following elsewhere. The music videos for some of the band's 1980s songs were among the first played on MTV . In 1985, Neil Finn formed pop rock band Crowded House in Melbourne, Australia. The other founding members were Australians Paul Hester and Nick Seymour . Later band members included Neil's brother Tim Finn and Americans Mark Hart and Matt Sherrod . Originally active from 1985 to 1996,

968-625: A distinct classical style of its own, having "a tendency to over-criticise home-produced goods". Douglas Lilburn , working predominantly in the third quarter of the 20th century, is often credited with being the first composer to compose with a truly New Zealand voice and gain international recognition. Lilburn's Second Piano Sonatina was described as "a work which seems to draw on the best of Lilburn's past...specially suited to New Zealand." He went on to pioneer electronic music in New Zealand. In 2004, Wellington composer John Psathas achieved

1089-449: A form of microtonal chanting and performances on instruments called taonga pūoro : a variety of blown, struck and twirled instruments made out of hollowed-out wood, stone, whale ivory, albatross bone, and human bone. In the nineteenth century, European settlers - the vast majority of whom were from Britain and Ireland - brought musical forms to New Zealand including brass bands and choral music , and musicians began touring New Zealand in

1210-646: A form of song that is accompanied with movement. Songs included lullabies, laments and love songs, and as an oral culture were used for education, to remember history and many other things. The emotionally charged circumstances under which waiata were composed are reflected in their highly poetic language, which is rich with allusion, metaphor and imagery. (Rawinia Higgins and Arini Loader 2014) Songs and music were part of Te Whare Tapere , pre-European Māori entertainment events that included 'storytelling, songs and singing, dance and dancing, musical instruments, puppets' and games. Some Māori song includes microtonal music,

1331-694: A ground bass overlaid with complex treble patterns, while vocal supplies a third rhythmic layer. Similar techniques can be found in hundreds of blues records". The lyrics often relate troubles experienced within African American society. For instance Blind Lemon Jefferson 's "Rising High Water Blues" (1927) tells of the Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 : Backwater rising, Southern peoples can't make no time I said, backwater rising, Southern peoples can't make no time And I can't get no hearing from that Memphis girl of mine Although

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1452-463: A handful of hits from cross-over artists such as Ray Charles . New Zealand does not have its own distinctive blues style. The Wellerman sea shanty originated in New Zealand. New Zealand has a proud history of brass bands, with regular provincial contests. Pipe bands became widespread during the early 20th century. New Zealand is said to have more pipebands per person than Scotland; historical links are maintained by Caledonian Societies throughout

1573-635: A movement known as the Great Migration . The long boom following World War II induced another massive migration of the African-American population, the Second Great Migration , which was accompanied by a significant increase of the real income of the urban blacks. The new migrants constituted a new market for the music industry. The term race record , initially used by the music industry for African-American music,

1694-484: A national orchestra, the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra , and many regional orchestras. A number of New Zealand composers have developed international reputations. The best-known include Douglas Lilburn , John Psathas , Jack Body , Gillian Whitehead , Jenny McLeod , Gareth Farr , and Ross Harris . Pre-Colonial Māori produced a range of music. This included song waiata . The haka is

1815-456: A note with a frequency in a 7:4 ratio to the fundamental note. At a 7:4 ratio, it is not close to any interval on the conventional Western diatonic scale . For convenience or by necessity it is often approximated by a minor seventh interval or a dominant seventh chord . In melody , blues is distinguished by the use of the flattened third , fifth and seventh of the associated major scale . Blues shuffles or walking bass reinforce

1936-456: A number of songs, such as "Poor Rosy", that were popular among the slaves. Although she admitted being unable to describe the manner of singing she heard, Forten wrote that the songs "can't be sung without a full heart and a troubled spirit", conditions that have inspired countless blues songs. Though the use of the phrase in African-American music may be older, it has been attested to in print since 1912, when Hart Wand 's " Dallas Blues " became

2057-599: A part in early blues, citing Robert Johnson 's " Cross Road Blues " as a "thinly veiled reference to Eleggua , the orisha in charge of the crossroads". However, the Christian influence was far more obvious. The repertoires of many seminal blues artists, such as Charley Patton and Skip James , included religious songs or spirituals. Reverend Gary Davis and Blind Willie Johnson are examples of artists often categorized as blues musicians for their music, although their lyrics clearly belong to spirituals. The blues form

2178-569: A part of ragtime; Handy's signature work was the " Saint Louis Blues ". In the 1920s, the blues became a major element of African American and American popular music, also reaching white audiences via Handy's arrangements and the classic female blues performers. These female performers became perhaps the first African American "superstars", and their recording sales demonstrated "a huge appetite for records made by and for black people." The blues evolved from informal performances in bars to entertainment in theaters. Blues performances were organized by

2299-419: A recording career that began in 1926 and spanned forty years. These recordings were typically labeled " race records " to distinguish them from records sold to white audiences. Nonetheless, the recordings of some of the classic female blues singers were purchased by white buyers as well. These blueswomen's contributions to the genre included "increased improvisation on melodic lines, unusual phrasing which altered

2420-477: A relatively small but growing trend in the country's musical culture especially with the rise of acts such as Concord Dawn , Minuit and Shapeshifter in the last 15 years. An early example of New Zealand electronica is a track called Pulsing released in 1982 by The Body Electric. In 1988 Propeller Records released New Zealand's first House record, Jam This Record. Other New Zealand house DJs who rose to prominence include DLT . The Future Jazz scene (the term

2541-467: A resurgence. Māori show-bands formed in New Zealand and Australia from the 1950s. The groups performed in a wide variety of musical genres, dance styles, and with cabaret skills, infusing their acts with comedy drawn straight from Māori culture . Some Māori show-bands would begin their performances in traditional Māori costume before changing into suits and sequinned gowns. Billy T. James (1949–1991) spent many years overseas in show bands, beginning in

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2662-726: A school teacher after attending Teachers College in Auckland but he did not enjoy teaching and left to become an editor of Māori texts at School Publications in the Department of Education in Wellington . From 1978 he was on the staff of the University of Waikato becoming an Associate Professor and Dean of the School of Māori and Pacific Development. Melbourne had started composing waiata (songs) early in his career. In

2783-406: A separate genre arose during the black migration from the countryside to urban areas in the 1920s and the simultaneous development of the recording industry. Blues became a code word for a record designed to sell to black listeners. The origins of the blues are closely related to the religious music of Afro-American community, the spirituals . The origins of spirituals go back much further than

2904-489: A successful solo career, writing the soundtrack music for the animated feature film Footrot Flats: The Dog's Tale in 1986. The film yielded two hit singles: " You Oughta Be In Love " (1986) and the chart-topping " Slice of Heaven " (1986), recorded with the band Herbs . After the release of the film, "Slice of Heaven" became one of Dobbyn's best-known songs, frequently used in tourism advertisements aired on Australian television that encouraged people to visit New Zealand. With

3025-512: A variety of blown, struck and twirled instruments made out of hollowed-out wood, stone, whale ivory, albatross bone, and human bone. The pūkāea (wooden trumpet), hue (gourd), and pūtātara (conch-shell trumpet) fulfilled many functions within pre-colonial Māori society, including a call to arms, announcing the dawning of a new day, communications with the gods and the planting of crops. From the late 20th century Dr Richard Nunns (1945–2021), Hirini Melbourne (1949–2003), and Brian Flintoff revived

3146-581: A wide variety of styles and subgenres. Blues subgenres include country blues , Delta blues and Piedmont blues , as well as urban blues styles such as Chicago blues and West Coast blues . World War II marked the transition from acoustic to electric blues and the progressive opening of blues music to a wider audience, especially white listeners. In the 1960s and 1970s, a hybrid form called blues rock developed, which blended blues styles with rock music . The term 'Blues' may have originated from "blue devils", meaning melancholy and sadness. An early use of

3267-454: Is a cyclic musical form in which a repeating progression of chords mirrors the call and response scheme commonly found in African and African-American music. During the first decades of the 20th century blues music was not clearly defined in terms of a particular chord progression. With the popularity of early performers, such as Bessie Smith , use of the twelve-bar blues spread across

3388-596: Is a music genre and musical form that originated amongst African-Americans in the Deep South of the United States around the 1860s. Blues has incorporated spirituals , work songs , field hollers , shouts , chants , and rhymed simple narrative ballads from the African-American culture . The blues form is ubiquitous in jazz , rhythm and blues , and rock and roll , and is characterized by

3509-560: Is a sly wordplay with the double meaning of being " tight " with someone, coupled with a more salacious physical familiarity. Blues songs with sexually explicit lyrics were known as dirty blues . The lyrical content became slightly simpler in postwar blues, which tended to focus on relationship woes or sexual worries. Lyrical themes that frequently appeared in prewar blues, such as economic depression, farming, devils, gambling, magic, floods and drought, were less common in postwar blues. The writer Ed Morales claimed that Yoruba mythology played

3630-453: Is characterized by its lyrics , bass lines , and instrumentation . Early traditional blues verses consisted of a single line repeated four times. It was only in the first decades of the 20th century that the most common current structure became standard: the AAB pattern , consisting of a line sung over the four first bars, its repetition over the next four, and then a longer concluding line over

3751-508: Is characterized by the use of electric guitar, sometimes slide guitar, harmonica, and a rhythm section of bass and drums. The saxophonist J. T. Brown played in bands led by Elmore James and by J. B. Lenoir , but the saxophone was used as a backing instrument for rhythmic support more than as a lead instrument. Hirini Melbourne Melbourne was born in Te Urewera of Ngāi Tūhoe and Ngāti Kahungunu descent. Melbourne became

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3872-418: Is little evidence of Sub-Sahelian influence in the blues as "elaborate polyrhythm, percussion on African drums (as opposed to European drums), [and] collective participation" which are characteristic of West-Central African music below the savannah, are conspicuously absent. According to the historian Paul Oliver , "the roots of the blues were not to be found in the coastal and forest regions of Africa. Rather...

3993-728: Is often associated with solo piano, boogie-woogie was also used to accompany singers and, as a solo part, in bands and small combos. Boogie-woogie style was characterized by a regular bass figure, an ostinato or riff and shifts of level in the left hand, elaborating each chord and trills and decorations in the right hand. Boogie-woogie was pioneered by the Chicago-based Jimmy Yancey and the Boogie-Woogie Trio ( Albert Ammons , Pete Johnson and Meade Lux Lewis ). Chicago boogie-woogie performers included Clarence "Pine Top" Smith and Earl Hines , who "linked

4114-497: Is often associated with the California blues style, performed a successful transition from the early urban blues à la Lonnie Johnson and Leroy Carr to the jump blues style and dominated the blues-jazz scene at Los Angeles during the 1940s. The transition from country blues to urban blues that began in the 1920s was driven by the successive waves of economic crisis and booms that led many rural blacks to move to urban areas, in

4235-631: The 2003 New Year Honours , for services to Māori language, music and culture, just before his death a week later. 15 years after the original album, Rattle released Te Whaiao: Te Ku Te Whe Remixed , which won the Tui Award for the best Māori album at the New Zealand Music Awards in 2007, featuring what Nunns described as a "pretty stellar line-up" of contemporary New Zealand artists, including Salmonella Dub , Pitch Black and SJD . In 2009 Melbourne and Nunns were inducted into

4356-482: The American South sometimes referred to as a jitterbug or a one-string in the early twentieth century) and the banjo are African-derived instruments that may have helped in the transfer of African performance techniques into the early blues instrumental vocabulary. The banjo seems to be directly imported from West African music. It is similar to the musical instrument that griots and other Africans such as

4477-608: The Count Basie Orchestra were also concentrating on the blues, with 12-bar blues instrumentals such as Basie's " One O'Clock Jump " and " Jumpin' at the Woodside " and boisterous " blues shouting " by Jimmy Rushing on songs such as "Going to Chicago" and " Sent for You Yesterday ". A well-known big band blues tune is Glenn Miller 's " In the Mood ". In the 1940s, the jump blues style developed. Jump blues grew up from

4598-587: The Igbo played (called halam or akonting by African peoples such as the Wolof , Fula and Mandinka ). However, in the 1920s, when country blues began to be recorded, the use of the banjo in blues music was quite marginal and limited to individuals such as Papa Charlie Jackson and later Gus Cannon . Blues music also adopted elements from the "Ethiopian airs", minstrel shows and Negro spirituals , including instrumental and harmonic accompaniment. The style also

4719-569: The Maori Volcanics . The New Zealand recording industry began to develop from 1940 onwards. The Recording Industry Association of New Zealand (RIANZ) publishes New Zealand's official weekly record charts . The Association also holds the annual New Zealand Music Awards which were first held in 1965 as the Loxene Golden Disc awards. Despite the vitality of New Zealand bands in the pub scene, for many years commercial radio

4840-438: The New Zealand Music Awards awards ceremony. During the performance, Ahmed Zaoui , who was appealing a security certificate issued due to alleged links to terrorist groups, appeared on stage with Dobbyn. Composer, singer and multi-instrumentalist Don McGlashan won fame with bands Blam Blam Blam , The Front Lawn , and The Mutton Birds , before pursuing a solo career. McGlashan's first hits were with band Blam Blam Blam in

4961-659: The New Zealand Top 40 Album charts . Runga has since become one of the highest-selling New Zealand artists in recent history. She has also found success internationally in Australia, Ireland, and, to some extent, in the UK. In the 2006 New Year Honours Runga was appointed a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit for services to music. In September 2013, 16-year-old singer Lorde (Ella Yelich-O'Connor) became

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5082-777: The Theater Owners Booking Association in nightclubs such as the Cotton Club and juke joints such as the bars along Beale Street in Memphis. Several record companies, such as the American Record Corporation , Okeh Records , and Paramount Records , began to record African-American music. As the recording industry grew, country blues performers like Bo Carter , Jimmie Rodgers , Blind Lemon Jefferson , Lonnie Johnson , Tampa Red and Blind Blake became more popular in

5203-405: The call-and-response pattern, the blues scale , and specific chord progressions , of which the twelve-bar blues is the most common. Blue notes (or "worried notes"), usually thirds, fifths or sevenths flattened in pitch , are also an essential part of the sound. Blues shuffles or walking bass reinforce the trance-like rhythm and form a repetitive effect known as the groove . Blues music

5324-409: The degrees of the progression. For instance, for a blues in the key of C, C is the tonic chord (I) and F is the subdominant (IV). The last chord is the dominant (V) turnaround , marking the transition to the beginning of the next progression. The lyrics generally end on the last beat of the tenth bar or the first beat of the 11th bar, and the final two bars are given to the instrumentalist as

5445-733: The extreme metal bands Ulcerate , Dawn of Azazel and 8 Foot Sativa and the alternative metal band Blindspott , currently known as Blacklistt . In 2016 groove metal band Alien Weaponry , several of whose songs are in the Māori language , won Smokefreerockquest and Smokefree Pacifica beats. Other bands include Antagonist A.D. , Legacy of Disorder , Human , Black Boned Angel, Beastwars , Demoniac , Diocletian , In Dread Response , Saving Grace , Sinate , Push Push , Razorwyre , HLAH , and Knightshade . The 2015 New Zealand comedy horror film Deathgasm soundtrack gave rise to various metal groups. The history of blues in New Zealand dates from

5566-451: The spirituals . The first appearance of the blues is often dated to after the ending of slavery , with the development of juke joints occurring later. It is associated with the newly acquired freedom of the former slaves. Chroniclers began to report about blues music at the dawn of the 20th century. The first publication of blues sheet music was in 1908. Blues has since evolved from unaccompanied vocal music and oral traditions of slaves into

5687-541: The " Dunedin sound ", or Flying Nun sound. The distinctive jangle-pop and lo-fi sound was pioneered by bands such as The Chills , The Verlaines , Sneaky Feelings , The Bats and The Jean-Paul Sartre Experience . Rock band Shihad was formed by vocalist/guitarist Jon Toogood and drummer Tom Larkin in 1988. The band found wide popularity in New Zealand over the following decade, playing a mixture of modern rock, post-grunge and pop-rock. Shihad has had three number one albums in New Zealand. Other notable rock bands popular in

5808-556: The 1860s. Pipe bands became widespread during the early 20th century. In recent decades, a number of popular artists have gone on to achieve international success including Lorde , Split Enz , Crowded House , Rosé , OMC , Bic Runga , Benee , Kimbra , Ladyhawke , The Naked and Famous , Fat Freddy's Drop , Savage , Gin Wigmore , Keith Urban , Flight of the Conchords , Brooke Fraser and Alien Weaponry . New Zealand has

5929-438: The 1920s, among them "the big three"— Gertrude "Ma" Rainey , Bessie Smith , and Lucille Bogan . Mamie Smith , more a vaudeville performer than a blues artist, was the first African American to record a blues song, in 1920; her second record, "Crazy Blues", sold 75,000 copies in its first month. Ma Rainey, the "Mother of Blues", and Bessie Smith each "[sang] around center tones, perhaps in order to project her voice more easily to

6050-428: The 1920s, when the record industry created the marketing categories " race music " and " hillbilly music " to sell music by blacks for blacks and by whites for whites, respectively. At the time, there was no clear musical division between "blues" and "country", except for the ethnicity of the performer, and even that was sometimes documented incorrectly by record companies. Though musicologists can now attempt to define

6171-450: The 1960s. The earliest blues influences on New Zealand musicians originated with white British blues musicians like The Animals and The Rolling Stones , and later the blues-tinged rock of groups such as Led Zeppelin . The first American blues artist to make a big impact in New Zealand was Stevie Ray Vaughan in the early 1980s. Other blues-related genres such as soul and gospel almost completely by-passed New Zealand audiences, except for

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6292-678: The 1980s), Dragon , Hello Sailor and Split Enz , fronted by Tim Finn , and later, his brother Neil Finn , who went on to form Crowded House . Independent music in New Zealand began emerging in the latter half of the 1970s, with the development of a punk rock scene. In 1979, the AK79 compilation was released, compiling the recordings of many early Auckland punk groups. Several independent labels like Propeller Records in Auckland and Flying Nun Records in Christchurch were established in

6413-472: The 1990s include the Headless Chickens , The Mutton Birds , The Exponents , The Feelers , Supergroove and Push Push . The first major New Zealand hip hop hit was "Hip Hop Holiday" by 3 The Hard Way . Sampling the song Dreadlock Holiday by 10CC , it went to number one for several weeks in early 1994. Many of New Zealand's first hip hop performers, such as Dalvanius Prime , whose " Poi E "

6534-803: The 2008 work Terra Incognita , for bass baritone solo, choir and orchestra, performed by Paul Whelan, the Orpheus Choir and the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Paul MacAlindin . There are two twelve-month Composer-in-Residence positions available in New Zealand, the Mozart Fellowship at the University of Otago and the NZSM Composer in Residence in Wellington. Blues Blues

6655-455: The 9-bar progression in " Sitting on Top of the World ", by Walter Vinson . The basic 12-bar lyric framework of many blues compositions is reflected by a standard harmonic progression of 12 bars in a 4/4 time signature . The blues chords associated to a twelve-bar blues are typically a set of three different chords played over a 12-bar scheme. They are labeled by Roman numbers referring to

6776-546: The African American community. Kentucky-born Sylvester Weaver was in 1923 the first to record the slide guitar style, in which a guitar is fretted with a knife blade or the sawed-off neck of a bottle. The slide guitar became an important part of the Delta blues . The first blues recordings from the 1920s are categorized as a traditional, rural country blues and a more polished city or urban blues. Country blues performers often improvised, either without accompaniment or with only

6897-533: The African call-and-response tradition that transformed into an interplay of voice and guitar, the blues form itself bears no resemblance to the melodic styles of the West African griots . Additionally, there are theories that the four-beats-per-measure structure of the blues might have its origins in the Native American tradition of pow wow drumming. Some scholars identify strong influences on

7018-545: The New Zealand contingent heading to the 1984 Festival of Pacific Arts (cancelled after political unrest in New Caledonia ). The song calls for unity among peoples of the Pacific. "Ngā Iwi E" has been a prominently used protest song for the Māori protest movement . In 2002 Melbourne was awarded an Honorary Doctorate from the University of Waikato . He was appointed an Officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit in

7139-525: The US, UK, Australian and 23 other national charts, and reached the top 10 in more than 30 countries around the world. The song has sold more than 13 million copies worldwide, becoming one of the best-selling digital singles of all time. In 2020, New Zealand singer Benee 's single Supalonely went viral on video sharing app TikTok . It subsequently went to chart in the Top 40 of many major music markets, including

7260-741: The United States Hot 100 Airplay (Radio Songs) charts, peaking at number 4. It reached number five in the United Kingdom, and it made the Top 10 in Portugal and Israel. In 2008, folk parody duo Flight of the Conchords found international success with their eponymous album. The album debuted at number three on the U.S. Billboard 200 chart, selling about 52,000 copies in its first week. In 2011, New Zealand singer Kimbra collaborated with Belgian-Australian singer Gotye on his song Somebody That I Used To Know . The song topped

7381-519: The United States, United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand and Canada. The first rock'n'roll hit by a New Zealander was Johnny Devlin 's hit " Lawdy Miss Clawdy ", which sold 100,000 copies in 1959–60, after which rock began gaining in popularity over the 1960s. Prominent bands included The La De Da's , Ray Columbus & The Invaders , and The Fourmyula . By the late 1970s, some New Zealand rock bands were finding national success, including Th' Dudes (whose guitarist Dave Dobbyn formed DD Smash in

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7502-420: The back of a room". Smith would "sing a song in an unusual key, and her artistry in bending and stretching notes with her beautiful, powerful contralto to accommodate her own interpretation was unsurpassed". In 1920, the vaudeville singer Lucille Hegamin became the second black woman to record blues when she recorded "The Jazz Me Blues", and Victoria Spivey , sometimes called Queen Victoria or Za Zu Girl, had

7623-592: The band had consistent commercial and critical success in Australia and New Zealand and international chart success in two phases, beginning with their self-titled debut album, Crowded House , which reached number twelve on the US Album Chart in 1987 and provided the Top Ten hits, Don't Dream It's Over and Something So Strong . Further international success came in the UK and Europe with their third and fourth albums, Woodface and Together Alone and

7744-554: The beginning of the 20th century. They are now lost. Other recordings that are still available were made in 1924 by Lawrence Gellert . Later, several recordings were made by Robert W. Gordon , who became head of the Archive of American Folk Songs of the Library of Congress . Gordon's successor at the library was John Lomax . In the 1930s, Lomax and his son Alan made a large number of non-commercial blues recordings that testify to

7865-662: The blues from the melodic structures of certain West African musical styles of the savanna and sahel. Lucy Durran finds similarities with the melodies of the Bambara people , and to a lesser degree, the Soninke people and Wolof people , but not as much of the Mandinka people . Gerard Kubik finds similarities to the melodic styles of both the west African savanna and central Africa, both of which were sources of enslaved people. No specific African musical form can be identified as

7986-443: The blues gained an association with misery and oppression, the lyrics could also be humorous and raunchy: Rebecca, Rebecca, get your big legs off of me, Rebecca, Rebecca, get your big legs off of me, It may be sending you baby, but it's worrying the hell out of me. Hokum blues celebrated both comedic lyrical content and a boisterous, farcical performance style. Tampa Red and Georgia Tom 's " It's Tight Like That " (1928)

8107-578: The blues in the same year in Missouri ; and W.C. Handy , who first heard the blues in Tutwiler, Mississippi , in 1903. The first extensive research in the field was performed by Howard W. Odum , who published an anthology of folk songs from Lafayette County, Mississippi , and Newton County, Georgia , between 1905 and 1908. The first non-commercial recordings of blues music, termed proto-blues by Paul Oliver , were made by Odum for research purposes at

8228-468: The blues is usually dated after the Emancipation Act of 1863 , between 1860s and 1890s, a period that coincides with post- emancipation and later, the establishment of juke joints as places where African-Americans went to listen to music, dance, or gamble after a hard day's work. This period corresponds to the transition from slavery to sharecropping, small-scale agricultural production, and

8349-530: The blues narrowly in terms of certain chord structures and lyric forms thought to have originated in West Africa, audiences originally heard the music in a far more general way: it was simply the music of the rural south, notably the Mississippi Delta . Black and white musicians shared the same repertoire and thought of themselves as " songsters " rather than blues musicians. The notion of blues as

8470-459: The blues was rooted in ... the savanna hinterland, from Senegambia through Mali, Burkina Faso, Northern Ghana, Niger, and northern Nigeria". Additionally, ethnomusicologist John Storm Roberts has argued that "The parallels between African savanna-belt string-playing and the techniques of many blues guitarists are remarkable. The big kora of Senegal and Guinea are played in a rhythmic-melodic style that uses constantly changing rhythms, often providing

8591-411: The blues, usually dating back to the middle of the 18th century, when the slaves were Christianized and began to sing and play Christian hymns , in particular those of Isaac Watts , which were very popular. Before the blues gained its formal definition in terms of chord progressions, it was defined as the secular counterpart of spirituals. It was the low-down music played by rural blacks. Depending on

8712-485: The boogie-woogie wave and was strongly influenced by big band music. It uses saxophone or other brass instruments and the guitar in the rhythm section to create a jazzy, up-tempo sound with declamatory vocals. Jump blues tunes by Louis Jordan and Big Joe Turner , based in Kansas City, Missouri , influenced the development of later styles such as rock and roll and rhythm and blues. Dallas-born T-Bone Walker , who

8833-537: The compilation album Recurring Dream , which included the hits " Fall at Your Feet ", " Weather with You ", " Distant Sun ", " Locked Out ", " Instinct " and " Not the Girl You Think You Are ". Queen Elizabeth II bestowed an OBE on both Neil and Tim Finn in June 1993 for their contribution to the music of New Zealand. After the dissolution of his band DD Smash , singer-songwriter Dave Dobbyn began

8954-474: The country. The formal traditions of European classical music took a long time to develop in New Zealand due to the country's geographical isolation. Composers such as Alfred Hill were educated in Europe and brought late Romantic Music traditions to New Zealand. He attempted to graft them on to New Zealand themes with one notable success, the popular "Waiata Poi". However, before 1960 New Zealand did not have

9075-401: The early 1980s, and became influential in the development of New Zealand rock music and indie rock globally. The Clean from Dunedin was the first major band to feature on Flying Nun, releasing several hit singles inside New Zealand and touring internationally. Most of the first wave of artists signed to the label originated from Dunedin and Christchurch, helping to develop what became called

9196-661: The early 1980s. He later released four albums as lead singer and writer for The Mutton Birds . McGlashan's first solo album Warm Hand , was released in May 2006. It was nominated for an NZ Music Award for album of the year, and debut single Miracle Sun was a nominee for New Zealand's supreme songwriting award, the APRA Silver Scroll. He has composed extensively for cinema and television. Singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist pop artist Bic Runga released her first solo album Drive in 1997. It debuted at number one on

9317-479: The emphasis and impact of the lyrics, and vocal dramatics using shouts, groans, moans, and wails. The blues women thus effected changes in other types of popular singing that had spin-offs in jazz, Broadway musicals , torch songs of the 1930s and 1940s, gospel , rhythm and blues , and eventually rock and roll ." Urban male performers included popular black musicians of the era, such as Tampa Red , Big Bill Broonzy and Leroy Carr . An important label of this era

9438-429: The expansion of railroads in the southern United States. Several scholars characterize the development of blues music in the early 1900s as a move from group performance to individualized performance. They argue that the development of the blues is associated with the newly acquired freedom of the enslaved people. According to Lawrence Levine, "there was a direct relationship between the national ideological emphasis upon

9559-430: The first copyrighted blues composition. In lyrics, the phrase is often used to describe a depressed mood. Early traditional blues verses often consisted of a single line repeated four times. However, the most common structure of blues lyrics today was established in the first few decades of the 20th century, known as the "AAB" pattern. This structure consists of a line sung over the first four bars, its repetition over

9680-540: The form of a loose narrative. African-American singers voiced their "personal woes in a world of harsh reality: a lost love, the cruelty of police officers, oppression at the hands of white folk, [and] hard times". This melancholy has led to the suggestion of an Igbo origin for blues, because of the reputation the Igbo had throughout plantations in the Americas for their melancholic music and outlook on life when they were enslaved. Other historians have argued that there

9801-417: The genre took its shape from the idiosyncrasies of individual performers. However, there are some characteristics that were present long before the creation of the modern blues. Call-and-response shouts were an early form of blues-like music; they were a "functional expression ... style without accompaniment or harmony and unbounded by the formality of any particular musical structure". A form of this pre-blues

9922-454: The huge variety of proto-blues styles, such as field hollers and ring shouts . A record of blues music as it existed before 1920 can also be found in the recordings of artists such as Lead Belly and Henry Thomas . All these sources show the existence of many different structures distinct from twelve- , eight- , or sixteen-bar . The social and economic reasons for the appearance of the blues are not fully known. The first appearance of

10043-434: The individual, the popularity of Booker T. Washington's teachings, and the rise of the blues." Levine stated that "psychologically, socially, and economically, African-Americans were being acculturated in a way that would have been impossible during slavery, and it is hardly surprising that their secular music reflected this as much as their religious music did." There are few characteristics common to all blues music, because

10164-536: The largest audience for New Zealand-composed music when his fanfares and other music were heard by billions during the opening and closing ceremonies of the Athens 2004 Summer Olympics . In 2019 Gareth Farr ONZM was a recipient of a New Zealand Arts Laureate Award in recognition of his music which has included composing for the Royal New Zealand Ballet , Maui One Man Against The Gods and

10285-408: The last bars. Early blues frequently took the form of a loose narrative, often relating the racial discrimination and other challenges experienced by African-Americans. Many elements, such as the call-and-response format and the use of blue notes, can be traced back to the music of Africa . The origins of the blues are also closely related to the religious music of the African-American community,

10406-586: The last two decades of his life his musical interests extended to a fascination with traditional Maori instruments (ngā taonga pūoro). In 1985 he subsequently met ethnomusicologist and performer Richard Nunns . The two regularly performed together on marae , and in schools, galleries and concerts. They also collected traditional knowledge about the instruments and how they were played. Nunns and Melbourne released several recordings: Toiapiapi (1991), Te Kuraroa (1998), Te Ku te Whe (1994), and Te Hekenga-ā-rangi (2003), all widely regarded as influential in

10527-479: The latter featuring US artist Akon . Swing was used in the 2007 film Knocked Up and sold more than 1.8 million copies in the United States, making it almost double platinum. The song also appeared on the US compilation Now That's What I Call Music! 29 . Formed in 1979, Herbs are a New Zealand reggae vocal group and the 11th inductee into the New Zealand Music Hall of Fame . In 1986,

10648-592: The low rate of literacy among rural African Americans at the time. Reports of blues music in southern Texas and the Deep South were written at the dawn of the 20th century. Charles Peabody mentioned the appearance of blues music at Clarksdale, Mississippi , and Gate Thomas reported similar songs in southern Texas around 1901–1902. These observations coincide more or less with the recollections of Jelly Roll Morton , who said he first heard blues music in New Orleans in 1902; Ma Rainey , who remembered first hearing

10769-456: The mid- to late-20th century, Māori singers and songwriters like Howard Morrison (1935–2009), Prince Tui Teka (1937–1985), Dalvanius Prime (1948–2002), Moana Maniapoto (1961- ) and Hinewehi Mohi (1964- ) developed a distinctive Māori-influenced style. Some artists; like Alien Weaponry have released Māori-language songs, and the Māori traditional art of kapa haka (song and dance) has had

10890-525: The music industry during the 1920s and 1930s. Other chord progressions, such as 8-bar forms, are still considered blues; examples include " How Long Blues ", " Trouble in Mind ", and Big Bill Broonzy 's " Key to the Highway ". There are also 16-bar blues , such as Ray Charles 's instrumental "Sweet 16 Bars" and Herbie Hancock 's " Watermelon Man ". Idiosyncratic numbers of bars are occasionally used, such as

11011-452: The next four, and a longer concluding line over the last bars. This pattern can be heard in some of the first published blues songs, such as " Dallas Blues " (1912) and " Saint Louis Blues " (1914). According to W.C. Handy , the "AAB" pattern was adopted to avoid the monotony of lines repeated three times. The lyrics are often sung in a rhythmic talk style rather than a melody, resembling a form of talking blues . Early blues frequently took

11132-458: The ongoing ngā taonga pūoro revival. Rattle Records released Te Ku Te Whe, which included both original and traditional compositions and Te Hekenga-ā-rangi, where Melbourne and Nunns teamed with Aroha Yates-Smith . Te Hekenga-ā-rangi was recorded just weeks before Melbourne's death. Melbourne regularly used his compositions to invoke the advice of elders to preserve and advance tikanga Māori . Melbourne's song E Kui e Koro incorporates

11253-495: The propulsive left-hand rhythms of the ragtime pianists with melodic figures similar to those of Armstrong's trumpet in the right hand". The smooth Louisiana style of Professor Longhair and, more recently, Dr. John blends classic rhythm and blues with blues styles. Another development in this period was big band blues. The " territory bands " operating out of Kansas City , the Bennie Moten orchestra, Jay McShann , and

11374-426: The rebel Māori warrior chiefs of New Zealand's colonial history: Hōne Heke , Te Kooti , and Te Rauparaha . In the 1990s, the New Zealand hip hop scene grew with the evolution of Pacific Island -influenced hip hop. Phil Fuemana , Kosmo, Brother D and Pacific Underground played an important role in the growth of "Pasifika" hip hop. OMC 's 1996 single " How Bizarre " combined Pauly Fuemana's Nieuean background,

11495-458: The religious community a musician belonged to, it was more or less considered a sin to play this low-down music: blues was the devil's music. Musicians were therefore segregated into two categories: gospel singers and blues singers, guitar preachers and songsters. However, when rural black music began to be recorded in the 1920s, both categories of musicians used similar techniques: call-and-response patterns, blue notes, and slide guitars. Gospel music

11616-515: The single direct ancestor of the blues. However the call-and-response format can be traced back to the music of Africa . That blue notes predate their use in blues and have an African origin is attested to by "A Negro Love Song", by the English composer Samuel Coleridge-Taylor , from his African Suite for Piano , written in 1898, which contains blue third and seventh notes . The Diddley bow (a homemade one-stringed instrument found in parts of

11737-686: The song " Slice of Heaven " with Dave Dobbyn reached number one on both the New Zealand and Australian charts. In 1989, Tim Finn joined them for the Parihaka festival and, in 1992, Annie Crummer fronted the hit single "See What Love Can Do". Herbs are considered pioneers of the Pacific reggae sound, having paved the way for contemporary New Zealand reggae groups such as Breaks Co-op , Fat Freddy's Drop , Katchafire , Kora , The Black Seeds , Salmonella Dub , 1814, Tahuna Breaks , Six60 and Trinity Roots . Electronic music in New Zealand constitutes

11858-438: The song poetry form mōteatea. SOUNZ Centre for New Zealand Music published a series in 2021 called He Reo Tawhito: Conversations about Mōteatea where Crystal Edwards interviewed various specialists including Te Ahukaramū Charles Royal , Hōhepa Te Rito, Hana O'Regan and Taiarahia Black .. Pre-Colonial instrumental music used taonga pūoro ( Māori : taonga pūoro , lit.   'musical treasures or heirlooms') -

11979-406: The southeastern "delicate and lyrical" Piedmont blues tradition, which used an elaborate ragtime-based fingerpicking guitar technique. Georgia also had an early slide tradition, with Curley Weaver , Tampa Red , "Barbecue Bob" Hicks and James "Kokomo" Arnold as representatives of this style. The lively Memphis blues style, which developed in the 1920s and 1930s near Memphis, Tennessee ,

12100-449: The success of the song in Australia, Dobbyn settled in Australia. Dobbyn's hit song " Loyal " (1988) from his debut solo album Loyal (1988) was used as an anthem for Team New Zealand 's unsuccessful 2003 America's Cup defence. In 2005, Dobbyn released his sixth solo album, Available Light . It received popular and critical acclaim. In the same year Dobbyn performed the lead single from Available Light , " Welcome Home " (2005) at

12221-466: The term "blues" was associated with drinking alcohol, a meaning which survives in the phrase ' blue law ', which prohibits the sale of alcohol on Sunday. In 1827, it was in the sense of a sad state of mind that John James Audubon wrote to his wife that he "had the blues". In Henry David Thoreau 's book Walden , he mentions "the blues" in the chapter reflecting on his time in solitude. He wrote his account of his personal quest in 1845, although it

12342-472: The term in this sense is in George Colman 's one-act farce Blue Devils (1798). The phrase 'blue devils' may also have been derived from a British usage of the 1600s referring to the "intense visual hallucinations that can accompany severe alcohol withdrawal". As time went on, the phrase lost the reference to devils and came to mean a state of agitation or depression. By the 1800s in the United States,

12463-450: The trance-like rhythm and call-and-response, and they form a repetitive effect called a groove . Characteristic of the blues since its Afro-American origins, the shuffles played a central role in swing music . The simplest shuffles, which were the clearest signature of the R&;B wave that started in the mid-1940s, were a three-note riff on the bass strings of the guitar. When this riff

12584-430: The use of taonga pūoro. European settlers brought new harmonies and instruments, which Māori composers gradually adopted. The action song ( waiata-ā-ringa ) largely developed in the early 20th century. Māori also gravitated towards Hawaiian music from artists like Ernest Kaʻai and David Lucla Kaili that toured New Zealand in the 1900s to 1920s, leading the adoption of steel guitars pioneered by Eruera Mati Hita. In

12705-570: The whakatauki (Māori proverb) "Mate kāinga tahi, Ora Kāinga rua" (when one home fails, have another to go to). Many Melbourne songs have been performed by other New Zealand musicians including Hinewehi Mohi , Moana Maniapoto , the Topp Twins and Mere Boynton . Melbourne was a member of the Nga Tamatoa protest group and many of his waiata were written as vehicles for ideals he was passionate about, most notably "Ngā Iwi E", composed for

12826-537: The youngest solo artist to ever reach number one on the US singles chart with Royals . The song from her album Pure Heroine went on to win Best Pop Performance and Song of the Year at the 2014 Grammy Awards. The top-selling New Zealand pop song of all time is How Bizarre by OMC . The song went to number one in New Zealand, Australia, Canada, Ireland, South Africa and Austria. It spent 36 weeks on

12947-625: Was "Blue Smoke", written in the 1940s by Ruru Karaitiana . Pixie Williams recorded the song in 1949 and, although it went triple platinum in New Zealand, the award for selling 50,000 copies of the song was only presented to Pixie Williams on 13 July 2011. The advent of music television shows in the 1960s led to the rise of Sandy Edmonds , one of New Zealand's first pop stars. Formed in the early 1970s and variously featuring Phil Judd and brothers Tim Finn and Neil Finn , Split Enz achieved chart success in New Zealand, Australia, and Canada ‒ most notably with their 1980 single I Got You – and built

13068-540: Was a formally trained musician, composer and arranger who helped to popularize the blues by transcribing and orchestrating blues in an almost symphonic style, with bands and singers. He became a popular and prolific composer, and billed himself as the "Father of the Blues"; however, his compositions can be described as a fusion of blues with ragtime and jazz, a merger facilitated using the Cuban habanera rhythm that had long been

13189-611: Was a number one hit, were Māori. Released in 1984, "Poi E" was sung entirely in the Māori language and featured a blend of Māori cultural practices in the song and accompanying music video, including Māori chanting , poi dancing, and the wearing of traditional Māori garments. The first entire album of locally produced hip hop was Upper Hutt Posse 's E Tu EP , from 1988. E Tu was partially in Māori and partially in English, and its lyrics were politically charged. The song "E Tu" combined African-American revolutionary rhetoric with an explicitly Māori frame of reference. It paid homage to

13310-399: Was closely related to ragtime , which developed at about the same time, though the blues better preserved "the original melodic patterns of African music". The musical forms and styles that are now considered the blues as well as modern country music arose in the same regions of the southern United States during the 19th century. Recorded blues and country music can be found as far back as

13431-478: Was first coined in Auckland in the early 1990s) developed in Auckland, most notably in the Cause Celebre nightclub and the work of Nathan Haines . Two popular early Nathan Haines releases were Freebass Live at Cause Celebre and Haines' Shift Left . A proponent of this sound and an ex-pat artist who is still active in this area is Mark de Clive-Lowe . New Zealand heavy metal bands include Devilskin ,

13552-457: Was heard in slave ring shouts and field hollers , expanded into "simple solo songs laden with emotional content". Blues has evolved from the unaccompanied vocal music and oral traditions of slaves imported from West Africa and rural blacks into a wide variety of styles and subgenres, with regional variations across the United States. Although blues (as it is now known) can be seen as a musical style based on both European harmonic structure and

13673-581: Was influenced by jug bands such as the Memphis Jug Band or the Gus Cannon's Jug Stompers . Performers such as Frank Stokes , Sleepy John Estes , Robert Wilkins , Kansas Joe McCoy , Casey Bill Weldon and Memphis Minnie used a variety of unusual instruments such as washboard , fiddle , kazoo or mandolin . Memphis Minnie was famous for her virtuoso guitar style. Pianist Memphis Slim began his career in Memphis, but his distinct style

13794-670: Was nevertheless using musical forms that were compatible with Christian hymns and therefore less marked by the blues form than its secular counterpart. The American sheet music publishing industry produced a great deal of ragtime music. By 1912, the sheet music industry had published three popular blues-like compositions, precipitating the Tin Pan Alley adoption of blues elements: "Baby Seals' Blues", by Baby Franklin Seals (arranged by Artie Matthews ); "Dallas Blues", by Hart Wand ; and " The Memphis Blues ", by W.C. Handy . Handy

13915-481: Was not published until 1854. The phrase "the blues" was written by Charlotte Forten , then aged 25, in her diary on December 14, 1862. She was a free-born black woman from Pennsylvania who was working as a schoolteacher in South Carolina, instructing both slaves and freedmen, and wrote that she "came home with the blues" because she felt lonesome and pitied herself. She overcame her depression and later noted

14036-420: Was played over the bass and the drums, the groove "feel" was created. Shuffle rhythm is often vocalized as " dow , da dow , da dow , da" or " dump , da dump , da dump , da": it consists of uneven, or "swung", eighth notes. On a guitar this may be played as a simple steady bass or it may add to that stepwise quarter note motion from the fifth to the sixth of the chord and back. Hart Wand 's " Dallas Blues "

14157-430: Was published in 1912; W.C. Handy 's " The Memphis Blues " followed in the same year. The first recording by an African American singer was Mamie Smith 's 1920 rendition of Perry Bradford 's " Crazy Blues ". But the origins of the blues were some decades earlier, probably around 1890. This music is poorly documented, partly because of racial discrimination in U.S. society, including academic circles, and partly because of

14278-454: Was reluctant to play locally produced material and by 1995 only 1.6% of all songs played on commercial radio stations were of New Zealand origin. In 1997 a government Kiwi Music Action Group was formed to compel radio stations to broadcast New Zealand music. The group initiated New Zealand Music Week and in 2000 this grew into New Zealand Music Month . By 2005 New Zealand content averaged between 19 and 20 percent. New Zealand's first pop song

14399-507: Was replaced by the term rhythm and blues . This rapidly evolving market was mirrored by Billboard magazine's Rhythm & Blues chart . This marketing strategy reinforced trends in urban blues music such as the use of electric instruments and amplification and the generalization of the blues beat, the blues shuffle , which became ubiquitous in rhythm and blues (R&B). This commercial stream had important consequences for blues music, which, together with jazz and gospel music , became

14520-444: Was smoother and had some swing elements. Many blues musicians based in Memphis moved to Chicago in the late 1930s or early 1940s and became part of the urban blues movement. City or urban blues styles were more codified and elaborate, as a performer was no longer within their local, immediate community, and had to adapt to a larger, more varied audience's aesthetic. Classic female urban and vaudeville blues singers were popular in

14641-555: Was the Chicago-based Bluebird Records . Before World War II, Tampa Red was sometimes referred to as "the Guitar Wizard". Carr accompanied himself on the piano with Scrapper Blackwell on guitar, a format that continued well into the 1950s with artists such as Charles Brown and even Nat "King" Cole . Boogie-woogie was another important style of 1930s and early 1940s urban blues. While the style

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