Delaware program tracks evolution of Black recorded music
By DOVER — The evolution of Black recorded music will be the focus of a multimedia presentation given by Chris Hall, site supervisor of Dover’s Johnson Victrola Museum, on Feb. 25.
The talk, titled “Rock-n-Roll Soul,” is part of the Delaware Division of Historical and Cultural Affairs’ “Struggles for Equality” series in conjunction with Black History Month.
The program examines the roles played by Chuck Berry, Little Richard, James Brown, Fats Domino, Sister Rosetta Tharpe, Motown Records and others in establishing soul music, rock ‘n’ roll, and rhythm and blues. It will feature biographies, musical recordings and video clips from the 1940s through the 1960s.
“Originally, this was a program we did in 2018. It was part of a four-week program that we offered,” Mr. Hall said.
“This one in particular looks at the development of rhythm and blues as a genre, particularly looking at Motown in Detroit, Michigan. So we’re talking about artists like Stevie Wonder, The Supremes, The Jackson 5 and then the things that broke off from there.”
Mr. Hall created and wrote the program back in 2018 with Gavin Malone, who works at the Old State House in Dover, doing all of the research, presentation and music selection. He said he chose this part of the four-week program to focus on for a one-time lecture because it would be the music with which most people would be familiar.
“It covers wider genres than the other weeks when we focused on very specific things. You have a lot of new genres that all develop. We tried to break it down by specific periods and then we ended up with this one, which was like 20 years of practically every genre you could think of pretty much coming out at the same time,” Mr. Hall said.
The program also focuses on offshoots of Motown, the major record producer for Black artists at the time.
“You get companies like Stax Records’ Volt label that later became part of Atlantic. You had Electric Lady Studios, where after Stevie Wonder got fed up with Motown and feeling stymied, he goes off to do that, and then you get the synthesizer era of Stevie Wonder’s career,” Mr. Hall said.
“All of these little companies started popping up and a lot of artists got tempted to leave the Motown scene. They don’t like how controlling things tend to be there and started making other smaller companies and larger competitors.”
From there, gospel and soul music developed and then eventually rock.
“Artists like James Brown and Aretha Franklin will be talked about a lot. And then we also go into rock ‘n’ roll and how it developed in the 1950s and ‘60s. So in the early years, you have Fats Domino, Charlie Christian and Chuck Berry, kind of going up to the end of the certain period of rock ‘n’ roll before rock ‘n’ roll kind of changes. We end up talking a lot about Jimi Hendrix as well as the new direction he took in rock,” Mr. Hall said.
While the research was enlightening, he said it was also a bit depressing at times.
“Stardom comes with unfortunately downsides and many artists who were talented, either because of personal tragedy or personal choices, something got in the way of so many great artists’ careers,” he said.
“For all those success stories, there’s so many more where someone’s career never took off the way it should have.”
He points to soul singer Otis Redding as an example.
“He was a great artist who struggled to find that one song that would be a hit and then he tragically died right before his only hit song came out,” Mr. Hall said of “(Sittin’ On) The Dock of the Bay.”
The song was recorded by Mr. Redding twice in 1967, including once just three days before his death in a plane crash on Dec. 10, 1967. It was released on Stax Records’ Volt label in 1968, becoming the first posthumous single to top the charts in the U.S.
Racial issues also factored in the music choices back then.
“There were limitations that they had to work within to try to be successful when a lot of people didn’t want them to be,” Mr. Hall said.
“One of the big things that Motown was trying to do was find music that would, in (founder) Barry Gordy’s opinion, not alienate White listeners. So a great example of that was he tried to stop Marvin Gaye’s ‘What’s Going On’ because he did not want music to be political, because any progress they made was kind of bridging that gap with listeners. He was convinced it would ruin that. Ironically, it didn’t and was probably one of the songs that Marvin Gaye was most famous for.
“But it affected the opportunities that artists had. It affected the attitude studios had as they were trying to make a name for themselves — being afraid of public backlash. Even the name ‘rock ‘n’ roll’ was considered insidious. It was an innuendo-laden term that turned off a lot of radio stations from playing it.”
For a music fan like Mr. Hall, who became site supervisor of the Johnson Victrola Museum in 2020, this program is right up his alley.
“I’ve always loved music. I have no musical ability whatsoever, but I’ve always had an appreciation for it. I’m one of those millennials who got into vinyl in high school. So I was largely raised on a lot of like classic rock and then different genres that spawn off of that. But I have a pretty large collection of classical music as well. So I’ve always loved music. So working in a music museum is great. I’ve also been a technology fan. So having the early technology is really cool here. It’s a perfect fit for my interest,” he said.
The free program will take place at 1 p.m. Feb. 25 at the Old State House, 25 The Green in Dover.
Other programs in the “Struggles for Equality” series include “An Uphill Battle: The Unfulfilled Promise of the Civil War 1865-1896.”
At the end of the Civil War, great change seemed promised with the first federal civil rights acts and amendments. Why instead did the nation descend into segregation? Mr. Malone explores the constitutional amendments, the first federal civil rights acts, Delaware’s political climate and reactions to federal legislation ending with the Plessy decision.
That will take place Saturday at 1 p.m., also in the Old State House.
For more information on these programs, call 302-744-5054 or email OSHmuseum@delaware.gov.
