American Music

The United States = a cultural melting pot

It took in influences from across the world and created distinctively new methods of cultural expression

can be traced back to specific origins

American music developed through:

- transplanting and hybridizing techniques, instruments and genres by individuals and groups, and

- cultural appropriation process as a major part of racial relations and promotion of political cause

- through informal processes of slavery, immigration, and intermingling ethnic, religious and racial diversity

- music industry has actively attempted to popularize:

- white performers of African American music because they are more palatable to mainstream and middle-class Americans: (Benny Goodman, Eminem, and Elvis Presley,

- popular styles (blue-eyed style, and rockabilly)

that resulted in:

1. West African music through slavery: blues and gospel brought to the Americas by slaves and mixed with West European music

2. Irish music through immigration enriched through further hybridizing with elements of

indigenous,

Latin and

European music