#jarekus singleton

For many young black musicians, especially those growing up in the South, learning about the blues came by accident and outside the home. Many in the older generation moved away from traditional blues because they considered it antiquated, or representing hardships endured by previous generations they’d prefer to forget.

“A lot of my white friends knew more about the blues than I did. Their parents educated them about it. But we didn’t listen to that type of music when I was growing up,” says Jarekus Singleton, 29, from Clinton, Miss. “I kind of feel bad for my generation because we didn’t have those people teaching us. But we have the responsibility now.”

Even in the cradle of the blues, the Mississippi Delta, the music has fallen in stature among millennial-aged African Americans: According to polling conducted last August by University of Mississippi doctoral candidate Nicholas Gorrell, when asked to name their favorite music, those aged 18 to 29 in the Delta said they most preferred R&B and hip-hop, with the blues a distant third.

The racial shift among blues audiences started decades ago, following the folk revival and, later, the British Invasion, when much of white America heard black music for the first time. At the same time, black audiences identified more with soul, funk and, eventually, hip-hop; up-and-coming black musicians, to stay commercially relevant, followed suit.

“Young black audiences no longer viewed the blues as pop music,” says Adam Gussow, a professor of Southern studies at the University of Mississippi in Oxford. “Music of the now became soul music because it was about rebellion and it was about pride.”

Among blues purists, there was concern that blacks would abandon the music altogether, a scenario many thought might distort the very qualities that made it feel genuine.

Jim O’Neal, founder of Living Blues magazine, said the publication earned its name in 1970 “because people said [blues] was dead.” “We didn’t see any young black musicians coming up and we felt the old music was dying out,” he says. “But it continued.”For decades, stars such as guitarist Buddy Guy have carried the torch while complaining that the blues has been relegated to the back seat of the music industry as radio programmers, club operators and major record labels became less interested in supporting what they consider the foundation of black music.

“My children didn’t know who the hell I was until they turned 21 and could come to my club and see me play,” Guy says. “They grew up in the house with me and would say ‘cut it out playing the blues!’ At one point, I thought that maybe, lyrically, the blues was unfit to sing around kids. But then hip-hop stepped in.

”With second-generation blues artists such as Robert Cray, Billy Branch and Kenny Neal now playing elder-statesmen roles, the crop of younger black blues musicians who can take the tradition and transform it with their own identity is relatively slim. Besides Birchwood and Singleton, other emerging up-and-comers include Marquise Knox, 24, of St. Louis, Blind Boy Paxton, 25, of Los Angeles, and the Peterson Brothers, ages 15 and 17, of Austin.

Otis Clay, the soul music legend from Chicago who entered the Blues Hall of Fame last year, says that once radio segregated blues from other genres, “fans and the music suffered.”

  Chris Antonik – Morningstar   Chris Antonik – Morningstar Format: CD – Digital Label: Second Half Records Release: 2022 Release date: August 5, 2022 ‘Morningstar’ is the fourth studio album from Canadian bluesrock guitarist, singer, songwriter, and 3x-Maple Blues Awardnominee Chris Antonik, featuring special guests, 3x-Blues Music Award-nominee Jarekus Singleton, Multiple Maple Blues…

Recensie: Jarekus Singleton – The Bridge Part1 // @Reakdog

Jarekus Singleton – The Bridge Part 1 Format:  CD – Digital / Label: Reakdog Music LLC Releasedatum:  1 juni 2018

Tekst: Jos Verhagen

Jarekus Singleton’s vorige plaat ‘Refuse To Loose‘ werd door de internationale pers juichend ontvangen, samen met Selwyn Birchwood werd hij bestempeld als “the next big thing in de bluesscene”. Hoewel er ook kritiek was op dat album. Zo waren er wat aanmerkingen…