I enjoyed the large variety on the second gospel playlist. Their was some folk/country music, such as the second song, "I'll Have A New Body." There was some blues and jazz sounding tracks, one choral song, some ragtime sounding tracks and then some more traditional sounding gospel songs. The "Black Diamond Express to Hell" was very interesting. It is really cool how it starts out as a regular speech and then the preacher begins to sort of sing it. I especially like his extreme emphasis on some phrases such as, "next station." It was also really interesting to compare the early version of "There Ain't no Grave Gonna Hold My Body Down," to a modern cover of it. I like the energy in the first one, but I prefer the clean precise woman's voice over the scratchy voice of Brother Claude Ely. This brings us to one of the main topics of the preface of the country book; original country music is unique because you can feel the sincerity and the hardships of the singer. What we call country today is far less genuine is often just made to please fans (i.e. make money).
I remember reading in the blues book about how many blues artists host house parties that don't exactly glorify the Lord. Then the next morning (on Sunday) everybody would go to church. Listening to the Charlie Patton reminded me of this. This contradictory lifestyle is kind of resembled by this type of song, and how it's topic is quite different from the topic in many other blues songs. I couldn't really understand a single word he was saying in "Prayer of Death," but I was able to infer that he was singing about the Lord. Thinking about this got me curious: I wonder if any of the Blues artists would preform at a house party, and then preform the next morning at church? Haha that would be interesting!

On the first list of gospel music, I expected to sense a more uplifting feeling from the songs From the first three songs I felt more despair. I'm not sure, but it might have something to do with the low, gritty and not all that musical sound of the voice of Blind Willie Johnson and the voice in the voice in the following song. However in some of the following songs such as "Get Away Jordan" was much more upbeat and the vocals were much more musical, which I like more. The vocals clearly dominate these gospel songs. It is interesting to compare to the blues and country songs we have listened to, because those often include combining elements such as the guitar, the bass, the fiddle, the piano and drums. However in the Gospel songs they will combine a bunch of voices and if they want percussion they can just clap. The harmonization is really fun to listen to, I especially liked it in the song "Mother Bowed." Yes, some of the songs to incorporate a fiddle, or guitar, or piano or drums, but the vocals are still the dominant part. In the song "O Day" the flute adds a peculiar element, it almost resembles jazz flute, how it's not always on pitch and it abruptly skips around. There is definitely lots of energy in these songs, especially in songs such as "You Must Be Born Again" when the leader shouts out. The song "I'll be Rested" sounded a lot like some of the folk music we have listened to. I guess mostly due to the fiddle, it also sounds a lot like some of the songs the fiddle player played when he came and visited us. The vocals are still dominant. Songs like this that borrow from different styles are a huge part of our music roots, because they are a part of the musical evolution.

Yo! That is good stuff on the homepage: under the heading, "Blacks Imitating Whites Imitating Blacks..." That is odd how much the cakewalk had been imitated. It reminds me of the game 'Telephone,' where the end result is never the same as the initial saying. I wonder how much the cakewalk had been altered by the time of Ragtime. I don't know why I come up with these connections to rap, but this imitating notion immediately reminded me of the use of the "N" word. Whites used to (I guess some still do) use it as a derogatory term towards blacks. Now blacks use it quite freely (e.g. in their rap songs). I think this common use has desensitised our(or at least those that listen to rap) ears to this word. Now it is fairly tolerable to hear it from a black. However, I don't see the imitating ever being shifted back to the whites on this one! Anywho, back to topic on hand: I love Ed Ward's quote: "This is what makes artists artists: they take little bits of things from here and there and put them together in unexpected combinations that seem new and original." I never thought about it that way. Before when I was thinking about the diversity of styles on the 'Folkways Collection' I assumed that the artists took a style and transformed it to their own style on purpose. It's more amusing to think that they tried to sound like the previous style and failed, yet by failing they succeeded in creating a new style. It's like they can't sound the same no matter how hard they try because their own personal style will always be revealed. You can take an artist out of a style, but you can't take the style out of an artist? I love that essay too: "When Right Is Wrong," by Ed Ward. It is informative and humorous at the same time. It has some really good quotes, and some really funny ones: "They didn't have to be very good at it to impress the German audiences, who were more interested in getting drunk and chasing women." (This one was about the caliber of the Beatles performances.) I am a big Beatles fan, and I never really knew how their style came about, because it does sound completely original. Yet the essay gives direct examples of artists that influenced Lennon and the Beatles. Like Ward says, "It seems to be an unspoken rule of popular music: everything new comes from someone trying to imitate something and getting it wrong."