Wednesday, July 1, 2009

NPRs Rock n Roll Summer School

I'm a firm believer in the notion that to best understand where you are and where you are going, you first must comprehend from whence you came. This is true in all contexts, but particularly culture.

Which is why I'm particularly stoked with today's discovery of the NPR All Songs Considered blog's Rock and Roll Summer School series.

Each Wednesday, they will be posting a mini-essay penned by Tom Moon about seminal music developments. Today (I believe) was lesson #2 and focused on landmark label Chess Records; last week's kick-off topic was "jump blues" - the raucous party music that presaged what first became known as rock and roll.

If you really consider yourself a music fan (and I'm particularly thinking about all my fellow indie snobs), you gotta check this out. You might not dig it, but history is important. And for all you ADD-addled, Gen Y types, fear not: there are well-chosen youtube videos complementing the text.

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