An Introduction to America’s Music

CHAPTER 18 | SOUL MUSIC IN THE 1960s 461

CD 3.21 Listening Guide 18.4 “Mama Tried” MERLE HAGGARD

timing section text comments

1:40 chorus And I turned twenty-one in prison...

1:58 coda Shortened version of the

introduction, with two short chords

for a fi nish.

Listen & Refl ect

1. Some critics have noted that “Mama Tried” is not fully autobiographical: Haggard did
   turn twenty-one in prison, but he was not serving life without parole. Do the discrepancies
   between song and biography weaken the song? Why or why not?


2. Do the aural contrasts, from solo acoustic guitar to full ensemble with background sing-
   ers, succeed in creating an aesthetically pleasing effect, or do they seem incongruous?
   Why?

an accomplished, athletic dancer who mesmerized audiences with splits, leaps,

and other exuberant steps—a style of performance that became a model for

Michael Jackson.

By 1964 James Brown was moving away from conventional song structures

and toward a new emphasis on movement and dance. “Papa’s Got a Brand New

Bag” (1965; LG 18.5), more than four minutes long, devotes less than half its

length to the lyrics, which celebrate dancing. Originally split into two halves and

released on the A and B sides of a 45-rpm single, “Papa” begins with the brief-

est of intros: a sustained blast from a band that plays with fi erce precision from

start to fi nish. Brown sings a pair of vocal choruses in twelve-bar blues form, fol-

lowed by eight bars of vamp—here a repeated four-beat unit built on a rhythmic

bass. After two more choruses, the blues structure disappears, to be replaced by

the vamp. The melody instruments interlock polyrhythmically with the bass by

attacking the second beat with an explosive accent of three short notes, while the

drummer and guitarist regularly accent the backbeat. The vamp churns ahead

for the next two and a half minutes to the fi nal fadeout, overlaid by a long tenor

sax solo and Brown’s shouts of encouragement. (In live performance the singer

danced this part of the number.) Brown’s commitment to rhythm is unmistak-

able: the song is used to introduce the vamp instead of the other way around.

By this time in his career, Brown later said, “I was hearing everything, even the

guitars, like they were drums.”

In “Papa’s Got a Brand New Bag” and other recordings that followed, Brown

virtually invented the style that in the 1970s would be called funk, and in the pro-

cess became the best-selling soul artist of the day. Echoes of Brown’s techniques

LG 18.5

172028_18_440-467_r3_sd.indd 461 23/01/13 11:02 AM