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121-507: Gary Lee Clark Jr. (born February 15, 1984) is an American guitarist and singer who fuses blues , rock and soul music with elements of hip hop . In 2011, Clark signed with Warner Bros Records and released The Bright Lights EP. It was followed by the albums Blak and Blu (2012) and The Story of Sonny Boy Slim (2015). Throughout his career, Clark has been a prolific live performer, documented by Gary Clark Jr. Live (2014) and Gary Clark Jr Live/North America (2017). In 2014, Clark
242-549: A BFA in film in 1989. The production notes for Snyder's first film Dawn of the Dead describes Snyder as "a comic book and horror film enthusiast in his youth". After graduating, Snyder directed commercials as well as music videos for ZZ Top and Morrissey , where he met his future wife Deborah, who was then a music producer. Snyder directed "Respect" for Budweiser , which came out in February 2002. The 60-second commercial depicts
363-469: A Savanah Leaf directed music video for the song. This Land was chosen as a 'Favorite Blues Album' by AllMusic . Clark performed at the 50th Monterey Jazz Festival as part of the promotion for John Sayles ' 2007 film Honeydripper . Clark performed at the 2010 Crossroads Guitar Festival . He joined Doyle Bramhall II and Sheryl Crow on stage for their performance with Eric Clapton, and also debuted several original songs. In June 2011, Clark played at
484-626: A director's cut released in 2021. He also directed the animated film Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga'Hoole (2010), the psychological action film Sucker Punch (2011), the zombie heist film Army of the Dead (2021), and the two-parter space opera films Rebel Moon (2023) and Rebel Moon – Part Two: The Scargiver (2024). In 2004, he founded the production company The Stone Quarry (formerly known as Cruel and Unusual Films) alongside his wife Deborah Snyder and producing partner Wesley Coller. Zachary Edward Snyder
605-473: A "faithful retelling" set during the American Gold rush era. Following Rebel Moon , Snyder will return to direct Planet of the Dead , a sequel to Army of the Dead . He also signed a first-look deal with Netflix. Snyder has been developing Horse Latitudes , a film about two war photographers since 2011, although the project is on hold while he works at Netflix. After a period of relative silence on
726-582: A 50-acre horse ranch in Kyle, Texas . A series of racist questions from a neighbor about Clark's ownership of the ranch served as inspiration for the song "This Land." Clark performed at Alicia Keys ' Keep a Child Alive Black Ball benefit , in an effort to raise money for children with AIDS in Africa . The two performed the Beatles ' " While My Guitar Gently Weeps " as a tribute to George Harrison . Blues Blues
847-467: A Fender Vibro-King amp purchased from Zapata (who currently tours with him and plays rhythm guitar) paired with a Fender Princeton. He is known for extensive use of fuzz pedals, with his most frequently used pedal being the Fulltone Octafuzz, and regular use of a wah pedal . Clark married Australian model Nicole Trunfio in 2016. They have three children. In late 2016, Clark and Trunfio purchased
968-484: A banjo or guitar. Regional styles of country blues varied widely in the early 20th century. The (Mississippi) Delta blues was a rootsy sparse style with passionate vocals accompanied by slide guitar. The little-recorded Robert Johnson combined elements of urban and rural blues. In addition to Robert Johnson, influential performers of this style included his predecessors Charley Patton and Son House . Singers such as Blind Willie McTell and Blind Boy Fuller performed in
1089-716: A billboard for the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention with the message "You are not alone" in a scene in Zack Snyder's Justice League . The film features other tributes to his late daughter. Snyder directed two PSAs for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society in 2018. In 2021, Snyder partnered with Save the Children , a global child rights organization, to build a 100-bed temporary hospital facility in New Delhi to help fight
1210-415: A break; the harmony of this two-bar break, the turnaround, can be extremely complex, sometimes consisting of single notes that defy analysis in terms of chords. Much of the time, some or all of these chords are played in the harmonic seventh (7th) form. The use of the harmonic seventh interval is characteristic of blues and is popularly called the "blues seven". Blues seven chords add to the harmonic chord
1331-567: A center for electric blues from 1948 on, when Muddy Waters recorded his first success, "I Can't Be Satisfied". Chicago blues is influenced to a large extent by Delta blues , because many performers had migrated from the Mississippi region. Howlin' Wolf , Muddy Waters, Willie Dixon and Jimmy Reed were all born in Mississippi and moved to Chicago during the Great Migration. Their style
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#17331043805691452-399: A component of R&B. After World War II, new styles of electric blues became popular in cities such as Chicago , Memphis , Detroit and St. Louis . Electric blues used electric guitars , double bass (gradually replaced by bass guitar ), drums , and harmonica (or "blues harp") played through a microphone and a PA system or an overdriven guitar amplifier . Chicago became
1573-676: A ground bass overlaid with complex treble patterns, while vocal supplies a third rhythmic layer. Similar techniques can be found in hundreds of blues records". The lyrics often relate troubles experienced within African American society. For instance Blind Lemon Jefferson 's "Rising High Water Blues" (1927) tells of the Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 : Backwater rising, Southern peoples can't make no time I said, backwater rising, Southern peoples can't make no time And I can't get no hearing from that Memphis girl of mine Although
1694-423: A group of horses traveling toward the site of the 9/11 terror attacks to pay their respects to the victims with a bow. Snyder made his feature film debut with the remake of the horror film Dawn of the Dead (2004), and scored a box office hit with the fantasy war film 300 (2006), adapted from writer-artist Frank Miller 's Dark Horse Comics miniseries of the same name . His Warner Bros. film Watchmen
1815-410: A guest appearance on Tech N9ne 's 2016 album The Storm , providing the chorus for the song "No Gun Control". Clark appeared on Childish Gambino 's album "Awaken, My Love!" , released that same year, performing the guitar solo on the track "The Night Me and Your Mama Met". In 2017, Clark released his second live album, Live North America 2016 . Clark collaborated with ZZ Ward on " Ride " from
1936-414: A guy in an alley he's not going to just be lying on the ground. It's going to be messy'. The Netflix production Army of the Dead was a special project for Snyder as he served as his own cinematographer, as well as this being his first film shot digitally. Snyder has been described as one of the most polarizing directors of modern cinema. David Ehrlich of IndieWire wrote that Snyder's "name alone
2057-458: A huge advocate for the rights of all ethnicities and every walk of life. I would say I'm a pretty liberal guy. I want to make sure everyone's heard and everyone feels included. I don't have a rightwing political agenda. People see what they want to see. For me, that was not certainly the point. Snyder's body of work has earned him a number of awards, including two Clio Awards and a Gold Lion Award for his Jeep " Frisbee " commercial. He also won
2178-610: A movement known as the Great Migration . The long boom following World War II induced another massive migration of the African-American population, the Second Great Migration , which was accompanied by a significant increase of the real income of the urban blacks. The new migrants constituted a new market for the music industry. The term race record , initially used by the music industry for African-American music,
2299-456: A note with a frequency in a 7:4 ratio to the fundamental note. At a 7:4 ratio, it is not close to any interval on the conventional Western diatonic scale . For convenience or by necessity it is often approximated by a minor seventh interval or a dominant seventh chord . In melody , blues is distinguished by the use of the flattened third , fifth and seventh of the associated major scale . Blues shuffles or walking bass reinforce
2420-456: A number of songs, such as "Poor Rosy", that were popular among the slaves. Although she admitted being unable to describe the manner of singing she heard, Forten wrote that the songs "can't be sung without a full heart and a troubled spirit", conditions that have inspired countless blues songs. Though the use of the phrase in African-American music may be older, it has been attested to in print since 1912, when Hart Wand 's " Dallas Blues " became
2541-594: A part in early blues, citing Robert Johnson 's " Cross Road Blues " as a "thinly veiled reference to Eleggua , the orisha in charge of the crossroads". However, the Christian influence was far more obvious. The repertoires of many seminal blues artists, such as Charley Patton and Skip James , included religious songs or spirituals. Reverend Gary Davis and Blind Willie Johnson are examples of artists often categorized as blues musicians for their music, although their lyrics clearly belong to spirituals. The blues form
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#17331043805692662-569: A part of ragtime; Handy's signature work was the " Saint Louis Blues ". In the 1920s, the blues became a major element of African American and American popular music, also reaching white audiences via Handy's arrangements and the classic female blues performers. These female performers became perhaps the first African American "superstars", and their recording sales demonstrated "a huge appetite for records made by and for black people." The blues evolved from informal performances in bars to entertainment in theaters. Blues performances were organized by
2783-676: A reboot of the Superman franchise and the jumpstart to the DC Extended Universe (DCEU) and produced the prequel/sequel to 300 , 300: Rise of an Empire (2014). During Comic Con 2013, Snyder announced that Batman and Superman would share the screen in Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice , released in 2016. Snyder directed, Cavill reprised his role as Superman, and Ben Affleck played Batman. Snyder directed Warner Bros.' 2017 Justice League , but he exited during post-production to deal with
2904-419: A recording career that began in 1926 and spanned forty years. These recordings were typically labeled " race records " to distinguish them from records sold to white audiences. Nonetheless, the recordings of some of the classic female blues singers were purchased by white buyers as well. These blueswomen's contributions to the genre included "increased improvisation on melodic lines, unusual phrasing which altered
3025-509: A science fiction film adaptation of the Adult Swim cartoon series Rick and Morty , feeling that such a film would be the closest project he could tackle to make a comedy film. In a November 2023 interview with The Hollywood Reporter , Snyder stated that while he no longer has any interest in tackling superhero comic book adaptations in light of the DCEU continuity's conclusion with Aquaman and
3146-406: A separate genre arose during the black migration from the countryside to urban areas in the 1920s and the simultaneous development of the recording industry. Blues became a code word for a record designed to sell to black listeners. The origins of the blues are closely related to the religious music of Afro-American community, the spirituals . The origins of spirituals go back much further than
3267-581: A wide variety of styles and subgenres. Blues subgenres include country blues , Delta blues and Piedmont blues , as well as urban blues styles such as Chicago blues and West Coast blues . World War II marked the transition from acoustic to electric blues and the progressive opening of blues music to a wider audience, especially white listeners. In the 1960s and 1970s, a hybrid form called blues rock developed, which blended blues styles with rock music . The term 'Blues' may have originated from "blue devils", meaning melancholy and sadness. An early use of
3388-449: Is a cyclic musical form in which a repeating progression of chords mirrors the call and response scheme commonly found in African and African-American music. During the first decades of the 20th century blues music was not clearly defined in terms of a particular chord progression. With the popularity of early performers, such as Bessie Smith , use of the twelve-bar blues spread across
3509-575: Is a music genre and musical form that originated amongst African-Americans in the Deep South of the United States around the 1860s. Blues has incorporated spirituals , work songs , field hollers , shouts , chants , and rhymed simple narrative ballads from the African-American culture . The blues form is ubiquitous in jazz , rhythm and blues , and rock and roll , and is characterized by
3630-560: Is a sly wordplay with the double meaning of being " tight " with someone, coupled with a more salacious physical familiarity. Blues songs with sexually explicit lyrics were known as dirty blues . The lyrical content became slightly simpler in postwar blues, which tended to focus on relationship woes or sexual worries. Lyrical themes that frequently appeared in prewar blues, such as economic depression, farming, devils, gambling, magic, floods and drought, were less common in postwar blues. The writer Ed Morales claimed that Yoruba mythology played
3751-450: Is characterized by its lyrics , bass lines , and instrumentation . Early traditional blues verses consisted of a single line repeated four times. It was only in the first decades of the 20th century that the most common current structure became standard: the AAB pattern , consisting of a line sung over the four first bars, its repetition over the next four, and then a longer concluding line over
Gary Clark Jr. - Misplaced Pages Continue
3872-471: Is characterized by the use of electric guitar, sometimes slide guitar, harmonica, and a rhythm section of bass and drums. The saxophonist J. T. Brown played in bands led by Elmore James and by J. B. Lenoir , but the saxophone was used as a backing instrument for rhythmic support more than as a lead instrument. Zack Snyder Zachary Edward Snyder (born March 1, 1966) is an American filmmaker. He made his feature film debut in 2004 with Dawn of
3993-405: Is enough to launch a thousand angry tweets, and the most passionate writing about his work is exclusively found in the comment sections of websites like this one. Snyder's critics really seem to hate him, and Snyder's fans really seem to hate his critics ... Is Snyder a master or a hack? A misunderstood myth-maker, or a meathead with a movie camera?" Film critic Armond White listed Snyder as one of
4114-418: Is little evidence of Sub-Sahelian influence in the blues as "elaborate polyrhythm, percussion on African drums (as opposed to European drums), [and] collective participation" which are characteristic of West-Central African music below the savannah, are conspicuously absent. According to the historian Paul Oliver , "the roots of the blues were not to be found in the coastal and forest regions of Africa. Rather...
4235-709: Is often associated with solo piano, boogie-woogie was also used to accompany singers and, as a solo part, in bands and small combos. Boogie-woogie style was characterized by a regular bass figure, an ostinato or riff and shifts of level in the left hand, elaborating each chord and trills and decorations in the right hand. Boogie-woogie was pioneered by the Chicago-based Jimmy Yancey and the Boogie-Woogie Trio ( Albert Ammons , Pete Johnson and Meade Lux Lewis ). Chicago boogie-woogie performers included Clarence "Pine Top" Smith and Earl Hines , who "linked
4356-491: Is often associated with the California blues style, performed a successful transition from the early urban blues à la Lonnie Johnson and Leroy Carr to the jump blues style and dominated the blues-jazz scene at Los Angeles during the 1940s. The transition from country blues to urban blues that began in the 1920s was driven by the successive waves of economic crisis and booms that led many rural blacks to move to urban areas, in
4477-439: Is that message? That it's okay that there's this massive destruction with zero consequence for anyone? That's what Watchmen was about in a lot of ways too. There was a scene, that scene where Dan and Laurie get mugged. They beat up the criminals. I was like the first guy, I want to show his arm get broken. I want a compound fracture. I don't want it to be clean. I want you to go, 'Oh my God, I guess you're right. If you just beat up
4598-475: The American South sometimes referred to as a jitterbug or a one-string in the early twentieth century) and the banjo are African-derived instruments that may have helped in the transfer of African performance techniques into the early blues instrumental vocabulary. The banjo seems to be directly imported from West African music. It is similar to the musical instrument that griots and other Africans such as
4719-727: The Bridge School Benefit Concert, Bridge XXVI. On December 8, 2012, Clark appeared at the Rolling Stones ' first US-gig of their 50th anniversary tour at the Barclay's Center in Brooklyn, to perform the Don Nix song "Going Down" with the band. On December 15, 2012, he joined them onstage again to play the same song, along with John Mayer , during the last date of the Stones' mini-tour at
4840-585: The COVID-19 pandemic in India . Although his films have been critiqued as having " right-wing " messages, politically, Snyder is a Democrat . He endorsed Joe Biden in the 2020 presidential election . In a 2021 interview with The Guardian , he stated: I vote Democrat! I'm a true lover of individual rights. I've always been a super-strong advocate of women's rights and a woman's right to choose, and I've always been surrounded by powerful women. And, of course, I'm
4961-590: The Count Basie Orchestra were also concentrating on the blues, with 12-bar blues instrumentals such as Basie's " One O'Clock Jump " and " Jumpin' at the Woodside " and boisterous " blues shouting " by Jimmy Rushing on songs such as "Going to Chicago" and " Sent for You Yesterday ". A well-known big band blues tune is Glenn Miller 's " In the Mood ". In the 1940s, the jump blues style developed. Jump blues grew up from
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5082-579: The Igbo played (called halam or akonting by African peoples such as the Wolof , Fula and Mandinka ). However, in the 1920s, when country blues began to be recorded, the use of the banjo in blues music was quite marginal and limited to individuals such as Papa Charlie Jackson and later Gus Cannon . Blues music also adopted elements from the "Ethiopian airs", minstrel shows and Negro spirituals , including instrumental and harmonic accompaniment. The style also
5203-811: The NBA All-Star Game Halftime Show with Trombone Shorty, Earth Wind and Fire, Doctor John, and Janelle Monáe. On May 29, 2014, Clark performed at Rock in Rio in Lisbon . Clark performed guitar, as a guest, on an episode of the PBS cable television show Austin City Limits , with the Foo Fighters , that aired on February 7, 2015. He and the Foo Fighters were accompanied by Jimmie Vaughan. On May 24, 2015, Clark opened for
5324-720: The Prudential Center . On May 13, 2013, Clark opened for Eric Clapton & His Band at the LG Arena, Birmingham, England, and on June 12, 2013, Clark was the guest performer with the Rolling Stones at Boston's TD Garden . Clark joined the Stones in playing the Freddie King tune "Going Down". On June 30, 2013, he appeared on the Avalon stage at the Glastonbury Festival . His performance was declared 'the most electric performance of
5445-741: The Theater Owners Booking Association in nightclubs such as the Cotton Club and juke joints such as the bars along Beale Street in Memphis. Several record companies, such as the American Record Corporation , Okeh Records , and Paramount Records , began to record African-American music. As the recording industry grew, country blues performers like Bo Carter , Jimmie Rodgers , Blind Lemon Jefferson , Lonnie Johnson , Tampa Red and Blind Blake became more popular in
5566-405: The call-and-response pattern, the blues scale , and specific chord progressions , of which the twelve-bar blues is the most common. Blue notes (or "worried notes"), usually thirds, fifths or sevenths flattened in pitch , are also an essential part of the sound. Blues shuffles or walking bass reinforce the trance-like rhythm and form a repetitive effect known as the groove . Blues music
5687-409: The degrees of the progression. For instance, for a blues in the key of C, C is the tonic chord (I) and F is the subdominant (IV). The last chord is the dominant (V) turnaround , marking the transition to the beginning of the next progression. The lyrics generally end on the last beat of the tenth bar or the first beat of the 11th bar, and the final two bars are given to the instrumentalist as
5808-451: The spirituals . The first appearance of the blues is often dated to after the ending of slavery , with the development of juke joints occurring later. It is associated with the newly acquired freedom of the former slaves. Chroniclers began to report about blues music at the dawn of the 20th century. The first publication of blues sheet music was in 1908. Blues has since evolved from unaccompanied vocal music and oral traditions of slaves into
5929-438: The 1920s, among them "the big three"— Gertrude "Ma" Rainey , Bessie Smith , and Lucille Bogan . Mamie Smith , more a vaudeville performer than a blues artist, was the first African American to record a blues song, in 1920; her second record, "Crazy Blues", sold 75,000 copies in its first month. Ma Rainey, the "Mother of Blues", and Bessie Smith each "[sang] around center tones, perhaps in order to project her voice more easily to
6050-428: The 1920s, when the record industry created the marketing categories " race music " and " hillbilly music " to sell music by blacks for blacks and by whites for whites, respectively. At the time, there was no clear musical division between "blues" and "country", except for the ethnicity of the performer, and even that was sometimes documented incorrectly by record companies. Though musicologists can now attempt to define
6171-451: The 9-bar progression in " Sitting on Top of the World ", by Walter Vinson . The basic 12-bar lyric framework of many blues compositions is reflected by a standard harmonic progression of 12 bars in a 4/4 time signature . The blues chords associated to a twelve-bar blues are typically a set of three different chords played over a 12-bar scheme. They are labeled by Roman numbers referring to
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#17331043805696292-542: The African American community. Kentucky-born Sylvester Weaver was in 1923 the first to record the slide guitar style, in which a guitar is fretted with a knife blade or the sawed-off neck of a bottle. The slide guitar became an important part of the Delta blues . The first blues recordings from the 1920s are categorized as a traditional, rural country blues and a more polished city or urban blues. Country blues performers often improvised, either without accompaniment or with only
6413-520: The African call-and-response tradition that transformed into an interplay of voice and guitar, the blues form itself bears no resemblance to the melodic styles of the West African griots . Additionally, there are theories that the four-beats-per-measure structure of the blues might have its origins in the Native American tradition of pow wow drumming. Some scholars identify strong influences on
6534-715: The Austin music club Antone's. Antone's was the launch pad where Jimmie and Stevie Ray Vaughan redefined blues at the time. After meeting Clifford, Clark began to perform with other musicians, including Jimmie Vaughan. Vaughan and others in the Austin music community helped Clark in his musical career. Clark sang on the 2010 bonus track cover of the Jackson 5 's " I Want You Back " on Sheryl Crow's album 100 Miles from Memphis . Rolling Stone declared Clark "Best Young Gun" in its April 2011, "Best of Rock" issue. In 2012, Clark recorded with Alicia Keys on two different songs. He co-wrote
6655-416: The Dead , a remake of the 1978 horror film of the same name . Since then, he has directed or produced a number of comic book and superhero films, including 300 (2006) and Watchmen (2009), as well as the Superman film that started the DC Extended Universe , Man of Steel (2013), and its follow-ups, Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (2016) and Justice League (2017), the latter of which had
6776-405: The Dead projects ; Army of Thieves , a prequel released in 2021, and Planet of the Dead , a sequel to be created. On May 20, 2020, Snyder announced that Zack Snyder's Justice League would be released on the streaming service HBO Max in 2021. The film was released on March 18, 2021. In July 2021, Snyder was officially announced to be developing the film Rebel Moon for Netflix . It
6897-741: The Evening (When the Sun Goes Down)", as well as contributing to performances of " Let the Good Times Roll ", "Beat Up Old Guitar", " Five Long Years " and " Sweet Home Chicago ". In June 2012, Clark guested with the Dave Matthews Band playing "Can't Stop" and " All Along the Watchtower " at dates in Virginia Beach and Indianapolis and on October 21 and 22, 2012, Clark appeared as the opening act at
7018-602: The Lost Kingdom , he would only consider returning for the DC Universe if James Gunn invites him back to direct a faithful adaptation of Miller's The Dark Knight Returns comic book. Snyder is set to direct a new feature action film for Netflix, centered around the Los Angeles Police Department , co-writing the script with frequent collaborator Kurt Johnstad. Snyder often uses slow motion , particularly
7139-772: The Preferred One Stage at the Basilica Block Party in Minneapolis. On January 10, 2019, Clark appeared on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert , on which he performed "This Land" and "Feed the Babies". The latter he performed along with Jon Batiste and Stay Human as a bonus track. On February 16, 2019, Clark performed "Pearl Cadillac" and "This Land" on NBC's Saturday Night Live . On February 28, 2019, Clark performed "This Land" on Comedy Central 's The Daily Show with Trevor Noah . On July 7, 2019, Clark opened for
7260-528: The Rolling Stones at Petco Park in San Diego . On July 4, 2015, played as part of the lineup for the Foo Fighters 20th Anniversary show at RFK Stadium in Washington, D.C. On June 8, 2016, he performed alongside Jon Batiste and Stay Human as musical guest of The Late Show with Stephen Colbert and on June 26, 2016, he performed during West Holts Stage, Glastonbury Festival , and on July 8, 2016, performed on
7381-670: The Rolling Stones' concert at Gillette Stadium during their 2019 No Filter Tour. Clark provided guest vocals and guitar with the Stones during their performance of "Ride 'Em on Down". Clark led the band (and Bruce Springsteen ) at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts during Jon Stewart 's Mark Twain Prize for American Humor ceremony on April 24, 2022. Kirk Watson , the Mayor of Austin, proclaimed May 3, 2001, to be Gary Clark Jr. Day. Clark
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#17331043805697502-548: The Trill , "Blood on the Dash" and "Gone Away" also featuring Leon Bridges . Clark was featured on Tom Morello 's album The Atlas Underground , providing vocals and guitar on the song "Where It's at Ain't What It Is". On January 10, 2019, Clark announced the March 1, 2019, release of his album This Land via Warner Bros. On the same day he released the title song from the album supported by
7623-756: The Year, Songwriter of the Year, Blues/Soul/Funk Artist of the Year, Male Vocalist of the Year. In 2014 and 2015, Clark won a Blues Music Award in the 'Contemporary Blues Male Artist of the Year' category. As of 2020, Clark has been nominated for six Grammy Awards, and has won four of them. Gary Clark Jr. mainly uses Epiphone Casino , both P-90 and Humbucker Gibson SG , and both Fender Stratocaster and Fender Telecaster electric guitars, as well as Epiphone Masterbilt and Gibson Hummingbird acoustic guitars. Clark has his own signature Blak & Blu Epiphone Casino which features Gibson USA made P-90 pickups. Clark uses .011-.049 D'Addario Strings EXL 115. Clark uses
7744-791: The annual Bonnaroo Music Festival in Manchester, Tennessee , at the Miller Lite On Tap Lounge. On June 10, 2012, Clark again played at Bonnaroo , and his performance was streamed live online via the Bonnaroo MusicFest Channel on YouTube. In February 2012, Clark performed alongside blues musicians at the Red, White and Blues event at the White House. The event, aired on PBS, included B.B. King , Mick Jagger , Jeff Beck and Buddy Guy , among others. Clark played " Catfish Blues " and "In
7865-420: The back of a room". Smith would "sing a song in an unusual key, and her artistry in bending and stretching notes with her beautiful, powerful contralto to accommodate her own interpretation was unsurpassed". In 1920, the vaudeville singer Lucille Hegamin became the second black woman to record blues when she recorded "The Jazz Me Blues", and Victoria Spivey , sometimes called Queen Victoria or Za Zu Girl, had
7986-544: The beginning of the 20th century. They are now lost. Other recordings that are still available were made in 1924 by Lawrence Gellert . Later, several recordings were made by Robert W. Gordon , who became head of the Archive of American Folk Songs of the Library of Congress . Gordon's successor at the library was John Lomax . In the 1930s, Lomax and his son Alan made a large number of non-commercial blues recordings that testify to
8107-499: The blues from the melodic structures of certain West African musical styles of the savanna and sahel. Lucy Durran finds similarities with the melodies of the Bambara people , and to a lesser degree, the Soninke people and Wolof people , but not as much of the Mandinka people . Gerard Kubik finds similarities to the melodic styles of both the west African savanna and central Africa, both of which were sources of enslaved people. No specific African musical form can be identified as
8228-443: The blues gained an association with misery and oppression, the lyrics could also be humorous and raunchy: Rebecca, Rebecca, get your big legs off of me, Rebecca, Rebecca, get your big legs off of me, It may be sending you baby, but it's worrying the hell out of me. Hokum blues celebrated both comedic lyrical content and a boisterous, farcical performance style. Tampa Red and Georgia Tom 's " It's Tight Like That " (1928)
8349-468: The blues in the same year in Missouri ; and W.C. Handy , who first heard the blues in Tutwiler, Mississippi , in 1903. The first extensive research in the field was performed by Howard W. Odum , who published an anthology of folk songs from Lafayette County, Mississippi , and Newton County, Georgia , between 1905 and 1908. The first non-commercial recordings of blues music, termed proto-blues by Paul Oliver , were made by Odum for research purposes at
8470-402: The blues is usually dated after the Emancipation Act of 1863 , between 1860s and 1890s, a period that coincides with post- emancipation and later, the establishment of juke joints as places where African-Americans went to listen to music, dance, or gamble after a hard day's work. This period corresponds to the transition from slavery to sharecropping, small-scale agricultural production, and
8591-403: The blues narrowly in terms of certain chord structures and lyric forms thought to have originated in West Africa, audiences originally heard the music in a far more general way: it was simply the music of the rural south, notably the Mississippi Delta . Black and white musicians shared the same repertoire and thought of themselves as " songsters " rather than blues musicians. The notion of blues as
8712-459: The blues was rooted in ... the savanna hinterland, from Senegambia through Mali, Burkina Faso, Northern Ghana, Niger, and northern Nigeria". Additionally, ethnomusicologist John Storm Roberts has argued that "The parallels between African savanna-belt string-playing and the techniques of many blues guitarists are remarkable. The big kora of Senegal and Guinea are played in a rhythmic-melodic style that uses constantly changing rhythms, often providing
8833-411: The blues, usually dating back to the middle of the 18th century, when the slaves were Christianized and began to sing and play Christian hymns , in particular those of Isaac Watts , which were very popular. Before the blues gained its formal definition in terms of chord progressions, it was defined as the secular counterpart of spirituals. It was the low-down music played by rural blacks. Depending on
8954-479: The boogie-woogie wave and was strongly influenced by big band music. It uses saxophone or other brass instruments and the guitar in the rhythm section to create a jazzy, up-tempo sound with declamatory vocals. Jump blues tunes by Louis Jordan and Big Joe Turner , based in Kansas City, Missouri , influenced the development of later styles such as rock and roll and rhythm and blues. Dallas-born T-Bone Walker , who
9075-456: The camera his mother bought him, using it to make an unflattering commentary about his school's administration that got him expelled. Afterward, Snyder attended Art Center College of Design in Pasadena , California. His classmates included fellow future Hollywood directors Michael Bay and Tarsem Singh . Despite being Indian, Singh also played a Nazi in a short film by Snyder. He graduated with
9196-429: The death of his daughter, Autumn Snyder. His replacement was Joss Whedon . On January 29, 2019, Snyder announced that he had signed on to helm Army of the Dead , a zombie heist thriller, for Netflix . Snyder directed and produced the film with his partner and wife, Deborah Snyder, via their newly rebranded production company, The Stone Quarry . His agreement with Netflix has since expanded into several Army of
9317-479: The emphasis and impact of the lyrics, and vocal dramatics using shouts, groans, moans, and wails. The blues women thus effected changes in other types of popular singing that had spin-offs in jazz, Broadway musicals , torch songs of the 1930s and 1940s, gospel , rhythm and blues , and eventually rock and roll ." Urban male performers included popular black musicians of the era, such as Tampa Red , Big Bill Broonzy and Leroy Carr . An important label of this era
9438-429: The expansion of railroads in the southern United States. Several scholars characterize the development of blues music in the early 1900s as a move from group performance to individualized performance. They argue that the development of the blues is associated with the newly acquired freedom of the enslaved people. According to Lawrence Levine, "there was a direct relationship between the national ideological emphasis upon
9559-510: The festival, knocking the legendary appearance of the Rolling Stones (the previous night) well into second place' and on October 25, 2013, he appeared on long-running British music show Later... with Jools Holland . On February 9, 2014, Clark performed the Beatles song " While My Guitar Gently Weeps ", along with Dave Grohl and Joe Walsh for The Night That Changed America: A Grammy Salute to The Beatles . On February 16, 2014, Clark performed in
9680-668: The film in his place. Following his daughter's suicide, Snyder became involved in philanthropic activities directed towards suicide prevention and mental health awareness . Snyder promoted this effort on social media by selling clothing and merchandise related to the Snyder Cut; in May 2021, it was revealed that this effort had raised more than $ 750,000 in charitable donations to the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention . In another effort to help with suicide prevention, Snyder included
9801-402: The film, Snyder mentioned to DC Cinematic Cast on September 13, 2024, that Horse Latitudes had found an investor. He had no additional news about a production timeline at this time. Zack Snyder held the television rights to an adaptation of Black Kiss , a late-'80s comic by Howard Chaykin. Snyder wrote the pilot, but couldn't find any takers. In 2022, Snyder expressed interest in directing
9922-430: The first copyrighted blues composition. In lyrics, the phrase is often used to describe a depressed mood. Early traditional blues verses often consisted of a single line repeated four times. However, the most common structure of blues lyrics today was established in the first few decades of the 20th century, known as the "AAB" pattern. This structure consists of a line sung over the first four bars, its repetition over
10043-535: The form of a loose narrative. African-American singers voiced their "personal woes in a world of harsh reality: a lost love, the cruelty of police officers, oppression at the hands of white folk, [and] hard times". This melancholy has led to the suggestion of an Igbo origin for blues, because of the reputation the Igbo had throughout plantations in the Americas for their melancholic music and outlook on life when they were enslaved. Other historians have argued that there
10164-605: The four best filmmakers of the 2010s. Director James Cameron praised Snyder, listing him as one of the filmmakers who created their own "cinematic language". In 2009, Snyder listed Excalibur , Mad Max 2 , A Clockwork Orange , Blue Velvet , and RoboCop as his five favorite films. Snyder lives in Pasadena , California with his second wife, producer Deborah Johnson . The couple first met in 1996, began dating in 2002, and married on September 25, 2004, at St. Bartholomew's Episcopal Church in Manhattan, New York. He
10285-417: The genre took its shape from the idiosyncrasies of individual performers. However, there are some characteristics that were present long before the creation of the modern blues. Call-and-response shouts were an early form of blues-like music; they were a "functional expression ... style without accompaniment or harmony and unbounded by the formality of any particular musical structure". A form of this pre-blues
10406-454: The huge variety of proto-blues styles, such as field hollers and ring shouts . A record of blues music as it existed before 1920 can also be found in the recordings of artists such as Lead Belly and Henry Thomas . All these sources show the existence of many different structures distinct from twelve- , eight- , or sixteen-bar . The social and economic reasons for the appearance of the blues are not fully known. The first appearance of
10527-434: The individual, the popularity of Booker T. Washington's teachings, and the rise of the blues." Levine stated that "psychologically, socially, and economically, African-Americans were being acculturated in a way that would have been impossible during slavery, and it is hardly surprising that their secular music reflected this as much as their religious music did." There are few characteristics common to all blues music, because
10648-408: The last bars. Early blues frequently took the form of a loose narrative, often relating the racial discrimination and other challenges experienced by African-Americans. Many elements, such as the call-and-response format and the use of blue notes, can be traced back to the music of Africa . The origins of the blues are also closely related to the religious music of the African-American community,
10769-586: The low rate of literacy among rural African Americans at the time. Reports of blues music in southern Texas and the Deep South were written at the dawn of the 20th century. Charles Peabody mentioned the appearance of blues music at Clarksdale, Mississippi , and Gate Thomas reported similar songs in southern Texas around 1901–1902. These observations coincide more or less with the recollections of Jelly Roll Morton , who said he first heard blues music in New Orleans in 1902; Ma Rainey , who remembered first hearing
10890-516: The music industry during the 1920s and 1930s. Other chord progressions, such as 8-bar forms, are still considered blues; examples include " How Long Blues ", " Trouble in Mind ", and Big Bill Broonzy 's " Key to the Highway ". There are also 16-bar blues , such as Ray Charles 's instrumental "Sweet 16 Bars" and Herbie Hancock 's " Watermelon Man ". Idiosyncratic numbers of bars are occasionally used, such as
11011-452: The next four, and a longer concluding line over the last bars. This pattern can be heard in some of the first published blues songs, such as " Dallas Blues " (1912) and " Saint Louis Blues " (1914). According to W.C. Handy , the "AAB" pattern was adopted to avoid the monotony of lines repeated three times. The lyrics are often sung in a rhythmic talk style rather than a melody, resembling a form of talking blues . Early blues frequently took
11132-489: The propulsive left-hand rhythms of the ragtime pianists with melodic figures similar to those of Armstrong's trumpet in the right hand". The smooth Louisiana style of Professor Longhair and, more recently, Dr. John blends classic rhythm and blues with blues styles. Another development in this period was big band blues. The " territory bands " operating out of Kansas City , the Bennie Moten orchestra, Jay McShann , and
11253-458: The religious community a musician belonged to, it was more or less considered a sin to play this low-down music: blues was the devil's music. Musicians were therefore segregated into two categories: gospel singers and blues singers, guitar preachers and songsters. However, when rural black music began to be recorded in the 1920s, both categories of musicians used similar techniques: call-and-response patterns, blue notes, and slide guitars. Gospel music
11374-510: The single direct ancestor of the blues. However the call-and-response format can be traced back to the music of Africa . That blue notes predate their use in blues and have an African origin is attested to by "A Negro Love Song", by the English composer Samuel Coleridge-Taylor , from his African Suite for Piano , written in 1898, which contains blue third and seventh notes . The Diddley bow (a homemade one-stringed instrument found in parts of
11495-569: The song "Fire We Make" with Keys, Pop Wansel and Oak Felder for the album Girl on Fire . On August 28, 2012, Keys revealed via Twitter that Clark's new album and major label debut called Blak and Blu would be released on October 22, 2012. Released by Warner Records , Blak and Blu peaked at number six on the Billboard 200 album chart, and number one on the Blues Albums chart. In 2014, Clark's first live album , Gary Clark Jr. Live ,
11616-463: The soundtrack to the 2017 Pixar film Cars 3 . Clark's cover version of the Beatles ' 1969 song " Come Together ", was released in early 2017. It became his first charting single, appearing on Billboard ' s Mainstream Rock chart, where it peaked at number 15. Clark's version of "Come Together" was featured in the 2017 Zack Snyder -directed superhero film Justice League . In 2018, Clark featured on two songs on Bun B 's album Return of
11737-406: The southeastern "delicate and lyrical" Piedmont blues tradition, which used an elaborate ragtime-based fingerpicking guitar technique. Georgia also had an early slide tradition, with Curley Weaver , Tampa Red , "Barbecue Bob" Hicks and James "Kokomo" Arnold as representatives of this style. The lively Memphis blues style, which developed in the 1920s and 1930s near Memphis, Tennessee ,
11858-450: The technique of speed ramping , in and out of the fight scenes in his films. This differs from other directors who make multiple cuts and close-ups during a fight. A minute-long shot from 300 shows King Leonidas slaughtering his enemies, the camera zooming in and out to emphasize each kill and move Leonidas makes. Snyder said There are other superhero movies where they joke about how basically no one's getting hurt. That's not us. What
11979-466: The term "blues" was associated with drinking alcohol, a meaning which survives in the phrase ' blue law ', which prohibits the sale of alcohol on Sunday. In 1827, it was in the sense of a sad state of mind that John James Audubon wrote to his wife that he "had the blues". In Henry David Thoreau 's book Walden , he mentions "the blues" in the chapter reflecting on his time in solitude. He wrote his account of his personal quest in 1845, although it
12100-465: The term in this sense is in George Colman 's one-act farce Blue Devils (1798). The phrase 'blue devils' may also have been derived from a British usage of the 1600s referring to the "intense visual hallucinations that can accompany severe alcohol withdrawal". As time went on, the phrase lost the reference to devils and came to mean a state of agitation or depression. By the 1800s in the United States,
12221-446: The trance-like rhythm and call-and-response, and they form a repetitive effect called a groove . Characteristic of the blues since its Afro-American origins, the shuffles played a central role in swing music . The simplest shuffles, which were the clearest signature of the R&;B wave that started in the mid-1940s, were a three-note riff on the bass strings of the guitar. When this riff
12342-532: Was a formally trained musician, composer and arranger who helped to popularize the blues by transcribing and orchestrating blues in an almost symphonic style, with bands and singers. He became a popular and prolific composer, and billed himself as the "Father of the Blues"; however, his compositions can be described as a fusion of blues with ragtime and jazz, a merger facilitated using the Cuban habanera rhythm that had long been
12463-581: Was awarded Spin Magazine ' s Golden Corndog award for performing in more major North American music festivals in 2012 than any other musician. Clark swept the 31st annual Austin Music Awards for 2012–2013, collecting eight awards, he earned the following: Band of the Year, Musician of the Year, Song of the Year – "Ain't Messin Round" (from Blak and Blu ), Album of the Year – Blak and Blu , Electric Guitarist of
12584-577: Was awarded a Grammy for Best Traditional R&B performance for the song "Please Come Home". In 2020, he won the Grammy Award for "Best Rock Song" and "Best Rock Performance" for the song " This Land " from that album. His most recent album, JPEG Raw , was released in 2024. Gary Clark Jr. began playing guitar at the age of 12. Born and raised in Austin, Texas , Clark played small gigs throughout his teens until he met promoter Clifford Antone , proprietor of
12705-609: Was born in Green Bay, Wisconsin , and raised in Riverside, Connecticut . His mother, Marsha Manley ( née Reeves; d. 2010), was a painter and a photography teacher at Daycroft School , which Snyder later attended. His father, Charles Edward "Ed" Snyder, worked as an executive recruiter. Marsha always nurtured her son's artistic side, buying him his first film camera. He grew up in Greenwich, Connecticut . He has an older sister, Audrey, and
12826-399: Was closely related to ragtime , which developed at about the same time, though the blues better preserved "the original melodic patterns of African music". The musical forms and styles that are now considered the blues as well as modern country music arose in the same regions of the southern United States during the 19th century. Recorded blues and country music can be found as far back as
12947-457: Was heard in slave ring shouts and field hollers , expanded into "simple solo songs laden with emotional content". Blues has evolved from the unaccompanied vocal music and oral traditions of slaves imported from West Africa and rural blacks into a wide variety of styles and subgenres, with regional variations across the United States. Although blues (as it is now known) can be seen as a musical style based on both European harmonic structure and
13068-567: Was influenced by jug bands such as the Memphis Jug Band or the Gus Cannon's Jug Stompers . Performers such as Frank Stokes , Sleepy John Estes , Robert Wilkins , Kansas Joe McCoy , Casey Bill Weldon and Memphis Minnie used a variety of unusual instruments such as washboard , fiddle , kazoo or mandolin . Memphis Minnie was famous for her virtuoso guitar style. Pianist Memphis Slim began his career in Memphis, but his distinct style
13189-496: Was inspired by Star Wars and the films of Akira Kurosawa . Filming began in April 2022 and lasted until November that year, with the project being developed as a two-part film. Snyder also produced and directed two episodes of Twilight of the Gods , an anime-style web series inspired by Norse mythology , for Netflix. Snyder is developing a King Arthur film, which he said will be
13310-659: Was nevertheless using musical forms that were compatible with Christian hymns and therefore less marked by the blues form than its secular counterpart. The American sheet music publishing industry produced a great deal of ragtime music. By 1912, the sheet music industry had published three popular blues-like compositions, precipitating the Tin Pan Alley adoption of blues elements: "Baby Seals' Blues", by Baby Franklin Seals (arranged by Artie Matthews ); "Dallas Blues", by Hart Wand ; and " The Memphis Blues ", by W.C. Handy . Handy
13431-474: Was not published until 1854. The phrase "the blues" was written by Charlotte Forten , then aged 25, in her diary on December 14, 1862. She was a free-born black woman from Pennsylvania who was working as a schoolteacher in South Carolina, instructing both slaves and freedmen, and wrote that she "came home with the blues" because she felt lonesome and pitied herself. She overcame her depression and later noted
13552-420: Was played over the bass and the drums, the groove "feel" was created. Shuffle rhythm is often vocalized as " dow , da dow , da dow , da" or " dump , da dump , da dump , da": it consists of uneven, or "swung", eighth notes. On a guitar this may be played as a simple steady bass or it may add to that stepwise quarter note motion from the fifth to the sixth of the chord and back. Hart Wand 's " Dallas Blues "
13673-471: Was previously married to Denise Weber. Snyder has eight children: two biological children and two adopted daughters with Weber, two biological sons from a relationship with Kirsten Elin, and two adopted children with Johnson. The suicide of his daughter Autumn prompted Snyder to withdraw from post-production work on Justice League in May 2017 to be with his family, which resulted in Joss Whedon completing
13794-430: Was published in 1912; W.C. Handy 's " The Memphis Blues " followed in the same year. The first recording by an African American singer was Mamie Smith 's 1920 rendition of Perry Bradford 's " Crazy Blues ". But the origins of the blues were some decades earlier, probably around 1890. This music is poorly documented, partly because of racial discrimination in U.S. society, including academic circles, and partly because of
13915-532: Was raised as a Christian Scientist . He also had a brother, Sam, who died when Snyder was a teenager. Snyder attended Camp Owatonna in Harrison , Maine , during the summer months as a child. Snyder studied painting a year after high school at Heatherley School of Fine Art in England, although he had already begun filmmaking. Back in high school, Snyder struggled due to his dyslexia and made his first film there with
14036-510: Was released on March 6, 2009, and grossed $ 185 million worldwide. His follow-up project/animation debut, Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga'Hoole , was released on September 24, 2010. Snyder produced, co-wrote, and directed Sucker Punch , which was released on March 25, 2011. The film, based on a script written by Snyder and Steve Shibuya, was about a young woman in a mental hospital who fantasizes of escape with her fellow inmates. He directed 2013's Man of Steel for Warner Bros.,
14157-437: Was released. A double album recorded over the course of an 18-month-tour between 2013 and 2014, Gary Clark Jr. Live received generally positive reviews from critics. Clark worked with the Foo Fighters on the track " What Did I Do? / God as My Witness " on their 2014 album Sonic Highways recorded at KLRU-TV Studio 6A in Austin. Clark released his album The Story of Sonny Boy Slim on September 11, 2015. Clark had
14278-507: Was replaced by the term rhythm and blues . This rapidly evolving market was mirrored by Billboard magazine's Rhythm & Blues chart . This marketing strategy reinforced trends in urban blues music such as the use of electric instruments and amplification and the generalization of the blues beat, the blues shuffle , which became ubiquitous in rhythm and blues (R&B). This commercial stream had important consequences for blues music, which, together with jazz and gospel music , became
14399-826: Was seventeen years old at the time. Clark won the Austin Music Award for Best Blues and Electric Guitarist, on three different occasions. Clark was Spin ' s breakout artist for the month of November 2011. Rolling Stone magazine ranked Clark's Bright Lights EP (named for the title track, an homage to Jimmy Reed and his song of the same name), number 40 on its list of its top 50 albums of 2011. While playing music festivals such as Coachella , JazzFest , Memphis Beale St. , Hangout, High Sierra , Sasquatch , Mountain Jam , Wakarusa , Bonnaroo, Electric Forest, Hard Rock Calling , Newport Folk Festival , Orion Music Festival, Osheaga , Lollapalooza , and ACL Music Festival , Clark
14520-444: Was smoother and had some swing elements. Many blues musicians based in Memphis moved to Chicago in the late 1930s or early 1940s and became part of the urban blues movement. City or urban blues styles were more codified and elaborate, as a performer was no longer within their local, immediate community, and had to adapt to a larger, more varied audience's aesthetic. Classic female urban and vaudeville blues singers were popular in
14641-536: Was the Chicago-based Bluebird Records . Before World War II, Tampa Red was sometimes referred to as "the Guitar Wizard". Carr accompanied himself on the piano with Scrapper Blackwell on guitar, a format that continued well into the 1950s with artists such as Charles Brown and even Nat "King" Cole . Boogie-woogie was another important style of 1930s and early 1940s urban blues. While the style
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