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Minstrel shows

From HitStory, the pop encyclopedia of School of Rock · Genre

Minstrel shows · From the 1830s white performers with blackened faces appeared in minstrel shows: blackface performances in which Black Americans were ridiculed, with songs, dances and sketches that supposedly came from life on the plantation. The stock character Jim Crow later gave his name to the laws that kept Black and white people separate. The minstrel show was also the first major form of popular entertainment in America: the banjo found its way into white music through these shows, songwriters such as Stephen Foster wrote for them, and after the Civil War Black performers appeared as well. It is a painful origin, but one that shows how intertwined the traditions were.

Listening

Listening tip. There is deliberately no recording here. Read in the reader how the banjo made its way into country music through these shows.

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Categories: Genres