“It took a long time to get here”: behind the National Museum of African American Music | The music

In 1967, Jimi Hendrix accidentally cracked his guitar before a concert. Seeing that he was pretty much broken, he decided to destroy him on stage.

When he did, the audience went wild.

Destroying the guitars has become a regular part of his act. Hendrix destroyed dozens of guitars over the course of his career and the one that was recovered and saved can now be seen in Nashville.

The guitar is on display at the new National Museum of African American Music, which opened on Martin Luther King Jr Day. Tracing over 400 years of black music, from gospel to jazz and R&B, he pays long-awaited tributes to musicians like Ma Rainey and Sister Rosetta Tharpe, among others.

Over 1,500 items are in the collection, from Hendrix’s guitar to Whitney Houston’s outfits, Ella Fitzgerald’s coat, vintage photos, mixtapes and vinyl records in the 56,000-square-foot museum. “We are saying that black music now has a home,” said museum president and CEO Henry Beecher Hicks III.

“We didn’t feel like there was a nationwide cultural institution that celebrated African-American contributions to American music,” he added. “There are places that deal with a label, a genre or an artist, but no place that really speaks to how rich and robust that tradition is.”

The museum is divided into seven sections, from jazz to gospel to hip-hop. There are rare memorabilia, personal artifacts, and cutting edge technology to tell the story of African American music and history, which is both celebrated and preserved.

It all started 23 years ago when Hicks and his team came up with the idea for the museum. “It took a long time to get here,” he says. “It was a lot of twists and turns; three changes of location, one flood, one tornado, two recessions, one pandemic, all of that.

The museum’s initial vision has remained the same since 1998. “Civil rights, art, culture and sports are all contexts for the origin of music,” he said. “It’s giving credit where credit is due, recognizing this idea that American music is African-American music.”

There is a section devoted to African-American musical traditions called the Rivers of Rhythm Pathways. “It features artists whose names we know and don’t know,” Hicks said. “It’s not just who they are, but how everything is so connected. All the music is connected; genre is a commercial creation. “

Another section of the museum is called Wade in the Water, which traces the roots of gospel music. “When Africans were brought here, they were forced to give up their culture, so they had to innovate,” Hicks said. “This innovation is what we now call American music.”

In the Crossroads section, we see the roots of 19th century blues, while a section called A Love Supreme takes a look at the Harlem Renaissance and the birth of jazz.

The museum also examines how the civil rights movement and music were intertwined. In a section called The Message, he shows the origins of hip-hop in the 1970s.

Among the long-awaited tributes is a video dedicated to the Nashville Super Choir, which is directed by Bobby Jones (many people might think that Nashville is purely a country music capital, but it’s also a hub of gospel).

There is also a tribute to Tharpe, a queer black woman who paved the way for rock ‘n’ roll in the 1930s and ’40s and influenced Chuck Berry and Little Richard (she was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2018). “We’ve made a point of showcasing women in a way that’s more than they typically are in the music industry,” Hicks said, “to make sure their stories are prominently ”.

In the Crossroads section, which traces late 19th-century music to the Deep South, there are photos of blues musicians Gary Clark Jr, BB King, and Bessie Smith, and educational information on instruments like the bow by Diddley, a one-string instrument that was an integral part of the development of blues music.

There is a photo of Clifton Chenier, a Grammy Award-winning Louisiana musician who played the accordion (and wrote his name on tape on his instrument) and toured with Etta James.

On one wall is a quote from Harry Pace, the first African American to own a label, Black Swan Records. Pace once said, “Companies wouldn’t think of recording a colorful musician or a colorful voice. So I decided to start my own company and make recordings that I thought I could sell.

There is also a quote from Elvis Presley citing the influence of African American musicians on his own music. “People of color sang it and played it like I’ve been doing now, man for more years than I think,” said Presley, who cited Delta Blues singer and guitarist Arthur Crudup as a key influence. . Today, Crudup is credited as “the father of rock ‘n’ roll”.

There are touch screens that reveal how demos were turned into hit songs, old LPs hanging on the walls, and posters announcing concerts from half a century ago.

In the hip-hop section, called The Message, there are photos of New York in the 1970s, graffiti and breakdancing. In a quote from hip-hop founder DJ Kool Herc, he says, “To me, hip-hop says, ‘Come as you are’. We are a family; it’s about you and me, we connect one by one. It has given young people a way to understand their world, whether they are from the suburbs, the city or elsewhere.

The section shines a light on talent from the heyday of rap, the 1990s, with photos from Queen Latifah, LL Cool J, Jay-Z, The Fugees, the Notorious BIG, Tupac Shakur and – even s’ they’re not African-American – the Beastie Boys. This section features rapper glass boxes on the cover of Source magazine, LP album covers, golden rap bling, bucket hats and mixtapes. Beyoncé and Kendrick Lamar are also featured, but this section ends in 2010.

“It was the hardest story to tell – most of us lived through hip-hop,” Hicks said. “Its meaning is still being shaped; the story is still incomplete. We tried to protect the drawing lines far enough from the subject to make room for a historical perspective. “

Among the valuables on display is an old trombone played by Mississippi-born jazz musician Helen Wood Jones. She played in the International Sweethearts of Rhythm, the country’s first all-girl group, founded in 1937.

“She was a very remarkable pioneer woman,” Hicks said. “She ran away from home when she was a teenager, she wanted to sing jazz and joined this all-female multi-racial jazz group.

Hendrix’s destroyed guitar came from the collection of photojournalist George Tillman (who obtained it from Larry Lee, a guitarist who worked with Hendrix).

“This guitar is a physical reminder of the power of his music, his personality, and his brand of self-expression that was as influential in the 1960s as it is today,” said museum curator Steven Lewis.

There’s also a faux leopard-skin jacket that was once worn by Ella Fitzgerald, a pair of Converse sneakers that belonged to DJ Kool Herc, and the latest outfit worn onstage by Grammy-winning TLC rapper Lisa Left Eye Lopez before. his death in 2002..

“It tells a fascinating story,” said Hicks, a former investment banker and White House member during the Clinton administration.

Beyond artifacts, the technology is meant to show both sides of the coin.

“We combine artifacts with technology so that you get what music is and can be,” he said. “It takes you back to the history of music, but technology allows you to move forward and see the future.”