[Congressional Record Volume 150, Number 87 (Tuesday, June 22, 2004)]
[House]
[Pages H4657-H4659]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




               RECOGNIZING THE IMPORTANCE OF BLUES MUSIC

  Mr. BURNS. Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and agree to the 
concurrent resolution (H. Con. Res. 13) recognizing the importance of 
blues music, and for other purposes, as amended.
  The Clerk read as follows:

                            H. Con. Res. 13

       Whereas blues music is the most influential form of music 
     indigenous to the United States, providing the roots for 
     contemporary music heard around the world such as rock and 
     roll, jazz, rhythm and blues, and country, and even 
     influencing classical music;
       Whereas the blues is a national historic treasure, which 
     needs to be preserved and studied for the benefit of future 
     generations;
       Whereas blues music documents twentieth-century United 
     States history, especially during the Great Depression and in 
     the areas of race relations and pop culture;
       Whereas the various forms of blues music trace the 
     transformation of the United States from a rural, 
     agricultural society to an urban, industrialized country;
       Whereas the blues is an important facet of African-American 
     culture in the twentieth century;
       Whereas every year, people in the United States hold 
     hundreds of blues festivals, and millions of new or reissued 
     blues albums are released;
       Whereas blues musicians from the United States, whether old 
     or new, male or female, are recognized and revered worldwide 
     as unique and important ambassadors of the United States and 
     its music;
       Whereas it is important to educate the young people of the 
     United States so that they understand that the music they 
     listen to today has its roots and traditions in the blues; 
     and
       Whereas there are many living legends of blues music in the 
     United States who should be recognized and have their stories 
     captured and preserved for future generations: Now, 
     therefore, be it
       Resolved by the House of Representatives (the Senate 
     concurring), That the Congress--
       (1) recognizes the importance of blues music with respect 
     to many cultural developments in United States history;
       (2) calls on the people of the United States to take the 
     opportunity to study, reflect on, and celebrate the 
     importance of the blues; and
       (3) requests that the President issue a proclamation 
     calling on the people of the United States and interested 
     organizations to observe the importance of the blues with 
     appropriate ceremonies, activities, and educational programs.

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to the rule, the gentleman from 
Georgia (Mr. Burns) and the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Woolsey) 
each will control 20 minutes.
  The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Burns).


                             General Leave

  Mr. BURNS. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may 
have 5 legislative days within which to revise and extend their remarks 
on H. Con. Res. 13.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the 
gentleman from Georgia?
  There was no objection.
  Mr. BURNS. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of House Concurrent Resolution 13, 
which recognizes the importance of blues music. Blues music is one of 
the most influential forms of music indigenous to the United States and 
has inspired contemporary music heard around the world including rock 
and roll, jazz, rhythm and blues, and country.
  Blues music documents 20th Century United States history, especially 
during the Great Depression and in the areas of race relations and pop 
culture. Various forms of blues music traced the transformation of the 
United States from a rural, agricultural society to an urban, 
industrialized country, and the blues is an important facet of the 
African American culture in the 20th Century.
  Accordingly, blues music is considered by many a national historic 
treasure, which needs to be preserved and studied for the benefit of 
future generations. Every year people in the United States hold 
hundreds of blues music festivals, and millions of new or reissued 
blues albums are released, and blues musicians from the United States, 
whether old or new, male or female, are recognized and revered 
worldwide as unique and important ambassadors of the United States and 
its music.
  House Concurrent Resolution 13 is simple and straightforward. It 
recognizes the importance of blues music with respect to many cultural 
developments in United States history. It calls on the people of the 
United States to take the opportunity to study, reflect on, and 
celebrate the importance of the blues and requests that the President 
issue a proclamation calling on the people of the United States and 
interested organizations to observe the importance of the blues with 
appropriate ceremonies, activities, and educational programs.
  I urge my colleagues to support the resolution.
  Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Ms. WOOLSEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of H. Con. Res. 13, which the 
gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. Ford) introduced to recognize the 
importance of blues music.
  The blues is an entirely American art form. It began with slaves as a 
way of communicating their experiences, their faith, their pain. The 
earliest form of the blues is thought to be the field holler, which 
gave voice to the extreme suffering and oppression in the construction 
camps of the South. The field holler grew into the spiritual, which 
became the basis for the blues.
  The blues began as an oral tradition and were not written down until 
the early 1900s when W.C. Handy began performing and publishing songs 
that he had heard. Handy's ``Memphis Blues'' and ``St. Louis Blues'' 
are credited with spreading the popularity of the blues among African 
American audiences.
  In the 1920s, the blues became a national craze. Recordings by Bessie 
Smith and Billie Holiday, leading blues singers, sold in the millions, 
and the influence of the blues can be seen both in jazz and in pop 
music today.
  Although the blues is deeply rooted in the American black experience, 
listeners of all backgrounds can identify with the loneliness and the 
longing of the blues. The blues is truly universal.
  Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

[[Page H4658]]

  Mr. BURNS. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Ms. WOOLSEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the 
gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. Ford), the author of this resolution.
  Mr. FORD. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman from California (Ms. 
Woolsey) and the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Burns) and to all my 
colleagues who played a role in recognizing this important art form.
  I join with all of my colleagues in expressing my condolences and 
appreciation for the enormous contributions over the years that Mr. 
Charles made to American music. As many of the Members know, and as has 
been touched on already this morning by the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. 
Lewis) and the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Bishop) and many others, the 
contribution that blues music had on Ray Charles and to American music 
as a whole cannot be understated.
  Ray Charles was one of the first artists to combine the blues genre 
with gospel and country and jazz to perform and really evolve into a 
genre known as soul music, which has become a staple of the Memphis 
music scene, which the core and the heart of my congressional district 
in Tennessee. Ray Charles was inducted into the Blues Foundation Hall 
of Fame in 1982, another foundation located in Memphis.
  The blues is one of America's greatest and original musical 
treasures. As the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Woolsey) has noted, 
it is a music form that evolved out of African American work songs, 
field hollers, and spirituals and early string band sounds more than a 
century ago. As a matter of fact, the blues is the very foundation of 
so much of what came out of the 20th Century, including rhythm and 
blues; rock and roll; my generation's favorite, hip hop; and even 
neoclassical.
  Blues music is the most celebrated form of indigenous American music, 
with hundreds of festivals held and thousands of new or reissued blues 
albums released each year in the United States and around the world.
  Most musical historians agree that popular blues music as we know it 
today originated somewhere in the Mississippi River delta, a blend of 
African American spirituals and folk and country music that had moved 
west from the Appalachian mountains.
  On a lonely platform in Tutwiler, Mississippi in 1903, W.C. Handy, 
widely regarded as the ``Father of the Blues,'' first heard the music 
that he would imitate in a recording studio in Memphis that would 
become the first release of blues music for distribution throughout the 
Nation.
  From these initial recordings, a new form of music would move to the 
forefront of American pop culture, a form of music that reflected the 
American experience, a story of hardship, determination, and ultimately 
freedom.

                              {time}  1100

  Promulgated and developed by such icons as Muddy Waters, Howlin' 
Wolf, Etta James, Koko Taylor, and the great B.B. King, blues music 
remains a living documentary of American history. From the migration 
from a rural, agricultural society to an urban industrialized nation, 
to the collective struggle during the Great Depression, to the 
improvement in race relations, to the development of pop culture, blues 
music reflects the experience, emotions and lessons of our history.
  I want to acknowledge and thank the Blues Foundation again, which 
helps keep the blues alive and its heritage alive by promoting music 
educational initiatives, supporting new and existing artists, and 
recognizing achievements in blues music with the yearly W.C. Handy 
Awards, which this year celebrated their 25th anniversary, as well as 
the Keeping the Blues Alive Awards presented each year to nonperformers 
who have made contributions to the maintenance and expansion of the 
blues world.
  Among the most important initiatives, the Blues Foundation, in 
partnership with Seattle's Experience Music Project, is the Blues in 
the Schools program, which helps K through 12 educators integrate the 
blues into practical classroom learning, something we in this Congress 
should support more of.
  Through unique and exciting programs like Blues in the Schools, 
today's teachers are finding new ways to involve students and get them 
interested in learning. I believe that such efforts should be 
commended, encouraged and replicated; and I thank my colleagues again 
for bringing this resolution to the floor today.
  The blues is as honest a musical form as it is uplifting. The blues 
is life, with all its ups and downs intact.
  I ask my colleagues to support this resolution, so that organizations 
like the Blues Foundation and the Experience Music Project may receive 
the recognition they deserve for working not only to promote blues 
music but to use it as a tool to inspire and teach new generations 
about America's unique and vibrant history.
  Mr. BURNS. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Ms. WOOLSEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the 
gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Scott).
  Mr. SCOTT of Georgia. Mr. Speaker, it is indeed a pleasure to stand 
to recognize the great original music genre, the blues, born in the 
Delta and having made its way up through Chicago, throughout this 
Nation and around the world, brought the legacies of such great giants 
as B.B. King and Muddy Waters, and paved the way for folks like Elvis 
Presley.
  As a matter of fact, Elvis Presley once said, ``I wouldn't be Elvis 
Presley if it weren't for the blues and if it weren't for gospel 
music.''
  The great contributions have been unparalleled in terms of American 
music. Rock and roll, even our jazz components, are based upon our 
music.
  Grown from the pains of the South, of black slaves working on 
plantations in the hot sun, only a song in their mouths was what kept 
them going. Blues emanated from the struggles and from the hard lives 
of African Americans in this country. So, indeed, when we celebrate the 
blues, we celebrate the overcoming of the African American people, in 
spite of.
  Once when B.B. King was asked what makes the blues, B.B. King said, 
``You make the blues by singing to make you happy when often times you 
are sad. When you have trouble in mind and you are blue, you can say I 
won't be blue always, because the sun is going to shine at my back door 
some day.''
  The blues, a great contribution to America. I am proud to join with 
my colleagues in recognizing this great musical genre.
  Mr. BURNS. Mr. Speaker, I continue to reserve my time.
  Ms. WOOLSEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the 
gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Davis).
  Mr. DAVIS of Illinois. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the gentlewoman 
from California for yielding me time.
  Mr. Speaker, I rise to celebrate along with my colleagues and 
recognize the importance of the blues. Some have called the blues the 
native musical and verse form in America, with a great blend of 
European and African traditions.
  During the 1920s, blues became a national craze. Records by leading 
blues singers like Bessie Smith and later, in the 1930s, Billie 
Holiday, sold in the millions. The 1920s also saw the blues become a 
musical form more widely used by jazz instrumentalists as well as blues 
singers.
  During the decades of the 1930s and 1940s, the blues spread northward 
with the great migration of many blacks from the South and entered into 
the repertory of big band jazz. The blues also became electrified with 
the introduction of the amplified guitar.
  In some northern cities, like Chicago and Detroit, during the later 
1940s and 1950s, Muddy Waters, Willie Dixon, John Lee Hooker, Howlin 
Wolf and Elmore James, among others, played what was basically 
Mississippi Delta blues, backed by bass, drums, piano and occasionally 
harmonica, and began scoring national hits with blues songs.
  Each year the city of Chicago has its Blues Festival, holding the 
21st festival this year, with great talent from up and down the 
Mississippi River to delight thousands of blues fans. I am proud to 
represent the district where the Blues Fest is held, where many great 
blues clubs are still singing the blues and be part of one of the 
greatest cities that is home to some of the greatest blues musicians. 
Otis Clay, Tyrone Davis, Cicero Blake, Lil' Shorty and Inez Davis are 
just a few that Chicago holds close to its heart and are the pride of 
our city's culture.
  But Chicago would not be complete without the man known in Chicago 
and

[[Page H4659]]

by blues lovers all over the world as the Blues Man, the voice of WVON 
radio, Pervis Spann, who has distinguished himself as a broadcaster, 
exposing generations to the blues. Starting to promote the blues in the 
1950s, he actually used it to move to the point where he actually owns 
the radio station, and not only that radio station, but other radio 
stations throughout America.
  So I am pleased to simply be here to pay tribute to not only the 
blues but to the great individuals who have become business persons, 
who are civic and community leaders, who not only showcase talent, but 
also showcase life.
  Ms. WOOLSEY. Mr. Speaker, I have no further speakers, and I yield 
back the balance of my time.
  Mr. BURNS. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my friend and colleague, the 
gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. Ford), for his leadership in H. Con. Res. 
13, recognizing the importance of blues music. The blues is America's 
music. The blues celebrates life, it celebrates growth, it celebrates 
struggles; but I think most of all it celebrates America's progress.
  I urge strong, bipartisan support for this resolution.
  Mr. CUMMINGS. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of H. Con. Res. 
13, which recognizes the importance of blues music and requests a 
Presidential proclamation to observe the importance of the blues with 
appropriate ceremonies, activities, and educational programs.
   Mr. Speaker, the blues is the most influential native form of music 
in the United States. The origins of blues music are founded in the 
unique fusion and harmony between African and European music. In the 
midst of its early stages as a folk music, the blues served as a 
treasure to history--documenting landmark events of our Nation's past, 
particularly slavery, segregation and the Great Depression. The 
evolving forms of blues music trace the transformation of the United 
States from a rural to an industrialized country, segregated to 
unsegregated. With unyielding contributions to the past, the blues will 
undoubtedly remain a staple of American music culture.
   Mr. Speaker, I would also like to highlight that the blues was a 
significant aspect of African American culture in the twentieth 
century. African American men and women first sang the blues to recount 
their struggles through song. This pastime developed into an inspiring 
art form. Timeless artists, such as the great Muddy Waters, John Lee 
Hooker, Bessie Smith, Ray Charles and a host of others cultivated this 
pervasive musical genre making the blues a classic art form. Driven by 
humble beginnings, the blues has created a platform for the traditional 
and popular music genres of jazz, country, rhythm and blues, rock and 
roll and classical music. Blues musicians are globally recognized and 
respected as they share this gift with the world.
  Mr. Speaker, it is very fitting that we now acknowledge the 
contributions of blues with the passing of renowned musician, Ray 
Charles. The accomplishments of Ray Charles made a considerable impact 
on the Nation's musical imprint--with his unique abilities to create 
and transform music that touched our souls with such original 
compositions of his blues-filled rendition of America the Beautiful. 
Also, it is equally worth noting that in 2003 America celebrated 100 
years of blues influence that began with the first blues piece compiled 
by W.C. Handy.
  Finally, Mr. Speaker, the blues is celebrated throughout the country 
with hundreds of festivals and a myriad of new and classic album 
releases each year. Home to one of these many celebrations, is my 
Congressional district, Baltimore City, which recently hosted its own 
10th annual Baltimore Blues Festival in recognition and celebration of 
this great musical art form.
  Mr. Speaker, the blues is a musical art style that deserves 
historical preservation through many forms, including ceremony, 
festivities and educational initiatives. I believe it is essential to 
educate the Nation and the rest of the world, about how heavily rooted 
contemporary music is in the blues. The blues dovetails with America's 
struggle to create a society where all people enjoy equal rights. That 
is why we love the blues and that is why we identify with the blues.
  I would like to thank my esteemed colleague from the state of 
Tennessee, Representative Harold Ford, Jr., for his leadership in 
sponsoring this important piece of legislation. I urge my colleagues to 
lend their support to its passage.
  Mr. BURNS. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Graves). The question is on the motion 
offered by the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Burns) that the House 
suspend the rules and agree to the concurrent resolution, H. Con. Res. 
13, as amended.
  The question was taken.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. In the opinion of the Chair, two-thirds of 
those present have voted in the affirmative.
  Ms. WOOLSEY. Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.
  The yeas and nays were ordered.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to clause 8, rule XX and the 
Chair's prior announcement, further proceedings on this motion will be 
postponed.

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