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Dr. Hepcat
Albert Lavada Durst (January 12, 1913 – October 31, 1995), known as Dr. Hepcat, was an American blues pianist, singer, and baseball commentator who became the first black radio DJ in Texas, influential in the spread of rhythm and blues and rock and roll music. Biography Durst was born in Austin, Texas, and learned to play piano as a child. He grew up playing barrelhouse blues locally, and developing a talent for hip rhythmic jive talk, which won him a position as announcer at Negro league baseball games in Austin. He was heard by radio station KVET manager John Connally, later the Governor of Texas. With the support of station owner Jake Pickle, he hired Durst to be the station's baseball commentator and first black disc jockey, in 1948. Naming himself "Dr. Hepcat", Durst's presentation made him successful with white as well as black radio listeners, and according to the Texas State Historical Association he "can be credited for introducing an entire generation of white Austin l ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Blues
Blues is a music genre and musical form which originated in the Deep South of the United States around the 1860s. Blues 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 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 as a genre is also 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 str ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
