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    Hunter Hancock and Dewey Phillips Bring R&B To The Airwaves: Essential Question

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    Chad Horsley
    This document discusses how Dewey Phillips and Hunter Hancock helped bring Rhythm and Blues (R&B) music to mixed-race audiences through their work as disc jockeys in the late 1940s and 1950s. As African Americans migrated north during the Great Migration, radio stations began marketing to the growing urban black population. Phillips in Memphis and Hancock in Los Angeles were among the pioneering DJs who played R&B music regularly on air, reaching both black and white listeners and helping introduce African American music to the mainstream.

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    Hunter Hancock and Dewey Phillips Bring R&B To The Airwaves: Essential Question

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    Chad Horsley
    63 views6 pages
    This document discusses how Dewey Phillips and Hunter Hancock helped bring Rhythm and Blues (R&B) music to mixed-race audiences through their work as disc jockeys in the late 1940s and 1950s. As African Americans migrated north during the Great Migration, radio stations began marketing to the growing urban black population. Phillips in Memphis and Hancock in Los Angeles were among the pioneering DJs who played R&B music regularly on air, reaching both black and white listeners and helping introduce African American music to the mainstream.

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    This document discusses how Dewey Phillips and Hunter Hancock helped bring Rhythm and Blues (R&B) music to mixed-race audiences through their work as disc jockeys in the late 1940s and 1950s. As African Americans migrated north during the Great Migration, radio stations began marketing to the growing urban black population. Phillips in Memphis and Hancock in Los Angeles were among the pioneering DJs who played R&B music regularly on air, reaching both black and white listeners and helping introduce African American music to the mainstream.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as pdf or txt
    63 views6 pages

    Hunter Hancock and Dewey Phillips Bring R&B To The Airwaves: Essential Question

    Uploaded by

    Chad Horsley
    This document discusses how Dewey Phillips and Hunter Hancock helped bring Rhythm and Blues (R&B) music to mixed-race audiences through their work as disc jockeys in the late 1940s and 1950s. As African Americans migrated north during the Great Migration, radio stations began marketing to the growing urban black population. Phillips in Memphis and Hancock in Los Angeles were among the pioneering DJs who played R&B music regularly on air, reaching both black and white listeners and helping introduce African American music to the mainstream.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
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    of 6

    HUNTER HANCOCK AND DEWEY PHILLIPS BRING R&B

    TO THE AIRWAVES
    OVERVIEW

    ESSENTIAL QUESTION

    How did Dewey Phillips and Hunter Hancock


    help bring Rhythm and Blues music to mixed
    race audiences?

    OVERVIEW
    Throughout much of the 20th century, African
    Americans engaged in the “Great Migration”
    moved from the rural South to points north,
    often urban centers. Their presence in cities
    from Memphis to Chicago and New York would
    have a profound impact on American culture
    in general, and on radio programming in
    particular.

    African-American audiences were eager to hear music performed by African-American artists,


    particularly the new Rhythm and Blues sounds that had begun to emerge from earlier Blues
    and Jazz styles. In 1949, WDIA in Memphis hired a team of African-American disc jockeys and
    began gearing programming entirely toward African-American audiences, with R&B and Blues
    at its heart. In some cases, it was white disc jockeys who championed this music, playing it on
    radio stations that would bring together black and white audiences.
    This lesson will focus on two of those DJs: Memphis’s Dewey Phillips, whose popular show “Red
    Hot and Blue” frequently featured music by African-American artists, and Los Angeles’s Hunter
    Hancock, widely regarded as the first DJ in the western part of the country to regularly play R&B
    on the air. Reaching both black and white audiences, these pioneering DJs played an integral
    role in bringing African-American music into the mainstream, a process that lay at the heart of
    the soon-to-come Rock and Roll revolution.

    BOOK 1: BIRTH OF ROCK


    H U N T E R H A N C O C K A N D D E W E Y P H I L L I P S B R I N G R & B T O T H E A I R WAV E S

    OBJECTIVES

    Upon completion of this lesson, students will:

    1. KNOW (KNOWLEDGE): 2. BE ABLE TO (SKILLS):


    •T
     he cultural impact on 20th century American •U
     se a variety of sources to write an original
    life of the Great Migration of African Americans script for a radio broadcast
    to northern cities
    •C
     ommon Core: Students will read, listen to and
    •T
     he growing desire of radio stations to market watch a variety of sources to gather information
    programming to the new urban African-American and draw historical and thematic connections
    population (CCSS Reading 1; CCSS Reading 7; CCSS
    Writing 8)
    •T
     he pioneering role of disc jockeys Dewey
    Phillips (Memphis) and Hunter Hancock (Los • Common Core: Students will create a radio
    Angeles) in playing Rhythm and Blues on the broadcast making strategic use of audio clips and
    radio other information to enhance their presentation
    (CCSS Writing 3; CCSS Speaking and Listening
    4; CCSS Speaking and Listening 5)

    ACTIVITIES

    MOTIVATIONAL ACTIVITY:

    1. Distribute Handout 1: Map of the United States, and display the map on the board. Ask
    if students can identify why some states are shaded in blue and others in red. (Note to
    instructor: This is a map reflecting the divisions of the Civil War era: the states in dark
    red seceded and became part of the Confederacy before April 15, 1861, and those in light
    red seceded and joined the Confederacy after that date; those in blue remained part of
    the Union; those in yellow were Union states that allowed slavery; and those in grey were
    territories that had not yet become states.)

    2. Using a classroom atlas or online research, ask students to label the following cities:
    Los Angeles, California; Chicago, Illinois; Detroit, Michigan; St. Louis, Missouri; Cleveland,
    Ohio; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; and Washington, D.C. Discuss as a class:
    • In what parts of the country are these cities located?

    • Which part of a divided country would they have been in during the Civil War?

    3. Ask students to describe life for African Americans in the American South after the
    Emancipation Proclamation of 1863 and the end of the Civil War in 1865. Ask them to
    discuss the institutions of sharecropping and the culture of Jim Crow, in particular. If

    BOOK 1: BIRTH OF ROCK


    H U N T E R H A N C O C K A N D D E W E Y P H I L L I P S B R I N G R & B T O T H E A I R WAV E S

    MOTIVATIONAL ACTIVITY: (CONTINUED)

    students are not firmly grounded in this material, guide them through these topics, offering
    explanation where needed.

    4. Distribute Handout 2: African-American Population of Select Cities and display on the


    board. Make sure students understand that the table shows African Americans as a
    percentage of the overall population in 1920 and 1960. Discuss as a class:
    •A
     s a general trend, what was happening to the African-American populations in these cities? How
    significant were the changes?

    • Where were these African Americans most likely coming from?

    •W
     hat might have been some of the reasons they went to these cities? Why would they go to urban areas?
    (Note to instructor: You may again want to discuss both Jim Crow laws and customs and the lasting impact
    of sharecropping as aspects of Southern life affecting African Americans.)

    •H
     ow do you imagine the increase in the African-American population influenced life in these cities? How
    do you imagine it influenced popular culture in particular? (Note to instructor: Be sure to discuss briefly
    that even when they remained in the South, many African Americans relocated from rural to urban areas in
    this period. This point will be further emphasized in the readings.)

    PROCEDURE:

    1. Divide students into pairs or small groups background on:


    of 3-4. Explain that each group will work
    • The Great Migration
    together to write a script for a ten-minute
    radio show that explores the impact of • The rise of Rhythm and Blues in the 1940s
    the growing African-American population • WDIA Memphis, the nation’s first African-
    on American cities in the 1940s and American radio station
    1950s, focusing on radio programming.
    Their scripts will focus specifically on the • Memphis disc jockey Dewey Phillips
    influence of two disc jockeys in the late • Los Angeles disc jockey Hunter Hancock
    1940s and 1950s -- Memphis’ Dewey
    Phillips and Los Angeles’ Hunter Hancock -- 3. Allow students sufficient time to review
    and the kind of music they played. In order and discuss the material in the handout. If
    to write their scripts, they will discuss a students do not have access to individual
    series of readings and short video clips. computers, play the videos for the class as
    a whole.
    2. Distribute Handout 3: Resources for This
    Lesson. (Required video: Roy Brown’s 4. Distribute Handout 4: How to Write Your
    “Good Rockin’ Tonight,” Hunter Hancock’s Radio Script. Go over the instructions with
    “Huntin’ with Hunter,” Dewey Phillips’ “Red, the class as a whole.
    Hot and Blue,” the radio interview Dewey
    Phillips On Air with Jerry Lee Lewis, and 5. Allow students sufficient time to prepare
    Ruth Brown’s “Teardrops From My Eyes.”) their scripts, which will be turned in at the
    The readings include end of the class.

    BOOK 1: BIRTH OF ROCK


    H U N T E R H A N C O C K A N D D E W E Y P H I L L I P S B R I N G R & B T O T H E A I R WAV E S

    SUMMARY ACTIVITY:

    Discuss:

    •H
     ow did the growing African-American population in American cities in the postwar period influence the
    kinds of music played on the radio?

    • What is a disc jockey? Why do radio stations have them?

    • What role can disc jockeys play in determining what music listeners hear?

    •W
     hat specific role did Dewey Phillips and Hunter Hancock play in exposing white audiences to new kinds of
    music in the late 1940s and early 1950s?

    •S
     ome historians have suggested that the work of Phillips and Hancock and other DJs like them marked an
    important step in moving the country toward racial integration. Do you agree or disagree? Why?

    WRITING PROMPT:
    How did the work of disc jockeys Dewey Phillips and Hunter Hancock reflect changes in
    American society in the 1940s and early 1950s?

    EXTENSION:

    Have students perform and/or record their radio scripts. Play them for the class, or
    perhaps broadcast them on a school or local radio station.

    S TA N D A R D S

    COMMON CORE STATE STANDARDS

    College and Career Readiness Reading Anchor Standards for Grades 6-12 for Literature and
    Informational Text

    Reading 1: Read closely to determine what the text says explicitly and to make logical
    inferences from it; cite specific textual evidence when writing or speaking to support
    conclusions drawn from the text.

    Reading 7: Integrate and evaluate content presented in diverse formats and media,
    including visually and quantitatively, as well as in words.

    College and Career Readiness Writing Anchor Standards for Grades 6-12 in English
    Language Arts and Literacy in History/Social Studies, Science and Technical Subjects

    BOOK 1: BIRTH OF ROCK


    H U N T E R H A N C O C K A N D D E W E Y P H I L L I P S B R I N G R & B T O T H E A I R WAV E S

    Writing 3: Write narratives to develop real or imagined experiences or events using


    effective technique, well-chosen details, and well-structured event sequences.

    Writing 8: Gather relevant information from multiple print and digital sources, assess
    the credibility and accuracy of each source, and integrate the information while avoiding
    plagiarism.

    College and Career Readiness Anchor Standards for Speaking and Listening for Grades 6-12

    Speaking and Listening 4: Present information, findings, and supporting evidence such
    that listeners can follow the line of reasoning and the organization, development, and
    style are appropriate to task, purpose, and audience.

    Speaking and Listening 5: Make strategic use of digital media and visual displays of data
    to express information and enhance understanding of presentations.

    SOCIAL STUDIES – NATIONAL COUNCIL FOR THE SOCIAL STUDIES (NCSS)

    Theme 1: Culture

    Theme 4: Individual Development and Identity

    Theme 5: Individuals, Groups, and Institutions

    Theme 8: Science, Technology, and Society

    NATIONAL STANDARDS FOR MUSIC EDUCATION

    Core Music Standard: Responding

    Analyze: Analyze how the structure and context of varied musical works inform the
    response.

    Interpret: Support interpretations of musical works that reflect creators’ and/or


    performers’ expressive intent.

    Evaluate: Support evaluations of musical works and performances based on analysis,


    interpretation, and established criteria.

    Core Music Standard: Connecting

    Connecting 11: Relate musical ideas and works to varied contexts and daily life to
    deepen understanding.
    H U N T E R H A N C O C K A N D D E W E Y P H I L L I P S B R I N G R & B T O T H E A I R WAV E S

    RESOURCES

    VIDEO RESOURCES FEATURED PEOPLE


    • Jerry Lee Lewis – Radio Interview, The Dewey • Hunter Hancock
    Phillips Show (1957) • Jerry Lee Lewis
    • Hunter Hancock – Huntin’ with Hunter • Dewey Phillips
    • Ruth Brown – Teardrops From My Eyes (1950)
    • Roy Brown – Good Rockin’ Tonight (1947) HANDOUTS
    • Dewey Phillips – Red, Hot and Blue (1952) • Handout 1: Outline Map of the United States
    • Handout 2: African-American Population of Select
    Cities
    • Handout 3: Resources for This Lesson
    • Handout 4: How to Write Your Radio Script

    BOOK 1: BIRTH OF ROCK

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