Three University Projects Use Twitter to Understand Happiness, Hate and Other Emotions in America

in Current Affairs, Life, Twitter | May 22nd, 2013

It turns out that the fleet­ing pro­nounce­ments we post on Twit­ter are cat­nip for aca­d­e­mics and oth­ers eager to find the elu­sive pulse of Amer­i­can soci­ety. Since Twit­ter launched in 2006, researchers have been hard at work fig­ur­ing out how to turn those 140-char­ac­ter mus­ings into tea leaves with some­thing mean­ing­ful to say about us all.

Here come three new projects that claim to pro­vide a win­dow into the Amer­i­can soul through Twit­ter. Whether they suc­ceed or not, well, that’s still unclear. (And, by the way, you can start fol­low­ing Open Cul­ture on Twit­ter here.)

Most fever­ish­ly excit­ed about its work are the team behind the Glob­al Twit­ter Heart­beat, which so far focus­es most­ly on the Unit­ed States. With the help of a huge SGI proces­sor to process a live feed of pub­lic social media data, a team of researchers from the Uni­ver­si­ty of Illi­nois at Urbana-Cham­paign has made a heat map to show how peo­ple react (through Twit­ter) to big events.

They looked at two things: Hur­ri­cane Sandy (top) and the 2012 Pres­i­den­tial Elec­tion (above). Using Twitter’s “gar­den hose feed”—a ran­dom sam­pling of 10 per­cent of the rough­ly 500 mil­lion tweets sent every day—researchers col­or-cod­ed tweets red for neg­a­tive tone and blue for pos­i­tive and showed the shift­ing con­cen­tra­tions of Twit­ter activ­i­ty across the coun­try. It looks like a map of a talk­ing weath­er sys­tem as occa­sion­al dia­logue box­es open up to show rep­re­sen­ta­tive tweets. Researcher Kalev Lee­taru argues that track­ing Twit­ter activ­i­ty gives us the poten­tial to track the heart­beat of soci­ety.

Two oth­er projects look in an on-going way at tweet “tone,” or the negativity/positivity of mes­sages. One spin on this research is the Geo­graph­ic Hate Map (sam­ple map above), a project by Dr. Mon­i­ca Stephens of Hum­boldt State Uni­ver­si­ty in North­ern Cal­i­for­nia. To begin their work, Stephens and her team accessed a mas­sive data­base of geo­graph­i­cal­ly tagged tweets sent between June, 2012  and April, 2013.

They used only tweets that con­tained any of ten “hate words.” They read each tweet to be sure the words were used in a neg­a­tive way and built a map based on where the tweets came from. Then they aggre­gat­ed to the coun­ty lev­el and nor­mal­ized for the amount of twit­ter traf­fic in that area so that dense­ly pop­u­lat­ed areas don’t look more racist or homo­pho­bic by default.

Then there’s the glass half full. The Hedo­nome­ter mea­sures hap­pi­ness, or lack there­of, as expressed by tweets, cal­cu­lat­ing aver­ages based on what the researchers call “word shifts” (watch an expla­na­tion above). This research project, put togeth­er by the Uni­ver­si­ty of Ver­mont Com­plex Sys­tems Cen­ter, uses the same gar­den hose feed as the Glob­al Twit­ter Heart­beat. This project search­es for fre­quent­ly used words to mea­sure how good a day Twit­ter users are hav­ing. Since 2008 the Hedo­nome­ter has kept track of how often words like “hap­py,” “yes,” and “love” pop up in tweets, as opposed to “hate,” “no,” and “unhap­py.” The sad­dest day on Hedo­nome­ter record so far is April 15, 2013, the day bombs explod­ed at the Boston Marathon fin­ish line. Christ­mas Day tends to rank as the hap­pi­est day of the year.

To be sure, any tool that uses tweets for data is mea­sur­ing a very young and spe­cif­ic sub­group of peo­ple. Tweets are not a reli­able mea­sure of any­thing, real­ly, but maybe with some tweak­ing, these research mod­els will come up with some­thing inter­est­ing.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

The Art of Data Visu­al­iza­tion: How to Tell Com­plex Sto­ries Through Smart Design

Watch a Cool and Creepy Visu­al­iza­tion of U.S. Births & Deaths in Real-Time

An Ani­mat­ed Visu­al­iza­tion of Every Observed Mete­orite That Has Hit Earth Since 861 AD

Kate Rix writes about edu­ca­tion and dig­i­tal media. Fol­low dai­ly ups and downs on Twit­ter @mskaterix.

Ricky Gervais Presents “Learn Guitar with David Brent”

in Music | May 21st, 2013

To help cel­e­brate YouTube’s first Com­e­dy Week, Ricky Ger­vais has revived David Brent, the bum­bling “Region­al Man­ag­er” that ran the Wern­ham Hogg Paper Com­pa­ny in the UK ver­sion of The Office. Although the sit­com pre­sent­ed him as the ‘boss from hell,’ Brent fan­cied him­self “a philoso­pher to rival Descartes, a musi­cian to rival Texas, a dancer to rival MC Ham­mer.” And a “bril­liant singer-song­writer” too. Per­haps you’ll remem­ber a favorite moment from the show, when Brent led his staff in a sing-a-long to Free Love Free­way? (If not, we have it below, and you can find the chords and lyrics here.) Any­way, Brent is back, and he’s now offer­ing gui­tar lessons on YouTube — lessons guar­an­teed to teach you absolute­ly noth­ing about play­ing gui­tar. If you want real lessons, James Tay­lor has you cov­ered here.

You can find the first les­son above; the sec­ond les­son will hit Ricky Ger­vais’ YouTube Chan­nel on June 3.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

“Learn Eng­lish With Ricky Ger­vais,” A New Pod­cast Debuts (NSFW)

Sein­feld, Louis C.K., Chris Rock, and Ricky Ger­vais Dis­sect the Craft of Com­e­dy (NSFW)

Hear Kurt Vonnegut’s Very First Public Reading from Breakfast of Champions (1970)

in Audio Books, Literature | May 21st, 2013

When we think of Kurt Von­negut, we tend to think of Slaugh­ter­house-Five. Maybe we also think of the short sto­ry “Har­ri­son Berg­eron,” which gets assigned in class by slight­ly alter­na­tive-mind­ed Eng­lish teach­ers. Now that I think about it, I real­ize that those two works of Von­negut’s have both become movies: George Roy Hill’s Slaugh­ter­house-Five hit the­aters in 1972, and Bruce Pittman’s Har­ri­son Berg­eron debuted on Show­time in 1995. But the beloved­ly cyn­i­cal writer pro­duced four­teen nov­els, eight sto­ry col­lec­tions, and five books of essays, and even if we just explore fur­ther into those adapt­ed for the screen, we find a per­haps under-dis­cussed piece of Von­negutia: Break­fast of Cham­pi­ons, his 1973 fol­low-up to Slaugh­ter­house-Five.

The nov­el exam­ines Dwayne Hoover, a deeply trou­bled Pon­ti­ac sales­man obsessed with the writ­ings of pulp sci-fi author Kil­go­re Trout. You may remem­ber Trout from his role in Von­negut’s pre­vi­ous book, whose “unstuck-in-time” pro­tag­o­nist Bil­ly Pil­grim he invites to his wed­ding anniver­sary. Break­fast of Cham­pi­ons sets Trout on a col­li­sion course with Hoover in the fic­tion­al Amer­i­can town of Mid­land City, bring­ing in a great vari­ety of char­ac­ters, themes, and ele­ments from Von­negut’s oth­er work in so doing. In the clip above, you can hear the author’s very first pub­lic read­ing of the book, record­ed on May 4, 1970 at New York’s 92nd Street Y. After it became avail­able to read­ers three years lat­er, Break­fast of Cham­pi­ons would become a favorite among the Von­negut faith­ful. The 1999 Bruce Willis-star­ring film adap­ta­tion… less so.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Kurt Von­negut Reads from Slaugh­ter­house-Five

Vonnegut’s Eight Tips on How to Write a Good Short Sto­ry

Kurt Von­negut: “How To Get A Job Like Mine” (2002)

Col­in Mar­shall hosts and pro­duces Note­book on Cities and Cul­ture and writes essays on lit­er­a­ture, film, cities, Asia, and aes­thet­ics. He’s at work on a book about Los Ange­les, A Los Ange­les Primer. Fol­low him on Twit­ter at @colinmarshall.

Dream, A Short Documentary on the Art and Culture of Burning Man

in Art | May 20th, 2013

Every year, right before Labor Day, 50,000 peo­ple trav­el to Black Rock City, Neva­da to take part in Burn­ing Man — an exper­i­men­tal com­mu­ni­ty ded­i­cat­ed to rad­i­cal self reliance, rad­i­cal self-expres­sion and art. As Burn­ing Man’s own web site will tell you, “Try­ing to explain what Burn­ing Man is to some­one who has nev­er been to the event is a bit like try­ing to explain what a par­tic­u­lar col­or looks like to some­one who is blind.” Nonethe­less, the Burn­ing Man orga­niz­ers offer a short, intro­duc­to­ry essay and a First-Timer’s Guide to get you start­ed, plus some pho­to gal­leries to help fill out the pic­ture. And then above, we have a new­ly-made short film that offers a glimpse into the art and cul­ture of the Burn­ing Man expe­ri­ence. It high­lights some won­drous artis­tic cre­ations and the artists, design­ers, builders and sundry minds behind them. The doc­u­men­tary, Dream: Art & Cul­ture of Burn­ing Man, pre­miered at the Sono­ma Inter­na­tion­al Film Fes­ti­val.

If you would like to sup­port the mis­sion of Open Cul­ture, con­sid­er mak­ing a dona­tion to our site. It’s hard to rely 100% on ads, and your con­tri­bu­tions will help us con­tin­ue pro­vid­ing the best free cul­tur­al and edu­ca­tion­al mate­ri­als to learn­ers every­where. You can con­tribute through Pay­Pal, Patre­on, and Ven­mo (@openculture). Thanks!

Download 100 Free Online Philosophy Courses & Start Living the Examined Life

in Online Courses, Philosophy | May 19th, 2013

The Phi­los­o­phy sec­tion of our big Free Online Cours­es col­lec­tion just went through anoth­er update, and it now fea­tures 100 cours­es. Enough to give you a soup-to-nuts intro­duc­tion to a time­less dis­ci­pline. You can start with one of sev­er­al intro­duc­to­ry cours­es.

• Phi­los­o­phy for Begin­ners – iTunes – Web Video – Mar­i­anne Tal­bot, Oxford
  
• Crit­i­cal Rea­son­ing for Begin­ners - iTunes Video – iTunes Audio – Web Video – Oxford
• A Romp through Ethics for Com­plete Begin­ners - iTunes Video–Web Video – Oxford
• Intro­duc­tion to Polit­i­cal Phi­los­o­phy – YouTube – iTunes – Web Video — Steven B. Smith, Yale
• The Art of Liv­ing — Web Video – Stan­ford
• The His­to­ry of Phi­los­o­phy With­out Any Gaps - Mul­ti­ple For­mats– Peter Adam­son, King’s Col­lege Lon­don

Then, once you’ve found your foot­ing, you can head off in some amaz­ing direc­tions. As we men­tioned many moons ago, you can access cours­es and lec­tures by mod­ern day leg­ends – Michel Fou­cault, Bertrand Rus­sell, John Sear­le, Wal­ter Kauf­mann, Leo Strauss, Hubert Drey­fus and Michael Sandel. Then you can sit back and let them intro­duce you to the think­ing of Aris­to­tle, Socrates, Pla­to, Hobbes, Hegel, Hei­deg­ger, Kierkegaard, Kant, Niet­zsche, Sartre and the rest of the gang. The cours­es list­ed here are gen­er­al­ly avail­able via YouTube, iTunes, or the web.

Explore our col­lec­tion of 950 Free Cours­es to find top­ics in many oth­er dis­ci­plines — His­to­ry, Lit­er­a­ture, Physics, Com­put­er Sci­ence and beyond. As we like to say, it’s the most valu­able sin­gle page on the web.

Find us on Face­book, Twit­ter and Google Plus and we’ll make it easy to share intel­li­gent media with your friends! 

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Michel Fou­cault: Free Lec­tures on Truth, Dis­course & The Self

Pho­tog­ra­phy of Lud­wig Wittgen­stein Released by Archives at Cam­bridge

Take First-Class Phi­los­o­phy Lec­tures Any­where with Free Oxford Pod­casts

Wal­ter Kaufmann’s Lec­tures on Niet­zsche, Kierkegaard and Sartre (1960)

Duke Ellington’s Symphony in Black, Starring a 19-Year-old Billie Holiday in Her First Filmed Performance

in Film, Music | May 18th, 2013

In Sep­tem­ber of 1935 Para­mount Pic­tures released a nine-minute movie remark­able in sev­er­al ways. Sym­pho­ny in Black: A Rhap­sody of Negro Life is one of the ear­li­est cin­e­mat­ic explo­rations of African-Amer­i­can cul­ture for a mass audi­ence. It fea­tures Duke Elling­ton and his orches­tra per­form­ing his first extend­ed com­po­si­tion. And per­haps most notably, it stars Bil­lie Hol­i­day in her first filmed per­for­mance.

The one-reel movie, direct­ed by Fred Waller, tells the sto­ry of Elling­ton’s “A Rhap­sody of Negro Life,” using pic­tures to con­vey the images run­ning through the musi­cian’s mind as he com­posed and per­formed the piece. Elling­ton’s “Rhap­sody” has four parts: “The Labor­ers,” “A Tri­an­gle,” “A Hymn of Sor­row” and “Harlem Rhythm.” Hol­i­day appears as a jilt­ed and abused lover in “A Tri­an­gle.”

Hol­i­day’s only pre­vi­ous screen appear­ance was as an uncred­it­ed extra in a night­club scene in the 1933 Paul Robe­son film, The Emper­or Jones. Sym­pho­ny in Black was pro­duced over a ten-month peri­od. Hol­i­day was only 19 when her scenes were shot. She sings Elling­ton’s “Sad­dest Tale,” a song care­ful­ly select­ed by the com­pos­er to fit the young singer’s style. “Sad­dest tale on land or sea,” begin the lyrics, “Was when my man walked out on me.” In the book Bil­lie Hol­i­day: A Biog­ra­phy, author Meg Greene calls the per­for­mance “mes­mer­iz­ing”:

Sym­pho­ny in Black marked an impor­tant mile­stone in the devel­op­ment of Bil­lie Hol­i­day, the woman and the singer. Elling­ton’s deft han­dling enabled Bil­lie to dis­tin­guish her­self from oth­er torch singers. She did not wear her emo­tions on her sleeve; instead, she revealed her­self grad­u­al­ly as the song unfold­ed. Hers was a care­ful­ly craft­ed and sophis­ti­cat­ed per­for­mance, espe­cial­ly for a woman only 19 years old. This care­ful­ly woven tapes­try of life and music was the ori­gin of the per­sona that audi­ences came to iden­ti­fy with Bil­lie. Oth­er singers such as Frank Sina­tra and Judy Gar­land may have more suc­cess­ful­ly estab­lished and cul­ti­vat­ed an image, but Bil­lie Hol­i­day did it first.

Relat­ed con­tent:

Bil­lie Hol­i­day Sings ‘Strange Fruit’

Bil­lie Holiday–The Life and Artistry of Lady Day: The Com­plete Film

Duke Elling­ton Plays for Joan Miró in the South of France, 1966: Bassist John Lamb Looks Back on the Day

How Famous Writers — From J.K. Rowling to William Faulkner — Visually Outlined Their Novels

in Literature | May 17th, 2013

Click for a larg­er ver­sion

Every great novel—or at least every fin­ished novel—needs a plan. I remem­ber well a James Joyce course I took in col­lege, taught by a bel­liger­ent Irish­man who began the first class meet­ing by slam­ming his decades-old copy of Ulysses on the table, send­ing clouds of dust and Post-It notes around his ears and shout­ing, “This is my Bible!” He pro­ceed­ed over the next few months to unrav­el the dark mys­ter­ies of Joyce’s design, with chart after chart of flo­ral sym­bol­o­gy, musi­cal motifs, Dante allu­sions, myth­ic and Catholic rewrit­ings, and Dublin city maps. Need­less to say I was intim­i­dat­ed.

But not every author requires the god-like fore­sight of Joyce. Wit­ness, for instance, J.K. Rowling’s spread­sheet for Har­ry Pot­ter and the Order of the Phoenix (top), hand-drawn on lined note­book paper. Fine, Rowling’s no Joyce, but no one can say her method didn’t yield impres­sive results. For a more canon­i­cal­ly lit­er­ary exam­ple, see William Faulkner’s plan for A Fable (above). Faulkn­er famous­ly out­lined his fic­tion on the walls of his Rowan Oaks study, in-between bot­tles of bour­bon.

Fla­vor­wire has com­piled a num­ber of author out­lines, from Joseph Heller’s dense, intri­cate grid design for Catch-22 to Jen­nifer Egan’s sto­ry­boards for “Black Box” and Nor­man Mail­er’s medieval man­u­script of a plan for Har­lot’s Ghost. Each out­line betrays a lit­tle of the author’s mind at work.

via Fla­vor­wire

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Six Post­cards From Famous Writ­ers: Hem­ing­way, Kaf­ka, Ker­ouac & More

Writ­ers’ Hous­es Gives You a Vir­tu­al Tour of Famous Authors’ Homes

Pho­tos of Famous Writ­ers (and Rock­ers) with their Dogs

Josh Jones is a writer and musi­cian based in Wash­ing­ton, DC. Fol­low him @jdmagness

7 Nobel Speeches by 7 Great Writers: Hemingway, Faulkner, and More

in Books, Literature, Writing | May 16th, 2013

William Faulkn­er, 1949:

Almost every year since 1901, the Swedish Acad­e­my has appor­tioned one fifth of the inter­est from the for­tune bequeathed by dyna­mite inven­tor Alfred Nobel to hon­or, as Nobel said in his will, “the per­son who shall have pro­duced in the field of lit­er­a­ture the most out­stand­ing work in an ide­al direc­tion.”

Many of the great­est writ­ers of the past 112 years have received the Nobel Prize in Lit­er­a­ture, but there have been some glar­ing omis­sions right from the start. When Leo Tol­stoy was passed over in 1901 (the prize went to the French poet Sul­ly Prud­homme) he was so offend­ed he refused lat­er nom­i­na­tions. The list of great writ­ers who were alive after 1901 but nev­er received the prize is jaw-drop­ping. In addi­tion to Tol­stoy, it includes James Joyce, Vir­ginia Woolf, Mark Twain, Joseph Con­rad, Anton Chekhov, Mar­cel Proust, Hen­ry James, Hen­rik Ibsen, Émile Zola, Robert Frost, W.H. Auden, F. Scott Fitzger­ald, Jorge Luis Borges and Vladimir Nabokov.

But the Nobel com­mit­tee has hon­ored many wor­thy writ­ers, and today we’ve gath­ered togeth­er sev­en speech­es by sev­en lau­re­ates. Our choice was restrict­ed by the lim­i­ta­tions of what is avail­able online in Eng­lish. We have focused on the short speech­es tra­di­tion­al­ly giv­en on Decem­ber 10 of every year at the Nobel ban­quet in Stock­holm. With the excep­tion of short excerpts from Bertrand Rus­sel­l’s lec­ture, we have passed over the longer Nobel lec­tures (which typ­i­cal­ly run about 40 min­utes) pre­sent­ed to the Swedish Acad­e­my on a dif­fer­ent day than the ban­quet.

We begin above with one of the most often-quot­ed Nobel speech­es: William Faulkn­er’s elo­quent accep­tance of the 1949 prize. There was actu­al­ly no prize in lit­er­a­ture giv­en in 1949, but the com­mit­tee decid­ed to award that year’s medal 12 months lat­er to Faulkn­er, cit­ing his “pow­er­ful and artis­ti­cal­ly unique con­tri­bu­tion to the mod­ern Amer­i­can nov­el.” Faulkn­er gave his speech on Decem­ber 10, 1950, in the same cer­e­mo­ny with Bertrand Rus­sell. Unfor­tu­nate­ly the audio cuts off just before the fin­ish. To fol­low along and read the miss­ing end­ing, click here to open the full text in a new win­dow. Faulkn­er stum­bles a few times dur­ing his deliv­ery. You can lis­ten to his smoother 1954 read­ing of a pol­ished ver­sion of the speech here.

Bertrand Rus­sell, 1950:

The British logi­cian and philoso­pher Bertrand Rus­sell was one of sev­er­al prize-win­ners in lit­er­a­ture who were pri­mar­i­ly known for their work in oth­er fields. (The short list includes states­man Win­ston Churchill and philoso­pher Hen­ri Berg­son.) In addi­tion to his ground-break­ing con­tri­bu­tions to math­e­mat­ics and ana­lyt­ic phi­los­o­phy, Rus­sell wrote many books for the gen­er­al read­er. In 1950 the Nobel com­mit­tee cit­ed his “var­ied and sig­nif­i­cant writ­ings in which he cham­pi­ons human­i­tar­i­an ideals and free­dom of thought.” Above are two short audio clips from Rus­sel­l’s Decem­ber 11, 1950 Nobel lec­ture, “What Desires are Polit­i­cal­ly Impor­tant?” You can click here to open the full text in a new win­dow.

Ernest Hem­ing­way, 1954:

The Amer­i­can writer Ernest Hem­ing­way was award­ed the 1954 prize “for his mas­tery of the art of nar­ra­tive, most recent­ly demon­strat­ed in The Old Man and the Sea, and for the influ­ence that he has exert­ed on con­tem­po­rary style.” Hem­ing­way was not feel­ing well enough in Decem­ber of 1954 to trav­el to Stock­holm, so he asked John C. Cabot, Unit­ed States Ambas­sador to Swe­den, to deliv­er the speech for him. For­tu­nate­ly we do have this record­ing from some­time that month of Hem­ing­way read­ing his speech at a radio sta­tion in Havana, Cuba. You can click here to open the full text in a new win­dow.

John Stein­beck, 1962:

The Amer­i­can writer John Stein­beck, author of The Grapes of Wrath and Of Mice and Men, was award­ed the Nobel in 1962 “for his real­is­tic and imag­i­na­tive writ­ings, com­bin­ing as they do sym­pa­thet­ic humor and keen social per­cep­tion.” To read along as you watch Stein­beck give his speech, click here to open the text in a new win­dow.

V.S. Naipaul, 2001:

Jump­ing ahead from 1962 all the way to 2001, we have video of the speech giv­en by the Trinida­di­an-British writer V.S. Naipaul, author of such books as In a Free State and A Bend in the Riv­er. Naipaul was cit­ed by the Nobel com­mit­tee “for hav­ing unit­ed per­cep­tive nar­ra­tive and incor­rupt­ible scruti­ny in works that com­pel us to see the pres­ence of sup­pressed his­to­ries.” You can click here to open a text of Naipaul’s ban­quet speech in a new win­dow.

Orhan Pamuk, 2006:

The Turk­ish writer Orhan Pamuk, author of such books as The Muse­um of Inno­cence and Snow, received the prize in 2006. The Nobel com­mit­tee praised the Istan­bul-based writer, “who in the quest for the melan­cholic soul of his native city has dis­cov­ered new sym­bols for the clash and inter­lac­ing of cul­tures.” To read Pamuk’s ban­quet speech, click here to open the text in a new win­dow.

Mario Var­gas Llosa, 2010:

The pro­lif­ic Peru­vian-Span­ish writer Mario Var­gas Llosa, author of such nov­els as Con­ver­sa­tion in the Cathe­dral and Death in the Andes, was cit­ed by the Nobel com­mit­tee in 2010 “for his car­tog­ra­phy of struc­tures of pow­er and his tren­chant images of the indi­vid­u­al’s resis­tance, revolt, and defeat.” To read along with Var­gas Llosa as he speaks, click here to open the text in a new win­dow.

Listen to the National’s New Album, Trouble Will Find Me, on iTunes (Free for a Limited Time)

in Music | May 16th, 2013

Anoth­er quick heads up: The Nation­al’s sixth LP, Trou­ble Will Find Me, will be released on May 21. But, right now, you can jump over to iTunes and stream it for free on your com­put­er or iPad (for a lim­it­ed time).

To access the stream, click this link, tap the “View in iTunes” but­ton, click the “Lis­ten Now” but­ton, and you’re good to go.

Above, we’re start­ing you off with “Sea of Love,” the first video from the album.

H/T Liz

Relat­ed Con­tent: 

Daft Punk’s New Album, Ran­dom Access Mem­o­ries, Stream­ing for Free on iTunes for a Lim­it­ed Time

Keith Richards Waxes Philosophical, Plays Live with His Idol, the Great Muddy Waters

in Music | May 16th, 2013

Cadil­lac Records—a 2008 biopic about the rise and fall of Chicago’s Chess Records—won acclaim for bravu­ra per­for­mances, gar­nered Bey­once a White House per­for­mance and threats of vio­lence from Etta James, and took it on the chin for its deeply mud­dled his­to­ry. But nobody goes to the movies for a his­to­ry les­son, right? What stuck with me was its drama­ti­za­tion of that moment (okay, decade) when R&B and “race records” got rebrand­ed by Alan Freed as “Rock n’ Roll” and crossed over the col­or line. Hun­dreds of bands hijacked Chuck Berry’s licks (as he saw it), and then Jag­ger crashed the par­ty with his Mud­dy Waters impres­sion while his band took their name from one of his blues songs.

The Stones may not have been the first British band to make Amer­i­can elec­tric blues their own, but they were arguably the most pop­u­lar. In an excerpt (below) from a longer inter­view from 1973, Kei­th Richards namechecks both Waters and Berry, as well as usu­al sus­pects Lit­tle Richard, Bo Did­dley, Jim­my Reed, Slim Har­po, and the much ear­li­er Robert John­son and Blind Lemon Jef­fer­son. The host push­es Kei­th on his roots influ­ences and the part of black music in the Stones’ sound, ask­ing if their lack of sen­ti­men­tal­ism came from the blues. Kei­th replies,“I don’t get sen­ti­men­tal about things because… it doesn’t lead to clar­i­ty of thought.” And when I think clar­i­ty, I think Kei­th Richards. But seri­ous­ly, it’s a gem of an inter­view.

Asked about how black musi­cians react­ed to his blues appro­pri­a­tion, Richards gets philo­soph­i­cal: “Prob­a­bly as many dif­fer­ent reac­tions from them as any­body else.” We know how Chuck Berry felt—robbed—but Kei­th tells us Waters took it in stride, “grate­ful” for the intro­duc­tion to the white col­lege cir­cuit which put more bread in his pock­et. Maybe so, but Waters’ crossover before white audi­ences pre­dat­ed the Stones. Before the British invaded—two years before the Stones formed—Muddy hit England’s shores in 1958 (one year after Sis­ter Roset­ta Tharpe brought her elec­tric blues across the pond). While the usu­al belief that Waters’ blues shocked the Brits may be a mis­con­cep­tion, he won a new audi­ence on the folk cir­cuit, return­ing to Eng­land in ‘64. After lay­ing low for a while, Waters saw a career revival late in life, per­form­ing into his final years with The Stones, Eric Clap­ton, John­ny Win­ters, and his own band. In the video above, see a full per­for­mance of Waters with the Stones from 1981, two years before Waters’ death from heart fail­ure. He’s 66 at this gig, three years younger than Richards is now.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Chuck Berry Takes Kei­th Richards to School, Shows Him How to Rock (1987)

Revis­it The Life & Music of Sis­ter Roset­ta Tharpe: ‘The God­moth­er of Rock and Roll’

Mud­dy Waters and Friends on the Blues and Gospel Train, 1964

Josh Jones is a writer and musi­cian based in Wash­ing­ton, DC. Fol­low him @jdmagness