It's interesting to see Green point to Chicago as the capital city of popular music. The case for a capital of popular music could easily be made for New York or even Memphis. Yet, Green maintains that Chicago has been the epicenter of popular music for more than a century. In “Making the Music” Green does provide a compelling case for why Chicago is and must be viewed as the capital of popular music.

Throughout the discussion found in the chapter I was impressed by Green's wide spanning knowledge and understanding of the music that emerged from Chicago before and after World War II. Green offers a view of American popular music that is not so readily apparent. Without question, the music made by African-American musicians in Chicago during this era has come to serve as the ground work for the majority of American popular music that has emerged in the last sixty years. While Green's analysis is compelling, I kept thinking about Chicago's emergent genres and how they were re-contextualized by other musicians and artists.

Green's discussion of Chicago blues is a particularly interesting case. Green notes how Chicago blues added a second guitar to most songs and amplification to the instrumentation. In regards to prior blues recordings this was something of a revolution. Green maintains that these musicians were entrepreneurs and were highly successful at the time. Yet, I wonder how many people reading the chapter are familiar with the artists he brings into the discussion. My suspicion is that the average reader may not be all that familiar with the majority of the artists. Yet, if one were to mention artists such as the Rolling Stones (in their early pre-psychedelic and post-Brian Jones periods), Janis Joplin, the Animals or Bob Dylan (in the years between 1965 and1966) the average individual would recognize these names. Almost twenty years after its inception the sound of Chicago blues was re-contextualized.

In stating this it is easy to assume that this is an argument along the lines of stating that an artists “stole the blues” (a case that can be leveled against Eric Clapton and Led Zeppelin). Rather, it is an issue of re-contextualization in which the themes of urbanization and migration were stripped from the lyrical content of the music. Sonically, the music was more or less the same. Yet, the lyrical content had become cryptic and more surreal, particularly in the case of Bob Dylan. The argument could be made that the Rolling Stones did maintain the masculinity that Green points to as being ever present in Chicago Blues.

One can find another instance of this re-contextualization with Soul music. Mod culture and music in 1970s England is steeped Soul. Yet, Soul's roots in both gospel and blues cease to have any meaning within the Mod context. As with the blues, the themes of urbanization and migration are gone. Additionally, the social consciousness present in the lyrical content of Soul ceases to have any meaning Instead, Soul is a means of escapism, the back beat to an amphetamine fueled evening on the town.