Charleston music has been influenced by many and in turn has impacted music everywhere. The Gulluh community, descended from enslaved Africans, has had a huge influence on the Charleston music scene. The geechee dances are the name of the dances that the dock workers in Charleston would perform. These dances inspired Eubie Blake’s “Charelston Rag” which later became James P. Johnson’s “The Charleston.” Dances to these songs defined the whole country in the 1920s.
Charleston is one of the early starters of jazz, along with New Orleans. According to historian Jack McCray, “The beginnings of jazz music on the southeastern coast of the United States were centered in Charleston, South Carolina, one of only a handful of places in the Western Hemisphere where Africa interacted with Europe in a seminal way to produce New World culture.”
In 1891 Reverend Daniel J. Jenkins created The Jenkins Orphanage, a place to house all the children that lived in the streets. The orphanage accepted donations in the form of musical instruments and Jenkins hired local musicians and Avery Institute Graduates to teach the boys how to play music. It became one of the first organized black instrumental groups in South Carolina. The Orphanage eventually generated such respect for its music that parents started sending their children to the Orphanage for music lessons. Eventually the kids could read music at an expert level and were proficient on many different instruments. Some of the Jenkins boys got positions with the bands of Duke Ellington and Count Basie. The children were not taught jazz, but performed ragtime versions of songs, which resulted in swing music. The Jenkins Orphanage started a trend and eventually orphanages around the country were developing brass bands too. Louis Armstrong was involved with such an orphanage in New Orleans.
Notable musicians from Charleston include Charles Theodore Pachelbel and Darius Rucker. Charles Pachelbel, son of Johann Pachelbel, composed Canon in D. Pachelbel became the organist of St. Philip’s Church in 1740 and after moving to Charleston, lived there until he died. He was one of the first European composers to move to America. Darius Rucker is most known as the lead singer of Hootie & The Blowfish, a popular country/rock band.
