Blues (music)
Blues is a distinctive musical genre that originated in the late 19th and early 20th centuries among African Americans in the American South, particularly linked to the experiences of slavery and the struggles that followed. This style typically features a single vocalist accompanied by instruments like the acoustic guitar or banjo, and it evolved from the rhythmic work songs and spirituals of enslaved people. In the mid-1900s, blues transformed into a more commercial form with the introduction of electric guitars and full bands, leading to the development of regional styles such as Delta blues and Chicago blues. Delta blues, characterized by its raw emotion and acoustic instrumentation, emerged prominently in the Mississippi delta, while Chicago blues adopted a more electrified sound as musicians migrated northward in search of better opportunities. The genre reflects themes of loss, hardship, and social injustice, and major figures like B.B. King and Muddy Waters played pivotal roles in its evolution. Throughout the 20th century and into the 21st, blues has continued to inspire a global audience, influencing many contemporary music styles and artists. Today, blues remains a vital and celebrated part of American musical heritage, recognized for its profound emotional depth and cultural significance.
Blues (music)
Blues is a musical style originally developed by African Americans in the American South in the late 1800s and early 1900s. Typified by one singer performing with either an acoustic guitar or banjo, early blues grew out of the rhythmic work songs initially sung by enslaved African Americans. In the mid-1900s, however, after receiving popular attention, blues became more modern and commercialized, coming to feature electric guitars supported by full bands. In the twenty-first century, this distinctly American invention continued to be played by artists around the world, identified by its often repetitive guitar chords and lyrical themes of lost love, injustice, poverty, and loneliness.
History of Blues
Blues was born around the end of the nineteenth century in the American South, in regions such as the Piedmont, or Appalachia, Texas, Louisiana, and particularly the Mississippi River delta. The musical style evolved from a variety of songs that African Americans had created while enslaved. These songs included work songs—sung to the rhythm of the job being performed—and spirituals, or religious songs.
By the early 1900s, African Americans were playing these songs on acoustic guitars, pianos, and harmonicas. They sang of the tortures of slavery and the sadness of their lives. This music was "discovered" in 1903 by African American orchestra leader W.C. Handy, who, by chance, was traveling in Mississippi and heard a man singing a traveling song to an acoustic guitar he was playing. Handy found the music striking, and by 1912 he had composed and published sheet music for a song he called "Memphis Blues," which was the first composition to use the word "blues" to describe a kind of music.
Handy's efforts popularized blues, and record companies soon realized they could profit from recording and selling this unique music. In the early 1920s, singer Mamie Smith became the first African American woman to record a blues song, titled "Crazy Blues." Soon, jazz singers Ma Rainey and Bessie Smith came upon the blues scene. All three women became mainstays of early blues music in the United States.
Delta Blues
These early blues singers greatly influenced the African American population of the American South to take up the mantle of the blues. The music found an especially receptive audience in the Mississippi delta region, where delta blues was born in the late 1920s and 1930s. This earliest style of blues is the genre's closest link to the African American songs of slavery that gave rise to it.
The music was simplistic and raw, played with acoustic guitars and harmonicas and partly sung, spoken, and moaned in rough, unpolished voices. Delta blues songs spoke of the hardships of living in the poverty-stricken Mississippi delta region, as well as of lost love and various religious themes. Major contributors to the development of delta blues in the 1920s and 1930s included Charley Patton, Robert Johnson, Son House, and Mississippi John Hurt.
Chicago Blues
Even during the prime years of delta blues, however, many blues musicians were moving out of the South, hoping to forge better lives in Northern cities. By the 1940s, Chicago had become home to hundreds of thousands of Southern African Americans, who had brought their blues traditions with them. The constant bustle of the modern city, however, soon inspired blues players to update the music to suit their new environment. Delta blues reminded them of the toil and poverty they had left behind in the South; Chicago represented the chance to begin again.
The city therefore became the center of a rich new blues tradition that later became known as Chicago blues. The most noticeable change was the electrification of the music, with blues players now using electric guitars, amplifiers, and full bands to create a livelier, more urban style of blues.
One of the most influential and defining figures of early Chicago blues was Muddy Waters, a Southern bluesman who had migrated to the city in 1943. He is often credited with revolutionizing blues in Chicago by being one of the first blues players to switch to an electric guitar and then add a standup bass and drums to his own singing and playing.
Muddy Waters and his band popularized the new electric blues sound, and soon a multitude of other blues musicians were carving lucrative careers from the Chicago music scene. Delta bluesman Elmore James soon became famous for his skill on the electric slide guitar, while the large, imposing Howlin' Wolf captivated audiences with his rough, gravelly voice and exuberant live performances.
Bassist and prolific songwriter Willie Dixon also became an important talent in Chicago blues, writing a multitude of songs that quickly became enormous hits for other blues singers such as Koko Taylor and Little Walter. Popular songs composed by Dixon included "Wang Dang Doodle," "Back Door Man," and "You Shook Me."
The 1950s and early 1960s saw the rise of a new generation of Chicago blues musicians, including Buddy Guy, Magic Slim, and Otis Rush. Meanwhile, John Lee Hooker and B.B. King had become respected names in other electric blues scenes around the country. However, this era also saw blues quickly decline in popular interest, as audiences had now become enthralled by the more youthful sounds of rock and roll.
Revival and Present
It was rock and roll, however, that ultimately revived interest in blues. The 1960s saw immensely popular rock bands such as the Rolling Stones and Led Zeppelin playing covers of Muddy Waters and Howlin' Wolf, as well as of many earlier blues musicians. This made American audiences appreciate blues all over again.
Delta, Chicago, and a multitude of other blues styles continued to inspire musicians into the late twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Popular blues players of these eras included Stevie Ray Vaughan, Jack White, Ben Harper, and Kenny Wayne Shepherd. Blues artists Taj Mahal, Bobby Rush, Cedric Burnside won Grammy awards for their music in the 2020s.
Bibliography
"Blues". Encyclopedia Britannica, 19 Jan. 2025, www.britannica.com/art/blues-music. Accessed 28 Jan. 2025.
"Blues Road Trip: Chicago and Detroit." PBS, www.pbs.org/theblues/roadtrip/chi-dethist.html. Accessed 28 Jan. 2025.
"Blues Road Trip: Mississippi Delta." PBS, www.pbs.org/theblues/roadtrip/deltahist.html. Accessed 28 Jan. 2025.
"The Origins of the Blues and the Jazz Movement." BBC, 2025, www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/guides/zjhtng8/revision/1. Accessed 28 Jan. 2025.
Pearley, Lamont. "The Historical Roots of Blues Music." Black Perspectives, African American Intellectual History Society, 9 May 2018, www.aaihs.org/the-historical-roots-of-blues-music/. Accessed 28 Jan. 2025.
"What Is the Blues?" PBS, www.pbs.org/theblues/classroom/essaysblues.html. Accessed 28 Jan. 2025.