PURPLE BLOCK 1.2

THE BLUES

The Blues is probably the most influential art-form of the 20th Century, and has had a massive impact on the evolution of jazz, rock and pop music. Understanding the Blues will help you to really get a handle on modern music.

IntroDUCTION to the Blues

Jazz master Wynton Marseilis asks the question 'What are the Blues?' and introduces some important ideas that we'll study in more depth throughout this course

THE BLUES: A BRIEF HISTORY

When you think of the blues, you think about misfortune, betrayal and regret. You lose your job, you get the blues. Your mate falls out of love with you, you get the blues. Your dog dies, you get the blues.

While blues lyrics often deal with personal adversity, the music itself goes far beyond self-pity. The blues is also about overcoming hard luck, saying what you feel, ridding yourself of frustration, letting your hair down, and simply having fun. The best blues is visceral, cathartic, and starkly emotional. From unbridled joy to deep sadness, no form of music communicates more genuine emotion.

The blues has deep roots in American history, particularly African-American history. The blues originated on Southern plantations in the 19th Century. Its inventors were slaves, ex-slaves and the descendants of slaves—African-American sharecroppers who sang as they toiled in the cotton and vegetable fields. It's generally accepted that the music evolved from African spirituals, African chants, work songs, field hollers, rural fife and drum music, revivalist hymns, and country dance music.

SLAVERY IN THE AMERICAN SOUTH

In order to understand the evolution of the Blues, it's important to know a little bit about the history of slavery in the American South. This short documentary is a good introduction to this gruelling subject!

WORK-SONGS

Work Songs were one of the few outlets of musical expression available to slaves in the American South, as slaves were often only permitted to sing whilst labouring. As a result, worksong had a huge impact on the development of the blues, and carried aspects of African chants and rhythms to modern America.

AMERICAN GOSPEL

Gospels and church hymns also played an important role in the African-American musical tradition, as singing in Church was often permitted. African Amercian gospel developed into it's own important art-form, and had an enormous impact on blues, jazz, funk and Rock-and-Roll.

The blues grew up in the Mississippi Delta just upriver from New Orleans, the birthplace of jazz. Blues and jazz have always influenced each other, and they still interact in countless ways today.

Unlike jazz, the blues didn't spread out significantly from the South to the Midwest until the 1930s and '40s. Once the Delta blues made their way up the Mississippi to urban areas, the music evolved into electrified Chicago blues, other regional blues styles, and various jazz-blues hybrids. A decade or so later the blues gave birth to rhythm 'n blues and rock 'n roll.

THE DEEP SOUTH

The States of the "Deep South" in the 19th century had massive populations of former slaves, that were subjugated under state federal laws long after the abolition of slavery.

THE MISSISSIPPI DELTA

The Mississippi Delta was home to huge numbers of slaves prior to the Civil War. Following emancipation, African American artists began to emerge who would go on to have an enormous impact on the development of modern music.

JIM CROW

After the civil war, 'Jim Crow Laws' were passed in the Southern States to protect the interests of wealthy former slave owners and to make sure that African Americans were denied the rights and freedoms of their white neighbours. For a lot of former slaves, life changed very little after Emancipation.

No single person invented the blues, but many people claimed to have discovered the genre. For instance, minstrel show bandleader W.C. Handy insisted that the blues were revealed to him in 1903 by an itinerant street guitarist at a train station in Tutwiler, Mississippi.

During the middle to late 1800s, the Deep South was home to hundreds of seminal bluesmen who helped to shape the music. Unfortunately, much of this original music followed these sharecroppers to their graves. But the legacy of these earliest blues pioneers can still be heard in 1920s and '30s recordings from Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas, Georgia and other Southern states. This music is not very far removed from the field hollers and work songs of the slaves and sharecroppers. Many of the earliest blues musicians incorporated the blues into a wider repertoire that included traditional folk songs, vaudeville music, and minstrel tunes.

Well-known blues pioneers from the 1920s such as Son House, Blind Lemon Jefferson, Leadbelly, Charlie Patton and Robert Johnson usually performed solo with just a guitar. Occasionally they teamed up with one or more fellow bluesmen to perform in the plantation camps, rural juke joints, and rambling shacks of the Deep South. Blues bands may have evolved from early jazz bands, gospel choirs and jug bands. Jug band music was popular in the South until the 1930s. Early jug bands variously featured jugs, guitars, mandolins, banjos, kazoos, stringed basses, harmonicas, fiddles, washboards and other everyday appliances converted into crude instruments.

When the country blues moved to the cities and other locales, it took on various regional characteristics. Hence the St. Louis blues, the Memphis blues, the Louisiana blues, etc. Chicago bluesmen such as John Lee Hooker and Muddy Waters were the first to electrify the blues and add drums and piano in the late 1940s.

BLUES STYLES

There are lots of different blues styles that have evolved over the last hundred years. Here are examples of a few of the most important ones. To really understand this music, it's a good idea to get familiar with each style, and be able to explain the differences between them. Which styles do you like the most?

Traditional country Blues

A general term that describes the rural blues of the Mississippi Delta, the Piedmont and other rural locales;

Jump Blues

A danceable amalgam of swing and blues and a precursor to R&B. Jump blues was pioneered by Louis Jordan;

Boogie-woogie

A piano-based blues popularized by Meade Lux Lewis, Albert Ammons and Pete Johnson, and derived from barrelhouse and ragtime;

Chicago Blues

Delta blues electrified. Chicago Blues was the driving force behind both rock-and-roll and the 'blues revival' of the 1960s, and is probably the best-known of the blues styles.

Bebop Blues

uses variations of the 12-bar blues format, featuring complicated chords, and challenging rhythmic patterns to create exciting instrumental improvisations.

West Coast Blues Popularized mainly by Texas jazz musicians who moved to California. West Coast blues is heavily influenced by the swing beat and jazz phrasing.

Kansas City Blues

Laid-back, riff based and heavily Jazz influenced, Kansas City Blues are closely associated to the Big-Band sound of the Count Basie Orchestra

New Orleans Blues

is largely piano-based, with the exception of some talented guitarists such as Guitar Slim and Snooks Eaglin

Texas Blues

Texas blues began to appear in the early 1900s among African Americans who worked in oilfields, ranches and lumber camps. In the 1920s, Blind Lemon Jefferson innovated the style by using jazz-like improvisation and single string accompaniment on a guitar; Jefferson's influence defined the field and inspired later performers.

Blues/ Funk Fusion

Funk, soul, blues, jazz and gospel were bought together by the 'R&B' artists of the 1950s and 60s. James Brown, Sly and the Family Stone and many others popularised this style.

Memphis Blues

created from the 1910s to the 1930s by musicians in the Memphis area, such as Frank Stokes, Sleepy John Estes, Furry Lewis and Memphis Minnie. The style was popular in vaudeville and medicine shows and was associated with Beale Street, the main entertainment area in Memphis

Blues Rock

Early rock bands of the 1960s were often white artists from the UK and the Northern United States covering Chicago-style blues bands. However, this sound started evolving into it's own art-form; particularly after Jimi Hendrix took off in England and Europe in the late 60s.