Blues
The blues originated with African-American communities, primarily in the Deep South of the United States, towards the end of the nineteenth century. It grew out of Spirituals, Work Songs, shouts, chants and narrative ballads. It became associated with a form of music using a 12 bar chord progression (although it was always much more varied than just this form) and employing distinctive “blue notes”, slightly at odds with notation Western Classical Music. In the first half of the 20th century there was cross-fertilization with Jazz and Rhythm & Blues. Blues music continued to develop into a number of sub-genres, including Delta Blues, Piedmont Blues, Jump-Blues and Chicago Blues. After World War II many artists, particularly in Chicago, moved to amplified Electric Blues, which was a major influence on Rock & Roll and later Blues Rock musicians and through them on Hard Rock and Heavy Metal music. Since then it has enjoyed a number of revivals, most recently in the 2000s, when it was picked up by bands of the Garage Rock Revival.
Acoustic Blues
Acoustic blues is an early form of Blues music, which developed out of Work Songs and Spirituals, and was the most prominent form of blues between the end of the nineteenth century and World War II. Post-WWII, blues musicians began to utilise newly common electric instruments, and the various styles of Electric Blues developed. Acoustic blues is still played today, in as many different varieties as there are forms of its electric counterpart.
Acoustic Chicago Blues
Before Electric Blues came to Chicago, the city maintained a major Blues output. This acoustic style was a more city-like, Jazz-influenced sound than Delta Blues, developed by artists such as Big Bill Broonzy, John Lee "Sonny Boy" Williamson, and Tampa Red. The term itself is used to describe the unplugged blues music made in the Chicago region, primarily during the 1930s and 1940s. However some music made later than this period still holds true to the genre's regional and acoustic qualities.
Acoustic Texas Blues
Acoustic Texas blues is a genre of blues that, although named after the geographic location of its origin, is not bound to that region. Roughly, acoustic Texas blues was born in the 1880s and grew to its heyday during the 1920s with such artists as Blind Lemon Jefferson and Lightnin' Hopkins. Like many other blues genres, acoustic Texas blues underwent a major development with the invention of the electric guitar, giving birth to Electric Texas Blues during the 1940s.
Some characteristics that distinguish acoustic Texas blues from other genres are the focus on laid back swing rhythms, and the function of the guitar as an extension or ornamentation of the vocals, a feature which later developed into extensive guitar soloing. This is opposed to other acoustic styles such as Delta Blues, in which the guitar primarily has the function of a rhythmic accompaniment to the vocals.
Blues Rock
Blues Rock is Rock that relies on the chords/scales and instrumental improvisation of Blues. The genre started in the 1960s. Artists like Yardbirds, Cream, and John Mayall's Bluesbreakers in the UK and The Allman Brothers Band, Canned Heat, and Johnny Winter in the US eventually brought the sound widespread popularity.
Boogie Rock
(also known as Southern Boogie)
Boogie Rock is a distinctively Southern-influenced style of American Blues Rock that emphasizes a straightforward groove-oriented sound, rather than the instrumental experimentation found in the more progressive and psychedelic Blues Rock bands. Boogie Rock reached its apex in the 1970s.
Boogie Woogie
Boogie woogie is one of the first Blues styles that appeared in the end of the 19th century. It was performed under different names and most likely appeared in the 1870s in camps of Afro-American workers at Marshall County and Harrison County in Texas, then through the big industrial cities' barrel houses.
Boogie woogie is played by piano (solo or as the main instrument). The musical structure consists of a repetitive eight note bass line played ostinato by left hand (eight-to-the-bar) while the right hand plays soloing and improvising blues harmonic lines. The tempo is usually faster than other traditional blues styles.
Boogie woogie was well popular during the 1930s and 1940s and became popular worldwide during 1940s. It is associated with the eponymous dance possessing lyrics dealing with instructions to dancers. This genre was often played by Big Band groups in this period. It was a strong basis and influence to numerous very popular genres such as Jump-Blues, Piano Blues, Rhythm & Blues, Jazz (Swing and big band in particular), as well as Rock & Roll.
The first official record in the genre is supposedly the 1923 single The Rocks / Chopiano by George W. Thomas, under the name Clay Custer. However, the first explicit use of the name boogie woogie dates back to 1929 on Pine Top's Boogie Woogie / Pine Top Blues by Clarence "Pinetop" Smith.
British Blues
A musical movement that formed around the London blues clubs of the 1960s. Its progenitors included Alexis Korner, Tony T.S. McPhee and Blues Incorporated who played music heavily influenced by the burgeoning United States Blues scene, particularly the Chicago Blues of the likes of Muddy Waters and Howlin' Wolf and the Electric Blues of B.B. King.
Korner's protégés included Peter Green of Fleetwood Mac fame and John Mayall who in turn fostered the talents of Eric Clapton, Mick Taylor and Jimmy Page who were to develop the sound into Blues Rock. The scene was also, together with US Rhythm & Blues and Rock & Roll, a major influence on the British Rhythm & Blues sound including The Rolling Stones and The Animals.
True British Blues is closest in form to Chicago blues - where the bands used electric guitars whilst attempting to retain the pure blues form.
Chicago Blues
Emerging in the 1940s, Chicago blues became the prototypical and most influential form of Electric Blues on contemporary Blues music, Blues Rock and Rock in general. It is sometimes called electric Chicago blues to differentiate it from Acoustic Chicago Blues. Chicago blues is based on rural Delta Blues, transferring its songs and structures into a small band setup, amplifying the guitar, harp (harmonica) and bass, as well as adding drums and sometimes saxophones and horn sections.
As opposed to other electric blues forms like early Electric Texas Blues, Chicago blues kept the rough and gritty edges of its ancestry through use of highly expressive vocals, slide guitar, great volume and (later on) distortion. It isn't restricted to but commonly uses a boogie-ing twelve-bar blues structure, making it the blueprint for Rock & Roll, blues rock and the entire British Blues movement and rock bands.
After black workers had migrated from the Mississippi area to the north, several blues scenes sprung up in different cities, such as Detroit or Chicago. Although they are sometimes differentiated by sound, Chicago blues is the most influential and widespread style of the area. The "official" breakthrough of electric Chicago blues is Muddy Waters' smash hit single I Can't Be Satisfied: Waters started out as a traditional acoustic delta blues singer like many of his peers, and then played a heavily amplified version of his acoustic country blues. The genre brought forward many of the most famous blues guitarists such as Elmore James, Howlin' Wolf and Buddy Guy.
Although Chicago blues can (and did) accommodate vocalists and pianists, the electric guitar and the amplified harp have been its main leading instruments. Keeping in the tradition of the rural roots, the harp initially played a very important role – so much so that according to Billy Boy Arnold, Chess Records started to print "Muddy Waters and his guitar" on his records to let the audience know that Waters wasn't playing Little Walter's harp. The harp's importance declined somewhat in the modern consciousness as the guitar started dominating rock music but stays an important part of Chicago blues through artists such as Sonny Boy Williamson II, Junior Wells, James Cotton and Carey Bell among others.
Country Blues
Country blues is the collective noun for all Blues genres originating from the (mostly southern) rural areas of the United States of America. Most country blues is acoustic in nature, since it developed before the invention of the electric guitar. The name 'country blues' doesn't refer to Country, but to the rural origins of this genre.
Delta Blues
(also known as Mississippi Delta Blues)
Delta Blues is named after the Mississippi Delta region of the USA where the genre developed. It is regarded as one of the earliest styles of Blues music and displays many of the hallmarks of traditional blues – the call-response lyrical format and the 12-bar structure for example.
The primary instruments of delta blues are the acoustic guitar and the harmonica with many artists also employing slide guitar techniques (often on the steel guitar); the ‘Dobro’ or national resonator guitar was also popular. The structure is highly rhythmic and the vocals are clear and strong with repeated lines a trademark. The subject matter is often personal and covers the hard life experienced by the southern African-American farming communities that populated the delta in the late 19th century and first half of the 20th century.
Charley Patton, Son House and Robert Johnson are perhaps the best known of the original delta bluesmen with Ishman Bracey, Mississippi John Hurt, Tommy Johnson and Skip James also highly regarded. Later on the likes of Muddy Waters and John Lee Hooker started making delta blues before becoming better known for their work in Chicago & Detroit.
Electric Blues
The Blues went through a major development in sound and reach when it became possible to amplify the instruments of small combos – usually drums, bass, harmonica and most importantly the electric guitar. After World War II many artists, particularly in Chicago, moved to amplified Electric Blues, which was a major influence on Rock & Roll and later Blues Rock musicians and through them on Hard Rock and Heavy Metal music. Since then it has enjoyed a number of revivals, most recently in the 2000s, when it was picked up by bands of the Garage Rock Revival.
The electric amplification had impacts on several levels: When blues had become more and more popular throughout the 1920 and 1940s, the piano (and brass sections) had tended to dominate local club scenes – simply because it was louder than other leading instruments (such as the acoustic guitar). When amplification became possible in the late 1930s, it gave more room to the guitar, the bass and also the harmonica, enabling small blues combos to play noisier venues. As opposed to the jazzy, horn-driven sound of Jump-Blues, this development established blues – and especially the guitar – as the main root for the numerous rock genres mentioned above.
Electric blues had become a viable economical force by the late 1940s, with hit singles among urban audiences. A key record was T-Bone Walker’s Call It Stormy Monday (But Tuesday Is Just as Bad). As one of the earliest and most influential artists of electric blues, Walker played a highly sophisticated guitar with articulated solos. As opposed to the Delta Blues-based Chicago blues, this brand of Electric Texas Blues (sometimes called "west coast blues") draws its distinct sound from jump-blues, crooning and jazzy arrangements.
Another breakthrough was Muddy Waters’s smash hit single I Can’t Be Satisfied: Waters, who like many of his peers started out as a traditional acoustic delta blues singer, played a heavily amplified version of his acoustic country blues but largely left its sound intact. This spawned the probably most important and enduring branch of electric blues: Chicago Blues (sometimes called electric Chicago blues to differentiate it from Acoustic Chicago Blues), often seen as the prototype of the genre. Chess Records signed and published many of the most important electric blues performers through the 1950s and 1960s.
Although the amplified harp played an essential role especially in the early electric blues bands (with artists such as Little Walter, Sonny Boy Williamson II or James Cotton), electric blues typically focusses around the sound of a guitar, anticipating the archetype of the "guitar hero" in Rock music. Among the most famous electric blues guitarists are Elmore James, B.B. King, Howlin’ Wolf, Buddy Guy and Eric Clapton.
Electric Texas Blues
Electric Texas blues is a genre of blues that, although named after the geographic location of its origin, is not bound to that region. It has its roots in Acoustic Texas Blues, from which it developed since the invention of the electric guitar. Notable Electric Texas Blues artists are T-Bone Walker and Freddie King.
Some characteristics that distinguish it from other genres are the notable jazz-influences such as swing rhythms, extensive single string guitarsoloing and often the addition of a horn section to the group.
Hard Rock
Hard Rock is a form of Rock music originating in the mid-to-late 1960s from Garage Rock and Blues Rock. Typically, hard rock includes an aggressive vocal performance, guitar distortion and power chords. Notable early hard rock groups include Cream, Deep Purple, The Who, and Led Zeppelin.
Hill Country Blues
(also known as North Mississippi Hill Country Blues)
Hill country blues, named after the hilly region in North Mississippi, is a form of Blues music emphasizing a steady, hypnotic groove, sparse, percussive and highly energetic guitar riffs and often features meandering song structures with unconventional and usually fewer chord changes as compared to the related Delta Blues.
Although the relentless, driving rhythm of hill country blues has famous forerunners in Mississippi Fred McDowell and even in the more boogie-influenced John Lee Hooker, the greater Holly Springs area of Mississippi is considered to be the genre's cradle. The former neighbours Junior Kimbrough and R.L. Burnside, as well as Robert Belfour, are among its main protagonists. Often serving as dance music for locals and being played acoustic as well as electric, hill country blues has an unrefined, rough edge to it and stayed a rural and largely un-recorded phenomenon for decades as it developed after the great migration movements of blues musicians to the larger cities.
Although there are some of R.L. Burnside's tracks recorded by Alan Lomax in the 1970s, it was the label Fat Possum Records which ensured the genre's preservation and greater popularity by publishing a row of albums starting in the early 1990s, with most of the artists well over sixty years old and already having performed for decades. Among these nowadays classic albums are Junior Kimbrough's All Night Long (1992) and R.L. Burnside's Too Bad Jim (1994). Compilations like Burnside's Mississippi Hill Country Blues (with tracks from the 1960s to the 1980s) have helped to document the genre's development and history. The genre proved to be able to cross-fertilize when Buddy Guy was invited to record an electric hill country blues album consisting almost entirely of songs written by Junior Kimbrough. The resulting Sweet Tea (2001) introduced Chicago Blues-style soloing to hill country blues which is commonly devoid of guitar solos altogether.
Possibly due to its gritty sound and because of its "discovery" coinciding somewhat with the blues-oriented Garage Rock Revival of the late 1990s and early 2000s, hill country blues had a considerable impact on acts of the Alternative Rock and Garage Rock scene. While the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion recorded a whole album with R.L. Burnside, titled A Ass Pocket of Whiskey (1996), acts like the North Mississippi Allstars and the early Black Keys draw heavily from the genre, continuing its influence on blues music.
Jug Band
Jug band music is a form of Acoustic Blues that originated in Louisville, Kentucky at the beginning of the 20th century, and stayed popular in the southern states of the United States until the 1930s. It usually features a jug as the bass instrument as well as other home-made (or easily affordable) instruments, such as kazoos and washboards. Jug band music enjoyed a rebirth during the 1960s folk revival, which spawned many new bands in the genre.
Jump Blues
(also known as Swing Blues)
Jump-blues is a style of Blues that emerged in the 1940s from an important blues orientation of Big Band and Swing performed by artists like Lionel Hampton, Lucky Millinder, Count Basie and their several bands. Jump-blues was very popular during 1940s and 1950s through compositions and performances of Louis Jordan, Wynonie Harris, T-Bone Walker, Big Joe Turner or Roy Brown.
Characteristics of jump-blues are an uptempo, a middle size of musical ensemble between usual blues and big band ones, as well as an emphasis on saxophones and brass instruments.
Jump-blues will have been a major precursor musical genre for Rhythm & Blues as well as for Rock & Roll later.
New Orleans Blues
New Orleans blues is a type of Blues that appeared in Louisiana (more precisely around New Orleans) in the 1940s. It became popular in the 1950s and 1960s with artists such as Professor Longhair and Guitar Slim. Musically, the genre draws influences from Jazz, regional influence from Antillean, Haitian, and Louisiana Creole music, and includes a strong use of saxophone and piano.
Piano Blues
Piano Blues refers to Blues played on the piano, either solo or with the piano as the lead instrument of a small combo performing slow or mid-tempo blues ballads, as opposed to the commonly fast-paced Boogie Woogie. Influenced by the piano-dominated Ragtime, it is one of the earliest recorded blues genres, coming into being in the 1920s. Piano blues performers often accompany themselves on vocals, lending the genre some similarity to later Vocal Jazz singers performing blues ballads played on the piano.
On the one hand, piano blues laid the foundation for piano playing Rhythm & Blues performers such as Ray Charles or Nina Simone. On the other hand, creating a slow, comfortable and melancholic sound nowadays associated with late night bar rooms, piano blues performers – such as Roosevelt Sykes, Otis Spann or Champion Jack Dupree – had a notable influence on the performance style and sound of singer/songwriters like early Tom Waits and even Randy Newman.
Piedmont Blues
Piedmont blues developed from guitarists in the Appalachian foothills of North Carolina, South Carolina, and upper Georgia who specialised in a more elaborate finger-picking style of guitar playing than bluesmen of the Mississippi Delta.
The best examples of Piedmont Blues players are Barbecue Bob, Blind Willie McTell, and Rev. Gary Davis, but there are many more.
Punk Blues
Appearing after the punk explosion of the late 1970s, punk blues fuses the instrumentation and scales of Blues Rock with the energy, rawness and noise of Punk Rock, along with inspirations from 1960s' Garage Rock/Proto-Punk artists. One of the earliest examples of the genre is The Gun Club's 1981 record, Fire of Love. Further developed through the 1980s by artists including Nick Cave and The Scientists, it has attained moderate success in the succeeding decade with groups such as The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion and The Gories.
Red Dirt
Hailing from Oklahoma and Texas, Red Dirt music draws principally from Outlaw Country and Southern Rock. That is to say - it typically features bluesy riffs, along with progressive sensibilities drawn from outlaw country in terms of overall structure. Cross Canadian Ragweed is representative of the sub-genre.
Soul Blues
Soul blues is a form of Blues that shares similarities with Soul and incorporates the eponymous soulful inflections of Gospel, Jump-Blues and soul music into the vocals. It is usually based on soulful vocals and/or an expressive electric guitar. Soul blues is sometimes backed by a powerful, refined horn (or string) section common to soul while mostly relying on slow and mid-tempo ballads. It has also been called "Memphis blues", hinting at its origins, but is not confined to artists from that area.
In the 1960s, soul blues can be said to be blues influenced by soul. But the genre's historical origins predate soul, beginning in the early 1950s, when blues artists in turn helped shaping the sound of what would later become soul music. In the 1950s, vocalists such as Bobby "Blue" Bland and Z.Z. Hill developed a mellifluous, melismatic singing style often using a falsetto quality that brought their gospel roots into blues, while fellow Memphis-dwellers and guitarists such as Albert King, B.B. King and Lowell Fulson emulated these vocal qualities with a hard-edged, but fluent electric guitar sound. Typically (but not always) backed by the horn sections that had become an integral part of jump-blues and Rhythm & Blues during the 1950s, this style had some of the success soul music enjoyed during the 1960s with performers like Etta James or Little Milton. Many blues artists looking for broader exposure started to record for soul labels like Motown Records and Stax Records during this period, furthering the cross-pollination of the two genres. Soul blues had a lasting influence on blues performers until today, as exemplified by the soul-influenced blues style of Robert Cray or Joe Louis Walker.
Southern Rock
Southern Rock emerged in the 1960s and early 1970s in the southern states of the USA. The music is primarily influenced by Blues Rock, Hard Rock and Rock & Roll, while also borrowing elements of Country and Folk music. Important Southern Rock artists include The Allman Brothers Band, Lynyrd Skynyrd and Little Feat.
Swamp Blues
Swamp blues originated in Baton Rouge, Louisiana in the 1950s. It takes influences from Zydeco and Cajun, and has a laid-back, relaxed rhythm inspired by Jimmy Reed & Lightnin' Hopkins. Slim Harpo and Lightnin' Slim were the most well-known musicians of this genre, and the sound is readily apparent in Creedence Clearwater Revival.
Vaudeville Blues
Vaudeville blues was initially a form of vaudeville music which incorporated heavy blues influence, and is recognized as the first form of blues to be recorded. The genre is generally considered to have begun in 1902 when Ma Rainey began incorporating blues songs into her vaudeville routines. Throughout the 1910s and 1920s, more and more female African-American performers began to perform a style that fused elements of Vaudeville, Blues and, in later years, Jazz. Popular artists included Bessie Smith and Ethel Waters. These artists were also influential on Vocal Jazz.
Defintions courtesy of rateyourmusic.com