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Revision as of 20:35, 1 October 2002
Blues -- Vocal and instrumental musical form, originally derived from African American work songs. Blues music has been a major influence on American popular music, finding expression in jazz, big bands, rhythm and blues, rock and roll and country music as well as conventional pop songs and even classical music.
Early forms of the blues evolved in the southern parts of the United States in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, using simple instruments such as acoustic guitar, piano, and harmonica. Songs came with many different forms of structure, although the twelve or eight bar structure based on tonic, subdominant and dominant chords became predominant. Melodically, blues music is marked by the use of the flattened third and dominant seventh (so called blue notes) of the associated major scale. The blues scale is frequently used in non-blues musical forms.
What is now recognizable as the standard 12 bar blues form with A A1 B form is doccumented from oral history and sheet music as appearing in African-American communities throughout the region along the lower Mississippi river in the decade before 1910 (and performed by white bands in New Orleans at least since 1908).
W.C. Handy was one of the first trained musicians to take blues tunes and styles and present them in modern style with bands and singers. He also wrote some of the most important blues, notably the St. Louis Blues.
Lyrically, verses of early blues songs tended to consist a single line repeated two or three times before, such as:
- Woke up this morning with the blues down in my soul
- Woke up this morning with the blues down in my soul
- My baby gone and left me, got a heart as black as coal
The subject matter of the lyrics was often the hardships and injustices of life, giving the blues an undeserved reputation for misery, whereas blues lyrics are often joyous, raunchy and funny.
- Rebecca, Rebecca, get your big legs off of me,
- Rebecca, Rebecca, get your big legs off of me,
- It may be sending you baby, but it's worrying the hell out of me.
Jazz bands often recorded blues tunes from 1917 on. In the 20s the blues became a major element of American popular music. With the rise of the recording industry there was increased popularity of country blues singers and guitarists like Blind Lemon Jefferson and Blind Blake who recorded for Paramount Records and Lonnie Johnson who recorded for OKeh Records. These recordings came to be known as "race" records since they were targeted almost exclusively to an African American audience. In addition, women blues singers were extremely popular in the 20s, among them Mamie Smith, Gertrude "Ma" Rainey, Bessie Smith, and Victoria Spivey.
In the 40s and 50s, increased urbanization and the use of amplification led to electric blues music, popular in cities such as Chicago and best exemplified by such artists as Howling Wolf and Muddy Waters. Electric blues would eventually give rise to rock and roll.
In the 60s and 70s artists such as Eric Clapton, Janis Joplin and Jimi Hendrix influenced by both early and electric blues musicians brought the blues to a new, younger audience. Through these artists and others, Blues music was strongly influential in the development of Rock and Roll.
Since then blues has continued to thrive in both traditional and new forms through the work of Robert Cray, Bonnie Raitt and others.
Other important blues artists:
Early Country Blues
- Richard "Rabbit" Brown
- Blind Lemon Jefferson
- Blind Blake
- Blind Boy Fuller
- Blind Willie Johnson
- Blind Willie McTell
- Mississippi John Hurt
- Robert Johnson
- Mance Lipscomb
- Brownie McGhee
- Memphis Minnie
- Charlie Patton
- Sonny Terry
- Big Bill Broonzy
- Leadbelly
- Son House
- Bukka White
- Sonny Boy Williamson I
Early Urban Blues
- Mamie Smith
- Gertrude "Ma" Rainey
- Clara Smith
- Bessie Smith
- Ethel Waters
- Sippy Wallace
- Georgia Tom Dorsey
- Creole George Gusenon
Early Jazz Blues
Kansas City Blues
Chicago Blues
- Elmore James
- John Lee Hooker
- Albert King
- Freddie King
- Jimmy Rogers
- Muddy Waters
- Howlin Wolf
- Bo Diddley
- Sonny Boy Williamson II (Rice Miller)
Modern Blues (post 1950's)
- BB King
- Etta James
- Taj Mahal
- Keb Mo
- John Mayall
- Eric Clapton
- Stevie Ray Vaughn
- James Cotton
- Albert Collins
- Clarence Gatemouth Brown
- Bobby Blue Bland
- Willie Dixon
- Johnny Winter
- Koko Taylor
Blues in conventional pop music
- Harold Arlen, "Blues in the Night"
- George Gershwin, "Porgy and Bess"
- DeSylva, Brown, and Henderson, "Birth of the Blues"
Blues in Country Music
Blues influence in classical music
- George Gershwin's "Rhapsody in Blue" and "Concerto in F"
- Honegger's "Pacific 231", the "train song" as concerto.