To a lot of people, myself included, the Blues seems like the great grandfather of soulful and emotional music. It evokes feelings of loss, pain and general sadness that comes with life, hence the name. But listening to the blues doesn't always make you sad it connects people through these trials and tribulations and ultimately uplifts you knowing you're not alone. I realised that I didn't know too much about the Blues or its origin so this blog is dedicated to the Blues, it's origin, the key groovers and shakers and what makes it so special.
A Quick History:
In all my research, each source started roughly the same way...
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. (Kopp, 2015)
Toiling on the fields, singing work songs and responding to lyrical call outs you can picture it and it doesn't get more Blue than that. Each Blues song has that feeling deeply engrained inside it and it touches those emotions of hopelessness and shared pain. Most people believe real Blues originated in the South mainly in places like Mississippi and New Orleans feeding off the Jazz movement coming upriver. During the late to middle 1800's after slavery was abolished in the USA bluesmen were abundant evolving their slave tunes into what is now know as Blues. Their music started very similarly to their work songs and hollers sung usually with an acoustic guitar and most of this original music followed them to their graves as recording music was reserved for 'real' music. Fast forward to the 1920's and finally Blues was being recognised for its worth in the music scene. The first Blues song ever recorded was Crazy Blues by Mamie Smith recorded by Okeh Records.
This song was the first recorded song by aimed at a African American audience and was the first ever 'Blues hit'. This sparked a huge movement which led to legends like Charley Patton, Son House and Blind Lemon Jefferson performed solo with their guitars and were recorded onto records for all to listen to.
These were the glory days for acoustic Blues and South America was a utopia for the genre. Once blues left the country and reached other cities and provinces it changed and evolved in each region, Chicago blues being a leader of these subgenres.
The years after World War II witnessed what sociologists call the "second great migration," in which millions of African-Americans abandoned the South for economically prosperous cities elsewhere in the U.S.A's luck would have it, many Delta blues musicians wound up in Chicago, where they adopted amplification and electric instruments and began attracting a wider urban audience. (Strauss, B. 2019)
The leader of this electric blues movement was a man called Muddy Waters famous for his song Mannish Boy.
This evolution of the genre was arguably the most memorable to date having legends like Buddy Guy, Elmore James and Howlin' Wolf. The added electric guitar, drums and superior recording techniques led to Blue being a huge success attracting the attention of not only African Americans but also white musicians. This change led to future artists like Elvis Presley, The Beatles, The Rolling Stones and even Led Zeppelin being influenced by the Bluesy emotions and cadence but I'll leave that for another day. All in all the Blues came from a real place full of emotion and soul which is why it is still highly regarded as the origin of modern day emotional music.
The Structure of the Blues:
To start this off I found a video a while ago that I need to share with you. It'll make the rest of this blog much more entertaining.
Now thats out of my system, the structure of Blues is actually quite simple even though you might think it's complicated since it has Jazzy origins. The basis of the blues is a 12 bar structure usually using 4/4 time which revolves around 3 sections of 4 bars. The three sections each have a chord starting with the first, which moves to the fourth then the fifth, this repeats after 12 bars. The above video as does a great job of describing the chord progression. As for lyrics is works in an AAB style similar to poetry. You repeat your first two lines then change lyrics on the third like the below example of the Elmore James song "Dust my Broom".
That's the basic structure of the Blues it's quite simple but also has so much room to grow and be more complicated.
Instrumentation:
The blues contains a wide variety of instruments but most commonly contain:
Acoustic, electric or slide guitars
Deep bass line usually guitar or double bass
Harmonica or blues harp
Soft 'jazzy' Drums
Early electric keyboard or piano (most famously Hammond organ)
Trombones, trumpets and other jazzy brass instruments
Banjos
Accordions
Conclusion:
The Blues made a huge impact on modern day music and I find myself appreciating it more and more as i dig deeper into the history of it all. This was just a brief and broad glimpse at the genre and there are so many individual stories out there that tell different tales of the genre and what it means to people. To me the blues tells tales of sadness but also companionship, we all have blue periods in our life but the sharing of these moments help us continue forward. Looking at the very origin on blues and the bleakness of that time period and watching blues grow into what it became says more than I ever can about the genre. Thank you for reading and I hope you learned something.
References:
Kopp, E. (2015). A Brief History of the Blues. [online] All About Jazz. Available at: https://www.allaboutjazz.com/a-brief-history-of-the-blues-by-ed-kopp.php [Accessed 27 Mar. 2019].
Lhommedieu, R. (2016). A Brief History of the Blues. – Making A Scene!. [online] Making A Scene!. Available at: https://www.makingascene.org/brief-history-blues/ [Accessed 28 Mar. 2019].
Pbs.org. (2019). The Blues . Blues Classroom . 12-Bar Blues | PBS. [online] Available at: https://www.pbs.org/theblues/classroom/essays12bar.html [Accessed 28 Mar. 2019].
Sez, M. (2015). Slide Guitar Blues Lesson In Open D On My National Steel NPB12 With Insanity!!!. [image] Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=19Pp9QEw17U&t=83s [Accessed 28 Mar. 2019].
Smith, M. (2009). Mamie Smith - Crazy Blues (1920). [video] Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qaz4Ziw_CfQ [Accessed 28 Mar. 2019].
Sony Music Entertainment (2016). Muddy Waters - Mannish Boy (Audio). [image] Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bSfqNEvykv0 [Accessed 28 Mar. 2019].
Strauss, B. (2019). A Short, Sad History of the Blues. [online] ThoughtCo. Available at: https://www.thoughtco.com/blues-music-history-4150423 [Accessed 28 Mar. 2019].
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