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The development of Blues
Blues developed in the southern United States after the American Civil War (1861-65). It was influenced by work songs, minstrel show music, ragtime, church music, and the folk and popular music of the white population. -
Early Blues
The earliest references to blues date back to the 1890s and early 1900s. In 1912 Black bandleader W.C. Handy's composition “Memphis Blues” was published. It became very popular, and thereafter many other Tin Pan Alley songs entitled blues began to appear. -
Texas Blues
The earliest reference to what might be considered blues in Texas was made in 1890 by collector Gates Thomas, who transcribed a song titled "Nobody There." Thomas doesn't mention whether the singing was accompanied by an instrument, but he does indicate that it was a pentatonic tune containing tonic, minor, third, fourth, fifth, and seventh chords, all of which combined to produce something similar to a blues tune. -
Inventors of Blues
The blues is a form of secular folk music created by African Americans in the early 20th century, originally in the South. -
City famous for Blues
The blues capital of the world is Memphis, Tennessee. The Memphis blues is a style of blues music created from the 1910s to the 1930s by musicians in the Memphis area, such as Frank Stokes, Furry Lewis, Memphis Minnie, etc. The style was popular in vaudeville and medicine shows and was associated with Beale Street, the main entertainment area in Memphis. -
Becoming popular
In the 1920s, the blues became a major element of African American and American popular music, also reaching white audiences. -
Blues and culture
Through blues and jazz in the 1920s, African Americans took center stage with music from their own cultural heritage as record companies propagated the growth of a "race records" market that sold music by black artists to black listeners. -
First blues artist
The first commercially successful male blues artist, Papa Charlie Jackson sang with a relaxed, confident voice and usually played an unusual six-string guitar-banjo. He began recording for Paramount in 1924 and produced nearly three dozen 78s by 1930. -
Delta Blues
Mississippi Delta blues, also known as Delta blues, regional style of early 20th-century American folk music, centered in the Delta region of northwestern Mississippi. Delta blues guitar evolved as a regional variation of country blues somewhere around the turn of the Twentieth Century but wasn't recorded until the 1920s, when Freddie Spruell recorded “Milk Cow Blues” in 1926 in Chicago, Illinois. -
Chicago Blues
Chicago blues is an electric blues style of urban blues. Urban blues evolved from classic blues following the Great Migration of African Americans, which was both forced and voluntary at times, fleeing from poverty and oppression in the south to the industrial cities of the north. Urban blues started in Chicago and St. Louis as music created by part-time musicians playing in the streets, at rent parties, and other events in the black community. -
Evolving
By the 1940s and 50s, the style had developed further and included a range of other instruments. This style was called rhythm and blues, r'n'b, and was usually played on electric guitar and bass. -
Soul Blues
Soul music traces its roots to traditional blues and the gospel music of the Black church. Soul pioneers of the 1950s—such as Ray Charles, Etta James, Sam Cooke, Clyde McPhatter, Little Richard, and Hank Ballard—learned music through performing in gospel groups. -
The fall of Blues
A more urban, electric blues developed as a result, which eclipsed the rural blues of the South and eventually became both rock and roll and what would become known as rhythm and blues. Blues fell somewhat out of popular favor until the later 1950's. -
Nina Simone
During the civil rights movements, she released songs like “Mississippi Goddamn” and “Four Women” addressing racism and other injustices. Nina later became the leading voice of the civil rights movements describing the experiences of the African American community in the 1960s. -
B.B King
He introduced a sophisticated style of soloing based on fluid string bending, shimmering vibrato and staccato picking that influenced many later blues electric guitar players. AllMusic recognized King as "the single most important electric guitarist of the last half of the 20th century". Berclair, Mississippi, U.S.