Portal:Blues

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The Blues Portal

Blues is a music genre and musical form that originated amongst African-Americans in the Deep South of the United States around the 1860s. Blues has incorporated spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts, chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads from the African-American culture. The blues form is ubiquitous in jazz, rhythm and blues, and rock and roll, and is characterized by the call-and-response pattern, the blues scale, and specific chord progressions, of which the twelve-bar blues is the most common. Blue notes (or "worried notes"), usually thirds, fifths or sevenths flattened in pitch, are also an essential part of the sound. Blues shuffles or walking bass reinforce the trance-like rhythm and form a repetitive effect known as the groove.

Blues music is characterized by its lyrics, bass lines, and instrumentation. Early traditional blues verses consisted of a single line repeated four times. It was only in the first decades of the 20th century that the most common current structure became standard: the AAB pattern, consisting of a line sung over the four first bars, its repetition over the next four, and then a longer concluding line over the last bars. Early blues frequently took the form of a loose narrative, often relating the racial discrimination and other challenges experienced by African-Americans.

Many elements, such as the call-and-response format and the use of blue notes, can be traced back to the music of Africa. The origins of the blues are also closely related to the religious music of the African-American community, the spirituals. The first appearance of the blues is often dated to after the ending of slavery, with the development of juke joints occurring later. It is associated with the newly acquired freedom of the former slaves. Chroniclers began to report about blues music at the dawn of the 20th century. The first publication of blues sheet music was in 1908. Blues has since evolved from unaccompanied vocal music and oral traditions of slaves into a wide variety of styles and subgenres. Blues subgenres include country blues, Delta blues and Piedmont blues, as well as urban blues styles such as Chicago blues and West Coast blues. World War II marked the transition from acoustic to electric blues and the progressive opening of blues music to a wider audience, especially white listeners. In the 1960s and 1970s, a hybrid form called blues rock developed, which blended blues styles with rock music. (Full article...)

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Piedmont blues (also known as East Coast, or Southeastern blues) refers primarily to a guitar style, which is characterized by a fingerpicking approach in which a regular, alternating thumb bass string rhythmic pattern supports a syncopated melody using the treble strings generally picked with the fore-finger, occasionally others. The result is comparable in sound to ragtime or stride piano styles. Blues researcher Peter B. Lowry coined the term, giving co-credit to fellow folklorist Bruce Bastin. The Piedmont style is differentiated from other styles, particularly the Mississippi Delta blues, by its ragtime-based rhythms. (Full article...)

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B.B. King in concert.

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Quotes

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Blues is really America's finest art form and most dominant art form of the 20th century.

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— Georgie Fame

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Blues is a natural fact, something that a fellow lives. If you don't live it, you don't have it.

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— Big Bill Broonzy

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The blues is a low-down achin' heart disease
Like consumption killing me by degrees.

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— Robert Johnson, "Preaching Blues (Up Jumped the Devil)"

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When you lay down at night, turning from one side of the bed to the other and can't sleep, what's the matter? Blues got you.

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— Lead Belly

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The blues had a baby and they named it rock and roll.

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— Muddy Waters

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Lizzie Douglas (June 3, 1897 – August 6, 1973), better known as Memphis Minnie, was a blues guitarist, vocalist, and songwriter whose recording career lasted for over three decades. She recorded around 200 songs, some of the best known being "When the Levee Breaks", "Me and My Chauffeur Blues", "Bumble Bee" and "Nothing in Rambling". (Full article...)

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The following are images from various blues-related articles on Wikipedia.

Image 1Lucky Peterson (from List of blues musicians)
Image 2Master Kora maker Alieu Suso in the Gambia (from Origins of the blues)
Image 3Willie Dixon at Monterey Jazz Festival, 1981 (from List of blues musicians)
Image 4Jimmy Burns, 2012 (from List of blues musicians)
Image 5Detail from cover of The Celebrated Negro Melodies, as Sung by the Virginia Minstrels, 1843 (from Origins of the blues)
Image 6Paul Butterfield at Woodstock Reunion, 1979 (from List of blues musicians)
Image 7Robert Cray, 2007 (from List of blues musicians)
Image 8Robben Ford, 2007 (from List of blues musicians)
Image 9Alvin Youngblood Hart, 2009 (from List of blues musicians)
Image 10Jay McShann in Edinburgh, c.1995 (from List of blues musicians)
Image 11Henry Townsend, 1983 (from List of blues musicians)
Image 12Kenny Neal, 2012 (from List of blues musicians)
Image 13Lonnie Johnson, 1941 (from List of blues musicians)
Image 14Chris Thomas King, 2005 (from List of blues musicians)
Image 15Susan Tedeschi, 2006 (from List of blues musicians)
Image 16Otis Rush, 1997 (from List of blues musicians)
Image 17An 1890s photo of the tourist steamer Okahumke'e on the Ocklawaha River, with black guitarists on board (from Origins of the blues)
Image 18Keb' Mo', 2012 (from List of blues musicians)
Image 19Eddie Shaw, 2015 (from List of blues musicians)
Image 20A watercolor painting of a camp meeting circa 1839 (New Bedford Whaling Museum). (from Origins of the blues)
Image 21T-Bone Walker at American Folk Blues Festival, Hamburg, 1972 (from List of blues musicians)
Image 22Ethel Waters, 1943 (from List of blues musicians)
Image 23Kenny Wayne Shepherd, 2010 (from List of blues musicians)
Image 24Debbie Davies, 2019 (from List of blues musicians)
Image 25Joe Louis Walker, 2007 (from List of blues musicians)
Image 26Son Seals, 1977 (from List of blues musicians)
Image 27Emancipation from Freedmen's viewpoint; illustration from Harper's Weekly 1865 (from Origins of the blues)
Image 28Corey Harris, 2006 (from List of blues musicians)
Image 29"Sweet Home Chicago" performed at the White House with Barack Obama joining B.B. King on the chorus (from List of blues standards)
Image 30Buddy Guy, 2008 (from List of blues musicians)
Image 31Freddie King in Paris, 1975 (from List of blues musicians)
Image 32Blind Lemon Jefferson (from List of blues musicians)
Image 33Eddie Clearwater in Montreux, 1978 (from List of blues musicians)
Image 34Junior Wells, 1983 (from List of blues musicians)
Image 35Buddy Moss in Georgia prison camp, 1941 (from List of blues musicians)
Image 36Shemekia Copeland, 2019 (from List of blues musicians)
Image 37Jimmy Rushing, 1946 (from List of blues musicians)
Image 38Robert Jr. Lockwood, 1982 (from List of blues musicians)
Image 39Pinetop Perkins in Paris, 1976 (from List of blues musicians)
Image 40Luther Tucker, 1964 (from List of blues musicians)
Image 41Eric Bibb, 2006 (from List of blues musicians)
Image 42Son House (from List of blues musicians)
Image 43RonnieEarl, 1996 (from List of blues musicians)
Image 44Mississippi John Hurt, 1964 (from List of blues musicians)
Image 45Jimmy Witherspoon, 1974 (from List of blues musicians)
Image 46Koko Taylor, 2006 (from List of blues musicians)
Image 47George "Harmonica" Smith, 1980 (from List of blues musicians)
Image 48Sara Martin and Sylvester Weaver (from List of blues musicians)
Image 49Curley Weaver (from List of blues musicians)
Image 50Luther Allison (from List of blues musicians)
Image 51Clarence "Gatemouth" Brown, 1999 (from List of blues musicians)
Image 52Roy Rogers, 2014 (from List of blues musicians)
Image 53Memphis Minnie, 1930 (from List of blues musicians)
Image 54Billy Boy Arnold (from List of blues musicians)
Image 55Mamie Smith (from List of blues musicians)
Image 56Ma Rainey (from List of blues musicians)
Image 57Big Joe Turner, 1955 (from List of blues musicians)
Image 58John Lee Hooker in Toronto, 1978 (from List of blues musicians)
Image 59Charlie Musselwhite, 2003 (from List of blues musicians)
Image 60Albert Collins at Long Beach Blues Festival, 1990 (from List of blues musicians)
Image 61Deborah Coleman, 2009 (from List of blues musicians)
Image 62Lead Belly (from List of blues musicians)
Image 63Jimmy Rogers, 1991 (from List of blues musicians)
Image 64Cedric Burnside, 2018 (from List of blues musicians)
Image 65Lowell Fulson in Paris, 1980 (from List of blues musicians)
Image 66Louis Jordan in New York City, 1946 (from List of blues musicians)
Image 67Big Joe Williams, 1971 (from List of blues musicians)
Image 68Bessie Smith, 1936 (from List of blues musicians)
Image 69Muddy Waters with James Cotton, 1971 (from List of blues musicians)
Image 70Hubert Sumlin in Montreux, 1978 (from List of blues musicians)
Image 71Mississippi Fred McDowell, 1972 (from List of blues musicians)
Image 72Dexter Allen, 2004 (from List of blues musicians)
Image 73B.B. King in Rome, 1984 (from List of blues musicians)
Image 74Bobby "Blue" Bland (from List of blues musicians)
Image 75Albert King in Paris, 1978 (from List of blues musicians)
Image 76Eric Clapton, 2006 (from List of blues musicians)