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 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.

"The Blues" 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 Afro-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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Live in Cook County Jail is a 1971 live album by American blues musician B.B. King, recorded on September 10, 1970, in Cook County Jail in Chicago. Agreeing to a request by jail warden Winston Moore, King and his band performed for an audience of 2,117 prisoners, most of whom were young black men. King's set list consisted mostly of slow blues songs, which had been hits earlier in his career. When King told ABC Records about the upcoming performance, he was advised to bring along press and recording equipment.

Live in Cook County Jail spent thirty-three weeks on the Billboard Top LPs chart, where it peaked at number twenty-five. It also reached number one on the Top R&B chart, King's only album to do so. In addition to positive reviews from critics, much of the press surrounding Live in Cook County Jail focused on the harsh living conditions in the prison, which led to an eventual reform. (Full article...)

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Albert King in concert, 1968.

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Quotes

“

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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Howlin' Wolf in 1970

Chester Arthur Burnett (June 10, 1910 – January 10, 1976), better known by his stage name Howlin' Wolf, was an American blues singer and guitarist. He was at the forefront of transforming acoustic Delta blues into electric Chicago blues, and over a four-decade career, recorded blues, rhythm and blues, rock and roll, and psychedelic rock. He is regarded as one of the most influential blues musicians of all time.

Born into poverty in Mississippi as one of six children, he went through a rough childhood where his mother kicked him out of her house, and he moved in with his great-uncle, who was particularly abusive. He then ran away to his father's house where he finally found a happy family, and in the early 1930s became a protégé of legendary Delta blues guitarist and singer Charley Patton. He started a solo career in the Deep South, playing with other notable blues musicians of the era, and at the end of a decade had made a name for himself in the Mississippi Delta. (Full article...)

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

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