Blues: Difference between revisions

Blues is the name given to both a

The term "the blues" refers to the "blue devils", meaning melancholy and sadness; an early use of the term in this sense is found in George Colman's one-act farce Blue Devils (1798).^[3] Though the use of the phrase in African-American music may be older, it has been attested to since 1912, when Hart Wand's "Dallas Blues" became the first copyrighted blues composition.^[4][5] In lyrics the phrase is often used to describe a depressed mood.^[6] "[...] The blues takes many forms... It is variously a feeling, a mood, a nameless threat, a person, a lover, a boss man, a mob, and, of course, the Devil himself. It is often experienced as both cause and effect, action and reaction, and it can be used as both hex and counterhex, poison and antidote, pain and relief. Most importantly, the blues is both the cause of [the] song, and [the] song itself..." ^[7]

Lyrics

The lyrics of early

The lyrics often relate troubles experienced within African American society. For instance Blind Lemon Jefferson's "Rising High Water Blues" (1927) tells about the Great Mississippi Flood of 1927:

"Backwater rising, Southern peoples can't make no time

I said, backwater rising, Southern peoples can't make no time

And I can't get no hearing from that Memphis girl of mine."

However, although the blues gained an association with misery and oppression, the lyrics could also be humorous and raunchy as well:^[13]

"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."

From

traditional blues lyrics

In melody, blues is distinguished by the use of the flattened third, fifth and seventh of the associated major scale.^[25] These specialized notes are called the blue or bent notes. These scale tones may replace the natural scale tones, or they may be added to the scale, as in the case of the minor blues scale, in which the flattened third replaces the natural third, the flattened seventh replaces the natural seventh and the flattened fifth is added between the natural fourth and natural fifth. While the 12-bar harmonic progression had been intermittently used for centuries, the revolutionary aspect of blues was the frequent use of the flattened third, flattened seventh, and even flattened fifth in the melody, together with crushing—playing directly adjacent notes at the same time (i.e., minor second)—and sliding, similar to using grace notes.^[26] The blue notes allow for key moments of expression during the cadences, melodies, and embellishments of the blues.

Detroit blues

Example of

Detroit blues-rock

shuffle

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G7 Shuffle

Example of Chicago-blues shuffle

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Blues

E7                   A7                   E7                   E7
E |----------------|----------------|----------------|----------------|
B |----------------|----------------|----------------|----------------|
G |----------------|----------------|----------------|----------------|
D |----------------|2—2-4—2-5—2-4—2-|----------------|----------------|
A |2—2-4-2-5-2-4—2-|0—0-0—0-0—0-0—2-|2—2-4—2-5—2-4—2-|2—2-4—2-5—2-4—2-|
E |0—0-0—0-0—0-0—2-|----------------|0—0-0—0-0—0-0—2-|0—0-0—0-0—0-0—2-|

History

Origins

The origin of the term of was most likely derived from mysticism involving blue indigo, which was used by many West African cultures in death and mourning ceremonies where all the mourner's garments would have been dyed blue to indicate suffering. This mystical association towards the indigo plant, grown in many southern US slave plantations, combined with the West African slaves who sang of their suffering as they worked on the cotton that the indigo dyed eventually resulted in these expressed songs being known as "the Blues."^[32]

The first publication of blues sheet music was Hart Wand's "Dallas Blues" in 1912; W. C. Handy's "The Memphis Blues" followed in the same year. The first recording by an African American singer was Mamie Smith's 1920 rendition of Perry Bradford's "Crazy Blues". But the origins of the blues date back to some decades earlier, probably around 1890.^[33] They are very poorly documented, due in part to racial discrimination within American society, including academic circles,^[34] and to the low literacy rate of the rural African American community at the time.^[35]

Chroniclers began to report about blues music in

The social and economic reasons for the appearance of the blues are not fully known.[43] The first appearance of the blues is often dated after the Emancipation Act of 1863,^[34] between 1870 and 1900, a period that coincides with Emancipation and, later, the development of juke joints as places where Blacks went to listen to music, dance, or gamble after a hard day's work.^[44] This period corresponds to the transition from slavery to sharecropping, small-scale agricultural production, and the expansion of railroads in the southern United States. Several scholars characterize the early 1900s development of blues music as a move from group performances to a more individualized style. They argue that the development of the blues is associated with the newly acquired freedom of the enslaved people.^[45]

According to Lawrence Levine, "there was a direct relationship between the national ideological emphasis upon the individual, the popularity of Booker T. Washington's teachings, and the rise of the blues." Levine states that "psychologically, socially, and economically, African-Americans were being acculturated in a way that would have been impossible during slavery, and it is hardly surprising that their secular music reflected this as much as their religious music did."^[45]

There are few characteristics common to all blues music, because the genre took its shape from the idiosyncrasies of individual performances.^[46] However, there are some characteristics that were present long before the creation of the modern blues. Call-and-response shouts were an early form of blues-like music; they were a "functional expression ... style without accompaniment or harmony and unbounded by the formality of any particular musical structure."^[47] A form of this pre-blues was heard in slave ring shouts and field hollers, expanded into "simple solo songs laden with emotional content".^[48]

Blues has evolved from the unaccompanied vocal music and oral traditions of slaves imported from West Africa and rural blacks into a wide variety of styles and subgenres, with regional variations across the United States. Though blues, as it is now known, can be seen as a musical style based on both European harmonic structure and the African call-and-response tradition, transformed into an interplay of voice and guitar,^[49][50] the blues form itself bears no resemblance to the melodic styles of the West African griots, and the influences are faint and tenuous.^[51][52]

In particular, no specific African musical form can be identified as the single direct ancestor of the blues.^[53] However many blues elements, such as the call-and-response format and the use of blue notes, can be traced back to the music of Africa. That blue notes pre-date their use in blues and have an African origin is attested by English composer Samuel Coleridge-Taylor's "A Negro Love Song", from his The African Suite for Piano composed in 1898, which contains blue third and seventh notes.^[54]

The

Depending on the religious community a musician belonged to, it was more or less considered as a sin to play this low-down music: blues was the devil's music. Musicians were therefore segregated into two categories: gospel and blues singers, guitar preachers and songsters. However, at the time rural Black music began to get recorded in the 1920s, both categories of musicians used very similar techniques: call-and-response patterns, blue notes, and slide guitars. Gospel music was nevertheless using musical forms that were compatible with Christian hymns and therefore less marked by the blues form than its secular counterpart.[65]

Pre-war blues

The American sheet music publishing industry produced a great deal of ragtime music. By 1912, the sheet music industry had published three popular blues-like compositions, precipitating the Tin Pan Alley adoption of blues elements: "Baby Seals' Blues" by "Baby" F. Seals (arranged by Artie Matthews), "Dallas Blues" by Hart Wand and "The Memphis Blues" by W. C. Handy.^[66]

Handy was a formally trained musician, composer and arranger who helped to popularize the blues by transcribing and orchestrating blues in an almost symphonic style, with bands and singers. He became a popular and prolific composer, and billed himself as the "Father of the Blues"; however, his compositions can be described as a fusion of blues with ragtime and jazz, a merger facilitated using the Cuban

City or urban blues styles were more codified and elaborate as a performer was no longer within their local, immediate community and had to adapt to a larger, more varied audience's aesthetic.

After World War II and in the 1950s, new styles of

Howlin' Wolf,^[93] Muddy Waters,^[94] Willie Dixon,^[95] and Jimmy Reed^[96] were all born in Mississippi and moved to Chicago during the Great Migration. Their style is characterized by the use of electric guitar, sometimes slide guitar, harmonica, and a rhythm section of bass and drums. J. T. Brown who played in Elmore James's bands,^[97] or J. B. Lenoir's^[98] also used saxophones, but these were used more as "backing" or rhythmic support than as solo instruments.

Little Walter and Sonny Boy Williamson (Rice Miller) are well known harmonica (called "harp" by blues musicians) players of the early Chicago blues scene. Other harp players such as Big Walter Horton were also influential. Muddy Waters and Elmore James were known for their innovative use of slide electric guitar. Howlin' Wolf and Muddy Waters were known for their deep, "gravelly" voices.

Bassist and composer

Blues performers such as John Lee Hooker and Muddy Waters continued to perform to enthusiastic audiences, inspiring new artists steeped in traditional blues, such as New York–born Taj Mahal. John Lee Hooker blended his blues style with rock elements and playing with younger white musicians, creating a musical style that can be heard on the 1971 album Endless Boogie. B. B. King's virtuoso guitar technique earned him the eponymous title "king of the blues".

In contrast to the Chicago style, King's band used strong brass support from a saxophone, trumpet, and trombone, instead of using slide guitar or harp.

The music of the

White audiences' interest in the blues during the 1960s increased due to the Chicago-based Paul Butterfield Blues Band and the British blues movement. The style of British blues developed in the UK, when bands such as The Animals, Fleetwood Mac, John Mayall & the Bluesbreakers, The Rolling Stones, The Yardbirds, and Cream and Irish musician Rory Gallagher performed classic blues songs from the Delta or Chicago blues traditions.^[116] Many of Led Zeppelin's earlier hits were renditions of traditional blues songs.

The British and blues musicians of the early 1960s inspired a number of American

In the early 1970s, The Texas rock-blues style emerged, which used guitars in both solo and rhythm roles. In contrast with the West Side blues, the Texas style is strongly influenced by the British rock-blues movement. Major artists of the Texas style are Johnny Winter, Stevie Ray Vaughan, The Fabulous Thunderbirds, and ZZ Top. These artists all began their musical journey in the 1970s, but they did not achieve major international success until the next decade.^[119]

1980s to the 2000s

Since at least the 1980s, there has been a resurgence of interest in the blues among a certain part of the African-American population, particularly around Jackson, Mississippi and other deep South regions. Often termed "soul blues" or "Southern soul", the music at the heart of this movement was given new life by the unexpected success of two particular recordings on the Jackson-based Malaco label:^[120] Z. Z. Hill's Down Home Blues (1982) and Little Milton's The Blues is Alright (1984). Contemporary African-American performers who work this vein of the blues include Bobby Rush, Denise LaSalle, Sir Charles Jones, Bettye LaVette, Marvin Sease, Peggy Scott-Adams, Mel Waiters, Clarence Carter, Dr. "Feelgood" Potts, O.B. Buchana, Ms. Jody, Shirley Brown, and dozens of others.

During the 1980s, blues also continued in both traditional and new forms. In 1986, the album Strong Persuader revealed Robert Cray as a major blues artist.^[121] The first Stevie Ray Vaughan recording, Texas Flood, was released in 1983, and the Texas-based guitarist exploded onto the international stage. 1989 saw a revival of John Lee Hooker's popularity with the album The Healer. Eric Clapton, known for his performances with the Blues Breakers and Cream, made a comeback in the 1990s with his album Unplugged, in which he played some standard blues numbers on acoustic guitar. However, beginning in the 1990s, digital multitrack recording and other technological advances and new marketing strategies that include video clip production have increased costs, and challenge the spontaneity and improvisation that are an important component of blues music.^[122]

In the 1980s and 1990s, blues publications such as Living Blues and Blues Revue began to be distributed, major cities began forming blues societies, outdoor blues festivals became more common, and^[123] more nightclubs and venues for blues emerged.^[124]

In the 1990s, largely ignored

Before World War II, the boundaries between blues and jazz were less clear. Usually jazz had harmonic structures stemming from brass bands, whereas blues had blues forms such as the 12-bar blues. However, the jump blues of the 1940s mixed both styles. After WWII, blues had a substantial influence on jazz. Bebop classics, such as Charlie Parker's "Now's the Time", used the blues form with the pentatonic scale and blue notes.

Bebop marked a major shift in the role of jazz, from a popular style of music for dancing, to a "high-art," less-accessible, cerebral "musician's music". The audience for both blues and jazz split, and the border between blues and jazz became more defined.^[129][130]

The blues' 12-bar structure and the blues scale was a major influence on

Like jazz, rock and roll, heavy metal music, hip hop music, reggae, country music, and pop music, blues has been accused of being the "devil's music" and of inciting violence and other poor behavior.^[134] In the early 20th century, the blues was considered disreputable, especially as white audiences began listening to the blues during the 1920s.^[67] In the early twentieth century, W.C. Handy was the first to popularize blues-influenced music among non-black Americans.

During the blues revival of the 1960s and '70s, acoustic blues artist

• All Music Guide to the Blues
• Blues dance
• Blues guitar playing
• Blues Hall of Fame
• Blues in New Zealand
• Blues rock
• Canadian blues
• Country blues
• Electric blues
• Fife and drum blues
• Mississippi Blues Trail
• Template:Wikipedia books link

Lists:

• List of blues musicians
• List of blues standards
• List of British blues musicians
• List of Number-one Blues Albums
• List of train songs

General:

• 20th century music
• African American culture
• Museum of African American Music

Notes