Blues Music

Blues Music

Blues Music

R&B music can be traced back to spirituals and blues. Musically, spirituals were a descendant of New England choral traditions, and of Isaac Watts's hymns, mixed with African rhythms. Spirituals or religious chants in the African-American community are much better documented than the "low-down" blues. Spiritual singing developed because African-American communities could gather for mass or worship gatherings, which were called camp meetings. Early country bluesmen such as Skip James, Charley Patton, Georgia Tom Dorsey played country and urban blues and had influences from spiritual singing. Dorsey helped to popularize Gospel music. Gospel music developed in the 1930s, with the Golden Gate Quartet.

As the recording industry grew, country blues performers like Bo Carter, Jimmie Rodgers (country singer), Blind Lemon Jefferson, Lonnie Johnson, Tampa Red and Blind Blake became more popular in the African American community. Kentucky-born Sylvester Weaver was in 1923 the first to record the slide guitar style, in which a guitar is fretted with a knife blade or the sawed-off neck of a bottle. The first blues recordings from the 1920s are categorized as a traditional, rural country blues and a more polished 'city' or urban blues. Country blues performers often improvised, either without accompaniment or with only a banjo or guitar. Regional styles of country blues varied widely in the early 20th century. The (Mississippi) Delta blues was a rootsy sparse style with passionate vocals accompanied by slide guitar.

This rapidly evolving market was mirrored by the Billboard Rhythm and Blues Chart. This marketing strategy reinforced trends within urban blues music such as the progressive electrification of the instruments, their amplification and the generalization of the blues beat, the blues shuffle, that became ubiquitous in R&B. This commercial stream had important consequences for blues music which, together with Jazz and Gospel music, became a component of the R&B wave. After World War II and in the 1950s, new styles of electric blues music became popular in cities such as Chicago, also used saxophones, but these were used more as "backing" or rhythmic support than as solo instruments. Little Walter and Sonny Boy Williamson are well known harmonica (called "harp" by blues musicians) players of the early Chicago blues scene. 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 Willie Dixon played a major role on the Chicago blues scene. He composed and wrote many standard blues songs of the period. Most artists of the Chicago blues style recorded for the Chicago-based Chess Records and Checker Records labels.

During the early 1950s, the dominating Chicago labels were challenged by Sam Phillips' Sun Records company in Memphis, which recorded B. B. King and Howlin' Wolf before he moved to Chicago in 1960. In the 1950s, blues had a huge influence on mainstream American popular music. In the late 1950s, a new blues style emerged on Chicago's West Side pioneered by Magic Sam, Buddy Guy and Otis Rush on Cobra Records. Other blues artists, such as John Lee Hooker had influences not directly related to the Chicago style. John Lee Hooker's blues is more "personal", based on Hooker's deep rough voice accompanied by a single electric guitar. Though not directly influenced by boogie woogie, his "groovy" style is sometimes called "guitar boogie".

White performers had brought African-American music to new audiences, both within the US and abroad. However, the blues wave that brought artists such as Muddy Waters to the foreground had stopped. Bluesmen such as Big Bill Broonzy and Willie Dixon started looking for new markets in Europe. Dick Waterman and the blues festivals he organized in Europe played a major role in propagating blues music abroad. Blues performers such as John Lee Hooker and Muddy Waters continued to perform to enthusiastic audiences. John Lee Hooker blended his blues style with rock elements and playing with younger white musicians. B. B. King's virtuoso guitar technique earned him the eponymous title "king of the blues". many Rock and Roll artists such as Elvis Presley were greatly influenced by the blues and incorperated it into their music.

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