Following the Blues
Usually considered an emotive music, the blues has been around since at least the beginning of the twentieth century, but its antecedents fall well into the nineteenth. The earliest records of blues music are obscured by poor record-keeping, lack of recordings, and the fact that blues began among the disenfranchised poor blacks of the South, not exactly (unfortunately) the hotspot of trendspotting at the time.
The
term, "Blues",
to describe the music did not appear until early in the twentieth century.
There is a lot of 
dispute
over the origins of the early Blues, beyond the purview of this article (can
we say, Alanis is "chicken"?). However, Blues as a music form owes
a lot to western African music (griot), field hollers and workchants of slaves
and sharecroppers, white Appalachian country and folk, and an interplay give-n-take
over time with jazz and gospel music. Classic blues today is generally considered
to be marked by an AAB rhyming structure, and a 12-bar playing style, although
those may well have been a stricture, along with short playing times for
individual songs, encouraged by commercial recording.
The first recordings were of female blues singers, who for commercial acceptability recorded against a jazz or vaudeville musical backdrop. Mamie Smith was the first truly Blues singer who was recorded (as far as can be determined). Her recording was made in 1920.
The earliest Blues singers had no awareness they were a part of a "category". They typically sang a variety of material, ranging from what we'd consider blues, to folk, to Appalachian, to gospel, to vaudeville, to the pop of the time. There were a variety of instruments that played a dominant role, including the kazoo.
Early Blues roots included jug bands, which were highly influenced by Appalachian and vaudeville, and tended to be more "happy" and "perky" than what we've come to know as standard Blues. After the 1930's, this style of music died out due to a number of factors.
Of major importance was the Delta Blues. This is the music made in and around the Mississippi Delta during the early twentieth century, and it was highly emotive. Frankly, this, and the Chicago Blues (a later outgrowth) remain my favorite manifestations of the Blues. The first great of the Delta Blues is considered to be Charlie Patton. Delta Bluesmen tended to be solo performers, who used guitar for their dominant instrumentation. The guitar was easily transportable, and being that Delta Bluesmen were often poverty-stricken sharecroppers, the individual approach to songmaking was selected for due to economic realities.
An
important musician from the Delta Blues era was Robert Johnson. Robert
Johnson: The Complete Recordings was released
on CD in 1990 by Columbia Records, from masters recorded in 1936 and 1937.
I have this, of course, and behind the primitive recording facilities of
the time can be sensed the power that evidently imbued the performer. This
is not a recording I can listen to often, due to the technology of sound
back then, but Robert Johnson does present the listener with a good idea
as to the definitions of the Delta Blues. Other fine musicians of the Delta
era included Skip James, Mississippi John Hurt, Son House, Muddy Waters (he,
as well as several other musicians, transcends several definitions), Elmore
James, and John Lee Hooker.
Another style of early Blues was the Piedmont Blues, which owed a debt to ragtime and to Appalachian folk music. This music is heavily-syncopated. Performers included Blind Blake, Blind Boy Fuller, Brownie McGhee, and Reverend Gary Davis. Personally, I am not very familiar with this style.
Chicago Blues predated the arrival of the (one time) Delta Bluesman Muddy Waters in 1943. It owed a lot of its spirit to the Delta Blues. Although Chicago is obviously a city, much of the influence of Chicago Blues is rural. Small bands would form, oftimes featuring the harmonica. Lester Melrose was the greatest advocate of Chicago Blues, sending talent to the recording studios of the time. Dominant musicians included both Sonny Boy Williamsons, Memphis Minnie, Bukka White, Elmore James, Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf and Willie Dixon.
Gonna take an aside for now, and explore the (second) Sonny Boy Williamson's album, One Way Out. This is an album from the "second" Sonny Boy Williamson. His voice is both smooth and emotive, and he plays the harmonica spot-on with his band. Born Aleck Miller circa 1909, in Mississippi, he was the youngest of twenty-one children of a wife of a sharecropper-blacksmith. At first nicknamed "Rice", he was performing on the harmonica by the age of 14. Early on, also, he gained a reputation for "telling stories", more than implying that the tales he told were very embellished. He adopted the name of "Sonny Boy" Williamson, as an apparent effort to conflate his image with the original owner of that moniker. It seemed to work - he got more bookings this way. He grew more and more popular, and recorded with Muddy Waters' band in 1955. Other recordings were also produced.
By 1965, his health was failing. Williamson was found dead by his drummer (reversing the Spinal Tap jinx), in the May of that year, when he failed to appear for a scheduled show.
Now, we will jump off into the Jump Blues. Predominantly, this is Blues of the 1940's, where jazz and blues intermixed more than before or since. Songs tended to be light in spirit. Combos were not sized like the big bands, but they provided lively music to dance to. Bands and musicians included Count Basie, Cab Calloway, Louis Armstrong (strongly jazz-influenced), Big Mama Thornton, Benny Goodman, Lionel Hampton, and; rock influenced and later: Chuck Berry and Bill Haley.
An Aside: Big Mama Thornton:
Best version of "Hound Dog" I've heard is on her album, Hound Dog: the Peacock Recordings. It is a mixed-quality album, but still worth the owning. She was born in 1926 to a minister father. She had six brothers and sisters, and all apparently were expected to sing in her father's church. She early on learnt to play the drums and the harmonica, and made her way from home by the age of fourteen. She played with Johnny Otis in 1952. Other great songs recorded by Thorton include "You Don't Move Me No More", "Nightmare", and "Stop-a-Hoppin-On Me". At the end of her career, she was hardly noticed, and indeed when she died in 1984, without money, it was several days before her body was discovered in a boardinghouse.
Louisiana Blues appeared around the 1950's, and figures such as Guitar Slim were seminal. Louisiana Blues merged into early R&B (rhythm and blues) music. While Guitar Slim was undeniably Blues, much of the material originating here at this time could more properly be called rock 'n' roll, and indeed the Blues has always influenced the development of rock. And, probably, vice versa. The New Orleans jazz environment led way to Zydeco and Swamp Blues.
We can touch on Harmonica Blues: influences from the Grand Old Opry, the Jug bands, and performers such as both Sonny Boy Williamsons, who used the harp. Muddy Waters and Big Walter Horton and Charlie Musselwhite and Paul Butterfield and Phil Wiggins -- some country-influenced -- were all Bluesmen who utilized the harmonica.
And, there is Memphis Blues. A song entitled "Memphis Blues" dates back to 1912 (by W.C. Handy). Memphis took awhile to get defined, since it always attracted a diverse mixture of music. After WWII, however, Memphis became noticed as a good waystation for Blues music. Early post-war figures included BB King, Hot Shot Love, Bobby Blue Bland, Little Milton. Rockabilly became important in the late fifties: Elvis Presley, carl Perkins, Jerry Lee Lewis, and the like. The Memphis soul scene, at about the same time, included figures such as Booker T and the MG's and the Bill Black Combo.
I am skipping over some topics such as Piano Blues and West Coast Blues, and re-appearing with Texas Electric Blues. Texas Electric Blues has a country feel to it; and of course, the electric instrumentation. Typically included in this category are T-Bone Walker and Blind Lemon Jefferson, as well as Lightnin' Hopkins, a fantastic rough-edged purveyor of this genre. White performers in this subgenre are Johnny Winter and Stevie Ray Vaughn.
What else do we find?
The Sixties appeared to be an era of re-discovery. Electric blues
groups from England such as the John Mayall Band provided semi-modern interpretations
of Blues classics, sometimes successfully. So did more commercially-popular
groups such as Cream, fronted by Eric Clapton. Rock groups such as Led Zeppelin
disguised Blues motifs deeply into their material. Janis Joplin took up the
torch, but extinguished herself very early on. Jimi Hendrix tried, but also
burnt out before his time. John Campbell, a southern musician, explored the
dark side of the psyche through the medium of the Blues, before his own early
death. More traditionally-blues oriented musicians such as Taj Mahal incorporated
elements of rock into their work, continuing the evolution of a non-static
genre.
It all comes round to Africa again, with the "discovery" by Ry Cooder of Ali Farke Toure, bringing the latter into commercial recognition. Ali Farka Toure is a Senegalese musician and singer, and it is not difficult to discern the blues in his work.
Though this has become a lengthy article, I've only barely begun to do justice to summarizing the Blues. There are many worthwhile Blues compilations (ie, the Rhino Records Blues Fest series) which will take you through the decades and styles of Blues development, and there is even an acclaimed documentary series on the Blues (I have not yet seen it). To understand the Blues, you need to put on some good examples or go attend a live performance. You have to listen with your heart and spirit.
Resources:
AMG All Music Guide to Blues. Ed. Eriewine M, Bogdanaov V, Woodstra
C, Koda C. 1999.
Robert Johnson: The Complete Recordings release 1990.
Sonny Boy Williamson:
One Way Out (music and liner notes) 1975.
Big Mama Thornton: Hound Dog: The
Peacock Recordings (music and liner notes) 1992.
Ali Farka Toure with Ry Cooder:
Talking Timbuktu. 1994.
Ali Farka Toure: The Source. 1991.
Submissions:
Check out our newsroom on the community boards and get involved!
Featured Character Coordinator: Dr. Taniko Kishimoto
Featured Novel & Reference Book Coordinator: Amashelle
Editor: Myrrhine