THE BLUES

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The Blues

The most forceful creative currents of music came from the "African-American" underclass. Africans forcibly taken away from their homes clung with fervor to those elements of their culture that they could carry with them. Music and folk tales were among the most resilient of these. From these roots came what we know today as "Blues," "Ragtime," "Jazz" and the "Bigband" sound.

In the late 1800's the "Blues" developes and hits it peak by 1910 but the blues has a resurgence in each decade and each decade had it's stars.

The blues allowed the performer to present an individual statement of pain, oppression, poverty, longing and desire. It was an uplifting sense of mastery over the melancholy. Well known blues pioneers were "Robert Johnson" and "Huddie (Leadbelly) Ledbetter." Johnson is the best known of the Mississippi Delta blues singers.

Robert Johnson

"I Believe I'll Dust My Broom"
"Crosssroad Blues"
"Sweet Home Chicago"

"Sweet Chicago Home"

Huddie Ledbetter
(Leadbelly)

"Cotton Fields"

"Midnight Special"
"Goodnight Irene"
"Rock Island Line"

"Charlie Patton's" recordings represent an earlier less urbanized stream in the Delta blues tradition. Other Delta blues players were "Wiliam Brown," "Tommy Johnson" and "Son House."

Charlie Patton

Pony Blues"

"High Sheriff Blues"

"High Water Blues"

Son House

"Preaching the Blues"
"My Black Mama"

The turn of the century country blues was not restricted to the Mississippi Delta. "Blind Lemon Jefferson," from Texas, developed a powerfull rural blues style.

"Match Box Blues"
"That Black Snake Moan"
"Long Lonesome Blues"

The great female blues singers of the 1920's and 30's, sometimes referred to as the "Classic Blues" era would typically front a band while the Delta blues players would acompany themselves on a guitar.

The "Classic Blues" revealed female awareness about the nature of love, unrequited love, salacious love and abused love. Blues now came from the street corners and bars into the theaters and assembly halls. The blues were evolving into mass entertainment. "Gertrude "Ma" Rainey" (Mother of the Blues) and "Besse Smith" (Empress of the Blues) were two of the female greats.

"Yonder Comes the Blues"
"Moonshine Blues"

"See See Rider"

"Down Hearted Blues"
"Gulf Coast Blues"

"Nobody Knows When Your Down and Out"

RHYTHM/RAGTIME/ JAZZ/BIGBAND/ BEBOP/ROCK N ROLL/BANDLEADERS/ DIVAS/CROONERS/FASHION/MIDIS/ MISC/ LINKS/

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