Blues I INTRODUCTION Listening to the Blues Blues music comes in a variety of styles and forms, including acoustic blues, electric blues, rock, and jazz.

Blues I INTRODUCTION Listening to the Blues Blues music comes in a variety of styles and forms, including acoustic blues, electric blues, rock, and jazz. But underlying even the most complex blues performance is a standardized harmonic form known as the 12-bar blues. This form coalesced during the 1930s and 1940s, as the blues evolved from a rural solo style to an urban group context, and is still used today. The following set of audio clips illustrates the basic 12-bar blues form, as well as other aspects of the blues, such as melodic structure and call-and-response. © Microsoft Corporation. All Rights Reserved. Blues, type of music developed during the late 19th century by African American performers (see African American Music). Blues embraces a variety of styles, including downhome or country blues, boogie-woogie, classic blues, jump blues, and Chicago (urban) blues. Blues directly or indirectly influenced the vast majority of popular music during the 20th century, including jazz, rock, rhythm and blues (R&B), and gospel. As a form and style blues most likely first appeared in the 1890s, a quarter century after the Civil War (1861-1865) officially ended slavery in the United States. Jazz and ragtime also first appeared around this time. Although freedom did not substantially change the material conditions of the majority of African Americans, it did have a tremendous effect on the mindset of those born into freedom. It is therefore probably no accident that the first generation born outside of slavery would develop a new music that more accurately reflected their worldview and the social situations in which they lived. II BLUES FORM John Lee Hooker Bluesman John Lee Hooker made his first recordings in the late 1940s. His boogie guitar rhythms made him a popular performer in the 1950s and 1960s, but he faded from the spotlight in ensuing decades. He returned to prominence with the The Healer (1989), an album filled with guest stars who paid tribute to Hooker. Archive Photos/Getty Images Blues can be distinguished both as a musical form and as a genre (style) of music. The typical blues form consists of a 12-bar harmonic pattern that subdivides into three groups of four bars each. (A bar is one measure and in musical notation is indicated by a vertical line). The 12-bar pattern usually follows a traditional blues chord progression. This form was standardized in 1912 with the publication of "Memphis Blues" by musician and composer W. C. Handy. From the beginning, the blues form became one of the standard harmonic structures used in jazz music, although jazz musicians have made the form much more complex over time by substituting and altering chords at various points in the pattern. The blues form has also been an important component of country music, R&B, and rock and roll. III BLUES STYLE In addition to its harmonic structure, blues as a style has three recognizable features: (1) the so-called blue note, (2) an aab three-line lyric structure, and (3) a particular pattern of call and response. The term blue note refers to any pitch between adjacent notes in the 12-tone Western system of equal temperament (as represented by the white and black keys on the piano). While blue notes are easily achieved by vocalists, horn players, harmonica players, and guitarists, the pitch of the keys on a piano are fixed. Consequently, blues pianists often play adjacent notes a half-step apart--for example, E and Eb (E-flat)--simultaneously in an attempt to replicate the effect of a blue note. The blues lyric structure consists of two different lines, with the first line being repeated to form a three-line aab pattern. The following lines from Howlin' Wolf's 1951 recording of "How Many More Years" demonstrate this structure: a. How many more years do I got to let you dog me around? a. How many more years do I got to let you dog me around? b . I just as soon be dead, sleeping six feet in the ground. Each lyric line is typically sung over the first half (first two bars) of a four-bar line. After each lyric line (the "call"), an instrumental response is commonly played, also consisting of approximately two bars. The tension created by the two-bar call-and-response pattern of vocal and instrumental sounds; by the repetition of the first lyric line, which delays the resolution in line b of the lyric idea; and by the variable placement of the so-called blue note defines blues as a style of music, whether played by country, rhythm-and-blues, or rock musicians. A Vocal and Instrumental Techniques Another aspect of the blues style is the use of special vocal techniques, techniques that American folklorist Alan Lomax termed "playful voicedness." One of these is to employ a wide variation in the timbre of the voice. A skilled blues vocalist often uses three distinctly different vocal sounds over the course of a single lyric line. This technique serves both to give shape to the lyric line and to increase its emotional effect. Similarly, blues performers repeatedly embellish their singing, using techniques such as vibrato (rapid fluctuation of pitch) and melisma (several notes sung on the same syllable), and by inserting cries, grunts, or other sounds between words. Blues artists often attempt to imitate instrumental sounds with their voice and to replicate aspects of the human voice with their instruments. The most obvious example of a blues instrumental technique that mimics the human voice is slide guitar playing. To play slide, a guitarist employs a round metal tube on the neck of the guitar instead of fingering individual frets. The resulting sound covers every pitch gradation between any given set of notes and can very closely approximate human vocal sounds. Blues harmonica players also commonly emulate vocal sounds. As is the case with most African American music forms, blues is typically played in 4/4 time. Each beat is often subdivided into eighth-note triplets with the middle triplet omitted, creating a shuffle feel. Blues drummers usually mark beats one and three with the bass drum, while beats two and four are accented by the snare drum. The same shuffle feel is played on either a closed hi-hat cymbal or on the ride cymbal. The other members of a blues ensemble reinforce these rhythms. Like much other African American music, most blues performers make extensive use of syncopation, placing accents on weak beats and at various unexpected points in the bar. B Lyrics A common misperception is that blues lyrics are invariably sad. This is no doubt partially due to the name of the genre itself, calling to mind such melancholy phrases as "feeling blue" and "having the blues." While it is true that blues lyrics often focus on problems that the singer or composer is struggling with, more often than not the lyrics suggest one or more strategies for dealing with the problems. As such, blues lyrics often help both performers and listeners publicly and privately manage deepseated feelings about real-life problems with romantic relationships, the work place, racism, and other areas. Other blues lyrics feature the kind of boasting and proclaiming that is common in musical genres such as rap. In general, blues lyrics are written in the first person, often relate to inner feelings, and are characterized by direct emotional expression. The lyrics of blues songs published before World War II (1939-1945) were generally drawn from a "floating pool" of verses--that is, various couplets turn up in numerous songs. Consequently, the identity of a given song was usually associated with the "core" or first verse, while the following verses could vary each time the song was performed. As such, songs of this period usually contained verses that were associated with each other--for example, they may all discuss romantic problems--but did not present a narrative story as a whole. As African Americans gradually migrated from the country to the city, blues lyrics became increasingly original and took on more of a narrative structure. IV HISTORY W. C. Handy American composer and cornet player W. C. Handy is sometimes called the Father of the Blues. Although the music first emerged from the South in the late 19th century, Handy was the first to write down and publish songs with the word "blues" in the title. Among his compositions is the early standard "St. Louis Blues" (1914). Corbis Although blues music was clearly an important part of the cultural landscape of the southern United States by the early 1900s, it was largely unnoticed until W. C. Handy published such songs as "Memphis Blues" (1912) and "St. Louis Blues" (1914). In an effort to cash in on Handy's success, many mainstream, mostly white, songwriters began publishing songs with "blues" in the title. The vast majority of these songs were "blues" in name only and had little, if anything, to do with blues form or style. Authentic blues music made its way into the national culture more gradually. A Early Genres Alberta Hunter Of the early female blues singers, American Alberta Hunter enjoyed perhaps the greatest professional longevity. Beginning in 1906, her career spanned eight decades. With expansive vocal capabilities, she earned a place in blues history through performances with early jazz pioneers, including cornetist King Oliver, trumpet player Louis Armstrong, and pianist Fats Waller. Frank Driggs Collection/Archive Photos The earliest brands of blues were first recorded in the years before World War II in two quite different settings--from professional artists in urban environments (primarily in the North), and from musicians in rural areas (primarily in the South). Both played important roles in the development of the music. A1 Classic Blues Bessie Smith The classic blues sound of Bessie Smith was used by the early recording industry to present rural country blues to urban audiences, especially to white listeners. Smith, known for her smooth, sultry voice wrought with pain and emotion, is considered one of the greatest blues singers in history. This example is from the song "St. Louis Blues," written by American composer and trumpet player W. C. Handy in 1914 and recorded by Smith in 1925. "St. Louis Blues" performed by Bessie Smith, from The Riverside History of Classic Jazz (Cat.# Riverside RB-005) Riverside Records under master license to Fantasy, Inc. All rights reserved./Frank Driggs Collection/Archive Photos The first blues recording, Mamie Smith's "Crazy Blues," came out in 1920. It quickly became a hit. Smith and other popular blues singers, predominantly female, developed what came to be termed vaudeville or "classic" blues. This style had urban roots, with songs mostly written by professional songwriters such as Handy and sung by vaudeville singers as part of a much larger repertoire that included pop songs and show tunes. The most important of the classic blues singers was undoubtedly Bessie Smith, who recorded over 160 songs for Columbia Records from 1923 to 1933. A2 Country Blues Country blues was first recorded in the mid-1920s, around the same time that black jazz, country-and-western, and Cajun music also made their recorded debuts. The country blues tradition divided roughly into three regionally based styles: Texas blues, Mississippi Delta blues (Louisiana and Mississippi), and Piedmont blues (the Carolinas and Georgia). The Texas style featured single-string lines on acoustic guitar and very precise, rhythmic playing and singing. Its best-known pre-World War II practitioner was Blind Lemon Jefferson. Lightnin' Hopkins was an important Texas-blues musician of the postwar era. Leadbelly Sings "Goodnight Irene" Huddie Ledbetter acquired the name Leadbelly during his stay in the prison farms of Louisiana. His cohorts named him for his stamina in leading work songs in the railyards and cotton fields. He was also known for bringing those work songs to local honky-tonks and country dances. Leadbelly's blues were ironically upbeat and joyful, and his clear, biting tone could be heard for miles around. William Gottlieb/Redferns/"Goodnight Irene" (H. Ledbetter, J. A. Lomax) (c)1960 Ludlow Music Inc. (Cat.# CDSF 40001) (p)1989 Smithsonian Folkways Records. Int'l. rights secured. Not for broadcast transmission. All rights reserved. Do not duplicate. Not for rental. The country style known as Delta blues got its name from the fertile Mississippi River delta that produced so many famous blues artists. Slide guitar playing and highly emotional singing marked this style, as in the work of artists such as Charley Patton, Son House, and Robert Johnson. In addition, many blues musicians who found fame and success in northern cities were born and reared in the Delta region, such as Big Bill Broonzy, Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf, John Lee Hooker, and Buddy Guy. The third country style, Piedmont blues, was the most harmonically sophisticated and melodically developed of the prewar blues styles. It was influenced by nonblues black folk music, Anglo-American folk music and, most importantly, ragtime music. Some prominent Piedmont-blues players included Blind Blake, a ragtime-influenced guitarist, and Blind Willie McTell, whose elaborate picking on a 12-string guitar influenced many other Piedmont-blues artists. A3 Boogie-Woogie and Guitar-Piano Blues Blues Pianist Leroy Carr Leroy Carr, one of the earliest urban bluesmen to become a star, formed a partnership with guitarist Scrapper Blackwell in the late 1920s. The pair became one of the most successful piano/guitar duos in history, recording over 100 songs, including "How Long Blues" (1928). Carr was only 30 years old when he died in 1935. Archive Photos/Getty Images In the late 1920s two new styles of blues developed: boogie-woogie piano blues and guitar-piano duos. Boogie-woogie is a percussive, largely instrumental style of solo piano playing based on 12-bar blues strains. The first eight bars of each section typically involve a particular technique or lick--for example, a trill, slide, or crossrhythm--that provides a contrasting character with the preceding and subsequent strains. The last four bars of each strain serve as a refrain, repeating the same material each time through. The most important boogie-woogie pianists, Meade Lux Lewis, Albert Ammons, and Jimmy Yancey, were all based in Chicago, Illinois. This style enjoyed a revival in the late 1930s and early 1940s, sparked by producer John Hammond's decision to include Lewis, Ammons, and Pete Johnson in his 1938 "Spirituals to Swing" concert at Carnegie Hall in New York City. Guitar-piano duos represented another style of prewar urban blues. Leroy Carr and Scrapper Blackwell were the most successful of these city-based duos. From 1928 to 1934 Carr and Blackwell recorded 114 different songs, all of them featuring Carr's urbane vocal and piano stylings and Blackwell's percussive, single-string lead guitar work. Chicago-based Tampa Red and Georgia Tom made up another popular and important guitar-piano duo in the late 1920s and early 1930s. B Postwar Blues Lightnin' Hopkins Sings the Blues Texas-born blues singer and guitarist Lightnin' Hopkins performs the classic blues song "See That My Grave Is Kept Clean." The unmistakable vocal sound of Hopkins was one of the most frequently recorded in all of blues music. He released albums on a large variety of different record labels throughout his career. "See That My Grave Is Kept Clean" from Lightnin' Hopkins (Cat.# Smithsonian Folkways CD SF 40019) (p)1990 Smithsonian Folkways Records. All rights reserved./David Redfern/Redferns World War II caused massive demographic shifts in America, including huge numbers of black people who moved from the country to the city, from the South to the North and West. The impetus for this movement can be largely traced to the employment opportunities created by the war effort and the drafting of much of the country's labor force into the armed services. The new social environment created a new social-psychological mindset which, in turn, sparked new music. The sound of the heavily populated, noisy city was, not surprisingly, an ensemble sound rather than music produced by solo artists and duos. B1 Urban Blues Big Bill Broonzy was the first Delta bluesman to find fame in the urban environs of Chicago, bridging the gap between prewar country blues and the louder, denser sound of city blues. The Chicago "band" sound of the late 1930s and early 1940s, exemplified by Broonzy, featured acoustic guitar, upright bass, harmonica, and washboard for percussion. By the late 1940s, many Chicago blues musicians were playing electric guitars, had added drums and saxophones to their ensembles, and had started to use microphones to amplify the harmonica (harp), piano, and upright bass. The result was an incredibly harsh style of urban blues, but one that remained rooted in the emotionally charged prewar Delta blues style. With a razor-sharp electric guitar style and a powerful, distinctive voice, Muddy Waters was the best known of these musicians. Other highly influential Chicago blues performers included Howlin' Wolf, Little Walter, and Sonny Boy Williamson II. Chicago blues had a huge impact on the generation of British musicians that came of age in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Several of these performers--including Keith Richards of the Rolling Stones, Jimmy Page of Led Zeppelin, and Eric Clapton-- ranked among the most important rock musicians of the 1960s and 1970s. B2 Club and Jump Blues Louis Jordan In the late 1930s, big band saxophonist and vocalist Louis Jordan developed a new kind of energetic dance music, known as jump blues or shuffle boogie. Jordan and his Tympany Five, a downsized ensemble of piano or guitar, bass, drums, sax, and trumpet, greatly influenced a host of rhythm-and-blues artists as well as one of the earliest rock-and-roll bands, Bill Haley and the Comets. This excerpt is from the song "Five Guys Named Moe" (1943). "Five Guys Named Moe" composed by J. Bresler and L. Wynn, performed by Louis Jordan and His Tympany Five from The R and B Box: 30 Years of Rhythm and Blues (Cat.# MCA Rhino - originally on Decca)(c) MCA Publishing, a Div. of Universal Studios, Inc. (p)1992 Classics Records. Courtesy of The Verve Music Group, under license from Universal Music Enterprises. All Rights Reserved./The Everett Collection, Inc. Examples of more restrained postwar blues styles included the club blues tradition on the West Coast and the jump blues style that became popular nationwide. Club blues, pioneered by artists such as Nat King Cole and Charles Brown in the late 1940s, featured piano-led trios that played slow-tempo blues along with pop standards or boogie-woogie piano pieces. Club blues vocalists sang in straightforward, melancholy style no matter what the content of a given song's lyrics. Jump blues, on the other hand, embodied up-tempo dance music that exuded pure joy. Jump bands featured a combination of trumpet and alto and tenor saxophones accompanied by a rhythm section composed of piano, upright bass, and drums. Most tunes were riff-dominated with lyrics celebrating the excitement of big-city living. Some of the biggest jump blues ensembles during the music's heyday in the late 1940s and early 1950s included those led by Louis Jordan, Roy Milton, and Joe Liggins. C Blues Decline and Revival B. B. King B. B. King is pictured here plucking on "Lucille," the name the blues musician gave to his guitar. King began to teach himself guitar in 1945 and made his first recording in 1950. He was still recording albums and touring internationally more than 50 years later, delighting fans as his playing seemingly brought Lucille to life. REUTERS/THE BETTMANN ARCHIVE The years of mainstream popularity for the blues did not last long. In the early 1950s, the jump blues and club blues styles disappeared from the national R&B charts, replaced by doo-wop vocal groups and, a few years later, black rock and roll. By the end of the 1950s, with the decline of the urban Chicago blues sound of Muddy Waters and Howlin' Wolf, blues as a whole had lost popularity with its core black audience. In its place emerged the sounds of soul, female vocal groups, and, in the early 1960s, Motown. With the exception of a few artists--such as B. B. King and Bobby Blue Bland--who had developed distinctive approaches to playing and singing blues, the genre ceased to be a part of the black musical mainstream. Black audiences continued to support the blues on a regional basis in locales such as Chicago; Memphis, Tennessee; Baton Rouge, Louisiana; and northern Mississippi. However, a burgeoning interest in the blues among white audiences in the United States and Europe provided support for the music from the early 1960s to the present. Country blues musicians of the 1920s and 1930s, such as Mississippi John Hurt, Skip James, and Bukka White, rekindled their careers after being rediscovered by young white blues enthusiasts in the 1960s. These musicians made new recordings and performed in coffeehouses, on university campuses, and at well-known folk festivals. In addition, a new audience sprang up for the amplified postwar Chicago blues sound and its nearly forgotten musicians. White musicians began to form groups that covered blues classics and also wrote original blues-based compositions. Blues Guitarist Albert King A major influence on blues and rock guitarists around the world, Albert King began his career with the Memphis-based Stax/Volt Records label. During the mid-1960s, when interest in traditional blues had faded among black listeners, King kept the spirit of the music alive. "Roadhouse Blues" performed by Albert King, from Blues at Sunrise (Cat.# Stax SCD-8546-2) (c) Parker Music (p)1988 Fantasy, Inc. All rights reserved./David Redfern/Redferns In Chicago a wave of younger black musicians such as Otis Rush, Buddy Guy, and Junior Wells established blues careers, recording and playing both in Chicago-area clubs and on national tours with older blues artists. These young artists even found inspiration and influence in the playing of contemporary white blues musicians, such as Eric Clapton and Peter Green (of Fleetwood Mac). These cross-racial connections eventually produced a number of recordings in which young white blues-rock musicians played with the best of Chicago's black blues artists, such as on The London Howlin' Wolf Sessions (1970) and Fleetwood Mac's Blues Jam in Chicago (1969). The blues revival continued into the mid-1970s, led primarily by bands that fused blues with rock such as Led Zeppelin and the Allman Brothers. Some rock groups of the era, such as the Grateful Dead, routinely included blues songs in their recordings and live performances. Bruce Iglauer injected new life into the Chicago scene by starting the blues label Alligator Records in the early 1970s. Iglauer found success by recording primarily little-known and younger black blues musicians such as Hound Dog Taylor, Lonnie Brooks, Koko Taylor, Son Seals, and Albert Collins. Competing record labels such as Rooster Blues, Black Top, and Bullseye Blues sprang up over the next decade. In addition to recording the finest up-and-coming black musicians, these companies also recorded older black blues musicians and some white blues-androots acts, such as Roomful of Blues and Ronnie Earl. D Current Trends Blues Singer Koko Taylor The blues sound that developed in Chicago, Illinois, shares many of the characteristics of Delta blues: drones, repetition of melodic figures, bottleneck guitar techniques, and dramatic vocalizations. Originators of the Chicago style, such as Muddy Waters and Howling Wolf, added electric instruments, emphasized a driving beat, and created a music that, in volume and intensity, was well-suited for noisy nightclubs. Koko Taylor began performing in Chicago in the early 1950s, and her electric, up-tempo style is typical of the Chicago blues sound. "Put the Pot On" performed by Koko Taylor, from Force of Nature (Cat.# Alligator ALCD 4817) (c) Eyeball Music (p)1993 Alligator Records. All rights reserved./Robin Visotsky Photography Widespread interest in the blues was sparked again in the 1980s with the mainstream success of two Texas blues-rock groups, Stevie Ray Vaughan and Double Trouble and the Fabulous Thunderbirds. Vaughan, a powerful guitarist and vocalist, achieved superstar status before dying in a helicopter crash in 1990. Young blues artists such as guitarist Robert Cray also helped reenergize the form and, through regular airplay, attract new fans. During the 1980s, blues societies were founded in cities throughout North America and radio shows devoted to the blues sprang up on many college and community stations. In 1980 the W. C. Handy Awards began, a program created by the nonprofit Blues Foundation to annually recognize the best in the blues. In addition, local governments in both Mississippi and Chicago launched blues festivals that quickly garnered a national following and served to keep the music vibrant in those two important cradles of the blues. All of these developments combined virtually ensure that blues music will remain vital and strong into the 21st century. Contributed By: Rob Bowman Microsoft ® Encarta ® 2009. © 1993-2008 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.