Blues

I INTRODUCTION

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Blues

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Blues, secular musical genre that originated during the late 19th century by African American performers (see African American Music). The genre embraces a variety of styles: downhome or country blues, boogie-woogie, classic blues, Chicago (urban) blues, and modern blues. Elements of the blues have also played a critical role in the development of jazz, gospel music, rock and roll, soul, and popular music.

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.

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Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee Sing "Better Day" Several features of traditional blues are clearly illustrated in this recording by harmonica player/singer Sonny Terry and guitarist/singer Brownie McGhee. As in many black spirituals, the call-and-response technique is illustrated in the vocal exchange between the two singers. Additionally, the percussive guitar melody is repeated behind the vocals. This recording of "Better Day" is performed by two musicians who gained national recognition during the urban folk revival movement in the 1950s."Better Day" from Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee Sing (Cat.# Smithsonian Folkways CD SF 40011) (p)1990 Smithsonian Folkways Records. All rights reserved.

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

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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. Though he was aware of the soul sound popular on the label, his recordings kept the emotion and grit of the blues. King was flexible enough to weather the changes in blues music, though he clearly never lost sight of his musical roots."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.

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Frederick Douglass on Slave Songs

Frederick Douglass, an escaped slave and influential abolitionist before the American Civil War (1861-1865), detailed his experiences in a widely-read book entitled Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, Written by Himself. Douglass grew up singing and listening to songs that are now recognized as the forerunners of more modern African American musical forms including spirituals and the blues. This excerpt, chosen from Chapter Two, gives a poignant description of the intent of this slave music and the human suffering that lay behind it.

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II MUSICAL ELEMENTS

Etta Baker Plays "Crow Jane" Before the electric guitar emerged in the late 1940s, the acoustic guitar dominated the blues genre. The guitar had earlier superseded the banjo as an instrument much more capable of matching the human voice in expressiveness, particularly when players stretched the strings on the guitar's fretboard, producing a change in pitch. Heard here is Etta Baker, an American guitarist whose playing inspired a generation of musicians after her rediscovery in the 1950s."Crow Jane" performed by Etta Baker, from One Dime Blues (Cat.# Rounder CD 2112) (p)1991 Rounder Records. All rights reserved.

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Although use of the word blues to describe sorrow extends back to 16th-century England, as a reference to music it has direct connection to the African American traumas of slavery and postslavery. Translating the emotion into music, blues performers cry, hum, moan, plead, rasp, shout, and howl lyrics and wordless sounds while creating instrumental echoes of their emotions. But even though the blues derives from the expression of traumatic experience, the purpose of the blues as music is to provide solace, comfort, and entertainment, if not joy. The blues has the power to purge the soul; thus it was in the 1930s that the blues was directly transformed into black gospel music, substituting lyrics celebrating Jesus for those concerning secular love and loss.

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Listen to Jazz & Blues radio stations

One element of blues expression has a specific name: the blue note. With its origins in African music, the blue note is played or sung at a slightly lower than normal scale and slides up and down along a tiny continuum of pitches. By contrast, in European conceptions of pitch, a given note is usually fixed to a precise point, apart from the use of a regular undulation known as vibrato.

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