What Is the History of the Blues?

The catastrophic legacy of American Slavery gave rise to the blues, a musical style born in the African-American communities of the southern United States. The blues evolved over generations to include African musical traditions, gospel church spirituals, and the folk music of white European settlers in the American South. Musically, the blues employs a four-beat–per-bar structure in a 12-bar “blues” form. Directly or indirectly, the blues has exerted a pervasive influence on the vast majority of modern music.

Blues music began in the late-nineteenth century in the southern United States, drawing inspiration from African musical traditions brought by enslaved Africans to the plantation colonies of North America. Enslaved Africans faced bans on many of their musical traditions at the hands of white planters, who viewed certain forms of expression (such as drumming) as potential tools of communication and resistance. 

Other forms of expression, such as the tradition of call-and-response work chants, were allowed to remain, as they served the purpose of maintaining productive slave gangs. The transformation of traditional African work songs reflected the catastrophic realities of American slavery. As new generations of slaves were born, plantation work songs, religious ‘spirituals,’ and white folk music began to mix together. Traditional African instruments were replaced with the banjo, piano, and guitar, leading to the emergence of regional variations of a musical style that came to be known as Country Blues. 

Delta Blues

The earliest forms of country blues originated in the Mississippi Delta region of the southern United States. Although the first Delta Blues recordings emerged in the 1920s, the roots of the Delta style run deep in the cotton plantations of Mississippi. Delta Blues is characterized by solo vocals, with guitar and sometimes harmonica as primary instruments. Open tunings, expressive “fingerstyle” rhythms, and the distinctive use of a metal or bottleneck slide are hallmarks of the Delta Blues guitar style.

Vocals in Delta Blues often follow a call-and-response pattern, and tell stories of love, loss, and the struggles of poverty, hardship, and racism in the Mississippi Delta. Renowned Delta bluesmen such as Skip James left a visible mark on the musical landscape of the blues. Others, such as Geeshie Wiley (of whom there are no known pictures and whose life details remain elusive) left behind only a handful of scattered recordings. 

A critical variation of Country Blues is the Piedmont Blues, originating from the Piedmont plateau region of the southeastern United States, which extends from Richmond, Virginia to Atlanta, Georgia, and encompasses the Carolinas, Kentucky, Tennessee, and Alabama. Sometimes known more generally as “East Coast Blues,” the Piedmont style emerged from a fusion of black gospel and country blues with the fiddle tunes and country music found in the poor white communities of the region. 

What sets it apart from Delta Blues is a distinctive fingerpicking style featuring a thumping bassline (using an alternating thumb technique) complemented by the picking of syncopated melodies with the forefingers. At the core of the Piedmont style, as demonstrated by pioneers such as Blind Blake, Elizabeth Cotton, Buddy Moss, and Rev. Gary Davis, is the use of a syncopated “ragged” rhythm, comparable in sound to late-nineteenth century ragtime and stride piano. 

Urban Blues

In the years following the American Civil War (1861-1865), the blues emerged as a distinct musical style from the oppressed and downtrodden African-American communities of the rural south. The blues served as a poignant response to catastrophic social conditions, that many sought to escape. 

As black migrant workers began to arrive in the cities of the northern states, such as Chicago, the blues traveled with them. However, the streets and cities of the north did not offer an escape from hardship. Workers and traveling musicians were forced into densely populated ghettos marked by racial segregation, dilapidated conditions, and lack of economic opportunity. 

Yet, these newfound hardships resulted in the formation of strong black churches, an uptick in social activism, and the flourishing of black culture and the arts. from within these new social conditions, a more dynamic urban iteration of the blues took shape, exemplified by electric blues guitarists such as T Bone Walker and B.B. King. 

The blues tradition wields a powerful influence over Western popular music. Rhythm and Blues (R&B) icons, Rock and Roll pioneers, and the greats of American Soul, from Nina Simone to Otis Reading are all in debt to the musical lineage of the blues. Across the Atlantic, many of the most popular British bands of the 1960s, from The Beatles to Led Zepplin and the Rolling Stones all incorporated elements of the blues into their music. Notably, The Rolling Stones even took their name from the seminal electric blues track, “Rollin’ Stone” by Muddy Waters. 

In contemporary times, Hip-hop has shown perhaps the strongest affinity with the blues. Like the blues, Hip-hop expresses the African-American experience and embraces blues-inspired melodies and the storytelling tradition. The dynamic rhythms and straight-up emotional depth of the blues continue to serve as a powerful source of inspiration for musicians across various eras and styles.