A Brief History of the Blues

What Are the Blues?
Blues music began as the primary artistic expression of a minority culture: It was created mainly by black working class men and women. Through its simplicity, sensuality, poetry, humor and irony, it mirrored the qualities and the attitudes of blacks in America for three-quarters of a century.

The definition and most important extra-musical meaning of "blues" refers to a state of mind. But “the blues” did not enter popular American usage until after the Civil War as a description of music that expressed such a mental state among African Americans. It is generally understood that a blues performer sings or plays to rid himself of "the blues."

As the blues was created largely by illiterate musicians, scarcely any of whom could read music, improvisation, both verbal and musical, was an essential part of it, though not to the extent that it was in jazz. To facilitate improvisation, a number of patterns evolved, of which the most familiar is the 12-bar blues, Apparently, this form crystallized in the first decade of the 20th century as a three-line stanza in which the blues singer sings two lines of the same lyrics. While singing these two lines, the singer must come up with the last line of the verse to coordinate with the other two. The simplicity of blues lyrics gave the blues singer freedom to express emotion while improvising. This structure was supported by a fixed harmonic progression, which all blues performers knew and which they played almost automatically.

From the Delta to Chicago
In its early years, the blues was wholly an African-American art form. Influential in its development were the collective unaccompanied work songs of the plantation culture, which followed a responsorial "leader-and-chorus" form with an emphasis on rhythm and meter similar in nature to the marching songs of the military.

Work songs increasingly took the form of solo calls or "hollers" comparatively free in form but close to blues in feeling. The vocal style of the blues probably derived from the holler. One of the most famous work song leaders was Huddy Ledbetter, better known as "Ledbelly." As blues increased in popularity, Ledbelly moved from leading work songs to singing the blues and was very successful at it.


Continue with Part II