Who's Online Now
10 members (Fdemetrio, VNORTH2, Gary E. Andrews, Perry Neal Crawford, couchgrouch, Sunset Poet, Guy E. Trepanier, bennash, Bill Draper, David Gill), 4,088 guests, and 270 robots.
Key: Admin, Global Mod, Mod
Register Today!
Welcome to the Just Plain Folks forums! You are currently viewing our forums as a Guest which gives you limited access to most of our discussions and to other features.

By joining our free community you will have access to post and respond to topics, communicate privately with our users (PM), respond to polls, upload content, and access many other features. Registration is fast, simple, and absolutely free; so please join our community today!
ShoutChat
Comment Guidelines: Do post respectful and insightful comments. Don't flame, hate, spam.
What's Going On
Does Billy Joel belong in top 10?
by Fdemetrio - 03/28/24 11:10 PM
It Is Done
by Sunset Poet - 03/28/24 07:44 PM
Music Industry Summit, Athens Ohio
by Gary E. Andrews - 03/28/24 06:14 PM
Can you save me from me
by VNORTH2 - 03/28/24 03:11 PM
As human as yo
by ckiphen - 03/28/24 09:55 AM
Fox News Reports Stunning Archeological Discovery.
by couchgrouch - 03/27/24 08:02 PM
Wasting My Time
by David Gill - 03/27/24 07:42 AM
Song available
by JAPOV - 03/26/24 03:38 PM
YELLIN AT CLOUDS
by David Gill - 03/26/24 03:20 PM
"Reliving" the great Lou Rawls!
by Brian Austin Whitney - 03/26/24 01:49 PM
::: The Best In My Life :::
by Bill Draper - 03/26/24 01:32 PM
The show must go on
by ckiphen - 03/26/24 09:06 AM
NYC Motel 1972
by rpirone - 03/26/24 12:43 AM
usic Industry Summitt
by Gary E. Andrews - 03/25/24 11:32 PM
The Rant Arena
by JAPOV - 03/25/24 07:39 PM
Song available
by Raymond Byabazaire - 03/25/24 11:55 AM
Song available
by Raymond Byabazaire - 03/25/24 11:55 AM
Lancaster Festival, Lancaster, Ohio
by Gary E. Andrews - 03/25/24 10:51 AM
Wasting my time
by Rob B. - 03/25/24 03:45 AM
Tom Waits.. What's he building
by Fdemetrio - 03/25/24 12:09 AM
Rick Beato, bad lyrics
by Fdemetrio - 03/24/24 11:23 PM
Inspirational Videos Post Them Here
by Sunset Poet - 03/24/24 11:27 AM
Used to take a Genius to Mix
by Fdemetrio - 03/23/24 11:00 AM
"Broken Places"
by Gary E. Andrews - 03/22/24 07:45 PM
All You Are Is A Lie
by Sunset Poet - 03/22/24 06:55 PM
Pour Choices
by Gavin Sinclair - 03/22/24 05:29 PM
Billy's 30 year overdue song.
by Fdemetrio - 03/22/24 01:30 PM
Make my dreams come true
by ckiphen - 03/22/24 10:51 AM
Top Posters
Calvin 19,857
Travis david 12,264
Kevin Emmrich 10,941
Jean Bullock 10,330
Kaley Willow 10,240
Two Singers 9,649
Joice Marie 9,186
Mackie H. 9,003
glynda 8,683
Mike Dunbar 8,574
Tricia Baker 8,318
couchgrouch 8,160
Colin Ward 7,911
Corey 7,357
Vicarn 6,916
Mark Kaufman 6,589
ben willis 6,114
Lynn Orloff 5,788
Louis 5,725
Linda Sings 5,608
KimberlyinNC 5,210
Fdemetrio 4,990
Neil Cotton 4,909
Derek Hines 4,893
DonnaMarilyn 4,670
Blake Hill 4,528
Bob Cushing 4,389
Roy Cooper 4,271
Bill Osofsky 4,199
Tom Shea 4,195
Cindy Miller 4,178
TamsNumber4 4,171
MFB III 4,143
Sunset Poet 4,126
nightengale 4,096
E Swartz 3,985
JAPOV 3,973
beechnut79 3,878
Caroline 3,865
Kolstad 3,845
Dan Sullivan 3,710
Dottie 3,427
joewatt 3,411
Bill Cooper 3,279
John Hoffman 3,199
Skip Johnson 3,027
Pam Hurley 3,007
Terry G 3,005
Nigel Quin 2,891
PopTodd 2,890
Harriet Ames 2,870
MidniteBob 2,761
Nelson 2,616
Tom Tracy 2,558
Jerry Jakala 2,524
Al Alvarez 2,499
Eric Thome 2,448
Hummingbird 2,401
Stan Loh 2,263
Sam Wilson 2,246
Wendy D 2,235
Judy Hollier 2,232
Erica Ellis 2,202
maccharles 2,134
TrumanCoyote 2,096
Marty Helly 2,041
DukeWill 2,002
floyd jane 1,985
Clint Anglin 1,904
cindyrella 1,888
David Wright 1,866
Clairejeanne 1,851
Cindy LaRosa 1,824
Ronald Boyt 1,675
Iggy 1,652
Noel Downs 1,633
Rick Heenan 1,608
Cal 1,574
GocartMoz 1,559
Jack Swain 1,554
Pete Larsen 1,537
Ann Tygart 1,529
Tom Breshers 1,487
RogerS 1,481
Tom Franz 1,473
Chuck Crowe 1,441
Ralph Blight 1,440
Rick Norton 1,429
Kenneth Cade 1,429
bholt 1,411
Letha Allen 1,409
in2piano 1,404
Stan Simons 1,402
Deej56 1,385
mattbanx 1,384
Jen Shaner 1,373
Charlie Wong 1,347
KevinP 1,324
Vondelle 1,316
Tom W. 1,313
Jan Petter 1,301
scottandrew 1,294
lane1777 1,280
Gerry 1,280
DakLander 1,265
IronKnee 1,262
PeteG 1,242
Ian Ferrin 1,235
Glen King 1,214
VNORTH2 1,212
IdeaGuy 1,209
AaronAuthier 1,177
summeoyo 1,174
Diane Ewing 1,162
ckiphen 1,120
joro 1,082
BobbyJoe 1,075
S.DEE 1,040
yann 1,037
9ne 1,035
David Gill 1,032
Tony A 1,016
argo 986
peaden 984
90 dB 964
Wolvman 960
Jak Kelly 912
krtinberg 890
Drifter 886
Petra 883
RJC 845
Brenda152 840
Nadia 829
ant 798
Juan 797
TKO 784
Dayson 781
frahmes 781
bennash 763
teletwang 762
Andy K 750
Andy Kemp 749
tbryson 737
Jackie444 731
Irwin 720
3daveyO3 704
Dixie 701
Joy Boy 695
Pat Hardy 692
Knute 686
Lee Arten 678
Moosesong 668
Katziis 652
R.T.MOORE 638
quality 637
CG King 622
douglas 621
R&M 614
Mel 614
NaomiSue 601
Shandy 590
Ria 587
TAMERA64 583
qbaum 570
nitepiano 566
pRISCILLA 556
Tink2 553
musica 539
deanbell 528
RobertK 527
BonzaiWag 523
Roderic 522
BB Wilbur 513
goodfolks 499
Zeek 487
Stu 486
Steve P. 481
KathyW 462
allenb 459
MaxG 458
Philjo 454
fanito 448
trush48 448
dmk 442
Rob L 439
arealrush 437
DGR 436
avweek 435
Stephen D 433
Emmy 431
marquez 422
kit 419
Softkrome 417
kyrksongs 415
RRon 408
Laura G. 407
VNORTH 407
Debra 407
eb 406
cuebald 399
EdPerrone 399
Dannyk1 395
Hobart 395
Davyboy49 393
Smile 389
GJShades 387
Alek 386
Ezt 384
tone 380
Marla 380
Ann_F 379
iggyiggy 378
coalminer 377
java 374
ddreuter 371
spidey 371
sweetsong 370
danny 367
Rob B. 364
Jim Ryan 360
papaG 353
Z - man 350
JamesDF5 348
John K 348
Jaden 344
TheBaz 340
Steggy 339
leif 339
tonedeaf 336
rickwork 334
Eddie Ray 332
Johnboy 328
Bob Lever 328
Helicon1 327
lucian 326
Muskie 321
kc 319
Z. Mulls 318
ptondreau 313
ONOFFON 312
Chris B. 310
trush 304
ed323 297
Ellen M 294
markus-ky 293
lizzorn 291
nicnac49 290
Char 286
ktunes 285
Top Likes Received
JAPOV 86
VNORTH2 45
bennash 38
Previous Thread
Next Thread
Print Thread
Rate Thread
#731534 06/21/09 05:00 PM
Joined: Apr 2008
Posts: 54
Serious Contributor
OP Offline
Serious Contributor
Joined: Apr 2008
Posts: 54
Not many people realise this but the Blues was actually invented in England. It was invented by Nigel (somewhat-short-sighted-boy) Crabtree in 1909 with his wonderful rendition of 'Marmalade Blues', a brief extract of which I have included below:

Oh I'm terribly fond of marmalade
I can eat it all day long
Oh yes! I'm terribly fond of marmalade
I can eat it all day long
I would even eat it for luncheon
But that would be frightfully wrong

Oh if I feel tomorrow
The way I feel today
Yes if I feel tomorrow
The way I feel today
I'll probably say to myself
Golly! I felt like this yesterday!

As you can see, it was rather a jolly genre in those days. None of this I-feel-so-bad business; just happy little songs about marmalade.

Then, in 1915, a small group of slaves from the cotton fields of Louisiana, who were on a whistle-stop tour of Europe for their vacation just happened to hear Nigel one evening while he was performing in cabaret at the Ritz, where they were staying. The rest is history.

Since then, the genre has changed considerably. It became darker and rather depressive. No more jolly songs about marmalade, although they did tend to sing about something called 'jellyroll', which sounds absolutely frightful.

Most of the songs, however, were largely about creative methods of suicide and, to illustrate this, I include an extract from 'Trouble In Mind' by Richard M Jones (1926):

I'm going down to that river
Take my old rockin' chair
I'm going down to that river
Take my old rockin' chair
If them troubles don' leave me
I'll rock on outa here

Well that puts sticking your head in the gas oven into the shade.

Blues fans may have noticed something of a fixation with a train simply referred to as 'the two-nineteen'. One verse from 'Trouble In Mind' also appears word-for-word in a song called 'Two-Nineteen Blues' and is as follows:

I'm gonna lay my head
On that lonesome railroad line
I'm gonna lay my head
On that lonesome railroad line
An' let that Two-Nineteen
Ease my troubled mind

Now, the interesting thing about the Two-Nineteen is that it was also known as the Delta Suicide Express and ran at precisely 2:19 every day (except during the Depression, when they had to put on extra trains to cope with demand).

That ol' lonesome railroad line was pretty lonesome most of the time... but between 2:15 and 2:25, you could hardly see an inch of track between the heads.

These days, it's almost impossible to write an original blues song. The musical phrasing and the style and subject matter of the lyrics have become so established that, if it aint been done before, it aint blues.

Every new blues song is basically a patchwork of plagiarised bits of all the other blues songs. New songs aren't so much written as re-assembled.

Thinking about this, I decided that, rather than plagiarise all the other blues songs, I'd write a blues song that only plagiarised one (St. Louis Blues).

Unfortunately, I didn't know the chords for St. Louis Blues so I made up my own chords. Then I thought I'd better check the chords with the melody but, for the life of me, I couldn't remember the melody either... so I made up my own melody as well. The lyrics of St. Louis Blues simply didn't pan with the chords and melody I made up so I thought, rather than change what I'd done so far, I'll make up my own lyrics too.

Well, I've been playing my plagiarised St. Louis Blues and passing it off as my own for about two years now and I seem to be getting away with it.

I'll finish up with an extract of St. Louis Blues by Lone (Hemorrhoids) Turtle:

I jumped me a freight train
Sat myself down inside
(Ooh yeah! Y'know what I'm talkin' about)
I jumped me a freight train
Sat myself down inside
It was the two-nineteen
Sure was a bumpy ride


The difference between being on an unknown journey and being lost is simply a matter of attitude.
http://loneturtle.co.uk
Joined: Nov 2006
Posts: 8,463
Top 20 Poster
Offline
Top 20 Poster
Joined: Nov 2006
Posts: 8,463
Blues......."simple songs with simple chord structures about hard but simple lifestyles all made very complicated by attitudes and virtuoso performances"


I LOVE IT.

During the fifties and early sixties when blues first became popular here in the UK it was the exclusive domain of middle-upper class geeks who strived to have the best collection of rare imported American Blues records. Many top American Blues artists were invited over to play top paying sell out gigs. These artists, Howlin Wolf, BB King, Big Bill etc etc were amazed to find themselves playing to weird, white, mainly male audiences who knew all their songs and even more amazed to be treated like royalty by white folks when in their own country they could not even use the same washrooms never mind playing to packed out white audiences.

Joined: Dec 2008
Posts: 3,845
K
Top 100 Poster
Offline
Top 100 Poster
K
Joined: Dec 2008
Posts: 3,845
Ron,

That's a hillarious story! Really fun interpretations of true facts.

Great example of how lyrics are recieved as well!

Joined: Apr 2001
Posts: 8,574
JPF Mentor
Offline
JPF Mentor
Joined: Apr 2001
Posts: 8,574
It sounds perfectly true to me. Good history lesson smile

Thanks, Ron, for your contribution.


You've got to know your limitations. I don't know what your limitations are. I found out what mine were when I was twelve. I found out that there weren't too many limitations, if I did it my way. -Johnny Cash

It's only music.
-niteshift

Mike Dunbar Music

Joined: Sep 2008
Posts: 49
Serious Contributor
Offline
Serious Contributor
Joined: Sep 2008
Posts: 49
I could not disagree more. The content of the blues is about sadness, bad women(or men), love gone wrong, and other stories of depression; not marmalade in England. Also, the blues is a genre with its own form; that is why it sounds like the blues we all know and love. There is no copyright on chord progression, so you are not plagiarizing unless you are claiming St. Louis Blues to be yours, and besides St.Louis Blues is probably in public domain.

Sincerely,
Keith Gamble, Saxophonist

Joined: Feb 2004
Posts: 2,524
Top 100 Poster
Offline
Top 100 Poster
Joined: Feb 2004
Posts: 2,524
The Blues were actually discovered here in America by Mr.Handy via 1902.
They actually started off as field hand songs in the cotton fields.



http://www.jerryjakala.com
http://cdbaby.com/cd/jakalajerry2

The difference between genius and stupidity is that there is a limit on genius.-Albert Einstein
Joined: Nov 2006
Posts: 8,463
Top 20 Poster
Offline
Top 20 Poster
Joined: Nov 2006
Posts: 8,463
What? You are saying that the blues were not invented in England!

ARE YOU SURE?

What a disappointment. I thought that something so wonderful had to be English.

Joined: Apr 2002
Posts: 19,857
Likes: 1
Top 10 Poster
Offline
Top 10 Poster
Joined: Apr 2002
Posts: 19,857
Likes: 1
where, ever....

I'm enjoying this thread.

Calvin


http://www.soundclick.com/bands/0/calvinstewart

Joined: May 2006
Posts: 7,911
Likes: 1
Top 30 Poster
Offline
Top 30 Poster
Joined: May 2006
Posts: 7,911
Likes: 1
The English just caused the blues........


Colin

I try to critique as if you mean business.....

http://colinwardmusic.com/

http://rosewoodcreekband.com/


Joined: Feb 2004
Posts: 2,524
Top 100 Poster
Offline
Top 100 Poster
Joined: Feb 2004
Posts: 2,524

Wikipedia is sustained by people like you. Please donate today.Blues
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jump to: navigation, search
This article is about the music genre. For other uses, see Blues (disambiguation).
Blues
Stylistic origins African American folk music
Work songs
Spirituals
Cultural origins late 19th century southern United States
Typical instruments Guitar · Piano · Harmonica · Bass guitar · Drums · Saxophone · Vocals · Trumpet · Trombone
Mainstream popularity widespread since the early 20th century
Derivative forms Bluegrass · Jazz · R&B · Rock and roll
Subgenres
Boogie-woogie · Classic female blues · Country blues · Delta blues · Electric blues · Fife and drum blues · Jump blues · Piano blues
Fusion genres
Blues rock · Jazz blues · Punk blues · Soul blues
Regional scenes
African blues Atlanta blues · British blues · Canadian blues · Chicago blues · Detroit blues · East Coast blues · Kansas City blues · Louisiana blues · Memphis blues · New Orleans blues · Piedmont blues · St. Louis blues · Swamp blues · Texas blues · West Coast blues
Other topics
Blues genres · Blues musicians · Blues scale · Jug band · Origins
Blues is the name given to both a musical form and a music genre created within the African-American communities in the Deep South of the United States at the end of the 19th century from spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts and chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads.[1] The blues form which is ubiquitous in jazz, rhythm and blues and rock and roll is characterized by the use of specific chord progressions — the twelve-bar blues chord progressions being the most frequently encountered — and the blue notes sung or played for expressive purposes at a slightly lower pitch than that of the major scale.

The blues genre is based on the blues form but possesses other characteristics such as specific lyrics, bass lines and instruments. Blues can be subdivided in several subgenres ranging from country to urban blues that were more or less popular during different periods of the 20th century. Best known are the Delta, Piedmont, Jump and Chicago blues styles. World War II marked the transition from acoustic to electric blues and the progressive opening of blues music to a wider audience. In the 1960s and 1970s, blues evolved into a hybrid form called blues rock. In the 1990s, punk blues appeared as an outgrowth of punk rock claiming a direct Delta blues influence.

The term "the blues" refers to the "the blue devils", meaning melancholy and sadness; an early use of the term in this sense is found in George Colman's one-act farce Blue Devils (1798).[2] Though the use of the phrase in African American music may be older, it has been attested to since 1912, when Hart Wand's "Dallas Blues" became the first copyrighted blues composition.[3][4] In lyrics the phrase is often used to describe a depressed mood.[5]

Contents [hide]
1 Musical form
2 Lyrics
3 History
3.1 Origins
3.2 Prewar blues
3.3 Early post-war era
3.4 1960s and 1970s
3.5 1980s to the 2000s
4 Musical impact
5 In popular culture
6 See also
7 Notes
8 References
9 Further reading
10 External links



[edit] Musical form
During the first decades of the twentieth century, blues music was not clearly defined in terms of a chord progression.[6] By the 1920s, probably due to the commercial success in the African-American community of singers such as Bessie Smith, twelve-bar blues became the standard.[7] Other chords progressions are still called blues such as 8-bar forms, like "How Long Blues", "Trouble in Mind", and Big Bill Broonzy's "Key to the Highway". There would also be 16 bar blues, as in Ray Charles's instrumental "Sweet 16 Bars" and in Herbie Hancock's "Watermelon Man". Idiosyncratic numbers of bars are also encountered occasionally, as with the 9-bar progression in "Sitting on Top of the World".

Chords played over a twelve-bar scheme: Chords for a blues in C:
I I or IV I I7
IV IV I I7
V V or IV I I or V
C C or F C C7
F F C C7
G G or F C C or G

The basic twelve-bar lyric framework of a blues composition is reflected by a standard harmonic progression of twelve bars in 4/4. The blues chords associated to a twelve-bar blues are typically a set of three different chords played over a twelve-bar scheme. They are labelled by Roman numbers referring to the degrees of the progression. For instance for a blues in C, C is the tonic chord (I) and F the subdominant (IV). The last chord is the dominant (V) turnaround, marking the transition to the beginning of the next progression. Much of the time, some or all of these chords are played in the harmonic seventh (7th) form. The use of the harmonic seventh interval is characteristic of blues and is popularly called the "blues seven".[8] At a 7:4 ratio, it is not close to any interval on the conventional Western diatonic scale. [9] Through convenience or necessity it is often approximated by a minor seventh interval or a dominant seventh chord. The lyrics generally end on the last beat of the tenth bar or the first beat of the eleventh bar, and the final two bars are given to the instrumentalist as a break; the harmony of this two-bar break, the turnaround, can be extremely complex, sometimes consisting of single notes that defy analysis in terms of chords.


A minor pentatonic scale; play (help·info)In melody, blues is distinguished by the use of the flattened third, fifth and seventh of the associated major scale.[10] These specialized notes are called the blue or bent notes. These scale tones may replace the natural scale tones, or they may be added to the scale, as in the case of the minor pentatonic blues scale, in which the flattened third replaces the natural third, the flattened seventh replaces the natural seventh and the flattened fifth is added between the natural fourth and natural fifth. While the twelve-bar harmonic progression had been intermittently used for centuries, the revolutionary aspect of blues was the frequent use of the flattened third, flattened seventh, and even flattened fifth in the melody, together with crushing—playing directly adjacent notes at the same time (i.e., diminished second)—and sliding, similar to using grace notes.[11] The blue notes allow for key moments of expression during the cadences, melodies, and embellishments of the blues.

Blues shuffles or walking bass reinforce the trance-like rhythm and call-and-response, and they form a repetitive effect called a groove. Characteristic of the blues since its Afro-American origins, the shuffles played a central role in swing music.[12] The simplest shuffles, which were the clearest signature of the R&B wave that started in the mid 1940s,[13] were a three-note riff on the bass strings of the guitar. When this riff was played over the bass and the drums, the groove "feel" was created. Shuffle rhythm is often vocalized as "dow, da dow, da dow, da" or "dump, da dump, da dump, da":[14] it consists of uneven, or "swung," eighth notes. On a guitar this may be played as a simple steady bass or it may add to that stepwise quarter note motion from the fifth to the sixth of the chord and back. An example is provided by the following guitar tablature for the first four bars of a blues progression in E:[15][16]

E7 A7 E7 E7
E |--------------------|--------------------|--------------------|--------------------|
B |--------------------|--------------------|--------------------|--------------------|
G |--------------------|--------------------|--------------------|--------------------|
D |--------------------|2--2-4--2-5--2-4--2-|--------------------|--------------------|
A |2--2-4--2-5--2-4--2-|0--0-0--0-0--0-0--2-|2--2-4--2-5--2-4--2-|2--2-4--2-5--2-4--2-|
E |0--0-0--0-0--0-0--2-|--------------------|0--0-0--0-0--0-0--2-|0--0-0--0-0--0-0--2-|

[edit] Lyrics

Robert Johnson, an influential Delta blues musicianThe traditional blues verse was probably a single line, repeated four times. It was only later that the current, most common structure of a line, repeated once and then followed by a single line conclusion, became standard, the so-called AAB pattern.[17] Two of the first published blues songs, Dallas Blues (1912) and St. Louis Blues (1914), each featured lines repeated twice, followed by an "answer" line, played over 12 bars of music. W.C. Handy wrote that he adopted this convention to avoid the monotony of lines repeated three times.[18] These lines were often sung following a pattern closer to a rhythmic talk than to a melody. Early blues frequently took the form of a loose narrative. The singer voiced his or her "personal woes in a world of harsh reality: a lost love, the cruelty of police officers, oppression at the hands of white folk, [and] hard times."[19]

Author Ed Morales has claimed that Yoruba mythology played a part in early blues, citing Robert Johnson's "Cross Road Blues" as a "thinly veiled reference to Eleggua, the orisha in charge of the crossroads".[20] However, the Christian influence was far more obvious.[21] Many seminal blues artists such as Charley Patton, or Skip James had in their repertoire several religious songs or spirituals.[22] Reverend Gary Davis[23] and Blind Willie Johnson[24] are examples of artists often categorized as blues musicians for their music but whose lyrics clearly belong to the spirituals.

Although the blues gained an association with misery and oppression, the blues could also be humorous and raunchy as well:[25]

"Rebecca, Rebecca, get your big legs off of me,
Rebecca, Rebecca, get your big legs off of me,
It may be sending you baby, but it's worrying the hell out of me."
From Big Joe Turner's "Rebecca", a compilation of traditional blues lyrics
Hokum blues celebrated both comedic lyrical content and a boisterous, farcical performance style.[26] Tampa Red's classic "Tight Like That" is a sly wordplay with the double meaning of being "tight" with someone coupled with a more salacious physical familiarity. Lyrical content of music became slightly simpler in post war-blues in which focus was often almost exclusively on singer's relationship woes or sexual worries. Many lyrical themes that frequently appeared in pre-war blues such as economic depression, farming, devils, gambling, magic, floods and dry periods were less common post war blues.[27]


[edit] History
"The Memphis Blues"

The Memphis Blues, composed by W. C. Handy in 1912. Recorded by Victor Military Band. First known commercial recording of Handy's first commercially successful blues composition.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Crazy Blues

The first commercial recording of vocal blues by an African-American singer: Mamie Smith's performance of Perry Bradford's "Crazy Blues" in 1920.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Keep your lamp trimmed and burning

Traditional spiritual performed by Texas gospel singer Blind Willie Johnson (vocal and guitar) and Willie B. Harris (vocal) in 1927. This example shows the close relationship between gospel and blues music.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Dupree Blues

Piedmont blues, performed in 1930 by Blind Willie Walker

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Cross Road Blues

Cross Road Blues, performed in 1937 by Robert Johnson, a Delta blues guitarist

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Moanin' At Midnight

Chicago blues of the early post-war era, Recorded by Howlin' Wolf in 1951.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Mr. P.C.

Hard Bop recorded by John Coltrane in 1960. This is an example of jazz with blues structure.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Steppin' Out

Steppin' Out, Chicago blues composed by James Bracken and performed in the rock blues style by John Mayall & the Bluesbreakers on the album Bluesbreakers with Eric Clapton, 1966.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Believe Her 'Till I Leave Her"

Believe Her 'Till I Leave Her, performed in the Chicago blues style by B.C. Williamson in 1975.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Problems listening to these files? See media help.

[edit] Origins
Main article: Origins of the blues

John Lomax, pioneering musicologist and folkloristThe first publication of blues sheet music was Hart Wand's "Dallas Blues" in 1912; W. C. Handy's "Memphis Blues" followed in the same year. The first recording by an African American singer was Mamie Smith's 1920 rendition of Perry Bradford's "Crazy Blues". But the origins of the blues date back to some decades earlier, probably during the late 19th century around 1890.[28] They are very poorly documented, due in part to discrimation within American society, including academic circles,[29] and to the low alphabetization of the rural African American community.[30] Chroniclers began to report about blues music in Southern Texas and Deep South at the dawn of the 20th century. In particular, Charles Peabody reports about appearance of blues music at Clarksdale, Mississippi and Gate Thomas about very similar songs in southern Texas around 1901-1902. These observations coincide more or less with the remembrance of Jelly Roll Morton, who declared having heard blues for the first time in New Orleans in 1902, Ma Rainey, who remembered her first blues experience the same year in Missouri, and W.C. Handy, who first heard the blues in Tutwiler, Mississippi in 1903. The first extensive research in the field was performed by Howard W. Odum who published between 1905 and 1908 a large anthology of folk songs in the counties of Lafayette, Mississippi and Newton, Georgia.[31] The first non commercial recordings of blues music, coined proto-blues by Paul Oliver, were made by Odum at the very beginning of the 20th century for research purpose. They are now utterly lost.[32] Recordings which are still available were made in 1924 by Lawrence Gellert. Later, several recordings were performed, in particular by Robert W. Gordon which became head of the Archive of American Folk Songs of the Library of Congress. Gordon's successor at the Library was John Lomax. Lomax recorded in the 1930s together with his son Alan a large amount of non commercial blues which testimony the huge variety of proto-blues styles, such as field hollers and ring shouts.[33] A testimony of blues music as it was before the 1920s is also given by the recordings of artists such as Lead Belly[34] or Henry Thomas[35] who both performed archaic blues music. All these sources show the existence of many different structures distinct of the twelve-, eight-, or sixteen-bar.[36]

The social and economic reasons for the appearance of the blues are not fully known.[37] The first appearance of the blues is not well defined and is often dated after the Emancipation Act in 1863,[29] between 1870 and 1900, a period that coincides with Emancipation and, later, the development of juke joints as places where Blacks went listening to music, dancing and often gambling after a hard day's work.[38] This period corresponds to the transition from slavery to sharecropping, small-scale agricultural production and the expansion of railroads in the southern United States. Several scholars characterize the early 1900s development of blues music as a move from group performances to a more individualized style. They argue that the development of the blues is associated with the newly acquired freedom of the enslaved people. According to Lawrence Levine, "there was a direct relationship between the national ideological emphasis upon the individual, the popularity of Booker T. Washington's teachings, and the rise of the blues." Levine states that "psychologically, socially, and economically, African-Americans were being acculturated in a way that would have been impossible during slavery, and it is hardly surprising that their secular music reflected this as much as their religious music did."[39]

There are few characteristics common to all blues music, because the genre took its shape from the idiosyncrasies of individual performances.[40] However, there are some characteristics that were present long before the creation of the modern blues. An early form of blues-like music were call-and-response shouts, which were a "functional expression... style without accompaniment or harmony and unbounded by the formality of any particular musical structure."[41] A form of this pre-blues was heard in slave ring shouts and field hollers, expanded into "simple solo songs laden with emotional content".[42]

Blues has evolved from an unaccompanied vocal music and oral traditions of African-American slaves (imported from West Africa; principally present day Mali, Senegal, the Gambia and Ghana)[43][44] and rural blacks into a wide variety of styles and subgenres, with regional variations across the United States. Though blues, as it is now known, can be seen as a musical style based on both European harmonic structure and the African call-and-response tradition, transformed into an interplay of voice and guitar,[45][46] the blues form itself bears no resemblance to the melodic styles of the West African griots, and the influences are faint and tenuous.[47][48] In particular, no specific African musical form can be identified as the single direct ancestor of the blues.[49] However many blues elements, such as the call-and-response format and the use of blue notes, can be traced back to the music of Africa. That blue notes pre-date their use in blues and have an African origin is attested by English composer Samuel Coleridge-Taylor's "A Negro Love Song", from his The African Suite for Piano composed in 1898, which contains blue third and seventh notes.[50] The Diddley bow, a homemade one-stringed instrument found in parts of the American South in the early twentieth century, and the banjo are African-derived instruments that may have helped in the transfer of African performance techniques into the early blues instrumental vocabulary.[51] The banjo seems to be directly imported from the western African music. It is analogous to the musical instrument that griots played and which was called halam or konting by African peoples such as the Wolof, Fula and Madinka.[52] However in the 1920s, at the time country blues began to get recorded, the use of the banjo in blues music was quite marginal and limited to individuals such as Papa Charlie Jackson and later Gus Cannon.[53]

Blues music also adopted elements from the "Ethiopian airs", minstrel shows and Negro spirituals, including instrumental and harmonic accompaniment.[54] The style also was closely related to ragtime, which developed at about the same time, though the blues better preserved "the original melodic patterns of African music".[55]

The musical forms and styles that are now considered the "blues" as well as modern "country music" arose in the same regions during the nineteenth century in the southern United States. Recorded blues and country can be found from as far back as the 1920s, when the popular record industry developed and created marketing categories called "race music" and "hillbilly music" to sell music by blacks for blacks and by whites for whites, respectively. At the time, there was no clear musical division between "blues" and "country," except for the ethnicity of the performer, and even that was sometimes documented incorrectly by record companies.[56][57] Though musicologists can now attempt to define “the blues” narrowly in terms of certain chord structures and lyric strategies thought to have originated in West Africa, audiences originally heard the music in a far more general way: it was simply the music of the rural south, notably the Mississippi Delta. Black and white musicians shared the same repertoire and thought of themselves as “songsters” rather than “blues musicians.” The notion of blues as a separate genre arose during the black migration from the countryside to urban areas in the 1920s and the simultaneous development of the recording industry. “Blues” became a code word for a record designed to sell to black listeners.[58]

The origins of the blues are closely related to the religious music of the Afro-American community, the spirituals. The origins of the religious music of the Afro-Americans are much older than the blues and are usually dated to the mid of the 18th century when the slaves were Christianized and began to sing and play Christian hymns, in particular those of Isaac Watts which were very popular.[59] When the blues appeared, before blues gained its formal definition in terms of chord progressions, the blues was defined as the secular counter part of the spirituals. It was the low-down music played by the rural Blacks. Depending on the religious community a musician belonged to, it was more or less considered as a sin to play this low-down music: blues was the devil's music. Musicians were therefore segregated into two categories: gospel and blues singers, guitar preachers and songsters. However, at the time rural Black music began to get recorded in the 1920s, both categories of musicians used very similar techniques: call-and-response patterns, blue notes, slide guitars. Gospel music was nevertheless using music forms compatible with Christian hymns and therefore less marked by the blues form than its secular counter part.[60]


[edit] Prewar blues
The American sheet music publishing industry produced a great deal of ragtime music. By 1912, the sheet music industry published three popular blues-like compositions, precipitating the Tin Pan Alley adoption of blues elements: "Baby Seals' Blues" by "Baby" F. Seals (arranged by Artie Matthews), "Dallas Blues" by Hart Wand and "The Memphis Blues" by W. C. Handy.[61]


Sheet music from "St. Louis Blues" (1914)Handy was a formally trained musician, composer and arranger who helped to popularize the blues by transcribing and orchestrating blues in an almost symphonic style, with bands and singers. He became a popular and prolific composer, and billed himself as the "Father of the Blues"; however, his compositions can be described as a fusion of blues with ragtime and jazz, a merger facilitated using the Cuban habanera rhythm that had long been a part of ragtime;[20][62] Handy's signature work was the "St. Louis Blues".

In the 1920s, the blues became a major element of African American and American popular music, reaching white audiences via Handy's arrangements and the classic female blues performers. The blues evolved from informal performances in bars to entertainment in theaters. Blues performances were organized by the Theater Owners Bookers Association in nightclubs such as the Cotton Club and juke joints such as the bars along Beale Street in Memphis. Several record companies, such as the American Record Corporation, Okeh Records, and Paramount Records, began to record African American music.

As the recording industry grew, country blues performers like Bo Carter, Blind Lemon Jefferson, Lonnie Johnson, Tampa Red and Blind Blake became more popular in the African American community. Kentucky-born Sylvester Weaver was in 1923 the first to record the slide guitar style, in which a guitar is fretted with a knife blade or the sawed-off neck of a bottle.[63] The slide guitar became an important part of the Delta blues.[64] The first blues recordings from the 1920s are categorized as a traditional, rural country blues and a more polished 'city' or urban blues.

Country blues performers often improvised, either without accompaniment or with only a banjo or guitar. Regional styles of country blues varied widely in the early 20th century. The (Mississippi) Delta blues was a rootsy sparse style with passionate vocals accompanied by slide guitar. The little-recorded Robert Johnson[65] combined elements of urban and rural blues. In addition to Robert Johnson, influential performers of this style included his predecessors Charley Patton and Son House. Singers such as Blind Willie McTell and Blind Boy Fuller performed in the southeastern "delicate and lyrical" Piedmont blues tradition, which used an elaborate ragtime-based fingerpicking guitar technique. Georgia also had an early slide tradition[66] with George Carter, Curley Weaver, Tampa Red, "Barbecue Bob" Hicks and James "Kokomo" Arnold as representatives of this style.[67]

The lively Memphis blues style, which developed in the 1920s and 1930s near Memphis, Tennessee, was influenced by jug bands such as the Memphis Jug Band or the Gus Cannon's Jug Stompers. Performers such as Frank Stokes, Blind Old Tom Anderson, Sleepy John Estes, Robert Wilkins, Big Boy Brazier, Joe McCoy and Memphis Minnie used a variety of unusual instruments such as washboard, fiddle, kazoo or mandolin. Memphis Minnie was famous for her virtuoso guitar style. Pianist Memphis Slim began his career in Memphis, but his distinct style was smoother and had some swing elements. Many blues musicians based in Memphis moved to Chicago in the late 1930s or early 1940s and became part of the urban blues movement, which blended country music and electric blues.[68][69][70]


Bessie Smith, an early blues singer, was known for her powerful voice.City or urban blues styles were more codified and elaborate as a performer was no longer within their local, immediate community and had to adapt to a larger, more varied audience's aesthetic.[71] Classic female urban and vaudeville blues singers were popular in the 1920s, among them Mamie Smith, Gertrude "Ma" Rainey, Bessie Smith, and Victoria Spivey. Mamie Smith, more a vaudeville performer than a blues artist, was the first African-American to record a blues in 1920; her second record, "Crazy Blues", sold 75,000 copies in its first month.[72] Ma Rainey, the "Mother of Blues", and Bessie Smith each "[sang] around center tones, perhaps in order to project her voice more easily to the back of a room." Smith would "...sing a song in an unusual key, and her artistry in bending and stretching notes with her beautiful, powerful contralto to accommodate her own interpretation was unsurpassed."[73] Urban male performers included popular black musicians of the era, such Tampa Red, Big Bill Broonzy and Leroy Carr. Before WWII, Tampa Red was sometimes referred to as "the Guitar Wizard". Carr accompanied himself on the piano with Scrapper Blackwell on guitar, a format that continued well into the 50s with people such as Charles Brown, and even Nat "King" Cole.[64]


A typical boogie-woogie basslineBoogie-woogie was another important style of 1930s and early 1940s urban blues.[74] While the style is often associated with solo piano, boogie-woogie was also used to accompany singers and, as a solo part, in bands and small combos. Boogie-Woogie style was characterized by a regular bass figure, an ostinato or riff and shifts of level in the left hand, elaborating each chord and trills and decorations in the right hand. Boogie-woogie was pioneered by the Chicago-based Jimmy Yancey and the Boogie-Woogie Trio (Albert Ammons, Pete Johnson and Meade Lux Lewis).[75] Chicago boogie-woogie performers included Clarence "Pine Top" Smith and Earl Hines, who "linked the propulsive left-hand rhythms of the ragtime pianists with melodic figures similar to those of Armstrong's trumpet in the right hand."[71] The smooth Louisiana style of Professor Longhair and, more recently, Dr. John blends classic rhythm and blues with blues styles.

Another development in this period was big band blues.[76] The "territory bands" operating out of Kansas City, the Benny Moten orchestra, Jay McShann, and the Count Basie Orchestra were also concentrating on the blues, with 12-bar blues instrumentals such as Basie's "One O'Clock Jump" and "Jumpin' at the Woodside" and boisterous "blues shouting" by Jimmy Rushing on songs like "Going to Chicago" and "Sent for You Yesterday". A well-known big band blues tune is Glenn Miller's "In the Mood". In the 1940s, the jump blues style developed. Jump blues grew up from the boogie woogie wave and was stronly influenced by big band music. It uses saxophone or other brass instruments and the guitar in the rhythm section to create a jazzy, up-tempo sound with declamatory vocals. Jump blues tunes by Louis Jordan and Big Joe Turner, based in Kansas City, Missouri, influenced the development of later styles such as rock and roll and rhythm and blues.[77] Dallas-born T-Bone Walker, which is often associated to the California blues style,[78] performed a successful transition from the early urban blues à la Lonnie Johnson and Leroy Carr to the jump blues style and dominated the blues-jazz scene at Los Angeles during the 1940s.[79]


[edit] Early post-war era
The transition from country to urban blues, that began in the 1920s, had always been driven by the successive waves of economic crisis and booms and the associated move of the rural Blacks to urban areas, the Great Migration. The long boom in the aftermath of World War II induced a massive migration of the African American population, the Second Great Migration, which was accompanied by a significative increase of the real income of the urban Blacks. The new migrants constituted a new market for the music industry. The name race record disappeared and was succeeded by Rhythm and Blues. This rapidly evolving market was mirrored by the Billboard Rhythm and Blues Chart. This marketing strategy reinforced trends within urban blues music such as the progessive electrification of the instruments, their amplification and the generalization of the blues beat, the blues shuffle, that became ubiquitous in R&B. This commercial stream had important consequences for blues music which, together with Jazz and Gospel music, became a component of the R&B wave.[80]


Muddy Waters, described as "the guiding light of the modern blues school"[81]After World War II and in the 1950s, new styles of electric blues music became popular in cities such as Chicago,[82] Memphis,[83] Detroit[84][85] and St. Louis.[86] Electric blues used amplified electric guitars, double bass which was progressively replaced by bass guitar, drums, and harmonica played through a microphone and a PA system or a guitar amplifier. Chicago became a center for electric blues from 1948 on, when Muddy Waters recorded his first success: "I Can't Be Satisfied".[87] Chicago blues is influenced to a large extent by the Mississippi blues style, because many performers had migrated from the Mississippi region. Howlin' Wolf,[88] Muddy Waters,[89] Willie Dixon,[90] and Jimmy Reed[91] were all born in Mississippi and moved to Chicago during the Great Migration. Their style is characterized by the use of electric guitar, sometimes slide guitar, harmonica, and a rhythm section of bass and drums. J. T. Brown who played in Elmore James's bands,[92] or J. B. Lenoir's[93] also used saxophones, but these were used more as "backing" or rhythmic support than as solo instruments.

Little Walter and Sonny Boy Williamson (Rice Miller) are well known harmonica (called "harp" by blues musicians) players of the early Chicago blues scene. Other harp players such as Big Walter Horton were also influential. Muddy Waters and Elmore James were known for their innovative use of slide electric guitar. Howlin' Wolf and Muddy Waters were known for their deep, "gravelly" voices.

Bassist and composer Willie Dixon played a major role on the Chicago blues scene. He composed and wrote many standard blues songs of the period, such as "Hoochie Coochie Man", "I Just Want to Make Love to You" (both penned for Muddy Waters) and, "Wang Dang Doodle" and "Back Door Man" for Howlin' Wolf. Most artists of the Chicago blues style recorded for the Chicago-based Chess Records and Checker Records labels. Smaller blues labels of this era included Vee-Jay Records and J.O.B. Records. During the early 1950s, the Chicagoean labels were concurenced by Sam Phillips' Sun Records company in Memphis which recorded B. B. King and Howlin' Wolf before he moved to Chicago in 1960.[94] After Phillips discovered Elvis Presley in 1954, the Sun label turned to the rapidly expanding white audience and started recording mostly rock 'n' roll.[95]

In the 1950s, blues had a huge influence on mainstream American popular music. While popular musicians like Bo Diddley[84] and Chuck Berry,[96] both recording for Chess, were influenced by the Chicago blues, their enthusiastic playing styles departed from the melancholy aspects of blues. Chicago blues also influenced Louisiana's zydeco music,[97] with Clifton Chenier[98] using blues accents. Zydeco musicians used electric solo guitar and cajun arrangements of blues standards.


John Lee Hooker created his own blues style and renewed it several times during his long career.Other blues artists, such as John Lee Hooker had influences not directly related to the Chicago style. John Lee Hooker's blues is more "personal", based on Hooker's deep rough voice accompanied by a single electric guitar. Though not directly influenced by boogie woogie, his "groovy" style is sometimes called "guitar boogie". His first hit, "Boogie Chillen", reached #1 on the R&B charts in 1949.[99]

By the late 1950s, the swamp blues genre developed near Baton Rouge, with performers such as Lightnin' Slim,[100] Slim Harpo,[101] Sam Myers and Jerry McCain. Strongly influenced by Jimmy Reed, Swamp blues has a slower pace and a simpler use of the harmonica than the Chicago blues style performers such as Little Walter or Muddy Waters. Songs from this genre include "Scratch my Back", "She's Tough" and "I'm a King Bee".


[edit] 1960s and 1970s
By the beginning of the 1960s, genres influenced by African American music such as rock and roll and soul were part of mainstream popular music. White performers had brought African-American music to new audiences, both within the US and abroad. However, the blues wave which brought artists such as Muddy Waters to the foreground had stopped. Bluesmen such as Big Bill Broonzy and Willie Dixon started looking for new markets in Europe. Dick Waterman and the blues festivals he organized in Europe played a major role in propagating blues music abroad. In the UK, bands emulated US blues legends, and UK blues-rock-based bands had an influential role throughout the 1960s.[102]


Blues legend B.B. King with his guitar, "Lucille".Blues performers such as John Lee Hooker and Muddy Waters continued to perform to enthusiastic audiences, inspiring new artists steeped in traditional blues, such as New York-born Taj Mahal. John Lee Hooker blended his blues style with rock elements and playing with younger white musicians, creating a musical style that can be heard on the 1971 album Endless Boogie. B. B. King's virtuoso guitar technique earned him the eponymous title "king of the blues". In contrast to the Chicago style, King's band used strong brass support from a saxophone, trumpet, and trombone, instead of using slide guitar or harp. Tennessee-born Bobby "Blue" Bland, like B. B. King, also straddled the blues and R&B genres. During this period, Freddie King and Albert King often played with rock and soul musicians (Eric Clapton, Booker T & the MGs)and had a major influence on those styles of music.

The music of the Civil Rights[103] and Free Speech movements in the US prompted a resurgence of interest in American roots music and early African American music. As well as Jimmi Bass Music festivals such as the Newport Folk Festival[104] brought traditional blues to a new audience, which helped to revive interest in prewar acoustic blues and performers such as Son House, Mississippi John Hurt, Skip James, and Reverend Gary Davis.[103] Many compilations of classic prewar blues were republished by the Yazoo Records. J. B. Lenoir from the Chicago blues movement in the 1950s recorded several LPs using acoustic guitar, sometimes accompanied by Willie Dixon on the acoustic bass or drums. His songs, originally distributed in Europe only,[105] commented on political issues such as racism or Vietnam War issues, which was unusual for this period. His Alabama Blues recording had a song that stated:

I never will go back to Alabama, that is not the place for me (2x)
You know they killed my sister and my brother,
and the whole world let them peoples go down there free

White audiences' interest in the blues during the 1960s increased due to the Chicago-based Paul Butterfield Blues Band and the British blues movement. The style of British blues developed in the UK, when bands such as The Animals, Fleetwood Mac, John Mayall & the Bluesbreakers, The Rolling Stones, The Yardbirds, and Cream and Irish musician Rory Gallagher performed classic blues songs from the Delta or Chicago blues traditions.[106]

The British and blues musicians of the early 1960s inspired a number of American blues rock fusion performers, including Canned Heat, the early Jefferson Airplane, Janis Joplin, Johnny Winter, The J. Geils Band, Ry Cooder, James Montgomery Blues Band and The Allman Brothers Band. Many of Led Zeppelin's earlier hits were renditions of traditional blues songs. One blues rock performer, Jimi Hendrix, was a rarity in his field at the time: a black man who played psychedelic rock. Hendrix was a skilled guitarist, and a pioneer in the innovative use of distortion and feedback in his music.[107] Through these artists and others, blues music influenced the development of rock music.[108]


Otis Rush is a major representative of the West Side style.In the late 1960s, the West Side style blues emerged in Chicago with Magic Sam, Magic Slim and Otis Rush.[109] West Side style has strong rhythmic support from a rhythm guitar, bass electric guitar, and drums. Albert King, Buddy Guy, and Luther Allison had a West Side style that was dominated by amplified electric lead guitar.[110][111] Since the early 1970s, The Texas rock-blues style emerged which used guitars in both solo and rhythm roles. In contrast with the West Side blues, the Texas style is strongly influenced by the British rock-blues movement. Major artists of the Texas style are Johnny Winter, Stevie Ray Vaughan, The Fabulous Thunderbirds, and ZZ Top. These artists all began their musical journey in the 1970s, but they did not achieve major international success until the next decade.[112]


[edit] 1980s to the 2000s
Since the 1980s, there has been a resurgence of interest in the blues among a certain part of the African-American population, particularly around Jackson, Mississippi and other deep South regions. Often termed "soul blues" or "Southern soul", the music at the heart of this movement was given new life by the unexpected success of two particular recordings on the Jackson-based Malaco label:[113] Z. Z. Hill's Down Home Blues (1982) and Little Milton's The Blues is Alright (1984). Contemporary African-American performers who work this vein of the blues include Bobby Rush, Denise LaSalle, Sir Charles Jones, Bettye LaVette, Marvin Sease and Peggy Scott-Adams.


Texas blues guitarist Stevie Ray VaughanDuring the 1980s, blues also continued in both traditional and new forms. In 1986, the album Strong Persuader revealed Robert Cray as a major blues artist.[114] The first Stevie Ray Vaughan recording, Texas Flood, was released in 1983, and the Texas-based guitarist exploded onto the international stage. 1989 saw a revival of John Lee Hooker's popularity with the album The Healer. Eric Clapton, known for his performances with the Blues Breakers and Cream, made a comeback in the 1990s with his album Unplugged, in which he played some standard blues numbers on acoustic guitar. However, the technological progresses which appeared in the 1990s in the domain of digital multitrack recording, and the evolution of the marketing strategies, which now include the production of video clips, have led to an increase of the costs of production and also to some loss of the spontaneity and improvisation which always have been an important component of blues music.[115]

In the 1980s and 1990s, blues publications such as Living Blues and Blues Revue began to be distributed, major cities began forming blues societies, outdoor blues festivals became more common, and[116] more nightclubs and venues for blues emerged.[117]

In the 1990s, blues performers explored a range of musical genres, as can be seen, for example, from the broad array of nominees of the yearly Blues Music Awards, previously named W. C. Handy Awards[118] or of the Grammy Awards for Best Contemporary and Traditional Blues Album. Contemporary blues music is nurtured by several blues labels such as: Alligator Records, Black & Tan Records, Ruf Records, Chess Records (MCA), Delmark Records, NorthernBlues Music, and Vanguard Records (Artemis Records). Some labels are famous for their rediscovering and remastering of blues rarities such as Arhoolie Records, Smithsonian Folkways Recordings (heir of Folkways Records) and Yazoo Records (Shanachie Records).[119]

Young blues artists today are exploring all aspects of the blues, from classic delta to more rock-oriented blues, artists born after 1970 such as John Mayer, Sean Costello, Shannon Curfman, Anthony Gomes, Shemekia Copeland, Jonny Lang, Corey Harris, Susan Tedeschi, Joe Bonamassa, Michelle Malone,The White Stripes, North Mississippi Allstars, Gracie B, Everlast, The Black Keys, Bob Log III, Jose P and Hillstomp developing their own styles.[120] Memphis, Texas-based William Daniel McFalls, also known as "Blues Boy Willie" is a performer of traditional blues.


[edit] Musical impact
Blues musical styles, forms (12-bar blues), melodies, and the blues scale have influenced many other genres of music, such as rock and roll, jazz, and popular music.[121] Prominent jazz, folk or rock performers, such as Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Miles Davis, Bob Dylan and the White Stripes have performed significant blues recordings. The blues scale is often used in popular songs like Harold Arlen's "Blues in the Night", blues ballads like "Since I Fell for You" and "Please Send Me Someone to Love", and even in orchestral works such as George Gershwin's "Rhapsody in Blue" and "Concerto in F". Gershwin's second "Prelude" for solo piano is an interesting example of a classical blues, maintaining the form with academic strictness.

The blues scale is ubiquitous in modern popular music and informs many modal frames, especially the ladder of thirds used in rock music (e.g., in "A Hard Day's Night"). Blues forms are used in the theme to the televised Batman, teen idol Fabian's hit, "Turn Me Loose", country music star Jimmie Rodgers' music, and guitarist/vocalist Tracy Chapman's hit "Give Me One Reason".

R&B music can be traced back to spirituals and blues. Musically, spirituals were a descendant of New England choral traditions, and in particular of Isaac Watts's hymns, mixed with African rhythms and call-and-response forms. Spirituals or religious chants in the African-American community are much better documented than the "low-down" blues. Spiritual singing developed because African-American communities could gather for mass or worship gatherings, which were called camp meetings.

Early country bluesmen such as Skip James, Charley Patton, Georgia Tom Dorsey played country and urban blues and had influences from spiritual singing. Dorsey helped to popularize Gospel music.[122] Gospel music developed in the 1930s, with the Golden Gate Quartet. In the 1950s, soul music by Sam Cooke, Ray Charles and James Brown used gospel and blues music elements. In the 1960s and 1970s, gospel and blues were these merged in soul blues music. Funk music of the 1970s was influenced by soul; funk can be seen as an antecedent of hip-hop and contemporary R&B.


Duke Ellington straddled the big band and bebop genres. Ellington extensively used the blues form.[123]Before World War II, the boundaries between blues and jazz were less clear. Usually jazz had harmonic structures stemming from brass bands, whereas blues had blues forms such as the 12-bar blues. However, the jump blues of the 1940s mixed both styles. After WWII, blues had a substantial influence on jazz. Bebop classics, such as Charlie Parker's "Now's the Time", used the blues form with the pentatonic scale and blue notes. Bebop marked a major shift in the role of jazz, from a popular style of music for dancing, to a "high-art," less-accessible, cerebral "musician's music". The audience for both blues and jazz split, and the border between blues and jazz became more defined. Artists straddling the boundary between jazz and blues are categorized into the jazz blues sub-genre.[123][124]

The blues' twelve-bar structure and the blues scale was a major influence on rock and roll music. Rock and roll has been called "blues with a back beat"; Carl Perkins called rockabilly "blues with a country beat". Rockabillies were also said to be twelve-bar blues played with a bluegrass beat. "Hound Dog", with its unmodified twelve-bar structure (in both harmony and lyrics) and a melody centered on flatted third of the tonic (and flatted seventh of the subdominant), is a blues song transformed into a rock and roll song. Jerry Lee Lewis's style of rock and roll was heavily influenced by the blues and its derivative boogie woogie. His style of music was not exactly rockabilly but it has been often called real rock and roll (this is a label he shares with several African American rock and roll performers).[125][126]

Early country music was infused with the blues.[127] Jimmie Rodgers, Moon Mullican, Bob Wills, Bill Monroe and Hank Williams have all described themselves as blues singers and their music has a blues feel that is different to the country pop of Eddy Arnold. A lot of the 1970s-era "outlaw" country music by Willie Nelson and Waylon Jennings also borrowed from the blues. When Jerry Lee Lewis returned to country after the decline of 1950s style rock and roll, he sang his country with a blues feel and often included blues standards on his albums. Many early rock and roll songs are based on blues: "That's All Right Mama", "Johnny B. Goode", "Blue Suede Shoes", "Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin On", "Shake, Rattle, and Roll", and "Long Tall Sally". The early African American rock musicians retained the sexual themes and innuendos of blues music: "Got a gal named Sue, knows just what to do" ("Tutti Frutti", Little Richard) or "See the girl with the red dress on, She can do the Birdland all night long" ("What'd I Say", Ray Charles).


[edit] In popular culture

The music of Taj Mahal for the 1972 movie Sounder marked a revival of interest in acoustic blues.Like jazz, rock and roll, heavy metal music, hip hop music, reggae, country music, and pop music, blues has been accused of being the "devil's music" and of inciting violence and other poor behavior.[128] In the early 20th century, the blues was considered disreputable, especially as white audiences began listening to the blues during the 1920s.[62] In the early twentieth century, W.C. Handy was the first to popularize blues-influenced music among non-black Americans.

During the blues revival of the 1960s and '70s, acoustic blues artist Taj Mahal and legendary Texas bluesman Lightnin' Hopkins wrote and performed music that figured prominently in the popularly and critically acclaimed film Sounder (1972). The film earned Mahal a Grammy nomination for Best Original Score Written for a Motion Picture and a BAFTA nomination.[129] Almost 30 years later, Mahal wrote blues for, and performed a banjo composition, claw-hammer style, in the 2001 movie release "Songcatcher," which focused on the story of the preservation of the roots music of Appalachia.

In 2003, Martin Scorsese made significant efforts to promote the blues to a larger audience. He asked several famous directors such as Clint Eastwood and Wim Wenders to participate in a series of documentary films for PBS called The Blues.[130] He also participated in the rendition of compilations of major blues artists in a series of high-quality cats in the cradle blues guitarist and vocalist Keb' Mo' performed his blues rendition of "America, the Beautiful" in 2006 to close out the final season of the television series "The West Wing."

In 1961, the late British blues singer Alexis Korner wrote the sleeve notes accompanying a compilation album simply called “The Blues” released by Vee-Jay Records in the USA and by EMI/Columbia in the UK, featuring self-penned songs such as “You Can Make It If You Try” by Gene Allison and “Do What I Say” by J.B. Lenoir. Korner’s notes are surely worthy of inclusion here: ‘We have been told for many years that in Britain, the Blues only sell to a specialist market; for many years it has been true. But now, maybe, the time has come when this music can spread to far wider audiences in Britain and Europe. The frequent visits of outstanding blues artists to this side of the Atlantic have definitely served to broaden the public appreciation of their music. So we have come to the time when Rhythm & Blues can become a public entertainment, to be enjoyed by the millions of people in Europe who find themselves drawn to Ray Charles, Muddy Waters and a host of other blues men.’ Korner continued ‘This was never intended to be a purely private music. It was not intended for the specialised consumption of elderly negroes and folk-conscious intellectuals; it has been the pop music of 15,000,000 or more people for at least twenty-five years. And the fact that the Blues you can hear on this album are all vocal material does not prevent them from being dance music. In fact, there is something wrong with a Rhythm & Blues record which does not make you want to dance. Whether the tempo is slow, medium or fast, it is always strongly emphasised with a fierce beat which, at its best, produces an incredibly hypnotic effect.’ Korner went on ‘The Blues indeed, is an extraordinarily hypnotic music. Based almost entirely on 12-bar themes, it only becomes monotonous in the hands of mediocre performers, despite its apparent harmonic limitations. The fact remains that, for many ranking artists, the 12-bar pattern serves as a disciplinary framework on which to build endless variations.’ Korner then questioned ’But in the end, why are the Blues still around if times are getting better? Well, the Blues are not only protest songs. Blues can also be entertainment. Jimmy Witherspoon singing “Kansas City” and Memphis Slim with “Messin’ Around" are intending to entertain. They do not always want to sound bitter and angry; people do not only want to cry, they also want to laugh. Just like any other popular music, the Blues reflect the emotions of the people who sing them. They also reflect the emotions of the people to whom they are sung.’ Korner summarised ‘So we come down to basic facts. Sometimes we want to laugh, sometimes we want to cry, most of the time we like to be entertained. The Blues can cover the range of emotions between the two extremes; they can entertain at the same time. Many of us like to dance, and this is certainly a wonderful dance music. We like to feel some sense of communication between the artists and ourselves. Anyone who has seen a first-class blues singer working will know how strong is the relationship between artist and audience.’ Korner concluded his notes thus: ‘It is not by chance that many leading jazz musicians rush off to hear the best Rhythm & Blues bands. It is not by accident that Elvis Presley based his singing style on that of Arthur Crudup, a latter-day Mississippi blues singer. They know what tremendous vitality there is to be found in this music. It is not only the main source of jazz, it is also the main source of the big Rock & Roll hits. It is always alive to changes. In essence, the Blues remain unchanged; the presentation moves with the times. The same truths, after all, hold good. You simply have to find a new way of ‘speaking’ them. You can treat the Blues as an intellectual exercise, or you can treat them as straight entertainment; that is up to you.’




See also: List of films based on blues music

[edit] See also
African American culture
All Music Guide to the Blues
Blues Hall of Fame
Blues in New Zealand
Blues dance
Blues musicians, List of
Blues standards, List of
British blues musicians, List of
Canadian blues
Mississippi Blues Trail
List of train songs
20th century music
The Tulsa Sound

[edit] Notes
^ "The Evolution of Differing Blues Styles". How To Play Blues Guitar. http://how-to-play-blues-guitar.com/the-blues/the-evolution-of-different-blues-styles/. Retrieved on 2008-08-11.
^ The "Trésor de la Langue Française informatisé" provides this etymology to the word blues and George Colman's farce as the first appearance of this term in the English language, see http://atilf.atilf.fr/dendien/scripts/fast.exe?mot=blues
^ Davis, Francis. The History of the Blues. New York: Hyperion, 1995.
^ Eric Partridge, A Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English, 2002, Routledge (UK), ISBN 0-415-29189-5
^ Tony Bolden, Afro-Blue: Improvisations in African American Poetry and Culture, 2004, University of Illinois Press, ISBN 0-252-02874-0
^ Bob Brozman (2002). "The evolution of the 12 bar blues progression". http://www.bobbrozman.com/tip_evol12bar.html. Retrieved on 2009-05-02.
^ Samuel Charters in Nothing but the blues, pg. 20.
^ "Ellen Fullman, "The Long String Instrument", MusicWorks, Issue #37 Fall 1987". http://www.deepmedia.org/ellenfullman/mw85/fullman_article.pdf.
^ "A Jazz Improvisation Almanac, Outside Shore Music Online School". http://www.outsideshore.com/school/.../Blues_And_Bebop_Scales/Blues_Scale.htm.
^ Ewen, pg. 143
^ Grace notes were common in the Baroque and Classical periods, but they acted as ornamentation rather than as part of the harmonic structure. For example, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 21 has a flatted fifth in the dominant. In these periods, this was a technique for building tension for resolution into the perfect fifth; in contrast, a blues melody uses the flatted fifth as part of the scale.[citation needed]
^ Kunzler, pg. 1065
^ Barry Pearson, in Nothing but the blues, pg. 316
^ David Hamburger, Acoustic Guitar Slide Basics, 2001, ISBN 1-890490-38-5.
^ "Lesson 72: Basic Blues Shuffle by Jim Burger". http://www.wholenote.com/default.asp?src=l&l=72&p=1. Retrieved on November 25 2005.
^ Wilbur M. Savidge, Randy L. Vradenburg, Everything About Playing the Blues, 2002, Music Sales Distributed, ISBN 1-884848-09-5, pg. 35
^ Ferris, pg. 230
^ Father of the Blues: An Autobiography. by W.C. Handy, edited by Arna Bontemps: foreword by Abbe Niles. Macmillan Company, New York; (1941) page 143. no ISBN in this first printing
^ Ewen, pgs. 142–143
^ a b Morales, pg. 277
^ Mark A. Humphrey, in Nothing but the blues, pgs. 107-149
^ Calt, Stephen. Album notes for Ten years of black country religion 1926-1936 [Vynil back cover]. New York: Yazoo Records (L-1022).
^ "Reverend Gary Davis". Reverend Gary Davis. 2009. http://culturalequity.org/alanlomax/ce_alanlomax_profile_reverend_gary_davis.jsp. Retrieved on 2009-02-03.
^ Michael Corcoran. "The Soul of Blind Willie Johnson". Austin American-Statesman. http://www.austin360.com/music/content/music/blindwilliejohnson_092803.html. Retrieved on 2009-02-03.
^ Komara, pg. 476
^ Allan F. Moore (2002). The Cambridge companion to blues and gospel music. Cambridge University Press. p. 32. ISBN 0521001072.
^ Oliver, pg. 281
^ David Evans, in Nothing but the blues, pg. 33
^ a b Kunzler, pg. 130
^ Bruce Bastin, in Nothing but the blues, pg. 206
^ David Evans, in Nothing but the blues, pgs. 33-35
^ John H. Cowley, in Nothing but the blues, pg. 265
^ John H. Cowley, in Nothing but the blues, pgs. 268-269
^ "Lead Belly foundation". http://www.leadbelly.org/re-homepage.html. Retrieved on 2008-09-26.
^ Dave Oliphant. "Henry Thomas". The handbook of texas online. http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/TT/fthxc.html. Retrieved on 2008-09-26.
^ Garofalo, pgs. 46–47
^ Philip V. Bohlman, "Immigrant, folk, and regional music in the twentieth century", in The Cambridge History of American Music, ed. David Nicholls, 1999, Cambridge University Press, ISBN 0-521-45429-8, pg. 285
^ Oliver, Paul (1984). Blues Off the Record:Thirty Years of Blues Commentary. New York: Da Capo Press. pp. 45–47. ISBN 0-306-80321-6.
^ Lawrence W. Levine, Black Culture and Black Consciousness: Afro-American Folk Thought from Slavery to Freedom, Oxford University Press, 1977, ISBN 0-19-502374-9, pg. 223
^ Southern, pg. 333
^ Garofalo, pg. 44
^ Ferris, pg. 229
^ The rough guide to African Blues CD booklet
^ Blues imported from West-Africa
^ Morales, pg. 276 Morales attributes this claim to John Storm Roberts in Black Music of Two Worlds, beginning his discussion with a quote from Roberts: "There does not seem to be the same African quality in blues forms as there clearly is in much Caribbean music."
^ "Call and Response in Blues". How To Play Blues Guitar. http://how-to-play-blues-guitar.com/blues-concepts/call-and-response/. Retrieved on 2008-08-11.
^ Samuel Charters, in Nothing But the Blues, page 25
^ Oliver, pg. 4
^ Barbara Vierwo, Andy Trudeau. The Curious Listener's Guide to the Blues. Stone Press. p. 15. ISBN 0-399-53072-X.
^ From the Erotic to the Demonic: On Critical Musicology.. Oxford University Press. 2003. p. 182. "A blues idiom is hinted at in "A Negro Love-Song", a pentatonic melody with blue third and seventh in Colridge-Taylor's African Suit of 1898, many years before the first blues publications."
^ Bill Steper (1999). "African-American Music from the Mississippi Hill Country: "They Say Drums was a-Calling"". The APF Reporter. http://www.aliciapatterson.org/APF1902/Steber/Steber.html. Retrieved on 2008-10-27.
^ Samuel Charters, in Nothing but the blues, pg. 14-15
^ Samuel Charters, in Nothing but the blues, pg. 16
^ Garofalo, pg. 44 Gradually, instrumental and harmonic accompaniment were added, reflecting increasing cross-cultural contact. Garofalo cites other authors that also mention the "Ethiopian airs" and "Negro spirituals".
^ Schuller, cited in Garofalo, pg. 27
^ Garofalo, pgs. 44–47 "As marketing categories, designations like race and hillbilly intentionally separated artists along racial lines and conveyed the impression that their music came from mutually exclusive sources. Nothing could have been further from the truth... In cultural terms, blues and country were more equal than they were separate." Garofalo claims that "artists were sometimes listed in the wrong racial category in record company catalogues."
^ Charles Wolfe in Nothing but the Blues, pgs. 233-263
^ Golding, Barrett. "The Rise of the Country Blues". NPR. http://www.honkytonks.org/showpages/countryblues.htm. Retrieved on 2008-12-27.
^ Mark A. Humphrey in Nothing but the blues, pg. 110
^ Mark A. Humphrey in Nothing but the blues, pgs. 107-149
^ Garofalo, pg. 27; Garofalo cites Barlow in "Handy's sudden success demonstrated [the] commercial potential of [the blues], which in turn made the genre attractive to the Tin Pan Alley acks, who wasted little time in turning out a deluge of imitations." (parentheticals in Garofalo)
^ a b Garofalo, pg. 27
^ "Kentuckiana Blues Society". http://members.aye.net/~kbsblues/awards.htm#Weaver. Retrieved on 2008-09-26.
^ a b Clarke, pg. 138
^ Clarke, pg. 141
^ Clarke, pg. 139
^ Calt, Stephen. Album notes for The Georgia Blues 1927-1933 [Vynil back cover]. New York: Yazoo Records (L-1012).
^ Phoenix Delray (2008-08-17). "The history of Memphis blues music". http://www.articlesbase.com/art-and...tory-of-memphis-blues-music-489628.html. Retrieved on 2008-08-27.
^ Kent, Don. Album notes for 10 Years In Memphis 1927-1937 [Vynil back cover]. New York: Yazoo Records (L-1002).
^ Calt, Stephen. Album notes for Memphis Jamboree 1927-1936 [Vynil back cover]. New York: Yazoo Records (L-1021).
^ a b Garofalo, pg. 47
^ Hawkeye Herman, General background on African American Music, Blues Foundation, Essays: What is the blues?http://www.blues.org/blues/essays.php4?Id=3
^ Clarke, pg. 137
^ Piero Scaruffi (2005). "A brief history of Blues Music". http://www.scaruffi.com/history/blues.html. Retrieved on 2008-08-14.
^ Oliver, Paul. Album notes for Boogie Woogie Trio [Vynil back cover]. Copenhagen: Storyville (SLP 184).
^ Piero Scaruffi (2003). "Kansas City: Big Ban

Last edited by Jerry Jakala; 07/14/09 10:41 AM.

http://www.jerryjakala.com
http://cdbaby.com/cd/jakalajerry2

The difference between genius and stupidity is that there is a limit on genius.-Albert Einstein
Joined: Nov 2006
Posts: 8,463
Top 20 Poster
Offline
Top 20 Poster
Joined: Nov 2006
Posts: 8,463
And you believe all that?

Typical of Americans to try to take the credit for something that happened centuries before.


Now I have it on good authority that it was actually Henry VIII in the early 1500s who is attributed as being the first bluesman. He loved the ladies and had six wifes plus quite a few mistresses. He loved a drink and also played many instruments (self taught) He was quite a harp player by all accounts. He wrote the world famous Bluesleeves in honour of one of his wives who he had just murdered after an argument over him being too lazy to get a proper job. He spent the rest of his life on the run living in the back of wagons and relying on his musical prowess to bum a meal and get him by. Sadly he died a pauper from a disease that he picked up in the back of a wagon.
He was such a cult hero that the pope made him a saint and many of his progeny copied his lifestyle and musical heritage. So the blues was born.

His chord structures live on today and form the basis for ALL blues songs.

GREENSLEEVES
(Howlin Henry )

Em G D Bm
Alas, my love, you do me wrong,
Em B7
To cast me off discourteously.
Em G D B
For I have loved you well and long,
Em B7 Em
Delighting in your company.

Chorus:
G D
Bluesleeves was all my joy
Em B7
Bluesleeves was my delight,
G D
Bluesleeves was my heart of gold,
Em B7 E
And who but my lady Bluesleeves.

Additional Verses:
Your vows you've broken, like my heart,
Oh, why did you so enrapture me?
Now I remain in a world apart
But my heart remains in captivity.

I have been ready at your hand,
To grant whatever you would crave,
I have both wagered life and land,
Your love and good-will for to have.

If you intend thus to disdain,
It does the more enrapture me,
And even so, I still remain
A lover in captivity.

My men were clothed all in green,
And they did ever wait on thee;
All this was gallant to be seen,
And yet thou wouldst not love me.

Thou couldst desire no earthly thing,
But still thou hadst it readily.
Thy music still to play and sing;
And yet thou wouldst not love me.

Well, I will pray to God on high,
That thou my constancy mayst see,
And that yet once before I die,
Thou wilt vouchsafe to love me.

Ah, Bluesleeves, now farewell, adieu,
To God I pray to prosper thee,
For I am still thy lover true,
Come once again and love me.





Joined: Jul 2009
Posts: 15
Casual Observer
Offline
Casual Observer
Joined: Jul 2009
Posts: 15
Wow! That's a new one on me...and I thought I had studied this genre fairly well, being a Blues singer myself. I'm not questioning it, but had always been under the impression that the Blues originated in the deep south in the cotton fields. The UK DID put the Blues on the map, though, whether earlier or later. A buddy of mine just lent me his copy of "Pink Cadillac", the history of Chess Records, and there the UK received credit for bridging-over the American public's ignorance and rejection of the Blues because of it being rooted in slave field songs. God Bless the UK for that!

I've always been fascinated about all of the "off branches" that Blues has given birth to...my favorite being Electric Blues Rock. I'm in 7th heaven listening to Roy Buchanan's "Fly..Night Bird", Lonnnie Mack's "Stop", Gary Moore's "Still Got The Blues", Walter Trout's "Cry If You Want To", any of Clapton's Blues renditions...especially from "Songs From The Cradle", and The Allman Brothers...just to name a few. Just too HOT for words...

I can't help but think that, no matter where the Blues really originated, it was definitely meant to be. And I'm so glad that it does exist, as it is the one genre I NEVER get tired of.

My vocal range has always been in the alto/second soprano range, so I was able to pull off male-oriented Blues quite well. If you visit my personal MySpace page, I have some mp3's of some of my previous band recordings loaded in flash players. The first one to play is my rendition of The Allman Bros. arrangement of "Trouble No More". I have also performed renditions of "Whipping Post" and "House Of The Rising Sun" that have resulted in standing ovations...from the guys and gals. I've always loved the Blues because it makes me FEEL, and I'm always thrilled when I can make others feel it, too.

Love this thread...thanks for the info!

P.J. Robinson
My Personal MySpace


CincyIndies.org
THE GREATER CINCINNATI INDEPENDENT ENTERTAINERS ASSOCIATION

http://WWW.MYSPACE.COM/CINCYINDIESORG
http://WWW.YOUTUBE.COM/CINCYINDIES
Joined: Jul 2005
Posts: 12,082
Likes: 1
Top 10 Poster
Offline
Top 10 Poster
Joined: Jul 2005
Posts: 12,082
Likes: 1
"Then, in 1915, a small group of slaves from the cotton fields of Louisiana, who were on a whistle-stop tour of Europe for their vacation just happened to hear Nigel one evening while he was performing in cabaret at the Ritz, where they were staying. The rest is history."

True enough, true enough......

It was a very near thing though - because I read somewhere that their plane almost crashed on the return trip. The pilot had food poisoning and a flight attendant had to land the plane. That heroic flight attendant deserves as much credit as anyone for the the blues, imho.

Scott

Joined: Sep 2001
Posts: 10,330
Top 10 Poster
Offline
Top 10 Poster
Joined: Sep 2001
Posts: 10,330


My theater teacher told me that the green sleeves is a reference to grass stains on the elbow part of the sleeves obtained by outdoor entertainment.


Please visit my facebook EZ3D PopUps for free papercraft templates. Great for beginners of all ages.

Favorite Sites:
http://facebook.com/EZ3DPopUps
http://ez3dpopups.blogspot.com/
http://harrietschock.com
http://jpfolks.com
http://phillipmartin.com


Joined: Jul 2005
Posts: 12,082
Likes: 1
Top 10 Poster
Offline
Top 10 Poster
Joined: Jul 2005
Posts: 12,082
Likes: 1
Originally Posted by Jean Bullock


My theater teacher told me that the green sleeves is a reference to grass stains on the elbow part of the sleeves obtained by outdoor entertainment.


Aha!

The meaning of these lines suddenly becomes clear:

Greensleeves was all my joy
Greensleeves was my delight

grin

Scott

Joined: Apr 2001
Posts: 8,574
JPF Mentor
Offline
JPF Mentor
Joined: Apr 2001
Posts: 8,574
Yes, all kidding aside, Jerry's exhaustive quote wins the cigar.

Greensleeves is what you get when you've got a runny nose and no handkerchief.


You've got to know your limitations. I don't know what your limitations are. I found out what mine were when I was twelve. I found out that there weren't too many limitations, if I did it my way. -Johnny Cash

It's only music.
-niteshift

Mike Dunbar Music

Joined: Nov 2006
Posts: 8,463
Top 20 Poster
Offline
Top 20 Poster
Joined: Nov 2006
Posts: 8,463
I would like to congratulate Jerry for his potted history lesson. Very enlightening. Well worth the read. I have cut and pasted it for future ref.

Joined: Dec 2008
Posts: 3,845
K
Top 100 Poster
Offline
Top 100 Poster
K
Joined: Dec 2008
Posts: 3,845
Hah, this thread have developed!

Actually the original inspiration of the blues is really Norwegian! The blues developed at the time the vikings robbed and caused riots around the world.

First blues song was:

Ohh no here they come again

E
I saw their ship
Ohh I saw their ship
They robbed me blind
Ohh and took my wife
E7
I hope they never
ever come another time :x3

From that time blues was adapted throughout Africa as well as Great Britain, well everywhere the great Norwegians came! I even suspect the Russian dance kalinka was inspired by those events, not to mention the Chinese Dragon Dance ;-)

Joined: Nov 2006
Posts: 8,463
Top 20 Poster
Offline
Top 20 Poster
Joined: Nov 2006
Posts: 8,463
I thought I told you to never mention the Chines Dragon Dance.

Joined: Sep 2002
Posts: 2,558
T
Top 100 Poster
Offline
Top 100 Poster
T
Joined: Sep 2002
Posts: 2,558
In a world where the heavy thunderstorms of springtime filled the skies with cold soaking rains and grey clouds, the cavemen sat and waited looking out from their dens, watching the skies. It was always so dark, so grey. They waited for the blues.
Several moons had passed, and the warmer and drier season of summer was upon them. They again looked to the skies for the blues. And they were there. They were so happy they could kiss the sky.
An so it was that they rejoiced in the dry weather and sang joyfully about the dry weather, as well as mournfully recalling the sadness of the darkened days. But now with the drier weather, they could freely walk amongst the other cavemen and use their clubs to look for their soulmates.

It is from these early days that not only singing of the blues began, but also the concept of clubbing began, though we have replaced the heavy wooden clubs with heavy wooden Les Pauls.

And that's the true history of the blues, my children.

Last edited by Tom Tracy; 07/16/09 05:55 PM.
Joined: Dec 2008
Posts: 3,845
K
Top 100 Poster
Offline
Top 100 Poster
K
Joined: Dec 2008
Posts: 3,845
LOL Now we're talking, Tom. THAT must be the true roots of the blues.. right?

Joined: Sep 2002
Posts: 2,558
T
Top 100 Poster
Offline
Top 100 Poster
T
Joined: Sep 2002
Posts: 2,558
I believe my story is historically accurate. smile

Joined: Nov 2006
Posts: 8,463
Top 20 Poster
Offline
Top 20 Poster
Joined: Nov 2006
Posts: 8,463
I think it is hysterically accurate.

Joined: Dec 2008
Posts: 3,845
K
Top 100 Poster
Offline
Top 100 Poster
K
Joined: Dec 2008
Posts: 3,845
If we were to beat Tom's story, we'd have to involve God, somehow. And that would be a shame with the devil's music, right? We risk ripping the blues from all the fun :-)

I think all of our stories can be true at the same time, perhaps except for Keith's and Jerry's.. they seem a little far fetched, if you ask me.. something doesn't ring quite true :-)

Joined: Apr 2001
Posts: 19,579
Likes: 13
Top 10 Poster
Offline
Top 10 Poster
Joined: Apr 2001
Posts: 19,579
Likes: 13
A really funny post from the past!


Brian Austin Whitney
Founder
Just Plain Folks
jpfolkspro@gmail.com
Skype: Brian Austin Whitney
Facebook: www.facebook.com/justplainfolks

"Don't sit around and wait for success to come to you... it doesn't know the way." -Brian Austin Whitney

"It's easier to be the bigger man when you actually are..." -Brian Austin Whitney

"Sometimes all you have to do to inspire humans to greatness is to give them a reason and opportunity to do something great." -Brian Austin Whitney

Link Copied to Clipboard
Support Just Plain Folks

We would like to keep the membership in Just Plain Folks FREE! Your donation helps support the many programs we offer including Road Trips and the Music Awards.


Newest Members
chriscastle, yasir252, cathennashira, Samwise, HappySousa
21,470 Registered Users
Forum Statistics
Forums117
Topics125,717
Posts1,160,950
Members21,470
Most Online37,523
Jan 25th, 2020
Just Plain Quotes
"If one man can do it, any man can do it. It is true. But the real question is, if one man did it, are you willing to do what it takes to do it as well?" –Brian Austin Whitney
Today's Birthdays
warriorgirl (2024)
Popular Topics(Views)
Powered by UBB.threads™ PHP Forum Software 7.7.5