blues
Thursday, 02 May 2019
blues
The blues is a vocal and instrumental form of music based on a pentatonic scale and a characteristic twelve-bar chord progression. The form evolved in the United States in the communities of former African slaves from spirituals, praise songs, field hollers, shouts, and chants. The use of blue notes and the prominence of call-and-response patterns in the music and lyrics are indicative of the blues’ West African pedigree. The blues has been a major influence on later American and Western popular music, finding expression in ragtime, jazz, bluegrass, rhythm and blues, rock and roll, hip-hop, and country music, as well as conventional pop songs.
The phrase the blues is a synonym for having a fit of the blue devils, meaning low spirits, depression and sadness. An early reference to this can be found in George Colman’s farce Blue devils, a farce in one act (1798). Later during the 19th century, the phrase was used as a euphemism for delirium tremens and the police. Though usage of the phrase in African American music may be older, it has been attested to since 1912 in Memphis, Tennessee with W. C. Handy’s «Memphis Blues».In lyrics the phrase is often used to describe a depressed mood.
There are few characteristics common to all blues, because the genre takes its shape from the peculiarities of individual performances. However, some characteristics have been present since before the creation of the modern blues and are common to most styles of African American music. The earliest blues-like music was a «functional expression, rendered in a call-and-response style without accompaniment or harmony and unbounded by the formality of any particular musical structure.» This pre-blues music was adapted from slave field shouts and hollers, expanded into «simple solo songs laden with emotional content». The blues, as it is now known, can be seen as a musical style based on both European harmonic structure and the West African call-and-response tradition, transformed into an interplay of voice and guitar.
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. Sylviane Diouf has pointed to several specific traits—such as the use of melisma and a wavy, nasal intonation—that suggest a connection between the music of West and Central Africa and blues. Ethnomusicologist Gerhard Kubik may have been the first to contend that certain elements of the blues have roots in the Islamic music of West and Central Africa.
Stringed instruments (which were favored by slaves from Muslim regions of Africa…), were generally allowed because slave owners considered them akin to European instruments like the violin. So slaves who managed to cobble together a banjo or other instrument…could play more widely in public. This solo-oriented slave music featured elements of an Arabic-Islamic song style that had been imprinted by centuries of Islam’s presence in West Africa, says Gerhard Kubik, an ethnomusicology professor at the University of Mainz in Germany who has written the most comprehensive book on Africa’s connection to blues music (Africa and the Blues).
Kubik also pointed out that the Mississippi technique of playing the guitar using a knife blade, recorded by W.C. Handy in his autobiography, is common to West and Central Africa cultures where the kora, a guitar-like instrument, is often the stringed instrument of choice. This technique consists of pressing a knife against the strings of the guitar, and is a possible antecedent of the slide guitar technique.
Robert Johnson, a Delta blues singer, is generally considered responsible for the standardization of the 12-bar blues.Blues music later adopted elements from the «Ethiopian airs»—»Ethiopian» is used here to mean «black»—of minstrel shows and Negro spirituals, including instrumental and harmonic accompaniment. 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». Songs from this early period had many different structures. Examples can be found in Leadbelly’s or Henry Thomas’s recordings. However, the twelve-, eight-, or sixteen-bar structure based on tonic, subdominant and dominant chords became the most common. What is now recognizable as the standard 12-bar blues form is documented from oral history and sheet music appearing in African American communities throughout the region along the lower Mississippi River during the first decade of the 1900s (and performed by white bands in New Orleans at least since 1908). One of these early sites of blues evolution was along Beale Street in Memphis, Tennessee.
- The Blues Foundation – Producer of the W.C. Handy Blues Awards, the Blues Hall of Fame, the Lifetime Achievement Awards and the Int. Blues Talent Competition
- About.com: Blues – Blues information, MP3s, CD reviews, interviews, and history.
- The Blue Highway – Contains tributes to the legends and history of the blues, artist profiles, blues news, feature articles, radio links, and archived radio shows.
- The Blues Database – Database with information on blues artists, discographies, and festivals.
- The Blues Directory – Contains over 2,200 blues links. Sites are organized in categories like bands and artists, record labels, and lyrics.
- Blues for Peace – Blues for Peace was set up in Israel to honor the roots of blues music and promote peace and the understanding that ALL peoples have had their share of the Blues.
- Blues In Britain – Web-site devoted to British Blues and visting artists. Includes gig reviews, photo archive, blues MP3 tracks, forthcoming gig list and related web-links.
- Blues Music – A tribute to the original American music.
- Blues on Stage – Web hosting company specializing in blues artists, companies, festivals and societies. Free links to client sites and paid advertising positions.
- Blues Paradise – Links to classic musicians Sonny Boy Williamson I and II, Muddy Waters, Little Walter, Robert Johnson and Howlin’ Wolf as well as links to many more contemporary blues artists.
- BluesWEB – Features tributes, quotes, lyrics, and articles.
- BluesWorld – Blues articles, photographs, reviews, records, compact discs, CDs, 78 rpm phonograph record auctions, magazines, books, musicians, authors, researchers, resources, links.
- Boogie Woogie – Boogie woogie MP3 and Midi files to download plus sheet music books and CDs for sale. Run by Tim Wheals, a blues piano player.
- Chicago Blues Archives – run by the Chicago Public Library
- Corky Siegel’s Planet – Member of a famous chicago blues band in the 60-70’s.
- Detroit Blues Heritage Series – Series focusing on the Detroit Blues tradition. Photographs of the events, reviews and information on upcoming events.
- FolkLib Index – Acoustic Blues Artists – A very complete listing of links for acoustic blues musicians.
- King Biscuit Time – Encompasses the famous Helena, Arkansas radio show made famous by blues harp legend Sonny Boy Williamson II (Rice Miller), the annual blues festival in Helena, and the monthly magazine dedicated to covering blues festivals and artists. Features articles from the magazine, and blues goodies available from their online store.
- National Geographic: Blues Highway – Photo gallery, article, biography of photographer William Albert, and message forum.
- Smooth Grooves 2000 – A mailing lists for fans of R’n’B music.
- Top20Blues.com – Blues Music Guide for Artists, Downloads, Listening, News, Reviews, Charts, and Videos
- Urban-Blues – explains the relationship between blues and hip-hop, jazz, rock, R&B, soul and gospel.
- Year of the Blues 2003 – ’03 marks a century of blues. Site is devoted to blues events of the year.
- Blues Bands by State – List of bands in the USA, by state.
- Blues Index – Information, sound clips and pictures of blues artists. [In English and Dutch]
- Blues Pics – Photographs of blues artists from the southern New England blues scene and the Pocono Blues Festival.
- Bluesonline – Directory offering links to dozens of blues artists and bands.
- Knights In Blue Denim – Tribute to the British blues scene around ’68 -’70.
- MusicAustin: Spotlight on Austin Music – Spotlighting blues artists and bands from the Austin, Texas area with music clips and information.
- New Zealand Blues Artists – Directory from the New Zealand Blues Society.
- SFBlues.net – A website about the artists and venues making up today’s San Francisco blues scene.
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