The Roots of Blues MusicBlues is a very important type of music.
Most music that you hear todayhas some form of blues in it. If it wasn’t for the blues there wouldn’t be anyrock and roll, country, rap, pop, or jazz . Blues is also important for AfricanAmerican culture. African Americans were also the people who started the blues. The Blues started in the late 1800’s in levee camps or plantations inplaces like Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas were many African Americans lived. The blues of that time was called country blues.
It was a mixture of Africanmusic, field hollers, work songs, religious music, and ragtime. The main influence of blues music was African music which has a strongand steady beat using drums or other instruments. Its beat and singing showedin the blues. Work songs and field hollers were an influence on blues.
They were mostlymade up as the musicians were singing. They were a mixture of story tellingand talking with a definite call and response. Religious music was very important in forming blues music. Because mostblacks went to Christian churches from an early age and were exposed toChristian hymns.
Ragtime was an influence that came later and is a faster blues played withthe piano and someone singing which was usually played in bars called barrelhouses. The first country blues that was written and published was “Memphis Blues”by W. C. Handy in the early 1900’s.
The first recorded blues was ” Crazy Blues” by Mamie Smith in 1915. Most country blues were played with an acoustic guitar and with someonesinging. It also has a definite call and response between the voice and guitar. Guitars were used because they had a broad range of notes, they wereportable, affordable, and they were permitted by slave owners at that time.
Theslave owners didn’t permit drums because they thought the drums could be used tosignal to each other. There were many beginning Blues musicians but only a few had their songswritten, published, or recorded. The few who did became very popular. Oneexample is Blind Melon Jefferson who started recording in 1926. His recordsoutsold every other male musician at the time. Other popular musicians wereRobert Johnson, Son House, Ma Rainy, and the most famous Charlie Patton who iscredited for being the founder of the Delta Blues.In the end you can say that Blues came from many places, played animportant part in African American culture, And was and still is a popular formof music for everybody.Music and Movies
