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Nothin' but the Blues
America's truly original music form

Get answers to questions about the Blues

Learn interesting stuff about Blues performers

Discover some great Blues CDs you can buy (not from me)

Check out "The Bluez Projekt" (my own blues recordings)

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Answers to questions about the Blues
Where did the blues come from?

What's so special about blues, anyway?

How did the blues influence rock-and-roll?

But didn't rock-and-roll evolve out of rockabilly, not blues?

What are these different kinds of blues I hear about?

What exactly is "12-bar blues"?

Who wrote the first blues song?

Why don't my grandparents know much about blues?

Weren't those blues musicians morally bankrupt?

So, I suppose the blues are pretty much dead now, right?

Where did the blues come from?
 Blues originated in the pre-Civil War plantation fields. Slaves would participate in "call and response" songs. A lead singer would recite a line and the others would echo the line back to him. Afterwards a different line would be sung all together. This was the earliest origin of the verse pattern sometimes referred to as "AAB" (phrase "A" sung twice then phrase "B" sung once). The "AAB" pattern is very common in 12-bar blues songs.

Early spirituals and hymns blended with the African vocal styles. But African influences made blues stand out from other European styles in several ways:
  • More extensive improvisation
  • Emphasizing rhythm over harmony
  • Using significant tone or changes in pitch to change meaning
  • "Call and response" singing
  • Emphasizing lyrics and vocal expression with instrument imitating voice and vice versa
In the post-Civil War years, black churches blended traditional hymns with the stronger rhythm of Africa. As the 20th century progressed, blues music integrated more and more intense rhythmic elements, setting the stage for the inevitable birth of rock-and-roll.

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What's so special about blues, anyway?
 This is more a matter of opinion that fact. While there are technical differences between Blues and other forms, as described above, it's much more subjective to describe what makes blues special...
  • The Blues express raw passion, having sprung from raw human emotion. Often that emotion is sad ("blue"), but it can also be happy, or irate, or downright funny.
  • The Blues tell vivid stories. Though originating from the sorrow of slavery, it has come to address every facet of the human experience. The storytelling of blues is often very clever and colorful.
  • The Blues are like rock-and-roll in embryonic form. Many of the things we love about rock-and-roll are found in blues, often in a more pure, quintessential form.
  • The Blues are simple, yet endlessly diverse. Within the musical structure of 12-bar blues, there is elegant simplicity. Yet the variety that can be applied to that structure allows for two blues songs to sound and feel totally different, even though they are near-identical at the core. This means that, with modest musical skill, one can learn the basics of playing blues in an hour, and yet the mastery of the art can take a lifetime.
  • Less is often more in the Blues. Rather than playing lots of rapid-fire notes as fast as possible, in blues, fewer slower notes are often used. When done well those fewer simpler notes drip with intense emotion. Heavy-metal shredders need not apply.
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How did the blues influence rock-and-roll?
 Muddy Waters got it right in his song "The Blues had a baby and they named it rock-and-roll". Rock-and-roll was born out of the blues. The birth of rock-and-roll is generally placed around 1947 or 1948, and is identified by those blues songs that had an even stronger-than-usual rhythm and were especially well-suited for dancing. A great website, "Rock Before Elvis", documents the birth of rock-and-roll in detail.

As the years passed, rock-and-roll musicians began to fully realize their blues roots. More and more often, otherwise forgotten blues songs (and musicians) were revived by rock bands. Many rock songs are nothing more than old blues songs with a more electrified sound and a heavier beat. Musicians who have directly lifted songs from the blues masters include the Beatles, the Yardbirds, the Rolling Stones, ZZ Top, Stevie Ray Vaughan, and many many more.

Over the years, many rock stars have sought out those blues masters who wrote all those great old songs because they wanted to perform with them. The blues masters were like idols to the younger rockers, and often the source of their childhood inspiration.

A blues musician might not be well-versed in playing rock-and-roll, but it is a rare rock musician who cannot play the blues, because the blues are at the very core of rock-and-roll.

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But didn't rock-and-roll evolve out of rockabilly, not blues?
 It was actually the other way around, country singers were adding rock-and-roll to their hillbilly boogie, and rockabilly was born. Some have suggested that rockabilly was the parent of rock-and-roll, but this was usually either out of ignorance or a racist desire to not let black artists get due credit for their contributions.

Most white audiences honestly did not know much about blues, simply because of the deep racial divide which prevented so-called "race music" from ever being heard by whites. Up through the 1950s, the market for blues was limited to blacks, and white audiences never heard much about blues; radio stations and record stores that sold to white audiences tended to avoid blues music. So, with rockabilly's similar sound, it was plausible, though mistaken, to believe that the "origin" of rock-and-roll had been found.

Because of this, the birth of rock-and-roll was considered to be around 1953 or 1954, and Elvis was considered the inventor (at least by some). In truth, rock-and-roll had already existed for roughly seven years; white audiences simply knew nothing about it. The sappy teen-crooning love ballads of the mid-1950s were, in fact, quite far removed from the true rock-and-roll sound, and were the sanitized product of marketing to white teens by record companies. The real origin of rock-and-roll was Rhythm and Blues, indeed, the two were one and the same in the late 1940s.

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What are these different kinds of blues I hear about?
 Over time, different variations of the blues have evolved in different geographic regions. Though sharing the same 12-bar structure, each one has it's own distinct flavor:

 And, of course, there are many more...

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What exactly is "12-bar blues"?
 Most blues songs use this basic musical form. Each verse consists of 12 measures (or "bars"), and the following things happen:

  • The verse uses the "AAB" structure, where phrase "A" is sung twice and phrase "B" is sung once. Each phrase is four measures long, adding up to twelve. For example:

    "My baby, she run away with the garbage man,
    Yeah, my baby, she run away with the garbage man,
    Well I need you so bad, so you can empty my garbage can"
          -- Garbage Man, by Tab Benoit
  • The verse mainly uses three chords, anything more is optional. Whatever key the song is in, the first ('I'), fourth ('IV') and fifth ('V') chords are used. In the key of G, the I-IV-V chords would be G, C, and D. The typical chords to play would be 'G C G G C C G G D C G G".

  • The three basic chords are often enhanced by playing "seventh" chords, giving a more "bluesy" sound. In other words, instead of playing the chords G, C and D, one would play G7, C7 and D7.

  • The last one or two meaures are embellished with a musical transition that leads nicely into the next verse. This is known as the "turnaround".
This musical form is easy to learn, yet endless in the diversity that can be applied to it. This is why improvisation is so prevalent in blues.

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Who wrote the first blues song?
 The history is cloudy and there are conflicting claims. The first blues songs, at least in embryonic form, may have occurred as far back as 1860 in the plantation fields, but the first documented blues song is generally credited to William Christopher Handy (1873-1958), with "Memphis Blues" published on paper in 1912. According to some, Handy was duped into thinking the song was worthless and consequently sold the copyright for (some say) as little as $50.

Popular legend has it that in 1903 at a Mississippi train station Handy heard a wandering musician picking his guitar with a knife blade and singing "Goin' where the Southern cross the Yellow Dog" (two railroad lines). According to legend, this unexpected, unique song and style is what awakened Handy to the existence of blues music - and was also the inspiration for "Yellow Dog Blues", published in 1914. Today, Handy is remembered by the annual "W. C. Handy Awards", sometimes called the "Blues Grammy", which honors blues artists.

Mamie Smith is credited by some as recording the first blues song,"Crazy Blues" in 1920, which sold a million copies. Others say the first recording of the blues was in 1895, when George W. Johnson recorded his "Laughing Song". Possibly both accounts are true, with Johnson's recording not widely known or circulated (as there was not yet any mass market for recorded music).

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Why don't my grandparents know much about blues?
 If your grandparents were white, they might not have had any exposure to blues. Only in large cities might they have heard such music, and only then if they listened to esoteric midnight broadcasts that their parents might not have approved of.

The blues were considered by many to be the "devil's music". The fact that many blues songs drew from beloved hymns and secularized them didn't help either. Even the term "rocking", originating from black churches decades earlier (meaning religious ecstacy), was re-defined by bluesman to mean wild partying, dancing and sex. Many blues songs with strong sexual overtones were blatantly based on sacred worship songs. Thus the blues were considered sacrilege across the board.

All of this reinforced the prejudice that already kept black and white music apart. The two existed, as though in alternate universes, with one never touching the other. Even as rock-and-roll began to bridge the musical gap between the races, mainstream record labels churned out sanitized songs for white teens to consume, whitewashing those aspects of blues that they disdained. In the process, many ideas were taken from black blues artists, and plagiarizing white performers got all the credit.

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Weren't those blues musicians morally bankrupt?
 Some were, some were not. Some lived a rough and tumble life because of the culture they grew up in. While their lifestyle choices can be debatable, it is not clear that they were any worse than their white counterparts, who often covered it up better.

In fairness, the life of the travelling blues performer was neither safe nor easy. Many in the South carried guns for protection, and their songs often reflected their willingness to use them, not unlike hip-hop and rap today. The National Resophonic "O"-style guitar, with its brass body, was said to be able to stop a bullet, making it a favorite among night-club performers.

It is undeniable that some bluesmen had dubious lifestyles and moments not to be proud of...
  • Robert Johnson repeatedly got in trouble for womanizing, and finally died from poisoning by a jealous husband.

  • Lightnin' Hopkins did prison time working on a chain gang, and was once stabbed during a gambling dispute.

  • Jimmy Reed was an alcoholic most of his life, compounded by undiagnosed epilepsy. He developed a reputation, even among his own black peers, of being a drunkard of poor conduct.

  • Louis Jordan was stabbed in bed by his wife; they eventually divorced afterwards.

  • Dinah Washington went through seven failed marriages and eventually died from an overdose of diet pills mixed with alcohol.

  • Ray Charles spent many years addicted to heroin and having an on-the-road affair with one of his backup singers.

However, it is not clear at all that white celebrities, either then or now, have lived more honorable lifestyles. Prejudice may have been behind much of the sentiment that black blues artists were somehow worse.

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So, I suppose the blues are pretty much dead now, right?
 Not so. Though a small part of the American music market today, blues are very popular in Europe. And every so often a blues revival occurs in the United States, thanks to musicians like Eric Clapton, the late Stevie Ray Vaughan, and others who remember their true roots.

Certain regional areas are hotbeds for blues music in the U.S. One of these is Atlanta, Georgia, the home of many local blues artists and the "Atlanta Blues Society", one of the best-known advocacy groups in the country. They sponser many activities to promote interest in blues and an appreciation for the huge debt that many other music forms owe to blues. They also operate the ABS BluesCast, an Internet radio service that streams blues music 24/7.

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