The First Sound of Blues:
It may be claimed that Hart Wand recorded the first Blues composition 1912 with Dallas Blues, but the genre’s popularity is attributable to W.C. Handy with his publication of ‘Memphis Blues’ and ‘St. Louis Blues’. In 1920 Mamie Smith recorded the first Blues vocal, ‘Crazy Blues’. Other names like Billie Holiday and Bessie Smith had also arrived on the scene. It was the roaring twenties. The war was just over, and America had found the Blues.
From that point on the Blues was here to stay. The sound would evolve but the mood would remain the same. The music would just get better. It would spread to Chicago and Detroit with Willie Dixon, John Lee Hooker, Elmore James, Muddy Waters and Howlin’ Wolf. In Memphis and Houston, B.B King and T-Bone Walker would marry a jazz technique to their style of playing the guitar. The bar had been raised. The Blues had become technical. Its influence on other forms of music like soul and gospel would be only too clear with singers like Georgia Tom Dorsey and James Brown incorporating elements of Blues music in their work. Funk, which would later influence contemporary Hip-Hop, owes some of its antecedents to the Blues.
The Sixties and After:
In the 60’s the mantle had been passed to John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers, the Paul Butterfield Blues band, Fleetwood Mac, Rory Gallagher and to Clapton, Page, Beck, and Hendrix. More precisely, these artists brought the Blues sound to a white audience. Roy Buchanan, Buddy Guy and Johnny Winter would play in keeping with tradition, while Rock bands like the Allman Brothers band and Led Zeppelin would use the sound to develop their own styles if not build on the genre’s rich history. And if you haven’t heard the ladies belt ’em out you haven’t heard nothing yet. Melancholia takes whole new tune when a woman sings the Blues. It would a crime not to remember such greats as Gertrude Rainey, Victoria Spivey and Janis Joplin.
Had it not been for the Blues the music industry would have been so much poorer. In fact if the researchers are to be trusted, a lot contemporary music finds its inspiration in the Blues. There is nothing like the Blues to portray human misery and indignation in that state as a musical form. However it would also be pertinent to mention that the Blues appeals to those with a more mature and discerning taste in music. |
