10 Facts Every Blues Music Lover Should Know

Are you a blues music lover? Here are 10 facts that you should know about this genre of music!

The first blues recordings were made in the 1920s

1. The first blues recordings were made in the 1920s by a handful of artists including Mamie Smith, Ma Rainey, Bessie Smith and Blind Lemon Jefferson.
2. The first commercially successful blues recording was Mamie Smith’s “Crazy Blues”, which sold over a million copies.
3. The blues emerged from the Deep South of the United States around the end of the 19th century.
4. The earliest form of the blues was a music called field hollers, which were songs sung by workers in the fields.
5. The word “blues” comes from the word “blue”, which was slang for “depressed” or “sad”.
6. The blues is based on a 3-line verse format known as the 12-bar blues.
7. The most common instruments used in blues music are guitars, pianos and harmonicas.
8. Many famous jazz musicians got their start playing the blues, including Louis Armstrong, Jelly Roll Morton and Duke Ellington.
9. The Blues Brothers were named after two real-life brothers – Elwood and Jake Blues – who starred in a popular film franchise in the 1980s.
10 . Muddy Waters, Robert Johnson and Bessie Smith are considered to be some of the most influential artists in blues history.

The first blues artists were mostly male

Though we often think of the blues as a style made famous by black artists in the early 20th century, the first blues artists were mostly male and white. Thanks to pioneering artists like W.C. Handy, Jelly Roll Morton, and Lead Belly, the genre was popularized and began to be associated with black culture.

The first female blues artists were Bessie Smith and Ma Rainey

The first female blues artists were Bessie Smith and Ma Rainey, who both recorded in the 1920s. Bessie Smith was the more popular of the two and is often referred to as the “Empress of the Blues.” She influenced a generation of singers, including Billie Holiday, Miles Davis, and returned Blues to its roots by recording withDelta musicians in the 1930s. Ma Rainey was known as the “Mother of the Blues” and was also influential in developing the Blues as a musical genre.

The first electric blues recordings were made in the late 1940s

For the first time, electric guitars, amplified harmonicas and drum kits were used on commercially recorded blues tracks. Musicians such as Muddy Waters, Willie Johnson and Junior Parker started to make a name for themselves with a new sound that would soon take over the world.

The first blues rock recordings were made in the 1960s

Though the term “blues rock” wasn’t coined until the late 1960s, the first recordings that could be classified as blues rock were made in the early to mid 1960s. These songs, including hits like “Cross Road Blues” by Robert Johnson and “Born Under a Bad Sign” by Albert King, combined traditional blues structures and progressions with the newfangled sounds of electric guitars and amplifiers. These early recordings would go on to lay the foundation for the blues rock genre.

The first British blues artists were Cyril Davies and Alexis Korner

While the genre of blues music originated in the United States, the first British blues artists were Cyril Davies and Alexis Korner who started playing together in London in 1962. The two musicians were largely responsible for introducing the British public to this type of music and for inspiring a new generation of British blues artists. Some of the most famous British blues bands from the 1960s and 1970s include Cream, The Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin, and The Animals.

The first American blues artist to achieve mainstream success was Muddy Waters

Muddy Waters was an American blues artist who is often credited as the “father of modern Chicago blues”. He is also recognized as one of the first popular artists to have successfully brought the sound of Delta blues to a wider, mainstream audience. Though he didn’t invent the genre, his unique style and influential recordings helped to shape and define it for future generations.

The first blues artist to be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame was Muddy Waters

Muddy Waters was an American blues musician who is often cited as the “father of modern Chicago blues”. He was a major inspiration for Rock and Roll. In his career he recorded over four hundred songs, many of which have become blues standards. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1987 and the Blues Hall of Fame in 2008.

The first blues artist to be inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame was B.B. King

In 1991, the Recording Academy inducted B.B. King into its Grammy Hall of Fame. The following year, he won the Grammy Award for Lifetime Achievement. He was also a recipient of the Kennedy Center Honors in 1987 and was inducted into the Blues Foundation’s Hall of Fame in 1980. As one of the most influential blues guitarists of all time, B.B. King has left a lasting mark on music history.

The first blues artist to be inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame was Muddy Waters

1. Muddy Waters was the first blues artist to be inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame in 1980.
2. The first blues song to be recorded was “Crazy Blues” by Mamie Smith in 1920.
3. The first electric guitar was used on a blues recording by George Barnes in 1930.
4. The first blues artist to have a hit record was T-Bone Walker with “Call It Stormy Monday (But Tuesday Is Just As Bad)” in 1942.
5. Muddy Waters’ “Rollin’ Stone” was the first song to use the word “rock and roll” in its title, in 1950.
6. Howlin’ Wolf’s “Smokestack Lightning” is one of the most popular and influential blues songs of all time, recorded in 1956.
7. The first British blues artist to achieve success was Alexis Korner, who recorded with Cyril Davies in 1963.
8. Led Zeppelin’s debut album included a cover of Robert Johnson’s “Cross Road Blues”, and helped to make Johnson’s music popular with a new generation of fans, in 1968.
9. Stevie Ray Vaughan’s debut album, Texas Flood, was released in 1983 and is considered one of the greatest debut albums by any artist in any genre of music.
10. In 2012, the Grammy Awards introduced a new award category for Best Historical Album, which was won by Jack White for his compilation album Unkown Mortal Orchestra Featuring RZA – Only Built 4 Cuban Linx…