Where Did Blues Music Originate?
Blues music originated in the American South in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The genre is a product of the African-American experience in the United States.
The Mississippi Delta
The Mississippi Delta is a region of the U.S. state of Mississippi that lies between the Mississippi and Yazoo rivers, known as the “birthplace of the blues.” The region has been home to many famous musicians, including Robert Johnson, Muddy Waters, and B.B. King. The Delta style of blues is characterized by a heavy use of slide guitar and a strong rhythm section.
The Piedmont
The Piedmont is a plateau region located in the Eastern United States. It stretches from New York to Alabama and is home to some of the earliest known blues musicians. The music of the Piedmont is characterized by its use of ragtime rhythms and Lead Belly’s “Piedmont style” of guitar playing.
New Orleans
New Orleans is widely considered the birthplace of blues music. The city’s African-American community was exposed to a variety of musical styles from around the world, including African and European folk music, gospel music, and work songs. These influences combined to create a unique musical style that eventually came to be known as the blues.
One of the most important figures in the development of the blues was W.C. Handy, a New Orleans-based musician and bandleader who popularized the style in the early 20th century. Handy’s “Memphis Blues” became one of the first blueprints for what would later become known as rhythm and blues. New Orleans continued to be an important city for blues music in the years that followed, with artists like Louis Armstrong, Professor Longhair, and Fats Domino helping to keep the genre alive and thriving.
Chicago
The first major migration of blacks out of the South began in 1916 and continued through the early 1920s, when about 1.5 million blacks moved to northern industrial cities such as Detroit, New York, Chicago, and Philadelphia in search of better jobs and living conditions. This great migration of southern blacks to northern cities was a major factor in the development and spread of the blues.
In the North, blacks found employment in factories, steel mills, and stockyards, as well as on the railroads and in other jobs traditionally closed to them in the South. They also had more freedom to choose where they lived and with whom they associated. While most southern blacks lived in rural areas and worked on farms or plantations, northern blacks generally lived in cities and worked in factories or other urban jobs. This change in environment was reflected in their music.
The urban setting of the North, with its large number of nightspots, also gave rise to a new style of blues performance—the nightclub act. Performed by solo artists or small groups, usually with a piano or guitar accompaniment, nightclub acts featured longer pieces played at a more moderate tempo than the earlier barrelhouse style. The lyrics often told dramatic stories about love won or lost, hard times, or other aspects of urban life.
