Blues, whose birth dates back to the late 19th century, brought the sadness of black slaves in America to music. Black slaves were brought from many parts of the African continent to serve America.
People living in this difficult situation and feeling homesick wanted to express their feelings through music through the blues music they created. While people of African origin were sometimes working in the fields and sometimes in the mines, they began to perform a new music when they came together after work.
In fact, this type of music was a type of music that they brought from their own lands to America and partially changed it in America. While this music was called blues, the songs were related to both the work they did and the religion or traditions they had. They expressed their rebellion against everything they experienced.
What is Blues Music?
Blues is an accepted and loved genre of music wherever you go in the world today. However, the whole world clearly knows that blues music belongs to African Americans. Still, people of all races, genders and social groups can engage with this music and listen to it with pleasure.
Blues music is a type of music where love, pain and sadness come together. In general terms, it is a type of music known along with its subgenres of jazz music. Blues music spread rapidly in America, thanks to Black Americans who became free as American citizens with the abolition of slavery in 1865.
Guitar and piano always come to the fore when playing blues music. African Americans began to bring their skills and love for these two types of instruments to the forefront thanks to blues music. For this reason, blues music, which spread first in black circles and then throughout America, then spread all over the world.
Blues music actually first created a reaction while trying to express the social suffering and misery experienced by Black Americans. But today, blues music is a type of music listened to by everyone, sometimes depicting love, sometimes hatred, and sometimes social events such as immigration.
While the call-and-response chord pattern is seen in blues pieces, this pattern is always at the forefront in African music. In this sense, there is a 12-bar musical genre application. While there are different note intervals in this measurement system, it can also be seen that they are divided into triplets, fifths and sevenths in flat form. In these note intervals, just as guitar and piano are expressed, drums also come to the fore.
Where Does the Name of Blues Music Come From?
Blues music has a history dating back to the 18th and even 17th centuries. It is known that this music was called blues because it was the music performed by African American black slaves during the period and expressed pain and sadness. There are different beliefs in giving the name Blues.
In English, the word “blue” means blue and the word “blues” means sadness. It is also thought that this music is called blues because the color blue expresses hopelessness and sadness in American society. It is estimated that one of the reasons why blues music got this name is the concept of “feeling blue”, which expresses the pain of African Americans who lost their lives in heavy working conditions.
Early Blues Music Examples and Subgenres
One of the most important subgenres of blues music is called Delta Blues. This first subgenre emerged in the Mississippi Delta thanks to the guitar and harmonica, and helped the music spread from locality to all over America.
The most important artists in the Delta Blues genre include Howlin, Muddy Waters and Wolf and Little Water. The first recorded song about blues music to the music audience was released as an instrumental in 1912.
While this song called Dallas Blues was recorded by Hart Wand, the main reason why it is considered the first example is that it uses the 12-bar blues chord sequence we mentioned. Although there were different 12-bar songs before the Dallas Blues song, it is seen as the first blues example, the Dallas Blues song, since this meter is only found in some parts.
Blues was later divided into a subgenre such as Chicago Blues. Although Delta Blues is also included in this genre, it became popular especially with the groups established in the 1950s. Today, saxophones, bass guitars, stringed instruments and drums have begun to be used, as used by many blues music groups.
While each musician achieved a different harmony with the changing melodies, very high-quality works were created thanks to both solo and group performances. Artists such as B.B. King and T-Bone Walker, who became legendary especially in the early 1960s, are the most important examples of this style. In later periods, especially Koko Taylor and Willie Dixon made the Chicago Blues genre more widespread.
The subgenre called Country Blues actually refers to the name given to all different styles such as Texas, Atlanta or folk blues. Acoustic guitar masters and piano masters usually come to the fore with their different playing techniques. Lightnin Hopkins and John Lee Hooker in particular are known as pioneers.
Finally, the East Coast Blues style stands out with the Piedmont Blues and Jump Blues styles, from which it is separated, and expresses the style of the Western representatives. While the Piedmont genre usually stands out with its guitar style, Jump Blues reveals a jazz atmosphere without having a clear tempo.
Unforgettable Artists of Blues Music
The blues music genre, which has a very important audience around the world today, includes musicians who have managed to gain a place with unforgettable works throughout history.
Lonnie Johnson
Lonnie Johnson, who grew up in a musical family, continued to sing while playing many instruments such as violin, guitar or piano in his childhood. While Johnson was among the leading names in blues music, he was introduced to blues music in a competition he attended in 1925.
After winning the competition, Lonnie Johnson managed to record an album and became one of the first artists to record blues music. In fact, in later periods he stated that only recording was important to him and that there was no requirement that it be blues music. Since he became famous with this music in the following periods, he continued to stay in the blues and jazz music genres.
B.B.King
B.B. King, one of the biggest names that come to mind when it comes to blues music around the world, is also an artist worth mentioning. The artist, whose real name is Riley B. King, is among the three great blues artists known by the nickname “King”. B.B. was added to his name in 1948.
The abbreviation refers to his nickname Beale Street Blues Boy. In fact, with this nickname, Riley began to be known as B.B. King, as he took the name Blues Boy King. As an artist who can use the guitar very well, King has made duets with world-famous names such as Eric Clapton or Jimmy Hendrix, playing guitar.
One of the most important works produced by King is also known as the song “How Blue Can You Get”, which plays in the last scene of the 2000 movie Blues Brothers. In this song, he performed a duet with Eric Clapton and Louisiana Gator Boys.
While he continued to perform on stage almost until the end of his life, the song “The Thrill Is Gone” became one of the most popular songs in his career. So much so that, while the song was sung by many blues singers in the following years, he was named the 3rd best guitarist in the world by the Rolling Stones in the following years.
Robert Johnson
Robert Johnson can be shown as the most important last name whose life we can mention. Because Robert is one of the most important names that come to mind in blues music and he spent his childhood working on farms or in immigrant camps.
Robert, who became almost blind in one eye after an illness he experienced during this period and lost his wife during childbirth, devoted his life to music after his wife’s death. According to the legends, it is stated that Robert Johnson sold his soul to the devil in the nursery in the middle of the night and the devil changed the tunings of his guitar.
In blues music, which is called the music of the devil, it is quite believable that Robert Johnson’s tuning was changed by the devil. In a research conducted in the late 1990s, it was observed that Johnson’s guitar actually had different tunings. Because no one else has ever tuned his guitar, and he has never taught anyone the tuning he uses.
Robert Johnson took Lonnie Johnson, one of the most important names of his time, as an example and used a name like Robert Lonnie as his stage name. Although he was a very talented and world-famous blues artist, he died at the age of 27 as a result of a poisonous assassination. Afterwards, it gave rise to the legend of the “unlucky age of 27” in the art world.
See you in the next post,
Anil UZUN