Kate Keller's List: Blues Musical Sub-Genres

• Turning Up The Volume On The Electric Blues

  • When looking at the various sub-genres of blues music how does this time period fit in with more traditional types of blues? 
• But the first electric-blues guitar star was, no question, T-Bone Walker. Aaron Thibeaux Walker was from Dallas, and by 1950, when he made "Strollin' With Bones," he'd been a star for eight years. He'd influenced just about any young kid who could afford an amplifier and wanted to go out on the theater circuit, fronting a band with horns. But that wasn't the only place the electric guitar was showing up.
• Country guitarist Ernest Tubb always said that the reason his band started using electric instruments was to be heard over the noise in the bars it played, and that's probably why Muddy Waters plugged in after moving from Mississippi to Chicago.
• The tune "Juke" — on the second disc — was a smash in 1952, and was as much an inspiration to young harmonica players as any of T-Bone Walker's records had been for guitarists. But Chicago wasn't the only place electric blues was taking over. T-Bone Walker's disciples were all over Texas, too, as evidenced on an album by Fenton Robinson, laying down the licks in Larry Davis' classic "Texas Flood."
• Pat Hare was only one of the several great guitarists Bobby "Blue" Bland got to work with over the years, and he's in fine style on the 1957 hit "Further On Up the Road." And a Memphis friend of Bland's who didn't record with him until much later deserves mention, too: B.B. King, who, with his electric guitar, went on to tour the world, playing some of the finest blues ever.
• 1957 and 1965

  • When looking at the various sub-genres of blues music how does this time period fit in with more traditional types of blues?

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• The very name Boogie was another name for the "house rent party." Both terms describe a phenomenon that took place in the crowded tenements of Chicago, Detroit, New York, and virtually every city with a large black population. Because poverty was a way of life, black people learned quickly to depend on each other to band together and to work toward common goals. One such goal was that of simply being able to pay the rent. With unemployment at a normally high level (at least for blacks), men long accustomed to surviving under the most adverse conditions ingeniously devised a technique that served the combined purposes of raising the rent and providing a means of social intercourse.
• Some of the more famous boogie woogie players were Meade Lux Lewis, Albert Ammons, Cripple Clarence Lofton, Jimmy Yancey, and Sugar Chile Robinson.
• • It was born in gin mills, lumber camps and rent parties.
   
  • There was not much subtlety to the music - poor to bad instruments and unschooled instrumentalists.
   
  • Volume was produced by physical strength.
   
  • Form was always a blues; songs had no real beginning or ending, much like African music.
   
  • Emphasis on rhythm rather than melody.
   
  • Return to breaks to create tension and to rest the left hand.
   
  • The left hand, which never varied, could have been an outgrowth of "stride" piano.
   
  • Boogie Woogie patterns were personalized much like the field hollers and hawking cries.
   
  • The left hand ostinato (a repeated figure) served as a forerunner of rhythm and blues.
   
  • Unpianistic music.
   
  • Percussive and rugged.
   
  • Uneven and unpredictable.

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• But to be fair, it’s important to note that Chicago is not the birthplace of the Blues. Long before patrons were jamming in the bar basements of the Windy City, big guys with acoustic guitars and harmonicas were heating up venues in the south of the country. Though the exact origins of the Blues were never recorded, it’s generally accepted that this influential genre of music was born in the North Mississippi River Delta in the late 19th century, just after the Civil War. The original Delta Blues are heavily influenced by its creators’ African roots, as well as their daily lives, expressing feelings of both hope and despair, freedom and oppression. Many assert that Blues originated in the fields, as plantation slaves sang field hollers to each other, creating rhythms by stomping their feet and clapping their hands.
• In the early 20th century 1.4 million African-Americans, many of which were newly-freed slaves via the Emancipation Proclamation, began heading North in what is known as The Great Migration. Moving to cities like Chicago, Detroit, and Cleveland, they left the South in search of better opportunities and less discrimination. After huge success hosting the 1893 Columbian World’s Fair, Chicago had become home to a flourishing art scene and was receiving international acclaim. This new found reputation called to musicians in the South, promising opportunities for success and a new home for Blues in Chicago.
• musicians who had success in Chicago in the early 20th century are Blind Lemon Jefferson, Ma Rainey, Georgia Tom, and the legendary Big Bill Broonzy.
• From 1940 until about 1975 the Blues was thriving in Chicago, and some of the most famous black musicians in history were finding their place in the world of entertainment. While the Blues of the South Side was often more rowdy and raw, the Blues that developed on the West Side was a smoother, jazz-influenced sound. Among these guitar-playing, harmonica-toting innovators were Muddy Waters, Howlin’ Wolf, Willie Dixon, Koko Taylor, Otis Rush, Bo Diddley, Kansas Joe McCoy and Buddy Guy.

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• Kansas City is world renowned for its rich jazz and blues legacy. J
• Blues singers of the 1920s and ragtime music greatly influenced the music scene. Settings such as dance halls, cabarets and speakeasies fostered the development of this new musical style. In the early days, many jazz groups were smaller dance bands with three to six pieces. By the mid-1920s, the big band became the most common.
• Another great outcome of Kansas City jazz was the jam session. After performances, musicians would get together to exchange ideas and experiment with new methods of playing. The best local and out of town musicians would take part in these jam sessions that lasted all night and well into the next day.

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