Blues

Blues is a music genre[3] and musical form that originated in the Deep South of the United States around the 1860s.[2] Blues incorporated spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts, chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads from the African-American culture. The blues form is ubiquitous in jazz, rhythm and blues, and rock and roll, and is characterized by the call-and-response pattern, the blues scale, and specific chord progressions, of which the twelve-bar blues is the most common. Blue notes (or "worried notes"), usually thirds, fifths or sevenths flattened in pitch, are also an essential part of the sound. Blues shuffles or walking bass reinforce the trance-like rhythm and form a repetitive effect known as the groove.

One of the first wholly American styles of music to gain traction and recognition across the world was blues music, developed in the American South by African slaves, many of whom were Muslim. An estimated 30% of African slaves brought to America were Muslim.[4] Blues music is heavily influenced by "field holler" songs, sung by the slaves as they worked in the fields.[5] The Muslim slaves added their own flair to their field holler songs, with African diaspora historian Sylviane Douf describing the way they sang "words that seem to quiver and shake" as very reminiscent of the Adhan, or Islamic call to prayer.[6]

"The Blues" is also characterized by its lyrics, bass lines, and instrumentation. Early traditional blues verses consisted of a single line repeated four times. It was only in the first decades of the 20th century that the most common current structure became standard: the AAB pattern, consisting of a line sung over the four first bars, its repetition over the next four, and then a longer concluding line over the last bars. Early blues frequently took the form of a loose narrative, often relating the racial discrimination and other challenges experienced by African-Americans.[7]

Many elements, such as the call-and-response format and the use of blue notes, can be traced back to the music of Africa. The origins of the blues are also closely related to the religious music of the Afro-American community, the spirituals. The first appearance of the blues is often dated to after the ending of slavery. Later, the development of juke joints. It is associated with the newly acquired freedom of the former slaves. Chroniclers began to report about blues music at the dawn of the 20th century. The first publication of blues sheet music was in 1908. Blues has since evolved from unaccompanied vocal music and oral traditions of slaves into a wide variety of styles and subgenres. Blues subgenres include country blues, Delta blues and Piedmont blues, as well as urban blues styles such as Chicago blues and West Coast blues. World War II marked the transition from acoustic to electric blues and the progressive opening of blues music to a wider audience, especially white listeners. In the 1960s and 1970s, a hybrid form called blues rock developed, which blended blues styles with rock music.

  1. ^ "BBC – GCSE Bitesize: Origins of the blues". BBC. Retrieved September 15, 2015.
  2. ^ a b "The Historical Roots of Blues Music". African American Intellectual History Society. May 9, 2018. Retrieved September 29, 2020.
  3. ^ Kunzler's dictionary of jazz provides two separate entries: "blues", and the "blues form", a widespread musical form (p. 131). Kunzler, Martin (1988). Jazz-Lexicon. Hamburg: Rowohlt Taschenbuch Verlag
  4. ^ Stock, Robert (2013). Africa South of the Sahara: A Geographical Interpretation. Guilford Press, Third edition, ISBN 978-1606239926
  5. ^ Kubik, Gerhard (2009). Africa and the Blues. University Press of Mississippi. pp. 25–26, 50, 66. ISBN 9781628467208.
  6. ^ Diouf, Sylviane. Servants of Allah African Muslims Enslaved in the Americas. New York University Press. p. 197. ISBN 9780814719046.
  7. ^ "Honoring Jazz: An Early American Art Form". Civilrightsmuseum.org. Archived from the original on February 5, 2023. Retrieved November 7, 2022.