108-465: The Paul Butterfield Blues Band was an American blues and blues-rock band from Chicago . Formed in the summer of 1963, the group originally featured eponymous vocalist and harmonicist Paul Butterfield , guitarist Elvin Bishop , bassist Jerome Arnold , and drummer Sam Lay . The band added guitarist Mike Bloomfield and keyboardist Mark Naftalin before recording their self-titled debut album , which
216-495: A British usage of the 1600s referring to the "intense visual hallucinations that can accompany severe alcohol withdrawal". As time went on, the phrase lost the reference to devils and came to mean a state of agitation or depression. By the 1800s in the United States, the term "blues" was associated with drinking alcohol, a meaning which survives in the phrase ' blue law ', which prohibits the sale of alcohol on Sunday. In 1827, it
324-484: A banjo or guitar. Regional styles of country blues varied widely in the early 20th century. The (Mississippi) Delta blues was a rootsy sparse style with passionate vocals accompanied by slide guitar. The little-recorded Robert Johnson combined elements of urban and rural blues. In addition to Robert Johnson, influential performers of this style included his predecessors Charley Patton and Son House . Singers such as Blind Willie McTell and Blind Boy Fuller performed in
432-415: A break; the harmony of this two-bar break, the turnaround, can be extremely complex, sometimes consisting of single notes that defy analysis in terms of chords. Much of the time, some or all of these chords are played in the harmonic seventh (7th) form. The use of the harmonic seventh interval is characteristic of blues and is popularly called the "blues seven". Blues seven chords add to the harmonic chord
540-567: A center for electric blues from 1948 on, when Muddy Waters recorded his first success, "I Can't Be Satisfied". Chicago blues is influenced to a large extent by Delta blues , because many performers had migrated from the Mississippi region. Howlin' Wolf , Muddy Waters, Willie Dixon and Jimmy Reed were all born in Mississippi and moved to Chicago during the Great Migration. Their style
648-640: A charity concert promoted by Bruce Blakeman at Valley Stream Central High School . Kooper has played on hundreds of records , including ones by the Rolling Stones , B.B. King , the Who , the Jimi Hendrix Experience , Alice Cooper , and Cream . On occasion he overdubbed his own efforts, as on The Live Adventures of Mike Bloomfield and Al Kooper and other albums, under the pseudonym "Roosevelt Gook". In 1969, Kooper produced, arranged, and conducted
756-399: A component of R&B. After World War II, new styles of electric blues became popular in cities such as Chicago , Memphis , Detroit and St. Louis . Electric blues used electric guitars , double bass (gradually replaced by bass guitar ), drums , and harmonica (or "blues harp") played through a microphone and a PA system or an overdriven guitar amplifier . Chicago became
864-474: A more rhythm and blues -influenced horn-driven direction, with songs such as Charles Brown 's " Driftin' Blues " (retitled "Driftin' and Driftin'"), Otis Rush 's " Double Trouble ", and Junior Parker 's " Driving Wheel ". The Resurrection of Pigboy Crabshaw was Butterfield's highest-charting album, reaching number 52 on the album chart. Most of this lineup performed at the seminal Monterey Pop Festival on June 17, 1967. Davenport retired shortly thereafter and
972-610: A movement known as the Great Migration . The long boom following World War II induced another massive migration of the African-American population, the Second Great Migration , which was accompanied by a significant increase of the real income of the urban blacks. The new migrants constituted a new market for the music industry. The term race record , initially used by the music industry for African-American music,
1080-549: A newer recording of the previously released "Born in Chicago", is an upbeat blues rocker and set the tone for the album, which included a mix of blues standards , such as " Shake Your Moneymaker ", " Blues with a Feeling ", and " Look Over Yonders Wall ", and compositions by the band. The album, described as a "hard-driving blues album that, in a word, rocked", reached number 123 in the Billboard 200 album chart in 1966, but its influence
1188-456: A note with a frequency in a 7:4 ratio to the fundamental note. At a 7:4 ratio, it is not close to any interval on the conventional Western diatonic scale . For convenience or by necessity it is often approximated by a minor seventh interval or a dominant seventh chord . In melody , blues is distinguished by the use of the flattened third , fifth and seventh of the associated major scale . Blues shuffles or walking bass reinforce
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#17328512452861296-476: A number of one-off collaboration albums, such as the Super Session album that saw him work separately with guitarists Mike Bloomfield and Stephen Stills . In the 1970s Kooper was a successful manager and producer, recording Lynyrd Skynyrd 's first three albums. He has had a successful solo career, writing music for film soundtracks, and has lectured in musical composition. Kooper was selected for induction for
1404-594: A part in early blues, citing Robert Johnson 's " Cross Road Blues " as a "thinly veiled reference to Eleggua , the orisha in charge of the crossroads". However, the Christian influence was far more obvious. The repertoires of many seminal blues artists, such as Charley Patton and Skip James , included religious songs or spirituals. Reverend Gary Davis and Blind Willie Johnson are examples of artists often categorized as blues musicians for their music, although their lyrics clearly belong to spirituals. The blues form
1512-569: A part of ragtime; Handy's signature work was the " Saint Louis Blues ". In the 1920s, the blues became a major element of African American and American popular music, also reaching white audiences via Handy's arrangements and the classic female blues performers. These female performers became perhaps the first African American "superstars", and their recording sales demonstrated "a huge appetite for records made by and for black people." The blues evolved from informal performances in bars to entertainment in theaters. Blues performances were organized by
1620-419: A recording career that began in 1926 and spanned forty years. These recordings were typically labeled " race records " to distinguish them from records sold to white audiences. Nonetheless, the recordings of some of the classic female blues singers were purchased by white buyers as well. These blueswomen's contributions to the genre included "increased improvisation on melodic lines, unusual phrasing which altered
1728-406: A separate genre arose during the black migration from the countryside to urban areas in the 1920s and the simultaneous development of the recording industry. Blues became a code word for a record designed to sell to black listeners. The origins of the blues are closely related to the religious music of Afro-American community, the spirituals . The origins of spirituals go back much further than
1836-542: A short, four-song set the next day with Bloomfield, Arnold, and Lay (along with Al Kooper and Barry Goldberg ). The performance was not well received by some and generated a controversy , but it was a watershed event and brought the band to the attention of a much larger audience. The band added keyboardist Mark Naftalin , and its debut album, The Paul Butterfield Blues Band , was finally successfully recorded in mid-1965 and released in October of that year. The opening song,
1944-494: A single line repeated four times. However, the most common structure of blues lyrics today was established in the first few decades of the 20th century, known as the "AAB" pattern. This structure consists of a line sung over the first four bars, its repetition over the next four, and a longer concluding line over the last bars. This pattern can be heard in some of the first published blues songs, such as " Dallas Blues " (1912) and " Saint Louis Blues " (1914). According to W.C. Handy ,
2052-463: 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 . The term 'Blues' may have originated from "blue devils", meaning melancholy and sadness. An early use of the term in this sense is in George Colman 's one-act farce Blue Devils (1798). The phrase 'blue devils' may also have been derived from
2160-445: A workshop performance. Maria Muldaur , with her husband Geoff , who later toured and recorded with Butterfield, recalled the group's performance as stunning; it was the first time that many of the mostly folk-music fans had heard a high-powered electric blues combo. Among those who took notice was festival regular Bob Dylan , who invited the band to back him for his first live electric performance. With little rehearsal, Dylan performed
2268-449: Is a cyclic musical form in which a repeating progression of chords mirrors the call and response scheme commonly found in African and African-American music. During the first decades of the 20th century blues music was not clearly defined in terms of a particular chord progression. With the popularity of early performers, such as Bessie Smith , use of the twelve-bar blues spread across
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#17328512452862376-572: Is an American retired songwriter, record producer, and musician, known for joining and naming Blood, Sweat & Tears , although he did not stay with the group long enough to share its popularity. Throughout much of the 1960s and 1970s he was a prolific studio musician, including playing organ on the Bob Dylan song " Like a Rolling Stone ", French horn and piano on the Rolling Stones song " You Can't Always Get What You Want ", and lead guitar on Rita Coolidge 's " The Lady's Not for Sale ". Kooper produced
2484-404: Is characterized by the use of electric guitar, sometimes slide guitar, harmonica, and a rhythm section of bass and drums. The saxophonist J. T. Brown played in bands led by Elmore James and by J. B. Lenoir , but the saxophone was used as a backing instrument for rhythmic support more than as a lead instrument. Al Kooper Al Kooper (born Alan Peter Kuperschmidt ; February 5, 1944)
2592-709: Is often associated with solo piano, boogie-woogie was also used to accompany singers and, as a solo part, in bands and small combos. Boogie-woogie style was characterized by a regular bass figure, an ostinato or riff and shifts of level in the left hand, elaborating each chord and trills and decorations in the right hand. Boogie-woogie was pioneered by the Chicago-based Jimmy Yancey and the Boogie-Woogie Trio ( Albert Ammons , Pete Johnson and Meade Lux Lewis ). Chicago boogie-woogie performers included Clarence "Pine Top" Smith and Earl Hines , who "linked
2700-491: Is often associated with the California blues style, performed a successful transition from the early urban blues à la Lonnie Johnson and Leroy Carr to the jump blues style and dominated the blues-jazz scene at Los Angeles during the 1940s. The transition from country blues to urban blues that began in the 1920s was driven by the successive waves of economic crisis and booms that led many rural blacks to move to urban areas, in
2808-511: 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
2916-475: The American South sometimes referred to as a jitterbug or a one-string in the early twentieth century) and the banjo are African-derived instruments that may have helped in the transfer of African performance techniques into the early blues instrumental vocabulary. The banjo seems to be directly imported from West African music. It is similar to the musical instrument that griots and other Africans such as
3024-602: The Cafe Au Go Go in New York City. These recordings also failed to satisfy Rothchild, but the group's appearances at the club brought them to the attention of the East Coast music community. Rothchild persuaded Holzman to agree to a third attempt at recording an album. In these recording sessions, Rothchild had assumed the role of group manager and used his folk contacts to secure the band more engagements outside of Chicago. At
3132-590: The Count Basie Orchestra were also concentrating on the blues, with 12-bar blues instrumentals such as Basie's " One O'Clock Jump " and " Jumpin' at the Woodside " and boisterous " blues shouting " by Jimmy Rushing on songs such as "Going to Chicago" and " Sent for You Yesterday ". A well-known big band blues tune is Glenn Miller 's " In the Mood ". In the 1940s, the jump blues style developed. Jump blues grew up from
3240-548: The Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 : Backwater rising, Southern peoples can't make no time I said, backwater rising, Southern peoples can't make no time And I can't get no hearing from that Memphis girl of mine Although the blues gained an association with misery and oppression, the lyrics could also be humorous and raunchy: Rebecca, Rebecca, get your big legs off of me, Rebecca, Rebecca, get your big legs off of me, It may be sending you baby, but it's worrying
3348-579: The Igbo played (called halam or akonting by African peoples such as the Wolof , Fula and Mandinka ). However, in the 1920s, when country blues began to be recorded, the use of the banjo in blues music was quite marginal and limited to individuals such as Papa Charlie Jackson and later Gus Cannon . Blues music also adopted elements from the "Ethiopian airs", minstrel shows and Negro spirituals , including instrumental and harmonic accompaniment. The style also
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3456-583: The Newport Folk Festival , as well as in the recording studio in 1965 and 1966. He played organ once again with Dylan during his 1981 world tour. Kooper joined the Blues Project as their keyboardist in 1965. He left the band shortly before their gig at the Monterey Pop Festival in 1967, although he did play a solo set, as evidenced by The Criterion Collection Blu-ray extended edition of
3564-758: The Rock Bottom Remainders , a band made up of writers including Dave Barry , Stephen King , Amy Tan , and Matt Groening . Kooper wrote a column called "New Music For Old People" for online publication The Morton Report from April 2014 to April 2015. This later led to a radio show by the same name, which began in October 2018, for Martha's Vineyard community radio station WVVY-LP . The first 11 editions of this can be found online. Kooper profiled Steve Martin for Crawdaddy Magazine in 1977. Kooper has his own podcast called " Kooperkast " which started in late 2020. Hosted by webmaster Jon Sachs, Kooper discusses his various experiences in his more than 60 years in
3672-868: The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2023. Al Kooper was born into a Jewish family in Brooklyn, New York City , to Sam and Natalie Kuperschmidt, and grew up in Hollis Hills , Queens , New York. Kooper's first professional work was as a 14-year-old guitarist in the Royal Teens , best known for their 1958 ABC Records novelty song " Short Shorts " (although Kooper did not play on that recording). In 1960, he teamed up with songwriters Bob Brass and Irwin Levine to write and record demos for Sea-Lark Music Publishing. The trio's biggest hits were " This Diamond Ring ", recorded by Gary Lewis and
3780-589: The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in the Award for Musical Excellence category. Kooper published a memoir, Backstage Passes: Rock 'n' Roll Life in the Sixties (1977), which was revised and published as Backstage Passes and Backstabbing Bastards: Memoirs of a Rock 'n' Roll Survivor (1998). The revised edition includes indictments of "manipulators" in the music industry , including his one-time business manager, Stan Polley . An updated edition, including supplementary material,
3888-741: The Theater Owners Booking Association in nightclubs such as the Cotton Club and juke joints such as the bars along Beale Street in Memphis. Several record companies, such as the American Record Corporation , Okeh Records , and Paramount Records , began to record African-American music. As the recording industry grew, country blues performers like Bo Carter , Jimmie Rodgers , Blind Lemon Jefferson , Lonnie Johnson , Tampa Red and Blind Blake became more popular in
3996-409: The degrees of the progression. For instance, for a blues in the key of C, C is the tonic chord (I) and F is the subdominant (IV). The last chord is the dominant (V) turnaround , marking the transition to the beginning of the next progression. The lyrics generally end on the last beat of the tenth bar or the first beat of the 11th bar, and the final two bars are given to the instrumentalist as
4104-468: The "AAB" pattern was adopted to avoid the monotony of lines repeated three times. The lyrics are often sung in a rhythmic talk style rather than a melody, resembling a form of talking blues . Early blues frequently took the form of a loose narrative. African-American singers voiced their "personal woes in a world of harsh reality: a lost love, the cruelty of police officers, oppression at the hands of white folk, [and] hard times". This melancholy has led to
4212-438: The 1920s, among them "the big three"— Gertrude "Ma" Rainey , Bessie Smith , and Lucille Bogan . Mamie Smith , more a vaudeville performer than a blues artist, was the first African American to record a blues song, in 1920; her second record, "Crazy Blues", sold 75,000 copies in its first month. Ma Rainey, the "Mother of Blues", and Bessie Smith each "[sang] around center tones, perhaps in order to project her voice more easily to
4320-428: The 1920s, when the record industry created the marketing categories " race music " and " hillbilly music " to sell music by blacks for blacks and by whites for whites, respectively. At the time, there was no clear musical division between "blues" and "country", except for the ethnicity of the performer, and even that was sometimes documented incorrectly by record companies. Though musicologists can now attempt to define
4428-451: The 9-bar progression in " Sitting on Top of the World ", by Walter Vinson . The basic 12-bar lyric framework of many blues compositions is reflected by a standard harmonic progression of 12 bars in a 4/4 time signature . The blues chords associated to a twelve-bar blues are typically a set of three different chords played over a 12-bar scheme. They are labeled by Roman numbers referring to
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4536-601: The African American community. Kentucky-born Sylvester Weaver was in 1923 the first to record the slide guitar style, in which a guitar is fretted with a knife blade or the sawed-off neck of a bottle. The slide guitar became an important part of the Delta blues . The first blues recordings from the 1920s are categorized as a traditional, rural country blues and a more polished city or urban blues. Country blues performers often improvised, either without accompaniment or with only
4644-520: The African call-and-response tradition that transformed into an interplay of voice and guitar, the blues form itself bears no resemblance to the melodic styles of the West African griots . Additionally, there are theories that the four-beats-per-measure structure of the blues might have its origins in the Native American tradition of pow wow drumming. Some scholars identify strong influences on
4752-646: The Butterfield Blues Band and moved to San Francisco, California, to form a new band called the Electric Flag . By the time the group performed at the Monterey Pop Festival , Arnold had been replaced by Charley "Bugsy" Maugh, and the group had expanded with the addition of saxophonists Gene Dinwiddie and David Sanborn and trumpeter Keith Johnson. The eight-piece lineup released the band's third album, The Resurrection of Pigboy Crabshaw in 1967. The album cut back on extended instrumental jams and went in
4860-506: The Old Town district on Chicago's near North Side. With this booking, they persuaded bassist Jerome Arnold and drummer Sam Lay (both from Howlin' Wolf's touring band) to form a group with them in 1963. Their engagement at the club was highly successful and brought the group to the attention of record producer Paul A. Rothchild . During their engagement at Big John's, Butterfield met and occasionally sat in with guitarist Mike Bloomfield , who
4968-724: The Playboys , and " I Must Be Seeing Things ", recorded by Gene Pitney (both 1965). When he was 21, Kooper moved to Greenwich Village in Manhattan . He first performed with Bob Dylan playing the Hammond organ riffs on " Like a Rolling Stone ". He had been invited to watch the recording by producer Tom Wilson . It was in those recording sessions that Kooper met and befriended Mike Bloomfield , whose guitar playing he admired. He worked with Bloomfield for several years. In 1965, Kooper played with Dylan in concert, and played Hammond organ with Dylan at
5076-494: The album Appaloosa , a "folk-baroque" style of music that combined rock and classical. Among other artists who were all arranging folk-oriented material with classical-influenced orchestration were Judy Collins , Donovan , Tim Hardin and Tom Rush . Kooper was joined by Boston musicians John Parker Compton, singer and acoustic guitarist, Robin Batteau on violin, Eugene Rosov on cello, and David Reiser on electric bass. Contributing to
5184-502: The album was saxophonist Fred Lipsius and Blood, Sweat & Tears drummer Bobby Colomby . After moving to Atlanta in 1972, he discovered the band Lynyrd Skynyrd , and produced and performed on their first three albums, including the singles " Sweet Home Alabama " and " Free Bird ". In 1975 he produced the debut album of the Tubes . Kooper wrote the scores for the TV series Crime Story and
5292-420: The back of a room". Smith would "sing a song in an unusual key, and her artistry in bending and stretching notes with her beautiful, powerful contralto to accommodate her own interpretation was unsurpassed". In 1920, the vaudeville singer Lucille Hegamin became the second black woman to record blues when she recorded "The Jazz Me Blues", and Victoria Spivey , sometimes called Queen Victoria or Za Zu Girl, had
5400-581: The band's interpretations of blues ( Robert Johnson 's " Walkin' Blues "), rock ( Michael Nesmith 's " Mary, Mary "), R&B ( Allen Toussaint's " Get Out of My Life, Woman "), and jazz selections ( Nat Adderley 's " Work Song "). East-West reached number 65 in the album chart. The 13-minute instrumental track "East-West" incorporates Indian raga influences and some of the earliest jazz-fusion and blues rock excursions, with extended solos by Butterfield and guitarists Mike Bloomfield and Elvin Bishop. It has been described as "the first of its kind and ...
5508-544: The beginning of the 20th century. They are now lost. Other recordings that are still available were made in 1924 by Lawrence Gellert . Later, several recordings were made by Robert W. Gordon , who became head of the Archive of American Folk Songs of the Library of Congress . Gordon's successor at the library was John Lomax . In the 1930s, Lomax and his son Alan made a large number of non-commercial blues recordings that testify to
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#17328512452865616-441: The blues are also closely related to the religious music of the African-American community, the spirituals . The first appearance of the blues is often dated to after the ending of slavery , with the development of juke joints occurring later. 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
5724-647: The blues from the melodic structures of certain West African musical styles of the savanna and sahel. Lucy Durran finds similarities with the melodies of the Bambara people , and to a lesser degree, the Soninke people and Wolof people , but not as much of the Mandinka people . Gerard Kubik finds similarities to the melodic styles of both the west African savanna and central Africa, both of which were sources of enslaved people. No specific African musical form can be identified as
5832-568: The blues in the same year in Missouri ; and W.C. Handy , who first heard the blues in Tutwiler, Mississippi , in 1903. The first extensive research in the field was performed by Howard W. Odum , who published an anthology of folk songs from Lafayette County, Mississippi , and Newton County, Georgia , between 1905 and 1908. The first non-commercial recordings of blues music, termed proto-blues by Paul Oliver , were made by Odum for research purposes at
5940-460: The blues is usually dated after the Emancipation Act of 1863 , between 1860s and 1890s, a period that coincides with post- emancipation and later, the establishment of juke joints as places where African-Americans went to listen to music, dance, or gamble after a hard day's work. This period corresponds to the transition from slavery to sharecropping, small-scale agricultural production, and
6048-516: The blues narrowly in terms of certain chord structures and lyric forms thought to have originated in West Africa, audiences originally heard the music in a far more general way: it was simply the music of the rural south, notably the Mississippi Delta . Black and white musicians shared the same repertoire and thought of themselves as " songsters " rather than blues musicians. The notion of blues as
6156-411: The blues, usually dating back to the middle of the 18th century, when the slaves were Christianized and began to sing and play Christian hymns , in particular those of Isaac Watts , which were very popular. Before the blues gained its formal definition in terms of chord progressions, it was defined as the secular counterpart of spirituals. It was the low-down music played by rural blacks. Depending on
6264-479: The boogie-woogie wave and was strongly influenced by big band music. It uses saxophone or other brass instruments and the guitar in the rhythm section to create a jazzy, up-tempo sound with declamatory vocals. Jump blues tunes by Louis Jordan and Big Joe Turner , based in Kansas City, Missouri , influenced the development of later styles such as rock and roll and rhythm and blues. Dallas-born T-Bone Walker , who
6372-479: The emphasis and impact of the lyrics, and vocal dramatics using shouts, groans, moans, and wails. The blues women thus effected changes in other types of popular singing that had spin-offs in jazz, Broadway musicals , torch songs of the 1930s and 1940s, gospel , rhythm and blues , and eventually rock and roll ." Urban male performers included popular black musicians of the era, such as Tampa Red , Big Bill Broonzy and Leroy Carr . An important label of this era
6480-449: The event. He formed Blood, Sweat & Tears in 1967, leaving due to creative differences in 1968, after the release of the group's first album, Child Is Father to the Man . He recorded Super Session with Bloomfield and Stephen Stills in 1968, and in 1969 he collaborated with 15-year-old guitarist Shuggie Otis on the album Kooper Session . In 1972, he rejoined The Blues Project at
6588-429: The expansion of railroads in the southern United States. Several scholars characterize the development of blues music in the early 1900s as a move from group performance to individualized performance. They argue that the development of the blues is associated with the newly acquired freedom of the enslaved people. According to Lawrence Levine, "there was a direct relationship between the national ideological emphasis upon
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#17328512452866696-566: The film The Landlord , as well as several made-for-television movies. He was the musical force behind many pop tunes, including "You're the Lovin' End", for The Banana Splits , a children's television program. During the late 1980s, Kooper had his own dedicated keyboard studio room in the historic Sound Emporium recording studio in Nashville, next to Studio B . Kooper's status as a published author enabled him to join (and act as musical director of)
6804-564: The following year, Harris left the band and Dennis Whitted took over from Davidson on drums. A live double album by the Butterfield Blues Band, Live , was recorded March 21–22, 1970, at The Troubadour , in West Hollywood, California. By this time, the band included a four-piece horn section in what has been described as a "big-band Chicago blues with a jazz base". Live provides perhaps the best showcase for this unique "blues-jazz-rock-R&B hybrid sound". Sometimes I Just Feel Like Smilin'
6912-410: 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. 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
7020-417: The genre took its shape from the idiosyncrasies of individual performers. However, there are some characteristics that were present long before the creation of the modern blues. Call-and-response shouts were an early form of blues-like music; they were a "functional expression ... style without accompaniment or harmony and unbounded by the formality of any particular musical structure". A form of this pre-blues
7128-409: The harp, and he seemed to get about as good as he got in that six months. He was just a natural genius. This was in 1960 or 1961. By this time Butter had been hanging out in the ghetto for a couple of years, and he was part of the scene and getting accepted. Eventually, Butterfield, on vocals and harmonica, and Bishop, accompanying him on guitar, were offered a regular gig at Big John's, a folk club in
7236-751: The hell out of me. Hokum blues celebrated both comedic lyrical content and a boisterous, farcical performance style. Tampa Red and Georgia Tom 's " It's Tight Like That " (1928) is a sly wordplay with the double meaning of being " tight " with someone, coupled with a more salacious physical familiarity. Blues songs with sexually explicit lyrics were known as dirty blues . The lyrical content became slightly simpler in postwar blues, which tended to focus on relationship woes or sexual worries. Lyrical themes that frequently appeared in prewar blues, such as economic depression, farming, devils, gambling, magic, floods and drought, were less common in postwar blues. The writer Ed Morales claimed that Yoruba mythology played
7344-454: The huge variety of proto-blues styles, such as field hollers and ring shouts . A record of blues music as it existed before 1920 can also be found in the recordings of artists such as Lead Belly and Henry Thomas . All these sources show the existence of many different structures distinct from twelve- , eight- , or sixteen-bar . The social and economic reasons for the appearance of the blues are not fully known. The first appearance of
7452-434: The individual, the popularity of Booker T. Washington's teachings, and the rise of the blues." Levine stated that "psychologically, socially, and economically, African-Americans were being acculturated in a way that would have been impossible during slavery, and it is hardly surprising that their secular music reflected this as much as their religious music did." There are few characteristics common to all blues music, because
7560-496: The last minute, the band was booked to perform at the Newport Folk Festival in July 1965. They were scheduled as the opening act the first night when the gates opened and again the next afternoon in an urban blues workshop at the festival. Despite limited exposure on the first night and a dismissive introduction the following day by the folklorist and blues researcher Alan Lomax , the band was able to attract an unusually large audience for
7668-638: The low rate of literacy among rural African Americans at the time. Reports of blues music in southern Texas and the Deep South were written at the dawn of the 20th century. Charles Peabody mentioned the appearance of blues music at Clarksdale, Mississippi , and Gate Thomas reported similar songs in southern Texas around 1901–1902. These observations coincide more or less with the recollections of Jelly Roll Morton , who said he first heard blues music in New Orleans in 1902; Ma Rainey , who remembered first hearing
7776-516: The music industry during the 1920s and 1930s. Other chord progressions, such as 8-bar forms, are still considered blues; examples include " How Long Blues ", " Trouble in Mind ", and Big Bill Broonzy 's " Key to the Highway ". There are also 16-bar blues , such as Ray Charles 's instrumental "Sweet 16 Bars" and Herbie Hancock 's " Watermelon Man ". Idiosyncratic numbers of bars are occasionally used, such as
7884-644: The music industry, including his solo albums, Bob Dylan, Lynyrd Skynyrd. He answers questions which can be submitted on the Kooperkast page on his website. In May 2001, Kooper was awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Music from Berklee College of Music in Boston. He taught songwriting and recording production there. He plays weekend concerts with his bands the ReKooperators and the Funky Faculty. In 2008, he participated in
7992-481: The next year, Maugh made way for Rod Hicks and Steve Madaio joined as a second trumpeter. By the summer, the group had also added keyboardist Ted Harris and third saxophonist Trevor Lawrence . The Butterfield Blues Band was invited to perform at the Woodstock Festival on August 18, 1969. The band performed seven songs, and although its performance did not appear in the film Woodstock , one song, "Love March",
8100-503: The pleasures of Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf, Little Walter, Willie Dixon and Elmore James". Butterfield died in May 1987 due to an accidental drug overdose. Blues Blues is a music genre and musical form that originated amongst African-Americans in the Deep South of the United States around the 1860s. Blues has incorporated spirituals , work songs , field hollers , shouts , chants , and rhymed simple narrative ballads from
8208-644: The production of the album Psalngs , the debut release of Canadian musician John Lefebvre . Kooper was inducted into the Musicians Hall of Fame and Museum , in Nashville , in 2008. In 2005, Martin Scorsese produced a documentary titled No Direction Home: Bob Dylan for the PBS American Masters Series, in which Kooper's contributions are recognized. In 2023, Kooper was selected for induction into
8316-489: The propulsive left-hand rhythms of the ragtime pianists with melodic figures similar to those of Armstrong's trumpet in the right hand". The smooth Louisiana style of Professor Longhair and, more recently, Dr. John blends classic rhythm and blues with blues styles. Another development in this period was big band blues. The " territory bands " operating out of Kansas City , the Bennie Moten orchestra, Jay McShann , and
8424-458: The religious community a musician belonged to, it was more or less considered a sin to play this low-down music: blues was the devil's music. Musicians were therefore segregated into two categories: gospel singers and blues singers, guitar preachers and songsters. However, when rural black music began to be recorded in the 1920s, both categories of musicians used similar techniques: call-and-response patterns, blue notes, and slide guitars. Gospel music
8532-793: The root from which the acid rock tradition emerged". Live versions of the song sometimes lasted nearly an hour, and performances at the San Francisco Fillmore Auditorium "were a huge influence on the city's jam bands ". Bishop recalled, " Quicksilver , Big Brother , and the Dead – those guys were just chopping chords. They had been folk musicians and weren't particularly proficient playing electric guitar – [Bloomfield] could play all these scales and arpeggios and fast time-signatures ... He just destroyed them." Several live versions of "East-West" from this period were later released on East-West Live in 1996. In February 1967, Bloomfield left
8640-456: The savannah, are conspicuously absent. According to the historian Paul Oliver , "the roots of the blues were not to be found in the coastal and forest regions of Africa. Rather... the blues was rooted in ... the savanna hinterland, from Senegambia through Mali, Burkina Faso, Northern Ghana, Niger, and northern Nigeria". Additionally, ethnomusicologist John Storm Roberts has argued that "The parallels between African savanna-belt string-playing and
8748-510: The single direct ancestor of the blues. However the call-and-response format can be traced back to the music of Africa . That blue notes predate their use in blues and have an African origin is attested to by "A Negro Love Song", by the English composer Samuel Coleridge-Taylor , from his African Suite for Piano , written in 1898, which contains blue third and seventh notes . The Diddley bow (a homemade one-stringed instrument found in parts of
8856-446: The songs "can't be sung without a full heart and a troubled spirit", conditions that have inspired countless blues songs. Though the use of the phrase in African-American music may be older, it has been attested to in print since 1912, when Hart Wand 's " Dallas Blues " became the first copyrighted blues composition. In lyrics, the phrase is often used to describe a depressed mood. Early traditional blues verses often consisted of
8964-406: The southeastern "delicate and lyrical" Piedmont blues tradition, which used an elaborate ragtime-based fingerpicking guitar technique. Georgia also had an early slide tradition, with Curley Weaver , Tampa Red , "Barbecue Bob" Hicks and James "Kokomo" Arnold as representatives of this style. The lively Memphis blues style, which developed in the 1920s and 1930s near Memphis, Tennessee ,
9072-528: The suggestion of an Igbo origin for blues, because of the reputation the Igbo had throughout plantations in the Americas for their melancholic music and outlook on life when they were enslaved. Other historians have argued that there is little evidence of Sub-Sahelian influence in the blues as "elaborate polyrhythm, percussion on African drums (as opposed to European drums), [and] collective participation" which are characteristic of West-Central African music below
9180-507: The techniques of many blues guitarists are remarkable. The big kora of Senegal and Guinea are played in a rhythmic-melodic style that uses constantly changing rhythms, often providing a ground bass overlaid with complex treble patterns, while vocal supplies a third rhythmic layer. Similar techniques can be found in hundreds of blues records". The lyrics often relate troubles experienced within African American society. For instance Blind Lemon Jefferson 's "Rising High Water Blues" (1927) tells of
9288-446: The trance-like rhythm and call-and-response, and they form a repetitive effect called a groove . Characteristic of the blues since its Afro-American origins, the shuffles played a central role in swing music . The simplest shuffles, which were the clearest signature of the R&;B wave that started in the mid-1940s, were a three-note riff on the bass strings of the guitar. When this riff
9396-444: The trance-like rhythm and form a repetitive effect known as the groove . Blues music is 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
9504-532: Was a formally trained musician, composer and arranger who helped to popularize the blues by transcribing and orchestrating blues in an almost symphonic style, with bands and singers. He became a popular and prolific composer, and billed himself as the "Father of the Blues"; however, his compositions can be described as a fusion of blues with ragtime and jazz, a merger facilitated using the Cuban habanera rhythm that had long been
9612-504: Was a free-born black woman from Pennsylvania who was working as a schoolteacher in South Carolina, instructing both slaves and freedmen, and wrote that she "came home with the blues" because she felt lonesome and pitied herself. She overcame her depression and later noted a number of songs, such as "Poor Rosy", that were popular among the slaves. Although she admitted being unable to describe the manner of singing she heard, Forten wrote that
9720-472: Was also playing at the club. By chance, producer Rothchild witnessed one of their performances and was impressed by the chemistry between the two. He persuaded Butterfield to bring Bloomfield into the band, and they were signed to Elektra Records . Their first attempt to record an album, in December 1964, did not meet Rothchild's expectations, although an early version of " Born in Chicago ", written by Gravenites,
9828-399: Was closely related to ragtime , which developed at about the same time, though the blues better preserved "the original melodic patterns of African music". The musical forms and styles that are now considered the blues as well as modern country music arose in the same regions of the southern United States during the 19th century. Recorded blues and country music can be found as far back as
9936-414: Was felt beyond its sales figures. Shortly after the album's release, Lay was hospitalised after contracting pleural effusion ; he was replaced for one show by Billy Warren, who was then dismissed in favor of Billy Davenport , who joined in late December. In July 1966, the sextet recorded their second album, East-West , which was released a month later. The album consists of more varied material, with
10044-457: Was heard in slave ring shouts and field hollers , expanded into "simple solo songs laden with emotional content". Blues has evolved from the unaccompanied vocal music and oral traditions of slaves imported from West Africa and rural blacks into a wide variety of styles and subgenres, with regional variations across the United States. Although blues (as it is now known) can be seen as a musical style based on both European harmonic structure and
10152-416: 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
10260-440: Was in the sense of a sad state of mind that John James Audubon wrote to his wife that he "had the blues". In Henry David Thoreau 's book Walden , he mentions "the blues" in the chapter reflecting on his time in solitude. He wrote his account of his personal quest in 1845, although it was not published until 1854. The phrase "the blues" was written by Charlotte Forten , then aged 25, in her diary on December 14, 1862. She
10368-460: Was included on the 1965 Elektra sampler Folksong '65 and created interest in the band. Additional early recordings were released on the Elektra compilation What's Shakin' in 1966 and The Original Lost Elektra Sessions in 1995. To capture their sound better, Rothchild convinced Elektra president Jac Holzman to record a live album. In the spring of 1965, the Butterfield Blues Band was recorded at
10476-477: Was included on the album Woodstock: Music from the Original Soundtrack and More , released in 1970. In 2009, Butterfield was included in the expanded 40th Anniversary Edition Woodstock video, and an additional two songs appeared on the box set Woodstock: 40 Years On: Back to Yasgur's Farm . The album Keep On Moving , with only Butterfield remaining from the original lineup, was released in 1969. It
10584-567: Was influenced by jug bands such as the Memphis Jug Band or the Gus Cannon's Jug Stompers . Performers such as Frank Stokes , Sleepy John Estes , Robert Wilkins , Kansas Joe McCoy , Casey Bill Weldon and Memphis Minnie used a variety of unusual instruments such as washboard , fiddle , kazoo or mandolin . Memphis Minnie was famous for her virtuoso guitar style. Pianist Memphis Slim began his career in Memphis, but his distinct style
10692-659: Was nevertheless using musical forms that were compatible with Christian hymns and therefore less marked by the blues form than its secular counterpart. The American sheet music publishing industry produced a great deal of ragtime music. By 1912, the sheet music industry had published three popular blues-like compositions, precipitating the Tin Pan Alley adoption of blues elements: "Baby Seals' Blues", by Baby Franklin Seals (arranged by Artie Matthews ); "Dallas Blues", by Hart Wand ; and " The Memphis Blues ", by W.C. Handy . Handy
10800-420: Was played over the bass and the drums, the groove "feel" was created. Shuffle rhythm is often vocalized as " dow , da dow , da dow , da" or " dump , da dump , da dump , da": it consists of uneven, or "swung", eighth notes. On a guitar this may be played as a simple steady bass or it may add to that stepwise quarter note motion from the fifth to the sixth of the chord and back. Hart Wand 's " Dallas Blues "
10908-469: Was produced by veteran R&B producer and songwriter Jerry Ragovoy , reportedly brought in by Elektra to turn out a "breakout commercial hit". The album was not embraced by critics or long-time fans; however, it reached number 102 in the Billboard album chart. After the release of Keep On Moving , Feiten and Wilson were replaced by Ralph Wash and George Davidson, respectively, while Johnson also left. Late
11016-430: Was published in 1912; W.C. Handy 's " The Memphis Blues " followed in the same year. The first recording by an African American singer was Mamie Smith 's 1920 rendition of Perry Bradford 's " Crazy Blues ". But the origins of the blues were some decades earlier, probably around 1890. This music is poorly documented, partly because of racial discrimination in U.S. society, including academic circles, and partly because of
11124-586: Was released in 1971, after which the group disbanded. In 1972, a retrospective of their career, Golden Butter: The Best of the Paul Butterfield Blues Band , was released by Elektra. The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inducted the Paul Butterfield Blues Band in 2015. The induction biography commented that "the Butterfield Band converted the country-blues purists and turned on the Fillmore generation to
11232-413: Was released in October 1965. The founding sextet were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2015, along with Billy Davenport , their drummer on their second album, East-West . In the early 1960s, Butterfield met aspiring blues guitarist Elvin Bishop . Bishop recalled: He [Butterfield] was playing more guitar than harp when I first met him. But in about six months he became serious about
11340-490: Was replaced by Phillip Wilson . On its next album, In My Own Dream , released in 1968, the band continued to move away from its roots in Chicago blues towards a more soul-influenced, horn-based sound. With Butterfield singing only three songs, the album featured more band contributions. It reached number 79 in the Billboard album chart. Bishop and Naftalin left shortly after the release of In My Own Dreams , with Howard "Buzz" Feiten brought in as their replacement. Early
11448-507: Was replaced by the term rhythm and blues . This rapidly evolving market was mirrored by Billboard magazine's Rhythm & Blues chart . This marketing strategy reinforced trends in urban blues music such as the use of electric instruments and amplification and the generalization of the blues beat, the blues shuffle , which became ubiquitous in rhythm and blues (R&B). This commercial stream had important consequences for blues music, which, together with jazz and gospel music , became
11556-444: Was smoother and had some swing elements. Many blues musicians based in Memphis moved to Chicago in the late 1930s or early 1940s and became part of the urban blues movement. City or urban blues styles were more codified and elaborate, as a performer was no longer within their local, immediate community, and had to adapt to a larger, more varied audience's aesthetic. Classic female urban and vaudeville blues singers were popular in
11664-536: Was the Chicago-based Bluebird Records . Before World War II, Tampa Red was sometimes referred to as "the Guitar Wizard". Carr accompanied himself on the piano with Scrapper Blackwell on guitar, a format that continued well into the 1950s with artists such as Charles Brown and even Nat "King" Cole . Boogie-woogie was another important style of 1930s and early 1940s urban blues. While the style
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