166-595: Freddie King (September 3, 1934 – December 28, 1976) was an American blues guitarist, singer and songwriter. He is considered one of the "Three Kings of the Blues Guitar" (along with Albert King and B. B. King , none of whom was a blood relative). Mostly known for his soulful and powerful voice and distinctive guitar playing, King had a major influence on electric blues music and on many later blues guitarists. Born in Gilmer , Texas, King became acquainted with
332-789: A Blues Master (1969) and My Feeling for the Blues (1970) were named records to avoid, as they "both suffer from thin accompaniment, too little guitar and reedy vocals". John Swenson, writing in The Rolling Stone Jazz & Blues Guide (1999), also recommended the Electric Ballroom recording, along with "Home Cooking's Live at the Texas Opry House (documenting a 1976 show in Houston)", saying they are "the best antidotes to King's lackluster studio work from these years". In his only review of
498-495: 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
664-535: A King album, The Best of Freddie King (1975) by Shelter Records , Christgau wrote in Christgau's Record Guide: Rock Albums of the Seventies (1981) that the 1971–73 recordings are "a bunch of Leon Russell and Don Nix boogies, [King's] voice blurred, his guitar all fake and roll." He added that, while the guitarist had recorded some "acute R&B" singles early in his career, he later "coast[ed] for years". However, in
830-565: A Molotov cocktail in his hand... and... to shoot to maim or cripple anyone looting any stores in our city." During the late 1960s, the Illinois chapter of the Black Panther Party had its headquarters on the West Side on Madison Street near Western Avenue. The chapter chairman, Fred Hampton , helped his chapter establish a free breakfast program for children as well as free health clinics for
996-551: A Woman " and instrumental " Hide Away ", which reached number five on the Billboard magazine's rhythm and blues chart in 1961. It later became a blues standard. King based his guitar style on Texas blues and Chicago blues influences. The album Freddy King Sings showcased his singing talents and included the record chart hits " You've Got to Love Her with a Feeling " and "I'm Tore Down". He later became involved with producers who were more oriented to rhythm and blues and rock and
1162-484: 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
1328-415: 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
1494-607: A bustling thoroughfare throughout the 1840s and 1850s, wealthier residents decided to establish an affluent community on the West Side that could be a retreat from the bustling city center. This was the impetus for the creation of Union Park . As the 1860s came, less affluent residents replaced the wealthier families around Union Park and increased immigration from Europe transformed the Near West Side into an ethnically diverse area. Chicago's first Black community along Kinzie Street and Lake Street became adjacent to an Irish community by
1660-567: 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
1826-399: 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
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#17331149512031992-511: A cover of "Hide Away", with Cornell Dupree on guitar, in 1962. Curtis signed King to Atlantic in 1968, which resulted in two LPs , Freddie King Is a Blues Master (1969) and My Feeling for the Blues (1970), produced by Curtis for the Atlantic subsidiary Cotillion Records . In 1969 King hired Jack Calmes as his manager, who secured him an appearance at the 1969 Texas Pop Festival, alongside Led Zeppelin and others, and this led to King's signing
2158-681: A dramatic change in the city's population occurred with the Great Migration of Blacks from the Southern United States into the urban North. In 1910, Chicago's Black population was at 40,000, most of these people being concentrated on the South Side in an area known as the Black Belt. By 1940, the Black population rose to 278,000, and more of these residents increasingly lived on the West Side. In
2324-818: A gateway for immigrants and migrants as well as its role for funneling poorer African-American residents away from the wealthier lakeside neighborhoods and central business district. Today, the West Side consists of large mixed communities of middle class, working class, and low-income African American , Puerto Rican , and Mexican residents; some small communities of blue-collar , lower middle class and middle class white residents of historically Polish , Italian , Czech , Russian Jewish , and Greek , descent; and newer communities of middle-class, upper-middle class , and wealthy white residents created by gentrification . Major shifts continue to happen due to forces such as rapid gentrification, selective corporate investments, and unequal distribution of city resources. There are
2490-524: A gymnasium, and language classes were provided for children, and services were provided for employment, garbage removal, and art programs. Hull House became a center of the Italian and Greek communities, however Black residents of the Near West Side weren't as welcome to use the services of Hull House and had to rely on finding or creating other community services. As the 20th century began, Chicago had already annexed land west of Western Avenue, greatly increasing
2656-470: A half mile west of the Chicago River. Land plotters and wealthier newcomers were more interested in developing land north and south of the original settlement because this land was adjacent to Lake Michigan . As the central business district grew, retail stores set up shop along Lake Street , connecting the central business district with the slower-developing western part of the city. As Lake Street became
2822-490: A journalist, "they've got food in them." King had an intuitive style, often creating guitar parts with vocal nuances. He achieved this by using the open-string sound associated with Texas blues and the raw, screaming tones of West Side, Chicago blues. King's combination of the Texas and Chicago sounds gave his music a more contemporary feel than that of many Chicago bands who were still performing 1950s-style music, and he befriended
2988-679: A long-time food desert; however, the poorer residents of the neighborhood are being displaced into other neighborhoods that are currently food deserts. The West Side is home to the Puerto Rican Parade and Festival or Fiestas Puertorriqueñas held annually along Division Street and Paseo Boricua in Humboldt Park. The new Chicago Westside Music Festival occurs annually in Garfield Park. Festa Italiana occurs every year in Little Italy, near
3154-553: 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,
3320-575: A new health science center and auditorium. The other city college located on the West Side is the Arturo Velasquez West Side Technical Institute, a satellite campus of Richard J. Daley College located near Little Village. St. Augustine College, the first bilingual institution of higher learning in Illinois, has a campus near Little Village, and another campus immediately north of Humboldt Park, serving Chicago's Spanish-speaking community. Chicago Public Schools operates
3486-456: 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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#17331149512033652-594: 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
3818-569: 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
3984-471: A period of estrangement from Chess in the late 1950s, asked King to come to Cobra Records for a session, but the results have never been heard. Meanwhile, King established himself as perhaps the biggest musical force on the West Side. He played along with Magic Sam and reputedly played backing guitar, uncredited, on some of Sam's tracks for Mel London 's Chief and Age labels, though King does not stand out on them. In 1959 King got to know Sonny Thompson ,
4150-537: A pianist, producer, and A&R man for Cincinnati's King Records . King Records' owner, Syd Nathan , signed King to the subsidiary Federal Records in 1960. King recorded his debut single for the label on August 26, 1960: " Have You Ever Loved a Woman " backed with " You've Got to Love Her with a Feeling " (again credited as "Freddy" King). From the same recording session at the King Studios in Cincinnati, Ohio, King cut
4316-589: A range of services available on the West Side, especially educational, cultural, and medical institutions. The University of Illinois at Chicago is on the West Side, as is the United Center , home to the Chicago Bulls and Chicago Blackhawks . One of the nation's largest urban medical districts, the Illinois Medical District , is on the West Side. Three of Chicago's largest parks , along with much of
4482-419: 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
4648-621: A recording contract with Shelter Records , a new label established by the rock pianist Leon Russell and the record producer Denny Cordell and recorded at their studio, The Church Studio in Tulsa, Oklahoma . The company treated King as an important artist, flying him to Chicago to the former Chess studios to record the album Getting Ready and providing a lineup of top session musicians, including Russell. Three albums were made during this period, including blues classics and new songs, such as "Going Down", written by Don Nix . King performed alongside
4814-454: A review of King's 1974 album Burglar for AllMusic , Joe Viglione called it "entertaining and concise" and believed the album "stands as a solid representation of an important musician which is as enjoyable as it is historic". "It's Too Bad Things Are Going So Tough" Blues Blues is a music genre and musical form that originated amongst African-Americans in the Deep South of
4980-406: 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
5146-517: A serious blow to Chicago's entire Black community. Six years later, Washington's unofficial floor leader in the city council, Puerto Rican Chicagoan Luis Gutiérrez , was elected to the U.S. Congress as the Midwest's first Latino representative in Congress. Chicago's homicides reached peak numbers in the early 1990s in Humboldt Park, Austin, Lawndale, and Garfield Park. As numbers began to go down throughout
Freddie King - Misplaced Pages Continue
5312-494: 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 ,
5478-531: 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. Many elements, such as
5644-652: A way; instrumental music that you could dance to." One band that mixed R&B and surf instrumentals occasionally included Jerry Garcia . He later explained: "When I started playing electric guitar the second time, with the Warlocks, it was a Freddie King album that I got almost all my ideas off of, his phrasing really. That first one, Here's Freddie King , later it came out as Freddie King Plays Surfin' Music or something like that, it has 'San-Ho-Zay' on it and 'Sensation" and all those instrumentals" (King's 1961 instrumental album, Let's Hide Away and Dance Away with Freddy King ,
5810-449: 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
5976-877: Is a nationally recognized museum that offers free admission daily and showcases Mexican art across time and provides professional development to Mexican artists. Further west in Little Village is the Mexican Museum of Culture. Located within Garfield Park is the Garfield Park Conservatory, one of the largest in the nation. In the Austin neighborhood is the Sankofa Cultural Arts Center, a center for education, art, and workshops on Pan-African cultures. The Institute of Puerto Rican Arts and Culture and
6142-585: Is an alternative school created in the 1970s to remedy the high drop-out rate of Puerto Rican youth in Chicago. The school uses a critical pedagogy to engage students in restoring and empowering their community by teaching students the history of figures such as Pedro Albizu Campos and Oscar López Rivera . The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Chicago operates area Catholic schools, most notably St. Ignatius College Prep . The West Side, due to its large population and high density, has many political representatives at
6308-404: 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. West Side, Chicago The West Side is one of the three major sections of
6474-733: Is located in West Town. The Chicago High School for the Arts has moved from its former location on the South Side in Bronzeville to its new location in the recently closed Lafayette Elementary school near Augusta Boulevard and California Avenue. This gives a new high school option to the new gentrifier white, middle-class residents of the area whose homes are zoned to poorly performing, predominantly Black and Latino-populated high schools such as Wells High School and Clemente High School. Dr. Pedro Albizu Campos Puerto Rican High School located in Humboldt Park
6640-428: Is not included in and geographically very distant from the West Side. The most commonly referenced borders by officials that are assigned to the West Side are North Avenue to the north and 31st Street to the south. The western border is where the edge of the city meets the western suburbs of Oak Park and Cicero . These two suburbs border the communities of Austin , Lawndale , and Little Village . The eastern border
6806-709: 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
Freddie King - Misplaced Pages Continue
6972-491: 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
7138-517: Is often the most disputed border by residents, real estate brokers, and city officials. While some will claim Western Avenue is the eastern border, those in the communities east of Western Avenue such as West Town , the Near West Side , and Pilsen have more historical and cultural ties to the West Side and the central, inner city area more so than to the North Side or South Side. In certain texts,
7304-700: Is the University of Illinois at Chicago , more commonly referred to as UIC. The school was originally called Circle Campus in reference to its proximity to the Circle Interchange , now named the Jane Byrne Interchange. The school has an enrollment of nearly 30,000 students, and has its own athletics program, the UIC Flames . UIC also operates the University of Illinois College of Medicine, a major component of
7470-417: The 2010 U.S. Census show, the Black community on the West Side is bordered to the north and to the south by Latino residents. On the north and moving northwest are mostly Puerto Rican and other Latino residents living in the communities of West Town and Humboldt Park, and to the south are primarily Mexican residents living in the communities of Pilsen and Little Village. The gentrifying areas of West Town,
7636-475: 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
7802-835: The Blue , Green and Pink lines and the BNSF Railway and the Union Pacific / West Line Metra lines. Union Station , the main railroad terminal of both Metra and Amtrak trains is located just west of the Chicago River and downtown. To the north of Union Station is the smaller Ogilvie Transportation Center that serves three Metra lines. Major thoroughfares on the West Side include Grand Avenue , North Avenue , Division Street , Chicago Avenue , Madison Street , Jackson Boulevard, Roosevelt Road , Blue Island Avenue , 16th Street, 18th Street, Ogden Avenue , Cermak Road , and 26th Street. Major roads that run north-south that go to other parts of
7968-590: 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
8134-483: The Fiestas Puertorriqueñas . This controversy along with the protests against the festival's location in Humboldt Park have prompted festival coordinators to move Riot Fest to Douglass Park , another West Side park, causing further protest and backlash by longtime Lawndale and Little Village residents. There are several institutions of higher education throughout the West Side. The largest and most well-known
8300-548: 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
8466-547: The Homan Square facility , maintained by the Chicago Police Department, are both on the West Side. As with the other sides of the city, there is no consensus as to the exact boundaries of the West Side. The city's annexation of land beyond the original western border at Wood Street gave way to the development of the West Side. The city legislature added more land in 1869 through the annexation of West Town area, and
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#17331149512038632-579: 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
8798-523: The Illinois Medical District . Rush University, also located in the medical district, operates Rush University Medical Center and the Johnston R. Bowman Health Center. The City Colleges of Chicago operates two colleges on the West Side. In the Near West Side, there is the long-established Malcolm X College . Located on Van Buren Street near Damen Avenue, Malcolm X College is linked to Chicago's first city college Crane Junior College, later Herzl College, which
8964-741: 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
9130-700: The Ukrainian National Museum , and the Ukrainian Institute of Modern Art are all located in West Town. The newly reconstructed National Hellenic Museum, the nation's second oldest Greek-American cultural museum, is located in Greektown . Not too far south of the museum is the Hull House Museum and National Italian American Sports Hall of Fame . In Pilsen, the National Museum of Mexican Art
9296-418: 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 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
9462-409: 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
9628-426: 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 . Blues music is characterized by its lyrics , bass lines , and instrumentation . Early traditional blues verses consisted of
9794-468: 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
9960-438: 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
10126-428: 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
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#173311495120310292-584: The 1960s ended. In 1966, the first major urban Puerto Rican rebellion in the U.S. happened on Division Street, an event later known as the Division Street Riots . As the 1970s began, Humboldt Park suffered from poverty, crime, and gangs, leading to another uprising in 1977. To combat this, Puerto Rican community members across the West Side created social service organizations such as the Latin American Defense Organization (LADO) and
10458-436: The 1990s, another round of displacement began to take hold. Major gentrification efforts in the Near West Side and West Town began, where corporate investors supported the addition of high-end businesses and luxury-style residential condos. Property taxes rose thus raising rents, forcing poorer Puerto Rican and Black residents to move yet again. As the 2000s began, Pilsen began to see more major gentrification efforts. However,
10624-416: The 2010 U.S. Census, the West Side has a total of 480,687 residents, making it the least populated of the three main sections of the city. However, its population density is very high at 13,852 residents per square mile. In 2010, 44% of residents were non-Hispanic Black, 34% were Latino or Hispanic, and 17% were non-Hispanic white. 3% of residents were of Asian ancestry, mostly residing in the Near West Side in
10790-451: 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
10956-601: 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
11122-520: 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
11288-541: The Blacks of the West Side rebelled in anger against the oppressive system made more apparent by King's murder. Long stretches of businesses along Madison Street in Garfield Park and Austin and along Roosevelt Road in Lawndale, the majority of which were owned by whites, were looted and burned down. Mayor Daley ordered 10,500 police and 6,700 National Guardsmen into the West Side, ordering "to shoot to kill any arsonist or anyone with
11454-478: The British blues scene and tour its club circuit in the late 1960s. Robert Christgau credited King's embrace of Britain with creating his renown as a pioneer of electric blues guitar. In Gary Graff 's MusicHound Rock (1996), the entry on King states: "Although his reputation rests with his guitar, King also sang with an underrated, powerful style. His lasting influence has insured Freddie King's recognition as one of
11620-498: The Every Hour Blues Boys, with the guitarist Jimmie Lee Robinson and the drummer Frank "Sonny" Scott. In 1952, while employed at a steel mill, the eighteen-year-old King occasionally worked as a sideman with such bands as the Little Sonny Cooper Band and Earl Payton's Blues Cats. In 1953 he recorded with the latter for Parrot Records, but these recordings were never released. As the 1950s progressed, King played with several of Muddy Waters's sidemen and other Chicago mainstays, including
11786-443: The Lower West Side; The Island within Austin; University Village, Greektown, Little Italy, and Tri-Taylor within the Near West Side; Homan Square and K-Town within North Lawndale; Marshall Square within South Lawndale; and West Humboldt Park within Humboldt Park. A majority of the West Side's Black residents live in the Near West Side, Garfield Park, Austin, Lawndale, and the southern portion of Humboldt Park. As demographic maps from
11952-476: The Mexican population, losing much of their housing stock, moved in large numbers south to Pilsen. White flight and blockbusting drastically changed the demographics of the West Side by the 1950s. Throughout this decade, many white Chicagoans moved to the suburbs in a planned move by investors who, through scare tactics and instigating racial antagonism, encouraged white Chicagoans to sell their city homes and buy homes
12118-517: The Near West Side brought the community head-to-head with Mayor Richard J. Daley , and the construction of the university displaced half of the community, including the Hull House settlement. Nearly the entire Italian and Greek communities relocated to the Northwest Side and suburbs. The Black population moved further west into the Near West Side, Garfield Park and the eastern portion of Lawndale, and
12284-603: The Near West Side, Rockwell Gardens and Harrison Courts in East Garfield Park, and Lawndale Gardens in Lawndale/Little Village. Many of these housing projects became predominantly Black and poor. The Chicago Housing Authority was known for its segregationist policies and lack of building maintenance, and police brutality was very frequent. After the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. on April 4, 1968,
12450-448: The Near West Side, and Pilsen are seeing large influxes of mostly middle-class white residents, thus concentrating the West Side's white population much closer to the downtown area. Other white populations of the West Side include the neighborhood of Galewood in the northern part of the Austin community area as well as the small Polish patches and Eastern European areas remaining in parts of West Town, such as Ukrainian Village. According to
12616-474: The Near West Side, there were 26,000 Blacks by 1940, and this community was joined by a growing Mexican-American community and a smaller Puerto Rican community. The Black population on the West Side was growing due in large part to the crowded conditions of the South Side, however crowding increased quickly on the West Side as well. Black residents began moving in small numbers to East Garfield Park, being met with even more housing discrimination than they faced in
12782-601: The Near West Side. By this time, the Maxwell Street Market employed mostly newer Black residents and the market became an important center for Black Chicago blues musicians coming from the South. The construction of the Eisenhower Expressway in the 1950s demolished many homes in the area, forcing residents to relocate further west. The announcement of a University of Illinois campus in Chicago to be constructed in
12948-662: The Near West Side. Most of the Czech and Bohemian residents moved south establishing the neighborhood of Pilsen, named after the city of Plzeň in the Czech Republic. The fire also began migration into the Lawndale neighborhood, which had advertised itself as a residential suburb with fireproof apartment buildings. Immigration from Europe continued in the area at a rapid rate, and the older Irish and German community became eclipsed by newer Jewish immigrants from Russia and Poland. Large numbers of Italian and Greek immigrants began arriving in
13114-631: The Segundo Ruiz Belvis Cultural Center. The Young Lords , a former street turf gang from Lincoln Park, turned into a human liberation group, becoming warriors for the community by fighting further displacement and holding sit-ins at the Wicker Park Welfare Office and takeovers of institutions to implement free breakfast programs similar to the Black Panther Party. In Pilsen, Mexican-Americans and Chicanos reclaimed
13280-459: The United States around the 1860s. Blues has 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
13446-597: The University Village neighborhood near the University of Illinois at Chicago and the Illinois Medical District. 2% of residents were of Native American descent, multiracial backgrounds, or other origins. Increasing foreclosures and gentrification have driven many of the poorer residents, mostly Black and Latino, toward other parts of the city, particularly the South Side and Northwest Side, as well as lower-income suburbs like Cicero and Berwyn , decreasing
13612-581: The West Side, many recent festivals have been created by newer residents such as Wicker Park Fest and the Pitchfork Music Festival in Union Park. More recently, an event called Riot Fest has been held in Humboldt Park since 2012, but has since moved to Douglass Park after controversy among Puerto Rican event organizers who were denied things that Riot Fest had received, such as alcohol permits for
13778-561: The West Side. In 1895, the Metropolitan West Side Elevated Railroad opened, which provided elevated train service down Harrison Street on its Garfield Park branch and also elevated train service down North Avenue on its Humboldt Park branch. Elements of these elevated train lines are used today for the CTA Green Line and Blue Line . Industry began to dominate this area further west. Sears, Roebuck and Company
13944-482: The West Side. East Garfield Park, West Garfield Park, and Humboldt Park had been sparsely populated throughout the late 19th century, but the addition of transportation infrastructure increased the population quickly. In 1892, the first elevated train line was constructed on the South Side and a year later, the Lake Street Elevated Railroad opened, providing transportation service from the city center to
14110-431: The West Side. They existed by block or in small pockets, mostly in the Austin neighborhood closer to the suburb of Oak Park. Black representation of the West Side in Congress began in the 1970s with the placement of George W. Collins in the seat of Daniel J. Ronan who died in 1969. After George W. Collins was killed in a plane crash at Midway Airport in 1972, his wife Cardiss Collins was elected to Congress, making her
14276-512: The West Side: George Westinghouse College Prep and Whitney M. Young College Prep . Students from all over the city can apply to these schools and admission is based on grades, attendance, and exam scores. There are many charter schools throughout this section of the city. The Noble Network of Charter Schools operates numerous campuses throughout the West Side, and its original location, Noble Street College Prep ,
14442-564: The Woman" was "the first time I heard that electric lead-guitar style, with the bent notes ... [it] started me on my path." In a later interview with Dan Forte in Guitar World , he said of King's guitar playing on his rendition of "I Love The Woman": "That just sent me into a complete kind of ecstasy, and it scared the shit out of me. I'd never heard anything like it, and I thought I'd never get anywhere near it. And I know now that I never will, but it
14608-465: The area as La Diesiocho because of the 18th Street business corridor. Pilsen became a large center for mural painting by those part of the Chicano movement and for those attempting to shift the view of Pilsen as a dangerous community. La Villita , the neighborhood to the west of Pilsen and Heart of Chicago was being populated by even more Mexican-Americans, and the business corridor along 26th Street became
14774-459: The area became unhealthily overcrowded, resulting in dilapidated tenements and pollution. These poorer residents also lacked health services from the city. This situation was to be addressed by the creation of the Hull House settlement by Jane Addams and Ellen Gates Starr in 1889. Hull House was a settlement house that provided a range of services to the residents of the West Side. A playground,
14940-456: The area is the Eisenhower Expressway , the name for Interstate 290 within Chicago. The Stevenson Expressway runs just south of Pilsen and Little Village giving residents access to the Southwest Side and Midway Airport . The West Side is linked to the rest of the city by several Chicago Transit Authority (CTA) bus and train lines, as well as Metra train lines. The West Side is served by
15106-632: The area too. The Jewish immigrants settled between 12th Street, now Roosevelt Road , and 16th Street, centering the community and businesses along Maxwell Street . The Maxwell Street Market continued from this time through the 20th century as an important economic and cultural center for the city. Italian immigrants settled along Polk Street and Taylor Street, establishing Chicago's main Little Italy . Greek immigrants centered their settlement at Harrison Street, Halsted Street, and Blue Island Avenue, calling their community "The Delta." As immigration continued,
15272-420: 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
15438-544: 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
15604-456: The big rock acts of the day, such as Eric Clapton and Grand Funk Railroad (whose song " We're an American Band " mentions King in its lyrics), and for a young, mainly white audience, along with the white tour drummer Gary Carnes, for three years, before signing with RSO Records . In 1974 he recorded Burglar , for which Tom Dowd produced the track "Sugar Sweet" at Criteria Studios in Miami, with
15770-647: 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
15936-568: 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
16102-460: 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
16268-516: 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
16434-411: 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
16600-479: 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
16766-449: The busiest after the Loop . During the 1980s and 1990s, the communities of the West Side continued to struggle, but hopes were being held together by social organizations, movements, and programs. The election of Mayor Harold Washington in 1983 gave hope to the West Side, especially since his election opened the door for more political representation, but his sudden death in 1987 was viewed as
16932-562: The city include Halsted Street , Racine Avenue, Ashland Avenue, Damen Avenue, Western Avenue , California Avenue, Kedzie Avenue , Homan Avenue, Central Park Avenue, Pulaski Road , Cicero Avenue , Laramie Avenue, Central Avenue, and Austin Boulevard. There is a wide range of museums and cultural institutions on the West Side. In West Town, there are many institutions representing the large Polish community in Chicago as well as other Eastern European ethnic groups. The Polish Museum of America ,
17098-470: The city of Chicago , Illinois , United States. It is joined by the North and South Sides . The West Side contains communities that are of historical and cultural importance to the history and development of Chicago. On the flag of Chicago , the West Side is represented by the central white stripe. The West Side has gone through many transitions in its ethnic and socioeconomic makeup due to its historic role as
17264-572: The city's boulevard system , are in this part of the city: Humboldt Park , Garfield Park , and Douglass Park . The West Side is very accessible by the interstate and public transportation via the Chicago Transit Authority 's many bus routes, the Chicago 'L' , the Metra commuter rail, and the Eisenhower Expressway . Additionally, Cook County Jail , the United States' largest single site jail, and
17430-537: The city's official division of its 77 community areas , nine community areas compose the West Side: West Town , the Near West Side , the Lower West Side , Humboldt Park , East Garfield Park , West Garfield Park , North Lawndale , South Lawndale , and Austin . Within these community areas are smaller neighborhoods, some of which match the community area's name and boundaries, and some of which do not use
17596-679: The city, state, and national level. Representatives in U.S. Congress Representatives in the Illinois State Senate Representatives in the Illinois House of Representatives The following wards are representative of the West Side in the Chicago City Council : 1, 2, 12, 22, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 32, 37. Due to its proximity to the downtown area, the West Side has extensive mass transit as well as highways and roads. The main highway running through
17762-467: The communities within West Town and Pilsen are grouped together as the Near Northwest Side and Near Southwest Side respectively. Therefore, using the Chicago River as an eastern border of the West Side becomes suitable. Regardless of how the boundaries are defined, the West Side is the smallest in area of the three sections of the city, with an area of approximately 34.7 square miles. According to
17928-577: The community area's name at all. The three main community areas that do not match their colloquial neighborhood names are the Lower West Side, which is widely known as Pilsen; North Lawndale, which is simply known as Lawndale; and South Lawndale, which is widely known as Little Village. Neighborhoods within these community areas include East Ukrainian Village, Ukrainian Village, Noble Square, Pulaski Park, The Patch, and Wicker Park within West Town; Fifth City within East Garfield Park; Heart of Chicago within
18094-603: The community put up a substantial fight against this displacement process and gentrification progressed more slowly. During this time, the ABLA homes were demolished along with the Henry Horner Homes and Rockwell Gardens. Some of these areas have been replaced with new housing developments with the intended purpose of creating mixed-income communities. However, these areas are now mainly populated by younger, white, middle-class to upper-middle class professionals whom have been displacing
18260-523: The community. Hampton was murdered in his sleep in a planned raid by Chicago police and the FBI on the party's West Side apartment on Monroe Street in December 1969. Over 5,000 people attended Hampton's funeral. The drug epidemic began sweeping through the West Side in the 1970s, and crime continued to climb. Unlike the South Side, there weren't large middle, upper-middle, or affluent Black communities that developed on
18426-479: 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
18592-429: 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
18758-709: The first Black female representative from the Midwest . Puerto Ricans displaced by gentrification and city-backed urban renewal projects in Lincoln Park began moving to West Town and Humboldt Park by the thousands during the mid-late 1960s. In 1960, West Town had a Latino population of 1%. By 1970, that number had grown to 39%. Polish residents, who remained less upwardly mobile than the West Side's former German and Russian Jewish immigrants, remained in relatively large numbers in West Town centered around Catholic parishes. Humboldt Park began to see larger influxes of Puerto Ricans as
18924-462: 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
19090-417: 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
19256-434: The great postwar blues masters." Recommending what albums of King's music to hear, MusicHound Rock cited the 1993 Rhino compilation The Best of Freddie King , for focusing on "the fruitful abundance" of his recordings for King Records (1961–66), and the 1995 Black Top CD Live at the Electric Ballroom, 1974 , for its "blasting, ripping concert" recording along with "a rare pair of acoustic" performances; Freddie King Is
19422-474: The guitar at the age of six. He started learning the guitar from his mother and his uncle. King moved to Chicago when he was a teenager; there he formed his first band the Every Hour Blues Boys with guitarist Jimmie Lee Robinson and drummer Frank "Sonny" Scott. As he was repeatedly being rejected by Chess Records , he got signed to Federal Records , and got his break with single " Have You Ever Loved
19588-424: The guitarists Jimmy Rogers , Robert Lockwood Jr. , Eddie Taylor , and Hound Dog Taylor ; the bassist Willie Dixon ; the pianist Memphis Slim ; and the harmonicist Little Walter . In 1956 he cut his first record as a leader, for El-Bee Records. The A-side was "Country Boy", a duet with Margaret Whitfield. The B-side was a King vocal. Both tracks feature the guitar of Robert Lockwood Jr., who during these years
19754-462: The guitarists Clapton and George Terry , the drummer Jamie Oldaker and the bassist Carl Radle . Mike Vernon produced the other tracks. Vernon also produced a second album for King, Larger than Life , for the same label. Vernon brought in other notable musicians for both albums, such as Bobby Tench of the Jeff Beck Group , to complement King. Nearly constant touring took its toll on King—he
19920-751: 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
20086-454: 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
20252-434: 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
20418-641: The instrumental " Hide Away ", which the next year reached number five on the R&;B chart and number 29 on the Pop chart , an unprecedented accomplishment for a blues instrumental at a time when the genre was still largely unknown to white audiences. It was originally released as the B-side of "I Love the Woman". "Hide Away" was King's melange of a theme by Hound Dog Taylor and parts by others, such as "The Walk", by Jimmy McCracklin , and "Peter Gunn", as credited by King. The title of
20584-449: The investors built in the suburbs. By 1960, Chicago recorded its first ever population drop. However, Black and Latino residents began filling the West Side to its maximum. Black areas of the West Side began to experience highly impoverished conditions moving into the 1960s. Many residents moved into housing projects that were built throughout the West Side the previous decade, the main housing projects being ABLA and Henry Horner Homes in
20750-659: The location of the Taste of Greektown. In Little Village, the Festival de la Villita takes place along 26th Street celebrating the community as well as a Mexican Independence Day Parade. Another Mexican Independence Day Parade takes place in Pilsen along 18th Street. The Austin Town Hall in South Austin hosts a multitude of events such as plays and concerts. With the advent of gentrification on
20916-586: 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
21082-516: 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
21248-449: The poorer residents at a rapid rate. In 2014, Redfin named Humboldt Park to be the nation's 10th hottest neighborhood, demonstrating high interest in gentrifying the community. The new Chicago High School for the Arts has moved from the South Side into the closed Lafayette Elementary building in Humboldt Park near a growing community of gentrifiers. A new Pete's Fresh Market has been opened at Western Avenue and Madison Street, helping
21414-565: The population in certain areas of the West Side. Population density and income demographics Previously, the area was home to indigenous populations including the Cahokian, Potawatomi, Sauk, and Miami. Through legal trickery, the Treaty of Chicago , U.S. government officials were able to obtain land around Lake Michigan. When Chicago was incorporated as a city in 1834, settlers only lived as far west as Jefferson Street or Halsted Street , less than
21580-489: 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
21746-566: The public schools on the West Side, including many elementary schools. The West Side was heavily affected by Mayor Rahm Emanuel 's school closures of 2013. High schools in the area include Crane High School , Clemente High School , Orr High School , Marshall High School , Juarez High School , Manley High School , Wells High School , Farragut Career Academy , and the Little Village Lawndale High School Campus . Two selective enrollment high schools are located on
21912-458: 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
22078-421: The rest of the area was absorbed in 1899 through the annexation of the Austin area. Before the 1909 re-numbering of Chicago's street addresses, all addresses west of the Chicago River were designated as "west," but this changed with the establishment of the address numbering system Chicago uses today. Madison Street is designated as the north-south axis and State Street as the east-west axis, but State Street
22244-467: The river, as well as German, French, Czech, and Bohemian communities. Polish immigrants settled further north along the river in West Town to work at factories and on the railroad. The area was transformed by the Great Chicago Fire in 1871, which made 300,000 residents of the city homeless. The resulting migration toward other parts of the city created very densely populated and overcrowded areas on
22410-456: 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
22576-510: 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
22742-446: 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
22908-406: 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 ,
23074-528: 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
23240-507: 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
23406-399: 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
23572-558: 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 . 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
23738-570: The tune refers to Mel's Hide Away Lounge, a popular blues club on the West Side of Chicago. Willie Dixon later claimed that he had recorded King performing "Hide Away" for Cobra Records in the late 1950s, but such a version has never surfaced. "Hide Away" became a blues standard . After their success with "Hide Away", King and Thompson recorded thirty instrumentals, including " The Stumble ", "Just Pickin'", "Sen-Sa-Shun", "Side Tracked", "San-Ho-Zay", "High Rise", and "The Sad Nite Owl". They recorded vocal tracks throughout this period but often released
23904-476: The tunes as instrumentals on albums. During the Federal period, King toured with many notable R&B artists of the day, including Sam Cooke , Jackie Wilson , and James Brown . King's contract with Federal expired in 1966, by which time he had moved back to Dallas from Chicago, and his first overseas tour followed in 1967. His availability was noticed by the producer and saxophonist King Curtis , who had recorded
24070-506: The younger generation of blues musicians. In his early career he played a solid-body gold-top Gibson Les Paul with P-90 pickups. He later played several slimline semi-hollow body Gibson electric guitars, including an ES-335 , ES-345 , and ES-355. He used a plastic thumb pick and a metal index- finger pick . By proclamation of the governor of Texas, Ann Richards , September 3, 1993, was declared Freddie King Day, an honor reserved for Texas legends, such as Bob Wills and Buddy Holly . He
24236-484: 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
24402-504: 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
24568-520: Was also adding rhythm backing and fills to Little Walter's records. King was repeatedly rejected in auditions for the South Side's Chess Records , the premier blues label, which was the home of Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf, and Little Walter. The complaint was that King sang too much like B.B. King . A newer blues scene, lively with nightclubs and upstart record companies, was burgeoning on the West Side , though. The bassist and producer Willie Dixon , during
24734-673: Was born in 1934 to Ella Mae King and J. T. Christian. When Freddie was 6 years old, his mother and his uncle taught him to play the guitar. In 1949, he and his family moved from Dallas to the South Side of Chicago. In 1952, King started working in a steel mill. In the same year he married another Texas native, Jessie Burnett. They had seven children together. Almost as soon as he had moved to Chicago, King started sneaking into South Side nightclubs, where he heard blues performed by Muddy Waters , Howlin' Wolf , T-Bone Walker , Elmore James , and Sonny Boy Williamson . King formed his first band,
24900-399: 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
25066-605: Was founded in 1893, and in 1906 built its merchandise and catalog center in Lawndale near the intersection of Homan Avenue and Arthington Street. The North Western Railway had thousands of their employees establish a community in West Garfield Park. At this point, the West Side had immigrant industrial employees from all over Europe. There was a Polish majority in West Town; the Danish, Norwegians, and Russian Jews populated Humboldt Park, and Italians were in East Garfield Park. However,
25232-457: 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
25398-440: 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
25564-511: Was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2012, and placed 15th in Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 100 greatest guitarists of all time. Several of King's early 1960s instrumentals found their way into the repertoire of surf music bands: "Those instrumental hits Freddy King had – 'Hideaway', 'San-Ho-Zay', 'The Stumble' – [t]he way white kids were relating to it was like surf guitar in
25730-567: 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
25896-659: 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
26062-415: Was on the road almost 300 days out of the year. In 1976 he began suffering from stomach ulcers . His health quickly deteriorated, and he died on December 28 of complications from this illness and acute pancreatitis , at the age of 42. According to those who knew him, King's untimely death was due to stress, a legendary "hard-partying lifestyle", and a poor diet of consuming Bloody Marys because as he told
26228-537: Was one of the first bluesmen to have a multiracial backing band at performances. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame by ZZ Top in 2012 and into the Blues Hall of Fame in 1982. His instrumental "Hide Away" was included in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's list of " 500 Songs that Shaped Rock ". He was ranked 19th in the Rolling Stone magazine's 2023 edition of 250 Greatest Guitarists of All Time. Fred King
26394-402: Was originally located in Lawndale near Douglass Park. In 1968, the West Side community urged the city to rename the college after Malcolm X , who was assassinated three years earlier. The request was granted, and the school was moved from Lawndale to its present location. In January 2016, Malcolm X College is planning on completing a new, larger facility across the street on Jackson Boulevard with
26560-420: 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 "
26726-430: 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
26892-507: 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
27058-563: Was retitled Freddy King Goes Surfin' for a 1963 re-release). According to music critic Cub Koda , King has influenced guitarists such as Eric Clapton , Mick Taylor , Stevie Ray Vaughan , and Lonnie Mack . In Michael Corcoran's words, King "merged the most vibrant characteristics of both [Chicago and Texas] regional styles and became the biggest guitar hero of the mid-sixties British blues revivalists, who included Eric Clapton, Savoy Brown , Chicken Shack, and Peter Green -era Fleetwood Mac ". Clapton said in 1985 that King's 1961 song "I Love
27224-444: 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
27390-536: 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
27556-447: Was what immediately made me want to carry on." As Rolling Stone later wrote, "Clapton shared his love of King with fellow British guitar heroes Peter Green, Jeff Beck and Mick Taylor, all of whom were profoundly influenced by King's sharpened-treble tone and curt melodic hooks on iconic singles such as 'The Stumble,' 'I'm Tore Down' and 'Someday, After Awhile.'" King was among many pioneering African-American blues musicians to embrace
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