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111-605: Treetops is the former estate of torch singer and actress Libby Holman . In 2001, a successful effort was made by local citizens to save the estate from development. As a result, 94 acres of pristine grounds were preserved as a state park , with a further 11 acres around the Treetops mansion covered by a conservation easement . Many rooms in Holman's mansion, including the studio of her third husband, abstract artist Louis Schanker , have been restored by its current owners. The property forms

222-495: 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

333-522: A Crowd , which also starred Allen and Webb. Other Broadway appearances included The Garrick Gaieties (1925), Merry-Go-Round (1927), Rainbow (1928), Ned Wayburn's Gambols (1929), Revenge with Music (1934), You Never Know (1938, score by Cole Porter), during which production she had a strong rivalry with the Mexican actress Lupe Vélez ; and her self-produced one-woman revue Blues, Ballads and Sin-Songs (1954). One of Holman's signature looks

444-458: A New York club, she arrived at the front door and was welcomed. Josh was directed to the staff entrance around the back. Libby waited till the day they were due to open, after the owners had spent a vast amount on publicity, and told them she was not going to sing in their club until they changed their racial door policy. She won. In Philadelphia, Josh was refused a room at the hotel in whose bar they sang nightly. Libby ranted and told them: "Take down

555-418: A YWCA and took classes at Columbia University . She began working for a female pimp Polly Adler in the winter when her savings ran low. Adler arranged her shift schedule to accommodate her classes. She later remembered Holman: "Every afternoon she would arrive after her classes, carrying her schoolbooks, wearing the short skirts, oxfords and beret that were the thing among coeds, and settle down to work..." She

666-484: 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

777-415: 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

888-567: 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

999-399: 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

1110-499: A dancer. He gave her the nickname, "The Statue of Libby". Her Broadway debut was in the play The Sapphire Ring in 1925 at the Selwyn Theatre , which closed after 13 performances. She was billed as Elizabeth Holman. Her big break came while she was appearing with Clifton Webb and Fred Allen in the 1929 Broadway revue The Little Show , in which she first sang the blues number " Moanin' Low " by Ralph Rainger , which earned her

1221-505: A dozen curtain calls on opening night, drew raves from the critics and became her signature song. Also in that show, she sang the Kay Swift and Paul James song, " Can't We Be Friends? ". She became known as the “premier torch singer ” of Broadway. The following year, Holman introduced the Howard Dietz and Arthur Schwartz standard " Something to Remember You By " in the show Three's

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1332-570: A friend on Mount Whitney , the highest peak in California, but was unaware that the boys were ill-prepared for the adventure. Both died. Those close to Holman claim she never forgave herself. After the death of her son Christopher, Holman (who had some money from her marriage to Reynolds) created the Christopher Reynolds Foundation to support equality, international disarmament, and the resolution of environmental problems. Over time,

1443-619: A hill overlooking the property became the home of the Treetops Chamber Music Society. 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 the African-American culture . The blues form

1554-610: 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,

1665-456: 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

1776-594: 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

1887-569: 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

1998-453: A rather fey, irresistible enchantress. But that’s exactly what she was; she could exert a strange fascination. There was a boy in the show we all called ‘horseface.’ He has such a lech for Libby that he followed her around like a puppy, which meant following me around because by that time I was never far behind the witch myself. After the show each night, the three of us would sit around till dawn drinking milk, eating coleslaw, and hating life. It

2109-419: 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

2220-406: 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

2331-494: 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 ,

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2442-630: A successful effort was made by citizens to save Treetops , her Connecticut estate, from development. It straddles the border of Stamford and Greenwich. As a result, the pristine grounds were preserved. Treetops is part of the Mianus River State Park, overseen by the Connecticut Department of Environmental Protection. Treetops is south of the Mianus River Park. The mansion is privately owned. In 2006, Louis Schanker's art studio on

2553-533: A surprise. For, if Libby was the richest woman in the world (becoming richer as the men in her life died off), and also celebrated and honored with special friendships, the specter of violence tracked her from the start. (She once said: You want to know the truth? The night Smith Reynolds died, I was so drunk I can't remember what happened!) That Holman was unable to remember what happened is repeated by biographer Jon Bradshaw's work. Bradshaw relates from interviews with still-living close friends that Holman called them on

2664-413: A theatrical career. She followed Pollock's advice and soon became a star. Producer Leonard Sillman relates, in his autobiography Here Lies Leonard Sillman: Straightened Out at Last , that he "liked the name Libby much better than her legal one and under my gentle prodding, 24 hours a day, she changed it.” An early stage colleague who became a longtime close friend was future film star Clifton Webb , then

2775-463: A toll on her mental health. On June 18, 1971, Holman was found nearly dead in the front seat of her Rolls-Royce. She was taken to the hospital where she died hours later. Her death was ruled a suicide due to carbon monoxide poisoning . In view of her bouts with depression and reported past suicide attempts, none of Holman's friends or relatives was surprised by her death (suicide). She was cremated and her ashes were scattered at Treetops. In 2001,

2886-463: 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

2997-449: 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

3108-709: 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

3219-491: 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

3330-406: 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

3441-475: 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

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3552-590: 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

3663-548: 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

3774-579: 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

3885-741: 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

4107-468: 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

4218-438: 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

4329-428: 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

4440-451: 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

4551-601: 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

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4662-615: The African American community. She was involved in the civil rights movement and became a close friend and associate of Martin Luther King Jr. Through her foundation, she provided funds for King's trip to India with his wife Coretta Scott King to meet followers of Mahatma Gandhi, whom he referred to as "the guiding light of our technique of nonviolent social change". On December 27, 1960, she married artist and fellow activist Louis Schanker . She continued to perform and make records. Holman reportedly suffered from depression following

4773-520: 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

4884-504: The American flag outside and fly the fucking swastika, why don't you!" When they were told by officials that the U.S. Army did not tolerate mixed shows, Libby replied: "Mixed? You mean boys and girls?" Holman adopted two sons, Timmy (born October 18, 1945), and Tony (born May 19, 1947). Her biological son Christopher ("Topper") died on August 7, 1950, after falling while mountain climbing. She had given him permission to go mountain climbing with

4995-475: The Henri Souvaines to which we were both invited we should act disagreeably instead of our usual selves. I said I didn’t think I could carry it off. ‘Well, try,” said Libby. Mabel showed us the garden and Libby said, 'I hate flowers.' Henri, who is a well-known composer, played one of his songs and Libby said 'I don’t like what you’re playing.' Mabel caught on to her line and said to Libby, 'I don’t like you.' It

5106-649: The Town of Greenwich). Other nearby Mianus River parks include the Mianus River State Park Scenic Reserve (over 353 acres in two tracts) and the privately owned Mianus River Gorge Preserve (935 acres, open to the public from April 1 through November 30). Libby Holman Elizabeth Lloyd Holzman was born on May 23, 1904, in Cincinnati, Ohio, the daughter of a lawyer and stockbroker Alfred Holzman and his wife Rachel Florence Workum Holzman. Her family

5217-613: The Wind . In March 1939, Holman married Ralph (pronounced "Rafe") Holmes, a film and stage actor. She had dated his older brother, Phillips Holmes . In 1940, both brothers, who were half-Canadian, joined the Royal Canadian Air Force . Phillips Holmes was killed in a collision of two military aircraft on August 12, 1942. When Ralph Holmes returned home in August 1945, the marriage soured and they separated. On November 15, 1945, Ralph Holmes

5328-583: The age of 16. She graduated from the University of Cincinnati on June 16, 1923, with a Bachelor of Arts degree. Holman later subtracted two years from her age, insisting she was born in 1906, the year she gave the Social Security Administration as the year of her birth. Holman left her hometown in the fall of 1924 to pursue acting in New York City. She first lived at an all-women's dormitory at

5439-420: 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

5550-544: 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

5661-441: 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

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5772-647: 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

5883-568: 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

5994-460: 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

6105-516: 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

6216-411: 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

6327-479: 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

6438-536: The deaths of John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr. , the presidential election loss by Eugene McCarthy , the deaths of young men in the Vietnam War , the death of her son, and the illness of her friend Jane Bowles . Friends said she lost her vitality after the death of Montgomery Clift in 1966. The deaths of multiple people close to her, combined with the Vietnam War and the turbulent political situation, took

6549-479: 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

6660-429: 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

6771-471: The foundation narrowed its scope to more specific causes, such as relations between Cuba and the U.S. She contributed to the defense of Benjamin Spock , the pediatrician and writer arrested for taking part in antiwar demonstrations. In the 1950s, Holman worked with her accompanist, Gerald Cook, on researching and rearranging what they called earth music. It was primarily blues and spirituals that were linked to

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6882-410: 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

6993-417: 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

7104-751: 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

7215-530: The help of her father, who was a lawyer. Fearing further scandal, the Reynolds family contacted the local authorities and had the charges dropped. On January 10, 1933, Holman gave birth to Christopher Smith "Topper" Reynolds. The trauma of Reynolds' death followed Holman until the end of her life. She died by suicide on June 18, 1971. A friend and former lover Ned Rorem recorded in his diary on June 22: Libby Holman has killed herself. Somehow, this doesn't come as

7326-428: The house, Reynolds died of a gunshot wound to the head in the morning of July 6. As many witnesses had been drunk, statements about the event were conflicting and muddled. Holman said she was unable to remember much of the night or the following day; the numerous testimonies given by Walker in the inquest contradicted each other. Authorities ruled the shooting a suicide, but a coroner's inquiry ruled it murder. The death

7437-454: 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

7548-434: 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

7659-586: 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

7770-419: The most dreadful, most common and vulgar people I have ever seen. I love you, divine Libby, wonderful Libby, beautiful Libby. Love, love, Libby." Libby Holman had a variety of relationships with both men and women during her lifetime, including Jeanne Eagels , Tallulah Bankhead , Josephine Baker , and, later in her life, writer Jane Bowles . Although friends observed her to be a "ball breaker" with men, she

7881-516: 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

7992-750: The parlor of the Justice of the Peace's house in Monroe, Michigan. Reynolds wanted Holman to abandon her acting career. She took a one-year leave of absence to stay at the Reynolds family estate in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. On the night of July 5, 1932, at Reynolda, Reynolds and Holman threw a 21st birthday party for Smith's childhood friend Charles Gideon Hill Jr. After the party attendees had left, with only Reynolds's best friend and secretary Albert "Ab" Bailey Walker, and Holman's friend, actress Blanche Yurka , remaining in

8103-489: 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

8214-458: 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

8325-456: 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

8436-440: The show. I'll gladly give up this trip or anything I have to devote all my time to you if you would do the same for me. If I get to the point where I simply cannot stand it without you for another minute, well, there's the old Mauser with a few cartridges in it. I guess I've had my inning. It's time another team went to bat." Despite the tempestuous nature of their relationship, Holman and Reynolds married on November 29, 1931, in

8547-510: 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

8658-446: 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

8769-406: 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 ,

8880-592: The southernmost portion of Mianus River Park and is overseen by the Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection as Mianus River State Park . Mianus River State Park, which straddles the border of Stamford and Greenwich , encompasses 527 acres and comprises Treetops (94 acres), Mianus River Park (187 acres owned by the City of Stamford), and the Mianus River and Natural Park (110 acres owned by

8991-407: The stage manner and individuality she was known for. For example, friend and colleague Howard Dietz, who described her as "the swarthy, sloe-eyed houri," recalled: No one in the theatre was more discussable than Libby Holman, who came from Cincinnati and was game for anything...She did outrageous things. For example, one Friday she said she was tired of being nice and proposed that on the weekend at

9102-528: 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

9213-507: 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

9324-450: The telephone in a panic: "She told Louisa [Carpenter] that the Reynolds family were being horrible to her, almost as though they suspected that she had something to do with Smith's demise. But unfortunately, Libby could not remember anything. 'I was so drunk last night,' she said, 'I don't know whether I shot him or not.'" Journalist Milt Machlin investigated the death of Reynolds and argued that he committed suicide. In his account, Holman

9435-446: 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

9546-444: 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

9657-520: The world. Although Holman's friends didn't like Reynolds, finding him moody and difficult to talk to, they tolerated his presence, as he paid for the entourage's visits to New York speakeasies and nightclubs. The couple argued often and occasionally descended into fights in front of Holman's circle of friends. Reynolds threatened suicide to Holman on multiple occasions; In a letter to her, written while on an aviation journey, he once wrote: "Darling Angel. I would gladly come home if you were not going on with

9768-509: Was "pleasant, smiling, and matter-of-fact about her method of earning a living, and no matter what amount of money was offered her after her deadline of eleven o'clock [the curfew of the YWCA], her answer was always 'No.'" Her first theatre job in New York was in the road company of The Fool . Channing Pollock , the writer of The Fool , recognized Holman's talents immediately and advised her to pursue

9879-445: Was Jewish, but she was not raised religiously. Their other children were daughter Marion H. Holzman and son Alfred Paul Holzman. In 1904, the wealthy family grew destitute after Holman's uncle Ross Holzman embezzled nearly $ 1 million of their stock brokerage business. Alfred changed the family name from Holzman to Holman around World War I due to anti-German sentiment . Libby graduated from Hughes High School on June 11, 1920, at

9990-532: 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

10101-504: 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

10212-465: Was a victim of the anti-Semitism of local authorities. The district attorney involved with the case later told Machlin that she was innocent, and he thought that if the case had gone to trial, there might have been violence similar to the Leo Frank case. The 1933 film Sing, Sinner, Sing was loosely based on the allegations surrounding Reynolds' death, as were the films Reckless and Written on

10323-425: Was at one of these bull and beef sessions one night that Libby got up, walked to the writing desk and proceeded to write a letter. She put it in an envelope and left the room. I picked up the envelope and saw that it had been addressed to - of all people- Miss Libby Holman. Naturally, I read the letter. It said: "My divine Libby, how can you tolerate two such stupid people as Leonard and Horseface? They are without doubt

10434-399: 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

10545-464: Was found dead in his Manhattan apartment from a barbiturate overdose at age 29. During World War II, she tried to organize shows for servicemen with her friend, African-American musician Josh White , but they were turned down on the grounds that "we don't book mixed company." Libby and Josh were beyond brave, although perhaps she did not quite realize what she was taking on in the 1940s America. When they started rehearsals for their first show in

10656-524: Was front-page news, and the local sheriff leaked details to the press, inciting more speculation. Carpenter paid Holman's $ 25,000 bail at the Rockingham County Courthouse in Wentworth, North Carolina. Holman wore a heavy veil and dark dress, and bystanders and reporters thought she was black or of mixed race—a common misconception because of her olive skin tone. Holman left for Cincinnati to seek

10767-457: 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

10878-416: 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

10989-440: 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

11100-567: 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

11211-571: Was known to friends and family as just "Smith." They met in Baltimore, Maryland, in April 1930, after he saw her perform in The Little Show . He asked his friend Dwight Deere Wiman , the producer of the show, to introduce him to her. He pursued her around the world in his plane and became known as "Smitty, the traveling bear" in Holman's friend group, referencing his pet-like devotion to following her around

11322-659: 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

11433-420: 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 "

11544-430: 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

11655-507: 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

11766-444: 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

11877-547: Was tender and intimate in her same-sex relationships. Her most prominent relationship was with DuPont heiress Louisa d'Andelot Carpenter . The couple's relationship lasted until Holman's death in 1971; during Libby's Broadway career in the early 1920s, they went to parties and jaunts in Harlem dressed identically in men's suits in bowler hats, joined by other lesbian and bisexual contemporaries such as Tallulah Bankhead, Beatrice Lillie , Joan Crawford , and Marilyn Miller . Carpenter

11988-406: Was the strapless dress , which she has been credited with having invented, or at least being one of its first high-profile wearers. In the industry, press, and among friends, Holman was known for her bold personality. She was the frequent subject of contemporary gossip columns, and became known in the press as "the dark purple menace." Memories of friends, acquaintances, and colleagues detail

12099-536: 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

12210-510: Was the beginning of a great friendship. Additionally, Leonard Sillman remembered of her: She was a large girl with a fuzzy head of hair. She had slits for eyes and a bee-stung mouth and a somewhat unreliable singing voice. When she felt good, she was a fabulous singer. When she was not fabulous, she was flat. She went around in a ratty old beret and an overcoat made from the pelts of one fox and several rabbits with rabies. From all this, I realize, it may be difficult to conjure up an image of

12321-424: Was to play a significant part throughout Holman's lifetime. They raised their children, lived together and were openly accepted by their theatre companions. She scandalized some by dating much younger men, such as American actor Montgomery Clift , whom she mentored. Holman took an interest in one fan, Zachary Smith Reynolds , a hobbyist aviator and heir to the R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company, 7 years her junior. He

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