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105-520: Over a 12-year period from 1990 to 2001, the Mount Zion Memorial Fund erected twelve memorials to blues musicians across the state of Mississippi. Founded in Clarksdale, Mississippi , from November 1997 until August 2013 the Mount Zion Memorial Fund worked from New Orleans , Louisiana. In September 2013 the organization moved operation to Oxford, Mississippi where it continues operation under

210-731: A National Heritage Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts , which is the highest honor in the folk and traditional arts in the United States. In 1999, the Staple Singers were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame . In 2010, Staples was honored with a marker on the Mississippi Blues Trail in his hometown of Winona, Mississippi. In 2018, Staples was inducted into

315-484: A cenotaph historic marker (not a headstone as is often mistaken – the monument bears no birth/death dates) in the Mount Zion Missionary Baptist Church cemetery, in honor of Robert Johnson , whose death certificate lists "Zion Church" as a burial site. The decision to place the memorial where it is at Mount Zion was made to keep the rest of the cemetery from being trampled by visitors, and to have

420-439: 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

525-484: 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

630-415: 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

735-567: 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

840-399: 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

945-550: A contingent of people from radio station WWOZ in New Orleans, many local musicians, blues fans, and local media. The large granite memorial, engraved with Johnson's portrait, was not placed on his grave for several years afterward, however, because of a dispute between Johnson's family (led by his niece, Vera Johnson Collins), the owners of farm property encircling the cemetery, and the Copiah County Board of Supervisors, over

1050-483: A cotton plantation near Drew, Mississippi . From his earliest years he heard, and began to play with, local blues guitarists such as Charlie Patton (who lived on the nearby Dockery Plantation ), Robert Johnson , and Son House . He dropped out of school after the eighth grade, then sang with a gospel group before marrying and moving to Chicago in 1935. There, he sang with the Trumpet Jubilees while working in

1155-523: A deteriorated road to the burial site. The dispute was resolved in October 2012, when it was announced that the headstone would be erected on October 26. The headstone had been on public display in the Crystal Springs Public Library, since being unveiled on October 20, 2001. On the night of February 2, 2013, the headstone fell and was damaged. It is a matter of dispute whether it fell because it

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1260-401: A fall at his home, just nine days shy of his 86th birthday. After his death, his daughters Yvonne and Mavis gave one of his guitars to country and gospel musician Marty Stuart . Musicians as diverse as Cannonball Adderley , with his live album Why Am I Treated So Bad! (1967), Ry Cooder , Sandy Bull , Marty Stuart , and Bonnie Raitt have all expressed their respect for Staples. At

1365-716: A granite headstone through the Mount Zion Fund in honor of Elmore James . This memorial was placed on James' grave in the Newport Baptist Church Cemetery in Ebenezer , Holmes County , Mississippi on December 10, 1992, with several members of the Mississippi State Legislature in attendance along with Dick Waterman , Phil Walden , musician Marshall Crenshaw , James' one time producer Bobby Robinson , members of James' family, and many others. Henderson

1470-530: A headstone was erected in the Mount Olive Baptist Church Cemetery in Nesbit, Mississippi to honor Mississippi Joe Callicott an original Memphis minstrel who began his performing career at the turn of the century. This marker was financed through the Mount Zion Fund with the help of musician Kenny Brown and by Chris Strachwitz , Arhoolie Records and John Fogerty . Callicott's original marker

1575-610: 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,

1680-456: 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

1785-594: 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

1890-569: 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

1995-480: A permanent fifteen foot wide and half-a-mile long easement to the important site, due in large part to efforts and compelling arguments of Moore, who took over as executive director in January 2014. Moore subsequently directed the restoration of the U.S. military markers of Henry "Son" Sims and Jackie Brenston . In the period between 2014 and 2017, the Mount Zion Memorial Fund dedicated five additional memorials, including

2100-419: 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

2205-406: 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

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2310-494: 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 ,

2415-463: 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

2520-449: 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

2625-416: 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. Pops Staples Roebuck " Pops " Staples (December 28, 1914 – December 19, 2000)

2730-709: 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

2835-491: 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

2940-678: The 4th Annual Grammy Awards for musical achievements in 1961, Pops Staples's album Swing Low was nominated in the Best Gospel or Other Religious Recording category. Staples's 1992 album Peace to the Neighborhood earned a Grammy nomination in the Best Contemporary Blues Album category. In 1995, he won the Best Contemporary Blues Album Grammy for Father, Father . In 1998, Pops Staples received

3045-511: The African-American culture . The blues form is ubiquitous in jazz , rhythm and blues , and rock and roll , and is characterized by the call-and-response pattern, the blues scale , and specific chord progressions , of which the twelve-bar blues is the most common. Blue notes (or "worried notes"), usually thirds, fifths or sevenths flattened in pitch , are also an essential part of the sound. Blues shuffles or walking bass reinforce

3150-475: 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

3255-590: 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

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3360-548: 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

3465-579: 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

3570-741: 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

3675-409: 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

3780-468: 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

3885-438: 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

3990-428: 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

4095-521: The 1960s, the Staple Singers moved to Riverside Records , Epic Records , and later Stax Records and began recording protest, inspirational and contemporary music, reflecting the civil rights and anti-war movements of the time. They gained a large new audience with " Respect Yourself " (which featured Pops, nearly 57 at the time, on lead on the long version for more than two minutes), the 1972 US # 1 hit " I'll Take You There ", " If You're Ready (Come Go with Me) ", and other hits. " Let's Do It Again " topped

4200-550: The 1995 Best Contemporary Blues Album Grammy for Father, Father . Staples also tried his hand at acting. In 1986, Roebuck played the role of Mr. Tucker, a voodoo witch doctor, in the Talking Heads film True Stories , during which he performed "Papa Legba". He appeared as himself in the 1997 Barry Levinson film Wag the Dog , singing "Good Old Shoe" with Willie Nelson . He died after suffering an ultimately fatal concussion in

4305-451: The 9-bar progression in " Sitting on Top of the World ", by Walter Vinson . The basic 12-bar lyric framework of many blues compositions is reflected by a standard harmonic progression of 12 bars in a 4/4 time signature . The blues chords associated to a twelve-bar blues are typically a set of three different chords played over a 12-bar scheme. They are labeled by Roman numbers referring to

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4410-601: 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

4515-520: 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

4620-511: The Friends of Hollywood/Mt. Carmel Cemeteries. The latter assists in restoring these two massive and abandoned African American cemeteries in Memphis, "back to a beautiful place of rest for all" interments, including Frank Stokes and Furry Lewis . The organization was officially incorporated as The Robert Johnson Mount Zion Memorial Fund in late 1989, to raise money to save the 114-year-old Mount Zion Church (founded 1909) from foreclosure and to place

4725-503: The Hot 100 on December 27, 1975, the day before his 61st birthday. Pops Staples (as Pop Staples) also recorded a blues album, Jammed Together , with fellow guitarists Albert King and Steve Cropper . In 1976, Staples also appeared in the movie documenting The Band 's final concert, The Last Waltz (released in 1978). Pops Staples shared vocals with his daughters and with Levon Helm and Rick Danko on " The Weight ." The group appeared in

4830-691: The Robert Johnson memorial was placed, John Fogerty, after meeting Henderson in the Mount Zion cemetery, agreed to fund a headstone to be placed on the grave of Charley Patton at the New Jerusalem M.B. Church in Holly Ridge, Mississippi . The Patton ceremony took place on July 20, 1991, the same weekend as the Pops Staples Festival in nearby Drew, Mississippi and subsequently Roebuck "Pops" Staples

4935-420: 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

5040-544: 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

5145-441: 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

5250-647: 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

5355-568: 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

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5460-460: 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

5565-516: 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

5670-411: 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

5775-479: 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

5880-429: The concert on stage, but their later performance shot on a soundstage was used in the final film. It is considered by some fans as the definitive version of the song. After Mavis left for a solo career in the 1980s, Pops Staples began a solo career, appearing at international "blues" festivals (though steadfastly refusing to sing the blues). Over the course of his career, he was nominated for three Grammy Awards , winning

5985-605: The direction of executive director Tyler DeWayne Moore of the University of Mississippi with Skip Henderson and Euphus Ruth Jr. of Greenville, Mississippi serving as co-chairmen of the board of directors. The renewed efforts of the Mount Zion Memorial Fund since 2010 have been spearheaded by Tyler DeWayne Moore, a historian and scholar based out of Oxford, Mississippi. The relatives of Tommy Johnson and other interments in Warm Springs CME Church Cemetery, obtained

6090-479: 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

6195-429: 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

6300-410: 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

6405-417: 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

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6510-707: The headstone of Frank Stokes in the abandoned Hollywood Cemetery, Memphis, Tennessee; the flat companion stone of Ernest Lawlars in Walls, Mississippi ; and in Greenville, Mississippi , the flat markers of T-Model Ford and Eddie Cusic , and the unique headstone of Mamie Davis (also known as Mamie Galore). In addition, the Mount Zion Memorial Fund monitors legal actions involving cemeteries and provides technical assistance to cemetery corporations and community preservationists in Oklahoma, Tennessee, Mississippi, and South Carolina, such as

6615-751: 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

6720-542: The help of Greenville, Mississippi wet plate photographer Euphus "Butch" Ruth, the Mount Zion Memorial Fund dedicated a memorial headstone for Sam Chatmon in Sanders Memorial Cemetery, Hollandale, Mississippi on March 14, 1998. Chatmon's headstone reads: "Sitting On Top of the World" and includes an inscription by a Chatmon friend and former student, Libby Rae Watson. Shortly after the Chatmon ceremony, again with

6825-699: The help of Euphus Ruth, a memorial headstone for Sonny Boy Nelson , was placed on November 4, 1998, at the Evergreen Cemetery in Metcalfe, Mississippi . Both memorials were funded once again by grants from Raitt and Fogerty. On October 8, 2000, a memorial paid for by Fogerty and Rooster Blues Records, was placed on the grave of Lonnie Pitchford , near to Elmore James ' resting place at the Newport Baptist Church cemetery in Ebenezer, Mississippi. This headstone

6930-454: 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

7035-434: 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

7140-638: The low rate of literacy among rural African Americans at the time. Reports of blues music in southern Texas and the Deep South were written at the dawn of the 20th century. Charles Peabody mentioned the appearance of blues music at Clarksdale, Mississippi , and Gate Thomas reported similar songs in southern Texas around 1901–1902. These observations coincide more or less with the recollections of Jelly Roll Morton , who said he first heard blues music in New Orleans in 1902; Ma Rainey , who remembered first hearing

7245-516: 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

7350-489: 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

7455-458: 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

7560-456: 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

7665-510: 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

7770-435: The song titles, some of which mention the devil, facing away from the church itself in deference to the church congregation. The unveiling took place on April 20, 1991, in partnership with Columbia Records through the work of Columbia A&R man Arthur Levy, with the support of Columbia President Don Ienner , and with the cooperation of the Mount Zion congregation under the guidance of Pastor Rev. James Ratliff. The ceremony

7875-446: 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

7980-406: 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 ,

8085-503: The stockyards, in construction work, and later in a steel mill. In 1948, Roebuck and his wife Oceola Staples formed The Staple Singers to sing as a gospel group in local churches, with their children. The Staple Singers first recorded in the early 1950s for United and then the larger Vee-Jay Records , with songs including 1955's "This May Be the Last Time" (later adapted by The Rolling Stones as " The Last Time ") and " Uncloudy Day ". In

8190-528: 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

8295-507: 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

8400-446: 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

8505-444: 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

8610-532: 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

8715-504: 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

8820-643: Was a paving stone which read simply "Joe" and this was also subsequently donated to the Delta Blues Museum . Memorial headstones were added for James Thomas on March 9, 1996, at St. Matthews Church in Leland, Mississippi ; and Memphis Minnie (Minnie Douglas Lawlers) at the New Hope Baptist Church Cemetery in Walls, Mississippi , on October 13, 1996. Both memorials were paid for by John Fogerty and Bonnie Raitt . The ceremony for Memphis Minnie

8925-410: Was an American gospel and R&B musician. A "pivotal figure in gospel in the 1960s and 1970s", he was an accomplished songwriter, guitarist and singer. He was the patriarch and member of singing group The Staple Singers , which included his son Pervis and daughters Mavis , Yvonne , and Cleotha . Roebuck Staples was born near Winona, Mississippi , the youngest of 14 children. He grew up on

9030-585: Was attended by over 300 people and was covered by Billboard , Rolling Stone , Newsweek , Guitar Player , and numerous local media. The granite obelisk has a central inscription by Peter Guralnick , side inscriptions by Skip Henderson, which were later used with permission on the Robert Johnson marker in Hazelhurst, Mississippi , and all of Johnson's known recordings added at the behest of Columbia Records. This marker has been vandalized on at least three occasions, apparently by souvenir seekers. Shortly after

9135-399: 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

9240-569: Was designed to have a playable, one-string diddley bow mounted on the side as per the family's wishes. In April 2001, a headstone for Tommy Johnson was commissioned by members of his family and paid for by a grant from Bonnie Raitt. On October 20, 2001, the unveiling ceremony was conducted in the town square of Crystal Springs, Mississippi by the Mayor of Crystal Springs with over twenty members of Johnson's extended family in attendance as well as Johnson's biographer Dr. David Evans , John Sinclair and

9345-457: 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

9450-402: Was held on May 31, 2014. The grave marker was designed by Amos Harvey and engraved by Alan Orlicek. 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

9555-416: 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

9660-473: Was in attendance joining Fogerty, and three generations of Patton's family, including daughter Rosetta Patton Brown, granddaughter Martha Brown and great-granddaughter Keisha Brown at the ceremony. In early September 1991 after reading an article about the Mount Zion ceremony in the May 11, 1991 issue of Billboard , Phil Walden of Capricorn Records contacted Henderson and commissioned a bronze sculpture mounted on

9765-440: 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

9870-549: Was inadequately secured, or was pushed over or deliberately smashed. Following work by the Mount Zion Memorial Fund, on May 8, 2019, a new headstone for Charlie Burse was unveiled during a ceremony at his graveside, in Rose Hill Cemetery in Memphis, Tennessee . The Mount Zion Memorial Fund, organised the placing of a headstone for T-Model Ford at Green Lawn Memorial Gardens Cemetery, near Greenville, Mississippi. The ceremony

9975-567: 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

10080-659: 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

10185-401: Was paid for by Bonnie Raitt . In this case the memorial stone was a replacement for an inaccurate (McDowell's name misspelled) and damaged marker – the original stone was subsequently donated by McDowell's family to the Delta Blues Museum in Clarksdale, Mississippi . The following year a large gravestone for Big Joe Williams , who lies buried in a rural pasture near Crawford, Mississippi ,

10290-420: 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 "

10395-596: Was presented with a cultural award from the State of Mississippi at that event. Several months afterwards with the help of Jackson, Mississippi attorney Robert Arentson, on August 6, 1993, a memorial was placed on the grave site of Mississippi Fred McDowell at the Hammond Hill Baptist Church cemetery in Como, Mississippi . The ceremony was presided over by Dick Waterman and the memorial with McDowell's portrait upon it

10500-430: 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

10605-516: Was purchased through a collective effort of musicians led by California music journalist Dan Forte, while gathered at Clifford Antone 's nightclub in Austin, Texas . The memorial was unveiled on October 9, 1994; the inscription by Dan Forte: "King of the Nine String Guitar", and a eulogy by musician and former Williams' sideman, Charlie Musselwhite . Following these memorials on April 29, 1995,

10710-605: Was recorded by the BBC and attended by 35 members of the extended Douglas family, many of whom had no idea of their relative's musical legacy. The headstone inscription was written by Minnie biographer Paul Garon : "The hundreds of sides Minnie recorded are the perfect material to teach us about the blues. For the blues are at once general, and particular, speaking for millions, but in a highly singular, individual voice. Listening to Minnie's songs we hear her fantasies, her dreams, her desires, but we will hear them as if they were our own." With

10815-507: 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

10920-444: 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

11025-536: Was the Chicago-based Bluebird Records . Before World War II, Tampa Red was sometimes referred to as "the Guitar Wizard". Carr accompanied himself on the piano with Scrapper Blackwell on guitar, a format that continued well into the 1950s with artists such as Charles Brown and even Nat "King" Cole . Boogie-woogie was another important style of 1930s and early 1940s urban blues. While the style

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