Environmental Influence in Blues Music Composition

Blues singers have always drawn on their environment for inspiration in their lyrics as well as in the sound of their instruments. Unlike the traditional folk singer who will often sing of events that happened many years previous to their own experience -sometimes referring to events spanned by centuries. It is true there are a handful of “blues ballads” such as “John Henry”, “Stack 0’ Lee” or “Frankie & Albert/Johnnie”, which have persisted in black song but they are the exception to the rule - the majority of blues reflected their surroundings in the perspective present.
So, a pianist or guitarist would mimic the sounds of the train wheels in the late 19th. Century, which finally resulted in boogie-woogie. They would also imitate the fireman’s

The sound inspired the slave to get a piece of cane from a canebrake and cut some holes in it. He then commenced to play a “blues” on his whistle. As time went by, the instrument evolved into a set of “quills”. One definition of a quill runs: “a piece of reed used by weavers”(1). Paul Oliver quotes a report by U.S. writer, George Cable, in 1886 which refers to a “black lad” cutting 3 reeds from “the edge of the canebrake.. .blowing and hooting, over and over,"(2). Cable stated that blacks called these 3 reeds “quills”. On l2th April 1927, Big Boy Cleveland recorded 2 quill solos, for Gennett, one of which was issued. “Quill Blues” which lets the instrument “sing” the blues, could not have been too far removed from the l7tn.Century ex-African slave in the canebrake. An almost unique example on record, significantly, Cleveland’s only other issued side featured vocal and guitar, in the style of Furry Lewis. For this reason alone, I suspect, the only “fact” stated about Cleveland is that he could have been from Memphis Tennessee. which was Furry’s home base and an important centre for the Blues in the