The blues is a musical genre that was created in the fields by slaves as a way of communication that was not understood by their master’s and overseers. Slaves sang about their misfortunes, the sadness and abuse they received on the plantations. This music would eventually evolve into lyrics that had a one line stance that would repeat four times. Blues were more of an emotion driven by long lost love, betrayal, adultery, and sadness. The blues progressed in the Mississippi Delta to New Orleans.
Blues also helped in the development of Rock-N-Roll. It may have been just a form of expression in its infancy, but it became an identity for African-Americans for deca... ... middle of paper ... ...teryears where the whiskey and rum flowed everywhere like the rhymes. If it wasn’t for Blues and Jazz, names like Louis Armstrong and Ella Fitzgerald and Rolling Stones who would be just names and not icons. Works Cited Branley, Edward. "NOLA History: Congo Square and the Roots of New Orleans Music."
In addition, they agree that slaves from these regions carried with them their culture and started singing a type of genre that did not exist in the United States. However, as the groups from different linguistic cultures gathered and worked together, there was a telling influence giving rise to the blues. The two authors contrasted heavily while explaining the type of influence leading to the blues. On the one hand, Palmer associates the blues origin with country music. On the other hand, Barlow notes that the blues origin had to do with rural folk songs including African-American
Towards the end of the 19th century, music brought over to the states by African slaves began to develop. Work songs, chants and shouts were the beginnings of the earliest form of blues: Delta blues. Delta blues was so called after the Mississippi Delta, where the towns and plantations that the original blues men and women worked were located. “The guitar and the harmonica were the primary tool of the Delta bluesman, mostly due to the ease of carrying them around, and many of the musicians of the Early Blues era (1910-1950) were sharecroppers, or worked on one of the many plantations that were located across the Mississippi Delta.” (Gordon, 2014) As well as guitar and harmonica, homemade instruments such as the diddley bow were very common amongst Delt... ... middle of paper ... ...h Boy’. The song includes electric guitar, harmonica, bass, piano, drums and vocals.
Mississippi history is a sad history of slavery and oppression. It is a history of racism and refusal to let go of segregationist ideals. Mississippi history is enough to give many the blues. In fact, the Blues style music originated in Mississippi and gravitated outward from there. .Mississippi history and Blues history are intertwined.
This is because of the power that the Blues possesses. The Blues started being formed the second an African got on a European's ship and was no longer considered human. Hundreds of years of opression and ghost can be heard in early blues music. Music by Robert Johnson and Maime Smith is not just listened to; it envelops the soul. This is why blues music has had such an impact on our society.
According to birthplaceofcountrymusic.org, Riddle’s influe... ... middle of paper ... ...ey cannot deny that the Blues has influenced different genres from the cotton fields to the Rock-and-Roll Hall of Fame. Works Consulted “African American Roots.” Birthplaceofcountrymusic.org Web. 14 Nov. 2010 “A History of Blues Music.” Scaruffi.com. Web. 14 Nov. 2010 “Rock ‘n’ Roll Timeline 1877 to 1959.” Digitaldreamdoor.com.
Different from other forms of music, blues was only recorded by memory and passed down through generations through live performances. The blues began in the North Mississippi Delta post Civil War times. It was heavily influenced by African roots, field hollers, ballads, church music and rhythmic dance tunes called jump-ups. This eventually developed into music that was set up in a call-and- response way so that the singer would sing a line and he would then respond with his guitar. The blues, a uniquely American art form, was born on the dusty street corners of the Deep South in the late 1800s.
This music comes from slaves in the fields, singing about their struggles, their conditions and their sorry. Many of the songs carried secret messages of escaping the plantation life. The music told of life experiences as slaves knew them. The stories sung about in their music went back before the Civil War and even to the western coast of Africa where men, women and children were captured and sold into slavery and brought to America as slave laborers to work in Southern plantations. The Mississippi Delta is considered to be the birthplace of the Blues, with the new music coming out of the Blues-Rock and Roll.
African Americans were also the people who started the blues. The Blues started in the late 1800's in levee camps or plantations in places like Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas were many African Americans lived. The blues of that time was called country blues. It was a mixture of African music, field hollers, work songs, religious music, and ragtime. The main influence of blues music was African music which has a strong and steady beat using drums or other instruments.