Other Important Blues Regions
Other important blues regions include the Piedmont, Texas, the West Coast, Memphis, St. Louis, Kansas City, and New York City. Each region has a distinct sound and style, along with chief innovators. Piedmont comes from the Piedmont region in the Southeast. Historically, Piedmont blues players were influenced by ragtime and white country fiddle music. However, Piedmont also has strong African roots and cross-pollination continues to take place between the neighboring Piedmont and Delta regions. The Piedmont style is predominantly guitar oriented; its most significant feature is a unique finger-picking technique, which emulates ragtime piano.
Texas blues is more swing and jazz oriented. Singer and guitarist Blind Lemon Jefferson is widely considered the father of this genre, though Lightnin' Hopkins and T-Bone Walker are also synonymous with the Texas sound. Walker's jazzy arrangements often included horn sections and smoky saxophone riffs. His intimate approach also made him something of a sex symbol in the days before television.
In the 1970s and 1980s, Texas also became known for its blues rockers. ZZ Top, the Fabulous Thunderbirds, and the late, great guitar virtuoso Stevie Ray Vaughan all hailed from Texas. If you're looking to hear piano blues from Texas, check out the elegant stride-influenced styles of Rob Cooper and Andy Boy on recordings by the velvety singer Joe Pullum.
West Coast Blues
West Coast blues is the brother to Texas blues. In the late 1940s, many Texans relocated to California, bringing their swing-influenced blues with them. Teenage sensation Little Willie Littlefield was one of them. His early hit “It's Midnight” brought the young pianist great success in Southern California. Charles Brown was another Texan whose smooth-toned ballad singing and jazzy piano style earned him acclaim on the West Coast. The same is true of Floyd Dixon who moved out to the West Coast, eventually replacing Brown in Johnny Moore's popular Three Blazers.
Superstars Nat King Cole and Ray Charles are the pianistic titans of the West Coast, although they were born in Alabama and Georgia, respectively. These men dominated much of the national scene during their heydays. And there is a curious connection between the two. In Clint Eastwood's documentary
St. Louis Blues
St. Louis, Missouri, is also steeped in the blues. Part of this is due to ragtime composer W. C. Handy. Handy never lived in St. Louis, but his song “St. Louis Blues” will always epitomize this central American town. Handy was the first songsmith to prove that the blues had commercial value. Indeed, the composer's tribute to St. Louis demonstrated the power of ragtime and blues music. For a time, no other song could match the enormous popularity of “St. Louis Blues,” except perhaps other compositions by Handy himself. This song also transformed a one-time dusty cowboy town into a blues treasure.
When W. C. Handy first peddled “St. Louis Blues” to publishers, he was turned down flat. He eventually published the song himself in September 1914. Three years later, the bawdy vaudevillian singer Sophie Tucker recorded “St. Louis Blues” to critical acclaim. Her rendition of the song became an instant and massive hit.
Pianist Roosevelt Sykes was another influence on St. Louis blues. His barrelhouse (early boogie-woogie) style made him very popular in St. Louis and throughout the blues circuit. Then there is Peetie Wheatstraw, a transplant whose impact on blues is often overlooked these days, but during the Depression he was extremely popular. Drawing from the work of pianist Leroy Carr and guitarist Scrapper Blackwell, Wheatstraw developed a songwriting style that featured prearranged instrumental introductions and lyrics that appealed to the downtrodden conditions of the working class. Like the Delta blues musicians, Wheatstraw also sought to gain popularity by using tales of the devil to sell his brand of the blues. He even referred to himself as “The Devil's Son-in-Law.”
Kansas City Blues
Kansas City was the home of one of the most celebrated boogie-woogie kings, Pete Johnson. Johnson's work with Big Joe Turner helped spawn not only jump blues but also rock-n-roll. Without a doubt, Turner's “Shake, Rattle, and Roll” would go on to galvanize a nation, transforming “race music” into mass-marketed pop music.
Swing was also all the rage in Kansas City during the so-called Golden Age of Jazz (1935–1945). All of the music made in Kansas City during the swing era was blues based, including the work of pianist Jay McShann who successfully combined jazz harmonies with blues and gospel influences.
Jay McShann's orchestra featured a young alto saxophonist named Charlie Parker. Nicknamed “Bird,” he went on to become one of the most important saxophonists in history. Along with Dizzy Gillespie, Bud Powell, Max Roach, and a handful of others, Bird created a new, sophisticated brand of jazz called bebop. Despite this, Parker's approach to improvisation was always based on the blues.
For all intents and purposes, the legendary New Jersey pianist Count Basie also got his start in Kansas City during a time of great musical change in America. At the dawn of the swing era, Basie worked with Walter Page's Blue Devils and later with Benny Moten. After Moten's death, Basie formed his own swing orchestra. Over the years, Basie's bands featured many of the finest names in jazz, including saxophonist Lester Young.
Basie lived in Kansas City for only about eight years, but he always stayed true to the Kansas City jump style of swing. This is seen in songs like “One O'Clock Jump” and others. Basie's music was always hard swinging, and his orchestra typically employed great dynamic contrast. They were famous for playing very soft. Then out of nowhere “bam” the drums and horns would really kick in. This was but one of Basie's signatures. On piano, Basie's “less is more” approach set him apart from all the other “chops”-oriented pianists of his time.
Memphis Blues
Memphis blues is largely intertwined with the history of Beale Street. At the turn of the twentieth century, Robert Church paid to have Church Park built on Beale and Fourth. This became an important gathering place for early blues musicians. The legendary ragtime composer W. C. Handy also gave Memphis a shot in the arm by penning two exceedingly famous blues pieces “Memphis Blues” and “Beale Street Blues,” published in 1912 and 1916, respectively. During the second quarter of the twentieth century, Beale Street became a cultural melting pot for traveling musicians of all sorts, including various folkies, jug bands, and eventually blues men from the Delta and Chicago. One of those was pianist Sunnyland Slim who played alongside Ma Rainey and Little Brother Montgomery on Beale Street during the Roaring Twenties.
Memphis Slim (no relation to Sunnyland Slim) was a gifted local pianist who also made a name for himself during the early Depression years. A boogie-woogie stylist, Slim eventually moved to Chicago to pursue a record contract and to hook up with the hotshot Delta guys. There he met and played with the legendary guitarist and composer Big Bill Broonzy.
Guitarist B. B. King got his stage name from performing on the radio in Memphis. For live broadcasts on the progressive station WDIA, Riley King called himself Beale Street Blues Boy. This nom de plume was eventually abridged to Blues Boy and then to B. B.
One riff that has become quite a staple in the postwar Memphis, Chicago, and Detroit blues traditions is shown in FIGURE 11-2. This simple triplet pattern is used as a repeating motif. Blues musicians have gotten a lot of mileage out of this lick over the years. One song that uses this pattern is Memphis Slim's “The Comeback.” Listen for this riff in the recordings of Muddy Waters, John Lee Hooker, and others.
FIGURE 11-2: Common Blues Motif
