History of the Blues
Most genres of music are derived from an earlier style or era. The blues is no exception. However, its development is unique. The European model is often used to describe musical progress in the West. In classical, there are essentially eight phases: medieval, renaissance, baroque, classical, romantic, postromantic, modern, and postmodern. The romantic period is the direct result of the classical period. The classical period is the direct result of the baroque period. The baroque period is the direct result of the renaissance, and so on.
African griot singing influenced the blues the most. Griots are poets and storytellers. Typically, they do not perform in groups but solo. They also accompany themselves on a stringed instrument not unlike the guitar. In many ways, this parallels the approach of the early blues singer.
This suggests that Western music was developed linearly. Each period grew out of an earlier epoch. This occurred in Europe because of musical notation. Notation is a system of cataloging musical ideas through written symbols. These symbols form a language that can be used to store, communicate, and process musical thoughts. Ultimately, notation has made it possible for composers from different eras to interact and communicate with one another on a specific, integrated level.
African Origins
Unlike European music, the blues is rooted in the oral traditions of Africa. Oral traditions revolve around regions, communities, and tribes. These groups of people are not always linked. In fact, they are often independent and detached. For example, it would be rare to find a singer who's directly influenced by a tribe that lives 5,000 miles away. Interaction could occur through migration. However, this would be a slow, gradual process spanning generations.
For the most part, oral societies are localized and their music is distilled from their own community's experiences. Usually, these societies seek to keep the traditions and customs of their people alive through the telling and retelling of stories. Without a doubt, the blues grew out of localized African storytelling traditions. Yet, the blues is wholly American and its attachment to Africa should not be overemphasized. This music was the direct result of colonialism, and it was born on the shores of the New World.
At its root, the blues is the sound of depression, unrest, sorrow, loneliness, discrimination, and heartache. Because it stems from a highly personalized, internal sense of suffering, it ultimately reflects back on itself. Due to its universal themes of love and torment, its lack of pretension, and its infectious use of rhythm, the blues has widespread appeal.
Blues melodies, singing styles, structures, and rhythms can all be traced back to the tribal music of Africa. As far back as the sixteenth century, music from the Congo and Angola regions, Nigeria, Mozambique, Madagascar, and Senegambia filtered into the New World through the slave trade.
American Blues
To understand the blues, you will have to go back to slavery and to the hopelessness of life for black Americans after the Civil War. The promise of freedom — granted to all black people by the Emancipation Proclamation — was tempered by the harsh realities of finding a job and raising a family. In this climate, the blues was born. It is a story of chains, bondage, abuse, and inhumanity. It comes from appalling work conditions on cotton and tobacco plantations and in the timber, turpentine, and levee camps of the Deep South. It is the story of depravity, frustration, helplessness, and unyielding racism.
Blues antecedents came in the form of field hollers, work songs, spirituals, and jump-ups. Field hollers were sung on plantations while tilling the fields or picking cotton. Work songs were structured group songs also sung while working in the fields. Spirituals were early gospel (religious) tunes, and jump-ups were one-verse dance songs. All of these songs were used to combat loneliness, to communicate with others, and to entertain. During the nineteenth century, these singing styles were emulated in minstrel shows, albeit mockingly, and in vaudeville theater acts.
