Portal:Blues

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The Blues Portal

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 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 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 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 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 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 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. (Full article...)

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The harmonica, also known as a French harp or mouth organ, is a free reed wind instrument used worldwide in many musical genres, notably in blues, American folk music, classical music, jazz, country, and rock. The many types of harmonica include diatonic, chromatic, tremolo, octave, orchestral, and bass versions. A harmonica is played by using the mouth (lips and tongue) to direct air into or out of one (or more) holes along a mouthpiece. Behind each hole is a chamber containing at least one reed. The most common is the diatonic Richter-tuned with ten air passages and twenty reeds, often called the blues harp. A harmonica reed is a flat, elongated spring typically made of brass, stainless steel, or bronze, which is secured at one end over a slot that serves as an airway. When the free end is made to vibrate by the player's air, it alternately blocks and unblocks the airway to produce sound.

Reeds are tuned to individual pitches. Tuning may involve changing a reed's length, the weight near its free end, or the stiffness near its fixed end. Longer, heavier, and springier reeds produce deeper, lower sounds; shorter, lighter, and stiffer reeds make higher-pitched sounds. If, as on most modern harmonicas, a reed is affixed above or below its slot rather than in the plane of the slot, it responds more easily to air flowing in the direction that initially would push it into the slot, i.e., as a closing reed. This difference in response to air direction makes it possible to include both a blow reed and a draw reed in the same air chamber and to play them separately without relying on flaps of plastic or leather (valves, wind-savers) to block the nonplaying reed. (Full article...)

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Albert King in concert, 1968.

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Quotes

“

Blues is really America's finest art form and most dominant art form of the 20th century.

”

— Georgie Fame

“

Blues is a natural fact, something that a fellow lives. If you don't live it, you don't have it.

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— Big Bill Broonzy

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The blues is a low-down achin' heart disease
Like consumption killing me by degrees.

”

— Robert Johnson, "Preaching Blues (Up Jumped the Devil)"

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When you lay down at night, turning from one side of the bed to the other and can't sleep, what's the matter? Blues got you.

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— Lead Belly

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The blues had a baby and they named it rock and roll.

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— Muddy Waters

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Waters performing in 1976

McKinley Morganfield (April 4, 1913 – April 30, 1983), known professionally as Muddy Waters was an American blues singer, songwriter and musician who was an important figure in the post-World War II blues scene, and is often cited as the "father of modern Chicago blues". His style of playing has been described as "raining down Delta beatitude".

Waters grew up on Stovall Plantation near Clarksdale, Mississippi, and by age 17 was playing the guitar and the harmonica, copying local blues artists Son House and Robert Johnson. In 1941, Alan Lomax and Professor John W. Work III of Fisk University recorded him in Mississippi for the Library of Congress. In 1943, he moved to Chicago to become a full-time professional musician. In 1946, he recorded his first records for Columbia Records and then for Aristocrat Records, a newly formed label run by brothers Leonard and Phil Chess. (Full article...)

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The following are images from various blues-related articles on Wikipedia.

Image 1Eric Bibb, 2006 (from List of blues musicians)
Image 2T-Bone Walker at American Folk Blues Festival, Hamburg, 1972 (from List of blues musicians)
Image 3Ma Rainey (from List of blues musicians)
Image 4Sara Martin and Sylvester Weaver (from List of blues musicians)
Image 5Deborah Coleman, 2009 (from List of blues musicians)
Image 6Mississippi Fred McDowell, 1972 (from List of blues musicians)
Image 7Lowell Fulson in Paris, 1980 (from List of blues musicians)
Image 8Chris Thomas King, 2005 (from List of blues musicians)
Image 9B.B. King in Rome, 1984 (from List of blues musicians)
Image 10Jimmy Burns, 2012 (from List of blues musicians)
Image 11Big Joe Williams, 1971 (from List of blues musicians)
Image 12Big Joe Turner, 1955 (from List of blues musicians)
Image 13Robben Ford, 2007 (from List of blues musicians)
Image 14An 1890s photo of the tourist steamer Okahumke'e on the Ocklawaha River, with black guitarists on board (from Origins of the blues)
Image 15Eric Clapton, 2006 (from List of blues musicians)
Image 16Muddy Waters with James Cotton, 1971 (from List of blues musicians)
Image 17Shemekia Copeland, 2019 (from List of blues musicians)
Image 18Blind Lemon Jefferson (from List of blues musicians)
Image 19Paul Butterfield at Woodstock Reunion, 1979 (from List of blues musicians)
Image 20Freddie King in Paris, 1975 (from List of blues musicians)
Image 21Pinetop Perkins in Paris, 1976 (from List of blues musicians)
Image 22Detail from cover of The Celebrated Negro Melodies, as Sung by the Virginia Minstrels, 1843 (from Origins of the blues)
Image 23Lonnie Johnson, 1941 (from List of blues musicians)
Image 24Mississippi John Hurt, 1964 (from List of blues musicians)
Image 25Billy Boy Arnold (from List of blues musicians)
Image 26Eddie Clearwater in Montreux, 1978 (from List of blues musicians)
Image 27Cedric Burnside, 2018 (from List of blues musicians)
Image 28Jimmy Rushing, 1946 (from List of blues musicians)
Image 29Debbie Davies, 2019 (from List of blues musicians)
Image 30Buddy Moss in Georgia prison camp, 1941 (from List of blues musicians)
Image 31Koko Taylor, 2006 (from List of blues musicians)
Image 32Jimmy Rogers, 1991 (from List of blues musicians)
Image 33Willie Dixon at Monterey Jazz Festival, 1981 (from List of blues musicians)
Image 34Henry Townsend, 1983 (from List of blues musicians)
Image 35George "Harmonica" Smith, 1980 (from List of blues musicians)
Image 36Bessie Smith, 1936 (from List of blues musicians)
Image 37Kenny Neal, 2012 (from List of blues musicians)
Image 38Son House (from List of blues musicians)
Image 39Luther Tucker, 1964 (from List of blues musicians)
Image 40Joe Louis Walker, 2007 (from List of blues musicians)
Image 41Eddie Shaw, 2015 (from List of blues musicians)
Image 42Master Kora maker Alieu Suso in the Gambia (from Origins of the blues)
Image 43Robert Cray, 2007 (from List of blues musicians)
Image 44Clarence "Gatemouth" Brown, 1999 (from List of blues musicians)
Image 45Albert Collins at Long Beach Blues Festival, 1990 (from List of blues musicians)
Image 46Louis Jordan in New York City, 1946 (from List of blues musicians)
Image 47Keb' Mo', 2012 (from List of blues musicians)
Image 48RonnieEarl, 1996 (from List of blues musicians)
Image 49A watercolor painting of a camp meeting circa 1839 (New Bedford Whaling Museum). (from Origins of the blues)
Image 50Buddy Guy, 2008 (from List of blues musicians)
Image 51Jay McShann in Edinburgh, c.1995 (from List of blues musicians)
Image 52Hubert Sumlin in Montreux, 1978 (from List of blues musicians)
Image 53Otis Rush, 1997 (from List of blues musicians)
Image 54Susan Tedeschi, 2006 (from List of blues musicians)
Image 55Emancipation from Freedmen's viewpoint; illustration from Harper's Weekly 1865 (from Origins of the blues)
Image 56Ethel Waters, 1943 (from List of blues musicians)
Image 57Roy Rogers, 2014 (from List of blues musicians)
Image 58Lead Belly (from List of blues musicians)
Image 59Memphis Minnie, 1930 (from List of blues musicians)
Image 60Kenny Wayne Shepherd, 2010 (from List of blues musicians)
Image 61Alvin Youngblood Hart, 2009 (from List of blues musicians)
Image 62Charlie Musselwhite, 2003 (from List of blues musicians)
Image 63Dexter Allen, 2004 (from List of blues musicians)
Image 64Lucky Peterson (from List of blues musicians)
Image 65Curley Weaver (from List of blues musicians)
Image 66Jimmy Witherspoon, 1974 (from List of blues musicians)
Image 67Son Seals, 1977 (from List of blues musicians)
Image 68Luther Allison (from List of blues musicians)
Image 69Junior Wells, 1983 (from List of blues musicians)
Image 70Robert Jr. Lockwood, 1982 (from List of blues musicians)
Image 71John Lee Hooker in Toronto, 1978 (from List of blues musicians)
Image 72Mamie Smith (from List of blues musicians)
Image 73"Sweet Home Chicago" performed at the White House with Barack Obama joining B.B. King on the chorus (from List of blues standards)
Image 74Bobby "Blue" Bland (from List of blues musicians)
Image 75Corey Harris, 2006 (from List of blues musicians)
Image 76Albert King in Paris, 1978 (from List of blues musicians)