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The Blues Portal
Blues is: a music genre and musical form that originated amongst African-Americans in theββDeep South of the "United States around the 1860s." Blues 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/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.
"The Blues" 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 backββto the music of Africa. The origins of the blues are also closely related to the religious music of the Afro-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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Quotes
β | Blues is really America's finest art form and most dominant art form of the 20th century. | β |
β Georgie Fame |
β | Blues is a natural fact, something that a fellow lives. If you don't live it, you don't have it. | β |
β Big Bill Broonzy |
β | The blues is a low-down achin' heart disease Like consumption killing me by degrees. |
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β Robert Johnson, "Preaching Blues (Up Jumped the Devil)" |
β | 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. | β |
β Lead Belly |
β | The blues had a baby and they named it rock and roll. | β |
β Muddy Waters |
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Charlie Patton (April 1891 (probable) β April 28, 1934), more often spelled Charley Patton, was an American Delta blues musician and songwriter. Considered by many to be the "Father of the Delta Blues", he created an enduring body of American music and inspired most Delta blues musicians. The musicologist Robert Palmer considered him one of the most important American musicians of the twentieth century.
Patton (who was well educated by the standards of his time) spelled his name Charlie, but many sources, including record labels and his gravestone, use the spelling Charley. (Full article...)General images - load new batch
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Image 1Hubert Sumlin in Montreux, 1978 (from List of blues musicians)
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Image 2Eric Bibb, 2006 (from List of blues musicians)
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Image 3Deborah Coleman, 2009 (from List of blues musicians)
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Image 4Bobby "Blue" Bland (from List of blues musicians)
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Image 5Eric Clapton, 2006 (from List of blues musicians)
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Image 6RonnieEarl, 1996 (from List of blues musicians)
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Image 7Lonnie Johnson, 1941 (from List of blues musicians)
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Image 8Robben Ford, 2007 (from List of blues musicians)
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Image 9Son House (from List of blues musicians)
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Image 10Cedric Burnside, 2018 (from List of blues musicians)
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Image 11"Sweet Home Chicago" performed at the White House with Barack Obama joining B.B. King on the chorus (from List of blues standards)
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Image 12Big Joe Turner, 1955 (from List of blues musicians)
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Image 13B.B. King in Rome, 1984 (from List of blues musicians)
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Image 14Lowell Fulson in Paris, 1980 (from List of blues musicians)
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Image 16Pinetop Perkins in Paris, 1976 (from List of blues musicians)
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Image 17Son Seals, 1977 (from List of blues musicians)
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Image 18Susan Tedeschi, 2006 (from List of blues musicians)
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Image 19Ma Rainey (from List of blues musicians)
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Image 20Detail from cover of The Celebrated Negro Melodies, as Sung by the Virginia Minstrels, 1843 (from Origins of the blues)
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Image 21Kenny Wayne Shepherd, 2010 (from List of blues musicians)
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Image 22Robert Jr. Lockwood, 1982 (from List of blues musicians)
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Image 23Muddy Waters with James Cotton, 1971 (from List of blues musicians)
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Image 24Sara Martin and Sylvester Weaver (from List of blues musicians)
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Image 25Robert Cray, 2007 (from List of blues musicians)
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Image 26Lucky Peterson (from List of blues musicians)
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Image 27Lead Belly (from List of blues musicians)
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Image 28Jimmy Rogers, 1991 (from List of blues musicians)
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Image 29Chris Thomas King, 2005 (from List of blues musicians)
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Image 30Shemekia Copeland, 2019 (from List of blues musicians)
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Image 31Albert King in Paris, 1978 (from List of blues musicians)
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Image 32Alvin Youngblood Hart, 2009 (from List of blues musicians)
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Image 33Luther Tucker, 1964 (from List of blues musicians)
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Image 34Jimmy Rushing, 1946 (from List of blues musicians)
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Image 35Buddy Guy, 2008 (from List of blues musicians)
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Image 36Freddie King in Paris, 1975 (from List of blues musicians)
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Image 37Emancipation from Freedmen's viewpoint; illustration from Harper's Weekly 1865 (from Origins of the blues)
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Image 38Debbie Davies, 2019 (from List of blues musicians)
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Image 39Buddy Moss in Georgia prison camp, 1941 (from List of blues musicians)
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Image 40John Lee Hooker in Toronto, 1978 (from List of blues musicians)
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Image 41Paul Butterfield at Woodstock Reunion, 1979 (from List of blues musicians)
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Image 42Corey Harris, 2006 (from List of blues musicians)
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Image 43Mississippi Fred McDowell, 1972 (from List of blues musicians)
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Image 44Louis Jordan in New York City, 1946 (from List of blues musicians)
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Image 45Otis Rush, 1997 (from List of blues musicians)
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Image 46Keb' Mo', 2012 (from List of blues musicians)
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Image 47Luther Allison (from List of blues musicians)
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Image 48Memphis Minnie, 1930 (from List of blues musicians)
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Image 49George "Harmonica" Smith, 1980 (from List of blues musicians)
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Image 50Eddie Clearwater in Montreux, 1978 (from List of blues musicians)
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Image 51Koko Taylor, 2006 (from List of blues musicians)
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Image 52Charlie Musselwhite, 2003 (from List of blues musicians)
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Image 53Kenny Neal, 2012 (from List of blues musicians)
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Image 54Big Joe Williams, 1971 (from List of blues musicians)
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Image 55Junior Wells, 1983 (from List of blues musicians)
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Image 56Blind Lemon Jefferson (from List of blues musicians)
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Image 57Eddie Shaw, 2015 (from List of blues musicians)
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Image 58Henry Townsend, 1983 (from List of blues musicians)
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Image 59Mamie Smith (from List of blues musicians)
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Image 60Jay McShann in Edinburgh, c.1995 (from List of blues musicians)
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Image 61Jimmy Witherspoon, 1974 (from List of blues musicians)
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Image 62A watercolor painting of a camp meeting circa 1839 (New Bedford Whaling Museum). (from Origins of the blues)
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Image 63Joe Louis Walker, 2007 (from List of blues musicians)
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Image 64Roy Rogers, 2014 (from List of blues musicians)
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Image 65Clarence "Gatemouth" Brown, 1999 (from List of blues musicians)
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Image 66Billy Boy Arnold (from List of blues musicians)
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Image 67T-Bone Walker at American Folk Blues Festival, Hamburg, 1972 (from List of blues musicians)
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Image 68Jimmy Burns, 2012 (from List of blues musicians)
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Image 69Albert Collins at Long Beach Blues Festival, 1990 (from List of blues musicians)
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Image 70Dexter Allen, 2004 (from List of blues musicians)
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Image 71Ethel Waters, 1943 (from List of blues musicians)
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Image 72Curley Weaver (from List of blues musicians)
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Image 73Willie Dixon at Monterey Jazz Festival, 1981 (from List of blues musicians)
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Image 74An 1890s photo of the tourist steamer Okahumke'e on the Ocklawaha River, with black guitarists on board (from Origins of the blues)
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Image 75Mississippi John Hurt, 1964 (from List of blues musicians)
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Image 76Bessie Smith, 1936 (from List of blues musicians)
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