113. Blues: 4. 1950s, ACJ Music Academy

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This week's lecture is “1950s”, the 4th topic of “Blues”, which is a summary of the contents of “113. Blues: 4. 1950s” introduced on November 29th (Wed), 2017.

The transition from country blues to urban blues, which began in the 1920s, was driven by a series of economic crises and booms, which caused many rural blacks to migrate to urban areas, known as the “Great Migration”. The long boom after World War II led to another large-scale migration of African-Americans, the “Second Great Migration,” which resulted in significant increases in the real income of the urban blacks and new migrants constituted a new market for the music industry. 

The term “race record” was originally used by the music industry for African-American music, but was later replaced by the term “rhythm and blues”, and the rapidly evolving music market reflected in Billboard magazine's Rhythm and Blues chart. This marketing strategy reinforced trends in urban blues music, such as the use of electric instruments and amplification, and the generalization of blues beat and blues shuffle, which were found everywhere in rhythm and blues. This commercial flow also had a significant impact on blues music, which, along with jazz and gospel music, became a component of rhythm and blues.

The cover of race records catalogue
of Victor Talking Machine Company

After World War II, new styles of electric blues became popular in cities such as Chicago, Memphis, Detroit and St. Louis. Electric blues was played through a microphone and PA system or overdriven guitar amplifier using electric guitars, double bass (later replaced by bass guitars), drums and harmonica. From 1948, when Muddy Waters recorded his first success "I Can't Be Satisfied", Chicago became a center for electric blues. Chicago blues was heavily influenced by Delta blues, as many of the performers had migrated from the Mississippi area.

Muddy Waters

In the 1950s, blues had a major impact on mainstream American popular music. Popular musicians such as Bo Diddley and Chuck Berry were influenced by the Chicago blues, but their passionate playing styles helped break the prejudice that blues is melancholic.

Bo Diddley

Chuck Berry

In the late 1950s, a new style of blues pioneered by Magic Sam, Buddy Guy and Otis Rush appeared in Chicago's West Side. This "West Side sound" was supported by powerful rhythm parts from rhythm guitar, bass guitar and drums, and an amplified electric lead guitar dominated the sound, and the expressive guitar solo was a key feature of the music.

Buddy Guy

Around the late 1950s, a genre called “Swamp Blues” developed near Baton Rouge. Strongly influenced by Jimmy Reed, swamp blues was characterized by a slower pace and simpler harmonica use than the Chicago Blues style.

Jimmy Reed

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112. Blues: 3. Before 1950s, ACJ Music Academy

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This week's lecture is “Before 1950s”, the 3rd topic of “Blues”, which is a summary of the contents of “112. Blues: 3. Before 1950s” introduced on November 25th, 2017.

The first publication of blues sheet music may have been "I Got the Blues", published in 1908 by New Orleans musician Antonio Maggio. Then, in 1912, Hart Wand's "Dallas Blues" and W.C. Handy's "The Memphis Blues" were published.

W. C. Handy

In the 1920s, the blues became a major element of African-American and American popular music, and it evolved from informal performances in bars to entertainment in theatres.

Developed near Memphis, Tennessee in the 1920s and 1930s, the Memphis blues style was influenced by jug bands. In the late 1930's or early 1940's, many Memphis-based blues musicians moved to Chicago and became part of the urban blues movement.

Sheet music for "The Memphis Blues"

Urban blues style was characterized by more systematic and sophisticated, as performers no longer belonged to their local, immediate community, and had to adapt to the preferences of a larger and more diverse audience.

Boogie-woogie was another important style of urban blues in the 1930s and early 1940s. Although this style is often associated with solo piano, the singer, as a solo part, also accompanied by bands and small combos.

In the 1940s, the jump blues style was developed, which grew up from the boogie woogie wave and was strongly influenced by big band music.

Ockbrook Big Band at Pride Park Stadium

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110. Blues: 1. Overview, ACJ Music Academy

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This week's lecture is “Overview”, the 1st topic of “Blues”, which is a summary of the contents of “110. Blues: 1. Overview” introduced on November 11th, 2017.

Blues is a music genre and musical form that originated in the southern United States around the 1860s by African-Americans as a music rooted in African-American work songs and spirituals. Blues includes spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts, chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads. The blues form, found in jazz, rhythm and blues and rock and roll, 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.

In addition, the blue notes, which refers to the scale in which the thirds and sevenths are lowered by a semitone in the diatonic scale of Western music, is also an essential part of the blues sound.

Blues as a genre is also characterized by its lyrics, bass lines and instrumentation. Early traditional blues verses consisted of a single line repeated four times, and it was during the first decades of the 20th century that the current structure became standard. Early blues was a loose narrative form related to racial discrimination and many of the difficulties experienced by African-Americans.

The origins of many elements, such as the call-and-response format and the use of blue notes, date back to African music, and the origins of blues are also closely related to the spirituals, the religious music of the African-American community. The first appearance of blues dates back to juke joints, associated with the newly acquired freedom of the former slaves, that developed after slavery was over. According to chroniclers, reports about blues music began in the early 20th century, and the first blues sheet music was published in 1908. 

Since then, blues has evolved from unaccompanied vocal music and oral traditions of slaves into a variety of styles and subgenres. Blues subgenres include country blues such as Delta blues and Piedmont blues and urban blues styles such as Chicago blues and West Coast blues. World War II marked the transition from acoustic blues to electric blues and the progressive opening of blues music to a wider audience, especially white listeners. A hybrid form called blues rock, which mixed blues style with rock music, was developed in the 1960s and 1970s.

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