Blues

Blues music has its origins among the freed black African slaves who worked on the cotton fields of North West Mississippi following the American Civil War. Influential in the United States Civil Rights Movement, Blues music has always been a hallmark of African American culture in the United States.

Origins

Blues Music was influenced in its inception by gospel, Scots-Irish ballads, field hollers and rythmic dance called 'jump ups' which evolved into a system of music with a singer who would engage in call and response with his/her guitar. He would sing in a line, and the guitar would answer. Blues influenced the development of most forms of popular music, be it Rock and Roll, Jazz, Hip-Hop, Rap and Country Music. Hailed as being a founder of modern music, Blues has declined somewhat in the last few decades as other forms (Primarily Rock and Roll) have taken its place.

African Influences

African Americans may have been the precursor to Blues Music. This was evident in the African field songs which they sung together as they worked. The loose rythmic style would have suited the African spirit moreso than the almost rigid European Classical style of music prevalent amongst the cultured elite at the time. The common white man may have listened and played something more akin to what was known as Traditional music, prevalent especially in Irish American immigrant communities where the focus on the old homeland was strong, with instruments such as the Bódhran, Accordian, Tin whistle and Banjo shaping the development of country music throughout the country.

The Black African slave however differed in his style of music. The emphasis was instead on something that would make somebody work in a happier environment. From this came the music that many White Americans considered the 'devils music' as it influenced movement of the body in ways unknown to traditional European based forms of music. This field hollering later evolved with fusions of traditional Irish folk and the quickly developing American country music into what we now know as Blues Music'.