Them Blues

The blues has deep roots in American history, particularly African American history. The blues originated on the Southern plantations of USA in the 19th century. It's inventors were slaves, ex- slaves and the descendants of slaves.
African - American sharecroppers who sang as they toiled in the cotton and vegetable fields.

"No matter where they're playing, blues is music to move to".( Worth Long).

The phrase "having the blues" dates back to the 18th century England, where the 'blue devils" was slang for melancholia.
However, it was sorrows and troubles among the ex- slaves after the Civil War that lead to a raw new music, the blues, depicting work, love, poverty and hardships freedom men faced in a world barely removed from slavery.

"Well, the blues am an achin old heart disease, well, the blues am a low down heart disease, like consumption, killin me by degrees". ( Robert Johnson).

No single person invented the blues, as a few men claimed. However it was it was the people from the deep south who helped shape the music.

Willie Dixon called the blues "the facts of life". Dixon was a blues song writer, poetry and philosopher who campaigned for more than 50 years for the recognition of the blues as the root of all American music.

Blues pioneers can still be heard in 1920s and 30s recordings where the towns/cities are rich in the blues. These places were the Mississippi delta, Memphis, Chicago, Louisiana, Texas, Georgia and New Orleans.

Edward Comentale noted how the blues was often used as a medium for art or self- expression. He stated: "As heard from Delta shacks to Chicago tenements to Harlem cabarets, the blues proved despite its pained origins, a remarkably flexible medium and a new arena for the shaping of identity and community.

A few of the latter blues artists and songs many of us just love are: Duke Ellington, That's all right, Johnny be good, Blue suede shoes, shake rattle and roll, Long tall Sally, Ray Charles, Little Richard, Bob Dylan, Willie Nelson, Waylon Jennings, Jerry - Lewis, just to mention a few.

The use of instruments increased with time, such as the guitar, piano, harmonica, bass, drums, xylophone and slide-guitar.

When I listen to the blues I imagine people on a veranda playing their music, some folk dancing, others tending a barbecue filled with crawfish, prawns, steaks, etc. A comfortable and happy time of interaction of families and friends.

Sources Wikipedia - The Blues, National Geographic
Images from Pixabay - Public domain