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Brief history of blues music?

Can someone please give me a brief history of blues music, and some info on one blues artist (e.g. Muddy Waters, Robert Johnson etc)?

Would be too much to type in a box here.

In VERY brief –
The music was developing among rural African American in the second half of the 19th century. The ‘blues’ sound is said to have developed from the slaves natural proclivity to flatten the 3rd and 7th notes of the scale and singing in a ‘call and response’ style.

In 1914 (I think that’s the date, but someone more knowledgable will correct me!) W.C. Handy published what is believed to be the first “blues” sheet music for his song “Memphis Blues”. He later said that he heard the sound of it years earlier at a train station where an itinerate musician was playing guitar with a bottleneck slide.

In 1920 Mephis Minnie recorded the first “blues” recording with her “Crazy Blues”. This started a craze in the recording industry. At the time, the recording industry was in competition with the new format of radio and were willing to try more broad music than just classical and jazz. Most of the first blues stars were female singers – often with a strong vaudeville background. Because of the open attitude of the recording industry and the field research of people like the Lomaxes, they quickly went on to record a number of blues artists both male and female from around the rural south.

This should be a good begining for your research, also look into how the depression affected the migrations of people, WWII, and the return of the soldiers, the changes in the styles of music in the post WWII era, etc, etc, etc,

Robert Johnson- Crossroad

music music robert johnson
music robert johnson
music robert johnson