Look, the main thing to understand about "blues" is that there are really two types of blues. One type of blues refers to folk songs being sung since the 19th century dealing with tragedy, world-weariness and sexual conquest and lots of other fun things - the other type of "blues" refers an actual musical structure involving an 8, 12 or 16 bar system of "blue notes" and flattened sevenths and so on, which was solidified around the beginning of the 20th century by musicians like W.C. Handy and Hart Wand. More often than not these two definitions overlap, of course.
W.C. Handy is most often referred to as the Father of the Blues. Now this is of course a fairly bollocks term - W.C. Handy neither invented the blues, which had been sung among negro communities for years, nor was even the first man to publish a blues song (That was Hart Wand's "Dallas Blues" in 1912). He was, however, the man who did the most create the idea of the blues as a musical form and a respectable art form - he played a role in relation to the blues, that was similar to that played by Robert Burns in relation to Scottish folk music; he was a collecter and adapter of songs. His first published song was the "Memphis Blues" in 1914 - this song is not a blues song throughout; more like half-blues, half-ragtime. Here's a recording by pianist Jim Hession:
The blues first found its popularity in the vaudeville circuits - many of the songs sung in the 1910's with the label "blues" were not actually blues in the musical sense, even if they did often emulate some of the style. Perhaps the first blues hit recording was Marion Harris' 1920 version of W.C. Handy's 1916 "St. Louis Blues". The "St. Louis Blues" is W.C. Handy's masterpiece and one the truly great American songs. It was, for a long time, the most recorded song in the world and if W.C. Handy is remembered for nothing else, it will be this he is remembered for. The song IS a blues, but it opens with a habanera rhythm which repeated halfway through the song. And the lyrics are as iconic as it gets. I could play Marrion Harris' version of the song, but I don't think it really gets the power of the song across, even if it is quite a good version. The best version of the song is probably Louis Armstrong's 1954 recording - 8 minutes long and loud as feck, it is severely awesome:
The first recording of the blues by an African-American vocalist was Mamie Smith's 1920 recording of "Crazy Blues" and it was perhaps the most influential recording in American history - after it became a hit, record companies realised they could make money from "race records" and so the floodgate was opened for every African-American muscian who has recorded up to this day. The song itself is very much vaudeville-styled blues and Mamie Smith was no genius, but still, it's interesting:
After Mamie Smith, came Ma Rainey, who had actually been singing blues since 1902 and was known as the Mother of the Blues and Bessie Smith, by far the most popular female blues singer of the era, known as the Empress of the Blues. Here's her 1927 recording of "After You've Gone":
Another market soon opened up: country blues. Rural blues musicians, usually either pianists or guitarists, started getting recorded by the bucketload. The first country blues recording was "Guitar Blues" by Sylvester Weaver in 1923, but to be honest, it's shit - the B-side, "Guitar Rag" is much better, but its not blues, although it is the first recording of slide guitar on record. I can't seem to find it on YouTube (only the 1927 re-recording), though. He was followed by one Blind Lemon Jefferson in 1925 - the most popular country blues musician of his era. Listening today, it's hard to tell why Blind Lemon Jefferson was so popular. His music is atonal, amelodic, almost rhythm free and dark and depressing. Yet somehow he was the most popular. Another factor is that his records have been preserved terribly - they are worst-sounding quality of any music from the era. As such, his enjoyment is a bit tricky, but here's one of his more listenable recordings from 1927:
Yeah. Perhaps a less challenging, still awesome example of country blues can be found in Blind Willie McTell. Blues was just one of the many genres that Blind Willie McTell was proficient in - he could do ragtime, folk, gospel - but he could plays the blues like a bitch, too. His most famous song is "Statesboro Blues" because it was covered by the Allman Brothers *makes wanking motion with hand*, but here's another classic song - a 16 bar blues called "Searching the Desert for the Blues:
Now, the main problem that arose with country blues musicians - and one that still exists today - is that there was a lot of genre segregation. Basically, if they're black they're labelled as blues, if they're white they're labelled as country. The fact is, the repetoires of both black and white musicians was not radically different at all - blacks played country songs and whites played blues song. It's just that the recording companies found it easier to market artists through these simple labels. Take Mississippi John Hurt - he only recorded one genuine blues song in the 1920's and he's labelled as a "bluesman" when he's really a country singer. Listen to this:
He was also MUCH better recorded and preserved than Blind Lemon, too. I suppose this goes back to my first paragraph about the two kinds of blues - this is the kind of blues that existed before a musical structure was applied to it by various composers. Still, there are some cases where the labelling is simply idiotic - case in point, Jimmie Rogders. Jimmie Rodgers is known as the "Father of Country Music" which is utter bollocks, because, firstly, country music existed long before him and, secondly, 80% of his music is blues. His most famous song is "Blue Yodel No. 1" from 1927 and it's a genuine blues in both style and form:
Don't get wrong, I love Jimmie Rodgers, but the only reason he's labelled as country is because he's white. And the only reason Mississippi John Hurt is labelled blues is because he's black. That's still how it works today.
There's a LOT more to the blues than just what I've said here, but I'll need to go into various sub-categories and regional styles to describe it, which I'll do in future.
Rang juice, floods!
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