THE BLUES

An Introduction

W HY T HE B LUE S ?
For Unit 4: Music in Context you will need to become familiar with Four Decades of Jazz and Blues 1910 to 1950. As it is outlined in the syllabus,

Candidates study the development of Jazz and Blues within these dates including consideration of the: use of voices and instruments use of melody, harmony and texture different types of instrumental backing, use of Jazz and Blues for social comment

It is therefore imperative that you have a thorough knowledge of the music between these periods and are able to access information of the background of the music as well as the music itself so as to write an essay in the exam at the end of the year. REMEMBER: YOU ARE NOT ALLOWED TO TAKE SCORES IN WITH YOU!

To begin, then, I thought that we would study a style of music that is essential for a grounding in this area of study: the Blues. Over the next few weeks we will be building what is termed as a Case Study of this particular style of music. This means, that you will be using the Blues as a framework in which to approach a study of other styles of Jazz and Blues from 1910 onwards. A case study is useful in that you pull out certain iconic tracks and analyse them in view of the context of the track within that particular style, but also an analysis of the track in the context of Jazz and Blues as a whole. It is always useful to note that when you approach the study of each style (albeit Bebop, Boogie-woogie, or Traditional) your approach will fundamentally be the same: and it is these fundamentals that I wish to develop with you over the coming weeks.

The following hand-out has been adapted (very slightly) from the one on Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blues As you know I do a lot of my research on the net, and do copy/adapt those sources that I feel are useful. However, it would be highly unprofessional for me to pass this work off as my own and I would subsequently be guilty of plagiarism. Make sure you ALWAYS make your reader aware of where you have gained the information/evidence for your work!

Introducti on

Blues is the name given to both a musical form and a music genre created primarily within the African-American communities in the Deep South of the United States at the end of the 19th century from: spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts and chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads.

The blues form ubiquitous in jazz, rhythm and blues, and rock and roll is characterized by specific chord progressionsthe twelve-bar blues chord progressions being the most commonand the blue notes, notes that for expressive purposes are sung or played flattened or gradually bent (minor 3rd to major 3rd) in relation to the pitch of the major scale.

The blues genre is based on the blues form but possesses other characteristics such as specific lyrics, bass lines and instruments. Blues can be subdivided into several subgenres ranging from country to urban blues that were more or less popular during different periods of the 20th century. Best known are the Delta, Piedmont, Jump and Chicago blues styles. World War II marked the transition from acoustic to electric blues and the progressive opening of blues music to a wider audience. In the 1960s and 1970s, a hybrid form called blues-rock evolved.

The term the blues arguably refers to the blue devils, meaning melancholy and sadness; an early use of the term in this sense is found in George Colman's one-act farce Blue Devils (1798). Though the use of the phrase in 4

African American music may be older, it has been attested to since 1912, when Hart Wand's Dallas Blues became the first copyrighted blues composition. In lyrics the phrase is often used to describe a depressed mood.

Hey! I used to REALLY hate writing music essays!

Until this REALLY cool teacher called Mike gave me a few hints and tips!

He said, If you read through your hand-outs and you dont recognise certain names, or certain terms and stuff, make sure you go home and

A Cultural Re-Interpretation of the

Post-Modern Self and the Dialectical Aesthetics of Blues Rock in the 1970s

look them up!

Remember: Always go home and look up those terms/names etc. that you do not understand. We can only cover so much in these sessions, so its up to YOU to continue with further background study when you leave here!

Form During the first decades of the 20th century, blues music was not clearly defined in terms of a chord progression. By the early 1900s, however, and arguably due to the commercial success in the African-American community of singers such as first blues star Bessie Smith (below), twelve-bar blues became the standard. The basic twelve-bar lyric framework of a blues composition is reflected by a standard harmonic progression of twelve bars in a 4/4 time signature. The blues chords associated to a twelve-bar blues are typically a set of three different chords played over a twelve-bar scheme, and are labeled by Roman numbers referring to the degrees of the progression. For instance, for a blues in the key of C, C is the tonic chord (I) and F is the subdominant (IV). The last beginning of the next progression:
Other Blues Progressions Other chord progressions, such as 8-bar forms, are still considered blues; examples include How Long Blues, Trouble in Mind, and Big Bill Broonzy's Key to the Highway. There are also 16-bar blues, as in Ray Charles's instrumental Sweet 16 Bars and in Herbie Hancock's Watermelon Man. Idiosyncratic numbers of bars are also encountered occasionally, as with the 9bar progression in Sitting on Top of the World by Howlin Wolf

chord is the dominant (V) turnaround, marking the transition back to the

The lyrics generally end on the last beat of the tenth bar or the first beat of the eleventh bar, and the final two bars are given to the instrumentalist as a break; the harmony of this two-bar break, the turnaround, can be extremely complex, sometimes consisting of single notes that defy analysis in terms of chords. Much of the time, some, or all of these chords are played in the harmonic seventh (7th) form. The use of the harmonic seventh interval is characteristic of blues and is popularly called the blues seven:

In terms of the melody, blues is distinguished by the use of the flattened third, fifth and seventh of the associated major scale. These specialized notes are called the blue or bent notes. These scale tones may replace the natural scale tones, or they may be added to the scale, as in the case of the minor blues

scale, in which the flattened third replaces the natural third, the flattened seventh replaces the natural seventh and the flattened fifth is added between the natural fourth and natural fifth:

While the twelve-bar harmonic progression had been used on and off for centuries, the revolutionary aspect of blues was the frequent use of the flattened third, flattened seventh, and even flattened fifth in the melody, together with crushingplaying directly adjacent notes at the same time (i.e., diminished second)and sliding, similar to using grace notes. The blue notes allow for key moments of expression during the cadences, melodies, and embellishments of the blues.

Blues shuffles or walking bass reinforce the trance-like rhythm and call-andresponse, and they form a repetitive effect called a groove. Characteristic of the blues since its Afro-American origins, the shuffles played a central role in swing music. The simplest shuffles, which were the clearest signature of the R&B wave that started in the mid 1940s, were a three-note riff on the bass strings of the guitar. When this riff was played over the bass and the drums, the groove feel was created. Shuffle rhythm is often vocalized as dow, da dow, da dow, da or dump, da dump, da dump, da: it consists of uneven, or swung, eighth notes. On a guitar this may be played as a simple steady bass or it may add to that stepwise quarter note motion from the fifth to the sixth of the chord and back. An example is provided by the following notation for the first four bars of a blues progression in C:

Lyrics The lyrics of early traditional blues verses probably often consisted of a single line repeated four times; it was only in the first decades of the 20th century that the most common current structure became standard: the so-called AAB pattern, consisting of a line sung over the four first bars, its repetition over the next four, and then a longer concluding line over the last bars. Two of the first published blues songs, Dallas Blues (1912) and St. Louis Blues (1914), were 12-bar blues featuring the AAB structure. W. C. Handy wrote that he adopted this convention to avoid the monotony of lines repeated three times. The lines are often sung following a pattern closer to a rhythmic talk than to a melody. Early blues frequently took the form of a loose narrative, an idea that we can see from another very important early Blues singer: Robert Johnson. The 9

singer voiced his or her personal woes in a world of harsh reality: a lost love, the cruelty of police officers, oppression at the hands of white folk, [and] hard times. The lyrics often relate troubles experienced within African American society.

Robert Leroy Johnson (May 8, 1911 August 16, 1938) was an American blues singer and musician. His landmark recordings from 19361937 display a remarkable combination of singing, guitar skills, and songwriting talent that have influenced generations of musicians. Johnson's shadowy, and poorly documented life and death at age 27 have given rise to much legend, including a Faustian myth. Johnson's songs, vocal phrasing and guitar style have influenced a broad range of musicians; Eric Clapton has called Johnson "the most important blues singer that ever lived". Johnson was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as an "Early Influence" in their first induction ceremony in 1986. He was ranked fifth in Rolling Stone's list of 100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time.

Perhaps a good example of this can be seen in Johnsons track Crossroads. Not only does the track embody an element of the alienation of Black people in America at the time, but it also contains within it the notion
of Johnson selling his soul to the devil for his guitar playing abilities: I went to the crossroad, fell down on my knees I went to the crossroad, fell down on my knees Asked the Lord above "Have mercy, now save poor Bob, if you please" Yeoo, standin' at the crossroad, tried to flag a ride Ooo eeee, I tried to flag a ride Didn't nobody seem to know me, babe, everybody pass me by Standin' at the crossroad, baby, risin' sun goin' down Standin' at the crossroad, baby, eee, eee, risin' sun goin' down I believe to my soul, now, poor Bob is sinkin' down

You can run, you can run, tell my friend Willie Brown You can run, you can run, tell my friend Willie Brown That I got the crossroad blues this mornin', Lord, babe, I'm sinkin' down And I went to the crossroad, mama, I looked east and west I went to the crossroad, baby, I looked east and west Lord, I didn't have no sweet woman, ooh well, babe, in my distress

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The mythology around Johnson selling his soul to the devil came mainly from the singer himself, who seems to have claimed occasionally that he had sold his soul to the Devil, but it is not clear that he meant it seriously, and these claims are strongly disputed in Tom Graves' biography of Johnson, Crossroads: The Life and Afterlife of Blues Legend Robert Johnson, published in 2008. The crossroads detail was widely believed to come from Johnson himself, probably because it appeared to explain the discrepancy in "Cross Road Blues". Johnson's high emotion and religious fervor are hard to explain as resulting from the mundane situation described, unsuccessful hitchhiking as night falls. The crossroads myth offers a simple literal explanation for both the religion and the anguish. Moreover, in Johnsons Me And The Devil he began, "Early this morning when you knocked upon my door/Early this morning, umb, when you knocked upon my door/And I said, 'Hello, Satan, I believe it's time to go,'" before leading into "You may bury my body down by the highway side/You may bury my body, uumh, down by the highway side/So my old evil spirit can catch a Greyhound bus and ride." However, although the blues gained an association with misery and oppression, the lyrics could also be quite raunchy as well. We need only turn to Johnson again in the track Terraplane. Here, we have a subtle mix of eniuendo in the way in which Johnson discusses his Terraplane, a car from the 1930s: And I feel so lonesome You hear me when I moan When I feel so lonesome You hear me when I moan Who been drivin' my Terraplane For you since I been gone? 11

I'd said, "I'll flash your lights, mama Your horn won't even blow" Somebody's been runnin' My batteries down on this machine I even flash my lights, mama This horn won't even blow Got a short in this connection Hoo well, babe, it's way down below I'm goin' heist your hood, mama I'm bound to check your oil I'm goin' heist your hood, mama I'm bound to check your oil I got a woman that I'm lovin' Way down in Arkansas Now, you know the coils ain't even buzzin' Little generator won't get the spark Motor's in a bad condition You gotta have these batteries charged But I'm cryin', please, please don't do me wrong Who been drivin' my Terraplane Now for you since I been gone Mr. Highway Man, please don't block the road Please, please don't block the road 'Cause she's reachin' a cold one hundred And I'm booked and I got to go Yoo, you hear me weep and moan Who been drivin' my Terraplane Now for you since I been gone I'm gon' get down in this connection Keep on tanglin' with your wires I'm gon' get down in this connection Oh well, keep on tanglin' with these wires And when I mash down on your little starter Then your spark plug will give me fire Lyrical content of music became slightly simpler in post war-blues that focused almost exclusively on relationship woes or sexual worries. Many lyrical themes that frequently appeared in pre-war blues such as economic depression, farming, devils, gambling, magic, floods and dry periods were less common in post-war blues. 12

Another aspect of the lyrical content of blues is spirituality. Author Ed Morales has claimed that Yoruba mythology, a culture from the West of Africa played a part in early blues, citing Robert Johnson's Cross Road Blues as a thinly veiled reference to Eleggua, the Orisha, [Deity] in charge of the crossroads. However, the Christian influence was far more obvious. Many seminal blues artists such as Charley Patton or Skip James had several religious songs or spirituals in their repertoires. Reverend Gary Davis and Blind Willie Johnson are examples of artists often categorized as blues musicians for their music, although their lyrics clearly belong to the spirituals. Indeed, one need only to turn to Blind Willie Johnsons In My Time of Dying or the Reverend Gary Davis Pure Religion.

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A MONKEY PRESS PUBLICATION

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