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People often talk about delta blues, Texas blues, country blues, Chicago blues, gospel blues, ragtime blues, and the list probably goes on and on…
Is there a any good reference material available as to the key differences between these sub-genres?Jean-Michel
Don Deering is the person to answer this question; he has the most complete knowledge of the history of the blues of anyone that I’ve met.
My stab at it is that the birthplace of the blues is reportedly Yazoo City Mississippi, which of course is Delta Blues. Delta Blues is the product of slaves singing in the field and in church meetings. Even though the Blues was called the devil music by the slaves that were Christians, the musical structure is much the same. Its all pentatonic based. Interesting side note – Amazing Grace is one of those songs that can be played with the pentatonic scale, written by a man who had started his sailing career on a slave trader ship. The words were his but the melody is likely something that he heard from the slaves he was transporting. Interesting story how/why he wrote it too.
When the slaves were freed and began to migrate out of the south, Texas, St Louis, Memphis and ultimately Chicago was where many of them ended up. They were growing musically, picking up influence from each other and regional music
Ragtime grew out of some players discovering how to syncopate the notes and rhythms, it’s name comes from people saying it had “ragged time” – it wasn’t played in a straight 4/4 signature. I view ragtime as the early steps of jazz
Blind Blake was one of the better known ragtime players; had to throw in the Mance Lipscomb tune just because…. anyone who could play slide with his pocket knife and having a finger on his right hand in a bandage is an awesome player.Piedmont Blues is usually attributed to the music of the Carolina’s, that music is more lyrical and it picked up the melodic influence from country music of the time. Brownie McGhee is my fav acoustic player and he is known as Piedmont player; the song below is typical of that style
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You might find this interesting.
Stefan Grossman spent time with many of the acoustic blues players like Mississippi John Hurt and Rev Gary Davis. He has a lot of first hand knowledge that he passes on
The first link is to some radio broadcasts that he did while living in England and he gives insight into the history of the blueshttps://www.guitarvideos.com/radio-broadcasts
https://www.guitarvideos.com/interviews
https://www.guitarvideos.com/remembrances-of-blues-legends-and-guitars
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Thanks for the replies and the links (Mance Liscomb has always been one of my favorite players). In general I know the overall history of the blues relatively well.
When I was young I ordered many of Stefan Grossman’s books (he was much younger as well!) about Delta Blues, Texas Blues, Open Tunings, and a couple more. I still have these books – collector items, I suppose!My question was actually more trying to delineate all the (sub)genres. For example, Texas Blues often sounds very similar to Chicago Blues” to my ears.
In classical music, it is possible to distinguish the baroque era from the classical and romantic periods based on stylistic differences. It’s obviously not a perfectly clean separation, but it allows you to “classify” a piece of music you’ve never heard in one period or another.But as you guys pointed out, this may just not be possible for contemporary music because all these things are so heavily intertwined.
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There are so many overlaps and grey areas it’s not worth trying to come up with a useful, simple and, least of all, accurate way to classify blues by regional genre. Believe me, I’ve tried.
It’s the holy grail for writers of blues history to be able to categorize everything into discreet buckets. I’m telling you for a stone cold fact it’s impossible!
What you can do is come up with some general “characteristics” for each region. However as soon as you write them down you’ll realize they are hopelessly incomplete and downright wrong for some artists. Blues is a slippery customer.
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This is a great topic, very wide, deserving of a lifetime study. I don’t know of any single book that would answer your question except in the most superficial way. For that, for starters, a small book like Encyclopedia of the Blues, by Herzhaft, is a good place to start.
Thanks to Keith for his answer and for calling my attention to this. I just got back from a short (non-musical) trip to Osawatomie, Kansas. After I take care of a few more things, I’d like to come back and offer my opinions, but please be forewarned, I’m an enthusiast not an expert.
The fist thing I’d start with is mentioning that a lot of musicians with very different styles all fit into the same genre. There are thousands of Country Blues musicians with different styles that all fit into the Country Blues genre.
Don D.
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This is a great topic, very wide, deserving of a lifetime study. I don’t know of any single book that would answer your question except in the most superficial way. For that, for starters, a small book like Encyclopedia of the Blues, by Herzhaft, is a good place to start.
Thanks to Keith for his answer and for calling my attention to this. I just got back from a short (non-musical) trip to Osawatomie, Kansas. After I take care of a few more things, I’d like to come back and offer my opinions, but please be forewarned, I’m an enthusiast not an expert.
The fist thing I’d start with is mentioning that a lot of musicians with very different styles all fit into the same genre. There are thousands of Country Blues musicians with different styles that all fit into the Country Blues genre.
As the blues players/singers began to migrate, styles began to mingle; going into Texas, the influence of Western Swing music began to infiltrate the blues. That influence is readily heard in the music of players like Clarence “Gatemouth” Brown and Lightnin’ Hopkins. Go northward, and the influence of country music started to be heard and as Don stated, it would take a life time of study to understand it.
But at the end of the day, whether you listen to Charlie Patton or BB King or SRV – you are listening to the most deeply soulful music that ever came from musiciansI didn’t have time when I was in St Louis but I hope to go back sometime and visit the National Blues Museum; website looks like it would well worth the time.
In Memphis, you’ll find The Blues Foundation, another museum dedicated to the blues and in Kansas City, you’ll find the Kansas City Blues Society and the American Jazz Museum
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