A History of The Blues

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A History of The Blues

• General Music
• Grade 6
• Michael Perkins

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The Roots of the Blues
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The Transition
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Blues

• Slave music was first hymns work songs.
• Gradually it became reworked into an original
  form of expression.
• Out of anguish honesty talent and self
  expression the blues arrived.

http//www.pbs.org/theblues/songsartists/songsarti
sts.html
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Whats In a Name

• After the Civil War the music became
  recognizable although it still wasnt called the
  the blues.
• For many centuries the color blue was associated
  with the term melancholy.
• But it wasnt until the beginning of the
  twentieth century that the blues got its name.
• http//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blues

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Father of the Blues

• W.C. Handy singer songwriter bandleader
  publisher and instrumentalist was one of the
  first to have blue notes in a composition that
  was published. Blue notes are flattened 3rds
  and 7ths.

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Mother of the Blues

• Ma Rainey one of the first female stars was
  born into a show business family in Georgia. She
  toured with the Rabbit Foot Minstrels and formed
  her own band called the Georgia Jazz Band.

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Empress of the Blues

• Bessie Smith was born in Tennessee in 1894 and
  orphaned at eight years of age.
• At 18 she worked with Ma Rainey.
• In 1923 her Downhearted Blues sold 750000
  copies.

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Historian of the Blues

• Alan Lomax
• Born in 1915 Alan Lomax began collecting folk
  music for the Library of Congress with his father
  at the age of 18. He continued his whole life in
  the pursuit of recording traditional cultures
  believing that all cultures should be recorded
  and presented to the public. His lifes work
  represented by seventy years worth of
  documentation will now be housed under one roof
  at the Library a place for which the Lomax
  family has always had strong connections and
  great affection.

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Blind Lemon Jefferson

• He was born in Texas in 1897. Blind at birth he
  spent his time learning to play the guitar.
• In 1925 his perseverance paid off when he cut his
  1st record in Chicago.

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The Blues Travels North

• Between 1910 and 1930 nearly 2000000 African
  Americans left the south to head north.
• It was the biggest migration in American History.

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The Chicago Blues

• The migration of bluesmen to Chicago resulted in
  a style of blues known as the Chicago Blues.
• The country blues of the Mississippi Delta region
  was being transformed.
• Muddy Waters plugged in an electric guitar
• Numerous Chicago blues musicians formed an upbeat
  driving blues sound.

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Life in Chicago

• http//www.chipublib.org/001hwlc/vpablues/catfish.
  wav

                                                
                          Front Room at Ida B.
Wells Housing Projects in ChicagoRussell Lee
1941
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Blues Styles

• California Blues
• Chicago Blues
• Classic Blues Singers
• Country Blues
• Delta Blues
• Louisiana Blues
• Memphis Blues
• Origins of Rock Roll
• Piedmont Blues
• Rhythm Blues
• St. Louis Blues
• Texas Blues
• Urban Blues
• Zydeco
• http//physics.lunet.edu/blues/blues.html

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Thats All Folks