Blues - the folk music of black America - grew as a distinct musical style out of the spirituals, work songs, chants and field hollers of African-American slaves as they toiled in the fields, labour camps and prisons of the old South, and worshipped in the churches and praise houses. Here the rhythmic circular chanting which had been a traditional part of farming in Africa became an accompaniment to their backbreaking, repetitive labours, and as such was often encouraged by the slave masters, who saw it as a means of extracting the maximum effort from the workforce. The playing of the 'banjar', a four-stringed instrument made from a gourd and the forerunner of the banjo, was also usually tolerated as a harmless diversion, while many other parts of African culture - drumming, for example - were suppressed, for fear they might be used to communicate hidden messages to organise a revolt. Suppression extended to traditional African religions, which, when replaced by Christianity, became a useful framework for social control. But as generations passed the slaves began to embrace the new religion, seeing in its imagery of suffering a reflection of their own plight. Suffering, both physical and spiritual, thus became a powerful element within the blues. When combined with the idiosyncrasies of traditional African music, in particular the use of the flattened 'blue' note, all these elements became the grounding from which the blues eventually developed.

It wasn't until the end of the Civil War and the emancipation of the slave population in 1865 that the blues really came into being. To the newly liberated black population freedom was a mixed blessing; the oppression of slavery was gone, but so were its certainties. No longer under the control of the white man, many blacks fled the shattered economy of the old South and headed for the cities of the north and midwest looking for work. But freed black men and women in a white society were still constantly reminded of their inferior position and subjected to cruelty, segregation and oppression. A time of hope, continuing hardship and often shattered dreams thus gave rise to the itinerant bluesman of legend - his plangent voice all too often recounting tales of freight trains and faithless lovers, hard liquor, hard times. Now no longer singing with his fellow workers or worshippers, he accompanied his voice with a guitar, entering into either a sing-speak dialogue with it, or strumming chords arranged within a loose framework he'd learned from spirituals or white hymns. The pentatonic hollers and moans of black vocal styles were thus set against a basic white harmony within a flexible framework, and the evolution of blues structure had begun.

The names of many of these poor, illiterate musicians are lost in the mists of time, but one man, W.C.Handy, a classically trained black band leader, saw the potential of this haunting, primitive music and became the first person to formalise and popularise the blues. He is, one could say, the first recognised blues songwriter, his most famous compositions being Memphis Blues, written in 1912, and St. Louis Blues in 1914. Some would argue that this is not authentic blues but a dressed-up caricature, the real thing residing with the legendary names of the early 20th century, the likes of Charlie Patton, Blind Willie Johnson, Henry Thomas and Robert Johnson.. those who had lived the true bluesman's life to some extent.

Around 1910 the lyrical and musical forms of the blues had just about crystallized, and the style began to be absorbed into jazz and also into mainstream popular music. In 1920 Mamie Smith recorded the first vocal blues, and the following decade, the 'Roaring Twenties', saw the new music of black America, blues and jazz, at the centre of a craze which would see it infiltrate and change the traditional popular music of mainstream white society forever. Bessie Smith, the 'Empress Of The Blues', was at the centre of that craze, and Billie Holiday took it forward into the 1930's and 40's as blues sensibilities informed the repertoires of Big Band jazz.
By the 1950's, as it migrated into the northern cities of Chicago, Detroit and New York, the blues took on a new harder-edged sound with the introduction of amplification and the electric guitar. But the black proponents of urban blues, men like Muddy Waters, Otis Rush, Elmore James, Howlin' Wolf, Bo Diddley and B.B.King remained in relative obscurity until after the coming of Elvis and rock & roll, a new mainstream style that drew on many others, not least the blues, for much of it's energy and early repertoire, prompting white European musicians such as John Mayall, Eric Clapton and Keith Richards to rediscover the roots of the music. Many all-but-forgotten bluesmen enjoyed an Indian Summer to their careers as their music was reintroduced to white America, by which time of course rock & roll had taken over as the dominant force, launching popular music into the modern era.

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