Chapter 8

1
Chapter 8 The Blues

• Class Issues
• There were class distinctions within the African
  American community.
• Blues musicians were outcasts, rejected by the
  more settled, upwardly mobile members of the
  race, particularly the devoutly religious.
• To the devout, the blues were devil songs.

2
The Spiritual and the Blues

• Considering both the spiritual and the blues,
  what role did slavery play in the evolution of
  these genres?
• spiritual
• began in slavery
• blues
• evolved after the Civil War, strongly influenced
  by the changes that affected the lives of African
  Americans following emancipation
• What are some of the changes that affected the
  lives of African Americans following the Civil
  War?
• new dimension of leisure
• new degree of solitude
• new set of social and economic problems need for
  money necessity for finding employment
• broader contacts and experiences
• greater fluency in the American language
• new mobility

3
Characteristics of the Blues

• 1. Blues subjects - the man-woman relationship
• 2. Musical form - a succession of three-line
  stanzas
• Line two tends to repeat line one (a, a, b).
• 3. Instruments - The folk roots of the blues were
  often sung unaccompanied.
• Which was the first instrument to become the
  standard accompaniment to the blues?
• guitar

4
Melodic material and singing style

• What are some of the different singing styles?
• shouting
• humming
• singing in falsetto
• singing in the false bass voice
• chanting in the manner of a recitative
• Speaking
• What is the general tendency for melodic contour
  of the blues?
• to start the phrase high and proceed downward
• ending with a dropping inflection

5
Structure

• The importance of 1912
• What are the conventions of the post 1912
  tendencies?
• number of lines/stanza three, the second a
  repetition of the first
• phrases four bars long (12-bar blues)
• harmonic plan
• phrase 1 I I I I7
• phrase 2 IV IV I I
• phrase 3 V7 (IV) I I
• instrumental accompaniment
• guitar
• harmonica (blues harp)
• improvised instruments
• Call and reponse

6
Ma Raineys Countin the Blues

• Identify the structural and stylistic traits
• Listen for
• twelve-bar blues pattern
• breaks
• call-and-response pattern

7
Blind Lemon Jefferson (1897-1929)

• Texas blues singer and guitarist
• performed in Dallas, Texas where he performed at
  times with Leadbelly
• recorded in Chicago in the late 1920s
• died mysteriously in 1929
• Major influence on blues and later rock
  guitarists
• Prison Cell Blues recorded in Chicago in 1928.
  Listen for
• unconventional form (NOT twelve-bar blues)
• fluid performance style

8
Instruments and the Blues Style

• What are some other instruments commonly heard in
  blues music?
• harmonica (blues harp)
• improvised instruments
• jug
• washboard
• inverted washtub, with a piece off rope stretched
  between a hole through its center and a broom
  handle ( bass)

9
What are some common techniques that players use
to alter the sounds of the instruments?

• bending the pitch
• On guitar, pushing or pulling on the string to
  make the pitch sound higher
• Likewise, the voice might slide into the pitch.
• bottleneck or slide guitar
• sliding the back of a knife blade on the strings
  of the guitar
• using a broken top of a bottle

10
Robert Johnsons Preachin Blues (Up Jumped the
Devil

• Example of slide guitar playing
• bottleneck style on the guitar
• Note Johnson does not follow the twelve-bar
  blues pattern in this example.
• Who is Robert Johnson (1911-1938)?
• Mississippi Delta blues singer and guitarist
• recorded only twenty-nine songs
• died young, yet extremely influential, largely
  due to his recordings

11
Early published blues

• 1912 important because many pieces were published
• Who was W.C. Handy?
• composer/bandleader
• from Memphis
• promoted blues as popular music and brought it to
  a wide public
• Blues An Anthology (New York, 1926), a famous
  collection of early published blues (by Handy and
  others).

12
Boogie Woogie

• What is boogie-woogie?
• solo piano form (like ragtime)
• developed out of the blues form and harmony
• driving left hand ostinato (repeated pattern)
• likely an adaptation of what blues
  singer-guitarists had been doing
• popular in the late 1930s
• major influence on rock n roll of the 1950s
• Mr. Freddie Blues
• Lux Lewis, piano
• Ostinato in left hand
• Repeated figure in right hand
• Underlying 12 bar blues format

13
Urban Blues

• What are some of the distinguishing
  characteristics of urban blues?
• reflects harsher aspects of urban life
• piano, essentially the blues-related
  boogie-woogie
• electric guitar
• bass
• drums
• strongly influenced by gospel tradition
• very influential on later blues, rhythm and
  blues, and rock n roll
• Chicago-home for musicians from the south
• Kansas City rise of blues singers backed by big
  bands

14
What are some of the changes that have occurred
in blues at the turn of the century?

• fewer recordings are being produced
• technologically and stylistically slicker
  recordings
• Blues festivals and live concerts have largely
  replaced the clubs.
• racial and gender shifts
• White male blues singers have come into
  prominence
• Stevie Ray Vaughan (1980s)
• Johnny Winter
• William Clarke

15
Texas Flood by Stevie Ray Vaughan

• -virtuosic guitar technique
• -urban sound of bass and drums
• -12 bar form
• -Vaughan had both a conservative taste in music
  and progressive approach to guitar playing.
• conservative
• twelve-bar blues pattern
• blues song written in the 1960s
• progressive approach to guitar playing.
• Jimi Hendrix was a significant influence on his
  playing and performance style.
• Made use of such effects as pedals (wah-wah and
  others) and the guitars tremolo bar.