THE BLUES

1
THE BLUES
2
ORIGINS

• Lyrically, the blues is a reality show,
  showcasing life as it is, instead of as a perfect
  fantasy world.
• Playing the blues means spinning raw stories
  about work, abuse, love, sexuality, and death.

3
HOW DEPRESSING?

• Is the blues depressing?
• No
• The blues was meant not to depress people but to
  help them chase their blues away, in the same way
  venting your problems to your friends makes you
  feel better.

4
WHERE DID IT COME FROM?

• The blues was born after the Civil War, during
  reconstruction.
• Slaves had gained their freedom, but encountered
  a hostile environment with few opportunities.
• Many freed men and women worked as sharecroppers,
  who paid a farm owner for the right to work and
  live on the land.

5
EVEN FARTHER BACK

• The blues, they say, was born in the cotton
  fields of the South.
• Slaves toiled side by side, hollering across vast
  fields while working.
• In fact, the field hollers were even used to pass
  secret messages so that the slave masters
  wouldnt know what they were talking about.

6
THE DEVILS MUSIC

• At first, churches rejected the blues as ungodly
  the devils music.
• Ironically, the blues borrowed some of its
  musical features from church music, such as
  call-and-response.

7
TAKE EM TO CHURCH

• Call-and-response is when a choir leader sings or
  shouts a phrase, then the congregation shouts it
  back.
• After a blues singer sings a phrase, voices or an
  instrument like a guitar might respond by
  repeating the same melody.

8
SONGSTERS

• Blues singers could double their income by
  playing house parties and in clubs (barrelhouses)
  after working all day in the fields.
• One or two guitarists or a pianist were enough to
  get a whole barrelhouse rocking.
• Traveling singers, called songsters, learned to
  sing various styles, including blues, country,
  church music, and pop music.

9
DELTA BLUES

• The majority of blues players and singers were
  illiterate and poor.
• Wealthier and more educated African Americans
  often dismissed the blues as music of the
  wandering cornfield people.

10
DISCOVERING THE BLUES

• Musician W.C. Handy was waiting for train in
  Tutwiler, Mississippi which was nine hours late.
• He heard a poor songster from the countryside
  playing blues guitar, pressing a knife against
  the strings to get a slurred, moaning, voice-like
  sound that closely followed his singing.

11
DRESSING UP THE BLUES

• Soon afterward, Handy began composing his own
  blues songs.
• His songs were different though, because they
  contained elements of the blues but were more
  mainstream sounding.
• Handys St. Louis Blues became hugely popular
  and helped bring the blues into the mainstream.

12
WHOZ YO DADDY?

• Though Handys blues songs only slightly
  resembled the downhome delta blues, he is still
  considered by many to be the Father of the
  Blues.

13
SHOW ME THE MONEY

• Much of Handys success was due to the sale of
  sheet music, rather than recordings of his songs.
  
• Record players were incredibly expensive, but
  most people could afford sheet music and learn to
  play the songs themselves.

14
ON THE RECORD

• The first blues artists to become recording
  stars were women.
• Mamie Smiths version of Crazy Blues became a
  smash hit in the mid 1930s, selling 75,000
  copies in the first two months.
• The success of this recording at the beginning of
  the Great Depression showed record companies that
  blues records were big business.

15
DIVAS

• Bessie Smith went on to be hugely successful, as
  did Gertrude Ma Rainey.
• In an age when African Americans were still
  treated like second class citizens, Rainey had
  her own tour bus, and Bessie Smith her own
  private, custom-built train car and merchandise.
• They were the equivalent of early rock stars.

Bessie Smith
Ma Rainey
16
DOWN HOME BLUES

• As the Great Depression wore on, people bought
  less music.
• Record companies turned their attention to
  songsters instead of female performers because it
  was cheaper to record them.
• This began the rise of Country Blues, or Delta
  Blues.

17
KING OF THE DELTA BLUES

• Though there were many Delta Blues artists,
  Robert Johnson remains the most popular and the
  most intriguing.
• Though he recorded less than 40 songs in his
  lifetime, his legend and his influence are still
  felt today.

18
ACCORDING TO LEGEND...

• According to Son House, a fellow Delta Blues
  musician, Robert Johnson sold his soul to the
  Devil in exchange for his awesome guitar skills.
• Supposedly, Johnson was a terrible guitarist,
  until he disappeared from the scene for a few
  years.
• When he returned, his guitar skills were
  astonishing. He was suddenly able to play any
  song after hearing it only once.

19
ALL THAT GLITTERS...

• As is the case in most stories about people
  making deals with the Devil, things didnt work
  out well for Robert Johnson.
• He died mysteriously at the age of 27.
• Some say he was shot, some say he was poisoned,
  other say he was stabbed.

20
ROCK STAR

• Many music scholars consider Robert Johnson the
  beginning of Rock n Roll.
• One said, His music had a vibrancy and a
  rhythmic excitement that was new to the country
  blues.