For decades now, musicians have been reaching back for inspiration to what has become known as the “Delta Blues” or the “blues.” The “blues” is a genre of music that developed over the last century in the United States and can be said to evoke a poignant commentary on life in the rural Southern part of the country. In particular, it relies on feelings of despair, rejection, bad love, and the misery of life on slave plantations.
So, how has this form of music become so well-known and loved around the world? Many of its early practitioners including Muddy Waters, Robert Johnson, Howlin’ Wolf, Mississippi John Hurt, Lead Belly, Son House, John Lee Hooker, Willy Brown,
Bukka White and others, sang and wrote songs that described this “misery.” They were actually recorded by itinerant recordists like Alan Lomax, Sam Phillips and Ralph Peer (who recorded the Carter Family in Bristol, Tennessee).
Many of Alan Lomax’s recordings were made in the 1930s. Later, in the late 1940s and 1950s, Moses Asch, founder of Folkways Records, recorded the likes of Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee, as well as folk artists like Pete Seeger.
Leon Russell
Muddy Waters
Billy Preston