Blues

Has it’s root in poor, hard working Black Americans. They were folk songs which told a story. The music used the blues scale and a 12 bar blues structure where musicians improvised frequently. In the early days it was acoustic music played by black Americans but later on in the 60’s the white man found the blues (Rolling Stones) and played it with electric guitars.  Around the 60’s the blues influence rock and started to influence the sound by using the scales and structures from the early blues. Bands from the 60’s and 70’s started to cover early blues songs and re-imagined them with electric guitars, bass, drums and vocals.  This blues rock became hard rock, hard rock became heavy metal.  The blues seemed to be getting lost but by the 80’s a blues revival started.  Through artists like Robert Cray and Stevie Ray Vaughan the music saw great commercial success again.  And John Lee Hooker had a revival too.  He was one of the early blues musicians who was now bringing it on an electric guitar to everybody.  The music might have started in the cotton fields in Mississippi but it’s made it all the way to The White House.  President Obama singing Sweet Home Chicago. See the video below.

Early Blues

Later Blues Electric

President Obama-Sweet Home Chicago