When and What is Blues Music

Music with No Beginning

To write a correct history of or to aptly define what is blues music is impossible. To determine the origin of blues music is like asking who wore the first pair of pants, or who invented the shoelace. To define what is blues music differs from one person to another. What it is to me is not the same as it is to my band mates; what it is to a fella in Chicago, a gal in New York City and some dusty old codger in Louisiana is different between all three people.

One historian could say that blues music originated in the United States from the black experience of slavery; another might try to pinpoint an exact song from the Civil War as being the first blues song. Some historians might try to associate the origin of blues music to W.C. Handy, a fella who played blues in the 1920's. But they would be wrong. Even Buddha and Jesus sang the blues, and like all good bluesmen they borrowed a lot of ideas and words from their predecessors.

We cannot determine an accurate origin of blues music, and it doesn't matter where it came from. It is here right now, and that is true only because so many who came before us left their legacy of words and melodies. The music that we call "The Blues" can only be defined by personal experience. Any honest seeker of the truth can say only this: Blues music came from the men and women who I like to listen to when the lights are low, and the rain is fallin', and the money is runnin' out, and my baby's leavin' town with my best friend. I can only bow in honor of the men and women who gave me the songs that were given to them; and to show my gratitude I have no choice but to pass along their songs and to write songs of my own that share the experience we call Singin' the Blues.

One Thing Amidst All Others

Pick any musical genre and there we have it: hard times, sex, drugs, bad deeds, relationships gone sour, friendships gone sour, cars, trains, good dogs, bad dogs, lonely streets, floods... etc. All songs cover the same topic: the human experience. Every musical genre, from one culture to another — from folk to country, to rock 'n' roll, to punk, to blues — covers the entirety of the human experience. Music is always about the human experience, and we've always experienced the same things as humans since the first man and woman walked upon the earth and started banging sticks on wooden logs to create music about what was and is going on.

The only difference between one musical genre and another is the flavor and presentation. Blues music has a special flavor: simple but spicy, going down slow or fast, hard or softly, smooth or textured. The key to blues is how those conditions are mixed and matched to create a song.

Flavor is key. Typically, blues often fits a specific form of 12 bars (measures), characterized by playing "blue" notes, which often means nothing more than playing a lot of 7th chords (dominant sevenths) and running a few chromatic licks. Many blues songs follow a standard chord progression (see 8-, 12-, 16-bar blues):

The lyrics often follow an A - A - B pattern. For example:

A. Honey, tell me how that blood red river runs;
A. Honey, tell me how that blood red river runs.
B. It runs from my back door to the rising sun.

One great thing about blues is the flexibility of the lyrics. From one singer to the next, the lyrics can be changed to suit a particular audience of a particular geographic location. For instance, living in Humboldt County in Northern California, I could change the lyrics of "Red River Blues" to:

A. Honey, tell me how that rollin' Mad River runs;
A. Honey, tell me how that rollin' Mad River runs.
B. It runs from my back door to the Pacific Ocean.

The lyrics to "Catfish Blues" could easily be changed to suit a female singer:

I wished I was a catfish, swimming down in the sea;
I wished I was a catfish, swimming down in the sea,
I'd have all the women fishing after me.
(Change "women" to chiseled beefcakes.)

Often, blues lyrics are not gender-specific:

I'll move to Kansas City,
gonna move to Kansas City;
I'll move to Kansas City,
Babe, honey, where they don't 'low you.

One thing that really helps when playing the blues is to play in 4/4 time. Let's face it, there isn't much sense in waltzing (3/4 time) to "I Got the Key to Highway" or "Freight Train."

Shades of Blue

Even among blues musicians, there is a distinction between styles of blues music. It's like a shirt: I may be wearing a shirt with a collar, a breast pocket, with my sleeves rolled up, and a student of mine is wearing a neckless T-shirt with faded writing painted on it, and another student may be wearing a blouse. All three of us are wearing fabric that functions as a shirt, but among the three of us we are wearing different expressions of "shirt."

And so it is with blues:

Delta Blues: acoustic, prominent in the Deep South, packed with emotion and often played with a slide. (Robert Johnson, Blind Boy Fuller)

Country Blues: acoustic, with a folksy flavor, mixed from Delta, Texas and Piedmont Blues. (Henry Thomas)

Piedmont Blues: acoustic, characterized by heavily alternating the thumb from one bass note to another, with a bit more harmonizing than other blues forms. (Mississippi John Hurt, Etta Baker, Elizabeth Cotton, Blind Willie McTell)

Texas Blues: single-string runs with a heavy emphasis on the rhythm. (Texas Alexander, Lightnin' Hopkins)
Boogie-woogie: butt-shakin' music played on a frantic piano.

Jump Blues: heavy arrangements, often with piano and horns, and made for dancing. (Louie Jordan, Big Joe Turner)

Chicago Blues: blues on electric guitar. (Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf)

Some great blues music came from Chicago when blues musicians discovered the electric guitar, but for me the texture changed when they plugged in the songs they were playing acoustically. I play and perform blues on my metal resonators and my banjo, and a regular wood guitar, because I prefer acoustic blues music. It all boils down to what you want to hear.

What is important is that blues, like all music, comes from the heart; and most importantly blues is just an honest belting out of what you feel at the moment you start singing and playing. You can't hold back with blues music. You gotta let it out. You gotta sing it like you mean it. You gotta change the lyrics to match your experience. It doesn't matter how you do it, just as long as you do it, and that you do it the way you do it.

Special Note:

We often associate blues music with sad times, heartache, hard times, struggles... and while that may true, blues tunes still have a particular optimism, a feeling that hard times are here but better times are comin', and that no matter how bad things can seem, "the sun gonna shine out my back door someday."