Editing Blues (section)

===Origin===
{{Main|Origins of the blues}}
[[Hart Wand]]'s "[[Dallas Blues]]" was published in 1912; [[W.C. Handy]]'s "[[The Memphis Blues]]" followed in the same year. The first recording by an African-American singer was [[Mamie Smith]]'s 1920 rendition of [[Perry Bradford]]'s "[[Crazy Blues]]". But the origins of the blues were some decades earlier, probably around 1890.<ref>Evans, David. In ''Nothing but the Blues''. p. 33</ref> This music is poorly documented, partly because of racial discrimination in U.S. society, including academic circles,<ref name="Kunzler, pg. 130">Kunzler, p. 130</ref> and partly because of the low rate of literacy among rural African Americans at the time.<ref>Bastin, Bruce. In ''Nothing but the Blues''. p. 206</ref>

Reports of blues music in [[southern Texas]] and the [[Deep South]] were written at the dawn of the 20th century. Charles Peabody mentioned the appearance of blues music at [[Clarksdale, Mississippi]], and Gate Thomas reported similar songs in southern Texas around 1901–1902. These observations coincide more or less with the recollections of [[Jelly Roll Morton]], who said he first heard blues music in [[New Orleans]] in 1902; [[Ma Rainey]], who remembered first hearing the blues in the same year in [[Missouri]]; and [[W.C. Handy]], who first heard the blues in [[Tutwiler, Mississippi]], in 1903. The first extensive research in the field was performed by [[Howard W. Odum]], who published an [[anthology]] of folk songs from [[Lafayette County, Mississippi]], and [[Newton County, Georgia]], between 1905 and 1908.<ref>Evans, David. In ''Nothing but the Blues''. pp. 33–35</ref> The first non-commercial recordings of blues music, termed ''proto-blues'' by [[Paul Oliver]], were made by Odum for research purposes at the beginning of the 20th century. They are now lost.<ref>Cowley, John H. In ''Nothing but the Blues''. p. 265</ref>

[[File:John-avery-lomax1 (cropped).jpg|thumb|Musicologist [[John Lomax]] (left) shaking hands with musician [[Rich Brown (blues musician)|"Uncle" Rich Brown]] in [[Sumterville, Alabama]] ]]

Other recordings that are still available were made in 1924 by [[Lawrence Gellert]]. Later, several recordings were made by [[Robert Winslow Gordon|Robert W. Gordon]], who became head of the [[Archive of Folk Culture|Archive of American Folk Songs]] of the [[Library of Congress]]. Gordon's successor at the library was [[John Lomax]]. In the 1930s, Lomax and his son [[Alan Lomax|Alan]] made a large number of non-commercial blues recordings that testify to the huge variety of proto-blues styles, such as [[field holler]]s and [[ring shout]]s.<ref>Cowley, John H. In ''Nothing but the Blues''. pp. 268–269</ref> A record of blues music as it existed before 1920 can also be found in the recordings of artists such as [[Lead Belly]]<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.leadbelly.org/re-homepage.html|title=Lead Belly Foundation|access-date=September 26, 2008|url-status=usurped|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100123193411/http://www.leadbelly.org/re-homepage.html|archive-date=January 23, 2010}}</ref> and [[Henry Thomas (blues musician)|Henry Thomas]].<ref>{{cite web|url=https://tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/fthxc|title=Henry Thomas|author=Oliphant, Dave|work=The Handbook of Texas Online|access-date=September 26, 2008}}</ref> All these sources show the existence of many different structures distinct from [[12 bar blues|twelve-]], [[eight-bar blues|eight-]], or [[16 bar blues|sixteen-bar]].<ref>Garofalo, pp. 46–47</ref><ref>Oliver, p. 3</ref>
The social and economic reasons for the appearance of the blues are not fully known.<ref>Bohlman, Philip V. (1999). "Immigrant, Folk, and Regional Music in the Twentieth Century". ''The Cambridge History of American Music''. David Nicholls, ed. [[Cambridge University Press]]. p. 285. {{ISBN|978-0-521-45429-2}}</ref> The first appearance of the blues is usually dated after the [[Emancipation Proclamation|Emancipation Act of 1863]],<ref name="Kunzler, pg. 130"/> between 1860s and 1890s,<ref name=:0/> a period that coincides with post-[[Abolitionism in the United States|emancipation]] and later, the establishment of [[juke joint]]s as places where African Americans went to listen to music, dance, or gamble after a hard day's work.<ref name=bluescommentary>{{cite book|last=Oliver|first=Paul|title=Blues Off the Record:Thirty Years of Blues Commentary|publisher=Da Capo Press|year=1984|location=New York|pages=[https://archive.org/details/bluesoffrecordth00oliv/page/45 45–47]|isbn=978-0-306-80321-5|url=https://archive.org/details/bluesoffrecordth00oliv/page/45}}</ref> This period corresponds to the transition from slavery to sharecropping, small-scale agricultural production, and the expansion of railroads in the southern United States. Several scholars characterize the development of blues music in the early 1900s as a move from group performance to individualized performance. They argue that the development of the blues is associated with the newly acquired freedom of the enslaved people.<ref name="Lawrence W. Levine 1977, pg. 223">Levine, Lawrence W. (1977). ''Black Culture and Black Consciousness: Afro-American Folk Thought from Slavery to Freedom''. [[Oxford University Press]]. p. 223. {{ISBN|978-0-19-502374-9}}</ref>

According to Lawrence Levine, "there was a direct relationship between the national ideological emphasis upon the individual, the popularity of Booker T. Washington's teachings, and the rise of the blues." Levine stated that "psychologically, socially, and economically, African-Americans were being acculturated in a way that would have been impossible during slavery, and it is hardly surprising that their secular music reflected this as much as their religious music did."<ref name="Lawrence W. Levine 1977, pg. 223"/>

There are few characteristics common to all blues music, because the genre took its shape from the idiosyncrasies of individual performers.<ref>Southern, p. 333</ref> However, there are some characteristics that were present long before the creation of the modern blues. Call-and-response shouts were an early form of blues-like music; they were a "functional expression ... style without accompaniment or harmony and unbounded by the formality of any particular musical structure".<ref>Garofalo, p. 44</ref> A form of this pre-blues was heard in slave [[ring shout]]s and [[field holler]]s, expanded into "simple solo songs laden with emotional content".<ref>Ferris, p. 229</ref>

Blues has evolved from the unaccompanied vocal music and oral traditions of slaves imported from West Africa and Black Americans in rural areas into a wide variety of styles and subgenres, with regional variations across the United States. Although blues (as it is now known) can be seen as a musical style based on both European [[harmony|harmonic structure]] and the African call-and-response tradition that transformed into an interplay of voice and guitar,<ref>Morales, p. 276. Morales attributed this claim to [[John Storm Roberts]] in ''Black Music of Two Worlds'', beginning his discussion with a quote from Roberts: "There does not seem to be the same African quality in blues forms as there clearly is in much Caribbean music."</ref><ref name="Call and Response in Blues">{{cite web|title=Call and Response in Blues|publisher=How to Play Blues Guitar|access-date=August 11, 2008|url=http://how-to-play-blues-guitar.com/blues-concepts/call-and-response/|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081010154112/http://how-to-play-blues-guitar.com/blues-concepts/call-and-response/|archive-date=October 10, 2008|url-status=dead}}</ref> the blues form itself bears no resemblance to the melodic styles of the West African [[griot]]s.<ref>[[Samuel Charters|Charters, Samuel]]. In ''Nothing but the Blues''. p. 25</ref><ref>Oliver, p. 4</ref>  Additionally, there are theories that the four-beats-per-measure structure of the blues might have its origins in the Native American tradition of [[pow wow]] drumming.<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://www.americanindiannews.org/2009/09/music-exploring-native-american-influence-on-the-blues |title=MUSIC: Exploring Native American influence on the blues |date=Sep 17, 2009 |access-date=October 15, 2014 |archive-date=Dec 24, 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171224000913/http://www.americanindiannews.org:80/2009/09/music-exploring-native-american-influence-on-the-blues/ |url-status=dead }}</ref> Some scholars identify strong influences on the blues from the melodic structures of certain West African musical styles of the savanna and sahel. [[Lucy Durran]] finds similarities with the melodies of the [[Bambara people]], and to a lesser degree, the [[Soninke people]] and [[Wolof people]], but not as much of the [[Mandinka people]].<ref>{{cite journal | url=https://www.academia.edu/34636259 | title=POYI! Bamana jeli music, Mali and the blues | journal=Journal of African Cultural Studies | year=2013 | volume=25 | issue=2 | pages=211–246 | last1=Durán | first1=Lucy | doi=10.1080/13696815.2013.792725 | s2cid=191563534  | issn = 1369-6815}}</ref> [[Gerard Kubik]] finds similarities to the melodic styles of both the west African savanna and central Africa, both of which were sources of enslaved people.<ref>{{cite web | url=https://afropop.org/articles/africa-and-the-blues-an-interview-with-gerhard-kubik | title=Afropop Worldwide &#124; Africa and the Blues: An Interview with Gerhard Kubik|website=Afropop.org }}</ref>

No specific African musical form can be identified as the single direct ancestor of the blues.<ref>{{cite book|title=The Curious Listener's Guide to the Blues|author1=Vierwo, Barbara|author2=Trudeau, Andy|year=2005|publisher=Stone Press|isbn=978-0-399-53072-2|page=[https://archive.org/details/nprcuriouslisten00evan/page/15 15]|url=https://archive.org/details/nprcuriouslisten00evan/page/15}}</ref> However the call-and-response format can be traced back to the [[music of Africa]]. That blue notes predate their use in blues and have an African origin is attested to by "A Negro Love Song", by the English composer [[Samuel Coleridge-Taylor]], from his ''African Suite for Piano'', written in 1898, which contains [[minor third|blue third]] and [[seventh chord|seventh notes]].<ref>{{cite book|author=Scott, Derek B.|title=From the Erotic to the Demonic: On Critical Musicology.|publisher=Oxford University Press|year=2003|page=182|quote=A blues idiom is hinted at in "A Negro Love-Song", a pentatonic melody with blue third and seventh in Coleridge-Taylor's ''African Suite'' of 1898, before the first blues publications.|author-mask=Scott}}</ref>

The [[Diddley bow]] (a homemade one-stringed instrument found in parts of the [[American South]] sometimes referred to as a ''jitterbug'' or a ''one-string'' in the early twentieth century) and the [[banjo]] are African-derived instruments that may have helped in the transfer of African performance techniques into the early blues instrumental vocabulary.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.aliciapatterson.org/APF1902/Steber/Steber.html |title=African-American Music from the Mississippi Hill Country: "They Say Drums Was a-Calling" |publisher=APF Reporter |author=Steper, Bill |year=1999 |access-date=October 27, 2008 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080906141616/http://www.aliciapatterson.org/APF1902/Steber/Steber.html |archive-date=September 6, 2008 }}</ref> The banjo seems to be directly imported from West African music. It is similar to the musical instrument that griots and other Africans such as the [[Igbo people|Igbo]]<ref>{{cite book|title=Murder at Montpelier: Igbo Africans in Virginia|first=Douglas B.|last=Chambers|publisher=University Press of Mississippi|page=180|year=2009|isbn=978-1-60473-246-7|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=vqpoxEl_0_4C&pg=PA180}}</ref> played (called [[Xalam|halam]] or [[akonting]] by African peoples such as the [[Wolof people|Wolof]], [[Fula people|Fula]] and [[Mandinka people|Mandinka]]).<ref>[[Samuel Charters|Charters, Samuel]]. In ''Nothing but the Blues''. pp. 14–15</ref> However, in the 1920s, when country blues began to be recorded, the use of the banjo in blues music was quite marginal and limited to individuals such as [[Papa Charlie Jackson]] and later [[Gus Cannon]].<ref>Charters, Samuel. In ''Nothing but the Blues''. p. 16</ref>

Blues music also adopted elements from the "Ethiopian airs", [[minstrel show]]s and [[Negro spiritual]]s, including instrumental and harmonic accompaniment.<ref>Garofalo, p. 44. "Gradually, instrumental and harmonic accompaniment were added, reflecting increasing cross-cultural contact." Garofalo cited other authors who also mention the "Ethiopian airs" and "Negro spirituals".</ref> The style also was closely related to [[ragtime]], which developed at about the same time, though the blues better preserved "the original melodic patterns of African music".<ref>Schuller, cited in Garofalo, p. 27</ref>

The musical forms and styles that are now considered the blues as well as modern [[country music]] arose in the same regions of the southern United States during the 19th century. Recorded blues and country music can be found as far back as the 1920s, when the record industry created the marketing categories "[[race music]]" and "[[hillbilly music]]" to sell music by blacks for blacks and by whites for whites, respectively. At the time, there was no clear musical division between "blues" and "country", except for the ethnicity of the performer, and even that was sometimes documented incorrectly by record companies.<ref>Garofalo, pp. 44–47: "As marketing categories, designations like race and [[hillbilly]] intentionally separated artists along racial lines and conveyed the impression that their music came from mutually exclusive sources. Nothing could have been further from the truth... In cultural terms, blues and country were more equal than they were separate." Garofalo claimed that "artists were sometimes listed in the wrong racial category in record company catalogues."</ref><ref>Wolfe, Charles. In ''Nothing but the Blues''. pp. 233–263</ref>

Though musicologists can now attempt to define the blues narrowly in terms of certain chord structures and lyric forms thought to have originated in West Africa, audiences originally heard the music in a far more general way: it was simply the music of the rural South, notably the [[Mississippi Delta]]. Black and white musicians shared the same repertoire and thought of themselves as "[[songsters]]" rather than blues musicians. The notion of blues as a separate genre arose during the [[Great Migration (African American)|black migration]] from the countryside to urban areas in the 1920s and the simultaneous development of the recording industry. ''Blues'' became a code word for a record designed to sell to black listeners.<ref>{{cite web|last=Golding|first=Barrett|title=The Rise of the Country Blues|publisher=NPR|url=http://www.honkytonks.org/showpages/countryblues.htm|access-date=December 27, 2008}}</ref>

The origins of the blues are closely related to the religious music of Afro-American community, the [[spiritual (music)|spirituals]]. The origins of spirituals go back much further than the blues, usually dating back to the middle of the 18th century, when the slaves were Christianized and began to sing and play Christian [[hymn]]s, in particular those of [[Isaac Watts]], which were very popular.<ref>Humphrey, Mark A. In ''Nothing but the Blues''. p. 110</ref> Before the blues gained its formal definition in terms of chord progressions, it was defined as the secular counterpart of spirituals. It was the low-down music played by rural blacks.<ref name="ReferenceA">Humphrey, Mark A. In ''Nothing but the Blues''. pp. 107–149</ref>

Depending on the religious community a musician belonged to, it was more or less considered a sin to play this low-down music: blues was the devil's music. Musicians were therefore segregated into two categories: gospel singers and blues singers, guitar preachers and songsters. However, when rural black music began to be recorded in the 1920s, both categories of musicians used similar techniques: call-and-response patterns, blue notes, and slide guitars. Gospel music was nevertheless using musical forms that were compatible with Christian hymns and therefore less marked by the blues form than its secular counterpart.<ref name="ReferenceA"/>