Singing The Blues
The Blues genre is, in my opinion, the boiling point of everything we’ve discussed thus far in class. The Blues genre was formed in the heart of the struggle for Black Americans. The genre has influences from Negro Spirituals and has aspects from the culture like shouts, field hollers, and chants. According to The Open University, “The blues emerged from the oppressed, economically disadvantaged African-American communities in the rural southern states of America in the years following the American Civil War (1861–1865). Blues singers were descendants of slaves and elements of their music reach back to African origins.”.
As the Library of Congress explains in its article detailing the history of the genre, “Though many songs only reflected the history of the time in a general way, some recordings did deal with current events, such as Patton’s account of the Great Mississippi Flood of 1927, “High Water Everywhere.” Blues songs were composed about experiences with the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) and the Work Projects Administration (WPA) as well. Georgia blues artist Buster Ezell celebrated the African-American heavyweight boxing champion Joe Louis in this blues from 1943. Ezell also recorded this topical song about WWII, “Roosevelt and Hitler.” Buster Brown, who enjoyed a major blues hit in 1959 with “Fannie Mae,” also recorded a 1943 blues about World War II. From the 1920s to the 1950s, many blues songs reflected experiences of the “Great Migration” as millions of southern blacks moved to northern cities such as Chicago and Detroit in search of work. Songs such as Robert Johnson’s “Sweet Home Chicago” sang of this journey in an optimistic way in the 1930s. Another Mississippi singer-guitarist of the era, David “Honeyboy” Edwards, sang this version of it at the Library of Congress in 1978.”
