Delta blues
Encyclopedia
Mississippi Delta
The Mississippi Delta is the distinctive northwest section of the U.S. state of Mississippi that lies between the Mississippi and Yazoo Rivers. The region has been called "The Most Southern Place on Earth" because of its unique racial, cultural, and economic history...
, a region of the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
that stretches from Memphis, Tennessee
Memphis, Tennessee
Memphis is a city in the southwestern corner of the U.S. state of Tennessee, and the county seat of Shelby County. The city is located on the 4th Chickasaw Bluff, south of the confluence of the Wolf and Mississippi rivers....
in the north to Vicksburg, Mississippi
Vicksburg, Mississippi
Vicksburg is a city in Warren County, Mississippi, United States. It is the only city in Warren County. It is located northwest of New Orleans on the Mississippi and Yazoo rivers, and due west of Jackson, the state capital. In 1900, 14,834 people lived in Vicksburg; in 1910, 20,814; in 1920,...
in the south, Helena, Arkansas
Helena, Arkansas
Helena is the eastern portion of Helena-West Helena, Arkansas, a city in Phillips County, Arkansas. As of the 2000 census, this portion of the city population was 6,323. Helena was the county seat of Phillips County until January 1, 2006, when it merged its government and city limits with...
in the west to the Yazoo River
Yazoo River
The Yazoo River is a river in the U.S. state of Mississippi.The Yazoo River was named by French explorer La Salle in 1682 as "Rivière des Yazous" in reference to the Yazoo tribe living near the river's mouth. The exact meaning of the term is unclear...
on the east. The Mississippi Delta area is famous both for its fertile soil and its poverty. Guitar
Guitar
The guitar is a plucked string instrument, usually played with fingers or a pick. The guitar consists of a body with a rigid neck to which the strings, generally six in number, are attached. Guitars are traditionally constructed of various woods and strung with animal gut or, more recently, with...
, harmonica
Harmonica
The harmonica, also called harp, French harp, blues harp, and mouth organ, is a free reed wind instrument used primarily in blues and American folk music, jazz, country, and rock and roll. It is played by blowing air into it or drawing air out by placing lips over individual holes or multiple holes...
and cigar box guitar
Cigar box guitar
The cigar box guitar is a primitive chordophone that uses an empty cigar box for a resonator. "Guitar" refers to the traditional instrument and to a string bass. The earliest predecessors had one or two strings compared with the three or more used in today's models...
are the dominant instruments used, with slide guitar
Slide guitar
Slide guitar or bottleneck guitar is a particular method or technique for playing the guitar. The term slide refers to the motion of the slide against the strings, while bottleneck refers to the original material of choice for such slides: the necks of glass bottles...
(usually on the steel guitar
Steel guitar
Steel guitar is a type of guitar or the method of playing the instrument. Developed in Hawaii in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, a steel guitar is usually positioned horizontally; strings are plucked with one hand, while the other hand changes the pitch of one or more strings with the use...
) being a hallmark of the style. The vocal styles range from introspective and soulful to passionate and fiery. Delta blues is also regarded as a regional variation of country blues
Country blues
Country blues is a general term that refers to all the acoustic, mainly guitar-driven forms of the blues. It often incorporated elements of rural gospel, ragtime, hillbilly, and dixieland jazz...
.
Origin
Although Delta blues certainly existed in some form or another at the turn of the 20th century, it was first recorded in the late 1920s, when record companies realized the potential African American market in Race records. The earliest recordings were by the major labels and consist mostly of one person singing and playing an instrument, though the use of a band was more common during live performances. Some of these recordings were made on field trips to the South by record company talent scouts, but some Delta blues performers were invited to travel to northern cities to record. According to Dixon & Godrich [1981], Tommy Johnson and Ishman BraceyIshman Bracey
Ishman Bracey was an American blues singer and guitarist from Mississippi, considered one of the most important early delta blues performers. With Tommy Johnson, he was the center of a small Jackson, Mississippi group of blues musicians in the 1920s...
were recorded by Victor
Victor Talking Machine Company
The Victor Talking Machine Company was an American corporation, the leading American producer of phonographs and phonograph records and one of the leading phonograph companies in the world at the time. It was headquartered in Camden, New Jersey....
on that company's second field trip to Memphis
Memphis, Tennessee
Memphis is a city in the southwestern corner of the U.S. state of Tennessee, and the county seat of Shelby County. The city is located on the 4th Chickasaw Bluff, south of the confluence of the Wolf and Mississippi rivers....
, in 1928. Robert Wilkins
Robert Wilkins
Robert Timothy Wilkins was an American country blues guitarist and vocalist, of African American and Cherokee descent....
was first recorded by Victor in Memphis in 1928, and Big Joe Williams
Big Joe Williams
Joseph Lee Williams , billed throughout his career as Big Joe Williams, was an American Delta blues guitarist, singer and songwriter, notable for the distinctive sound of his nine-string guitar...
and Garfield Akers
Garfield Akers
Garfield Akers was a blues singer and guitarist. He sometimes performed under the pseudonym "Garfield Partee."...
also in Memphis (1929) by Brunswick
Brunswick Records
Brunswick Records is a United States based record label. The label is currently distributed by E1 Entertainment.-From 1916:Records under the "Brunswick" label were first produced by the Brunswick-Balke-Collender Company...
/Vocalion
Vocalion Records
Vocalion Records is a record label active for many years in the United States and in the United Kingdom.-History:Vocalion was founded in 1916 by the Aeolian Piano Company of New York City, which introduced a retail line of phonographs at the same time. The name was derived from one of their...
.
Son House
Son House
Eddie James "Son" House, Jr. was an American blues singer and guitarist. House pioneered an innovative style featuring strong, repetitive rhythms, often played with the aid of slide guitar, and his singing often incorporated elements of southern gospel and spiritual music...
first recorded in Grafton, Wisconsin (1930) by Paramount
Paramount Records
Paramount Records was an American record label, best known for its recordings of African-American jazz and blues in the 1920s and early 1930s, including such artists as Ma Rainey and Blind Lemon Jefferson.-Early years:...
. Charley Patton
Charlie Patton
Charlie Patton , better known as Charley Patton, was an American Delta blues musician. He is considered by many to be the "Father of the Delta Blues", and is credited with creating an enduring body of American music and personally inspiring just about every Delta blues man...
also recorded for Paramount in Grafton, in June 1929 (and again, at the same location in May 1930). In January and February 1934 Patton visited New York City for further recording sessions. Robert Johnson traveled to San Antonio (1936) and Dallas (1937) for his ARC
American Record Corporation
ARC, the American Record Company, also referred to as American Record Corporation, or as ARC Records, was a United States based record company...
, and only, sessions.
Subsequently, the early Delta blues (as well as other genres) were extensively recorded by John Lomax
John Lomax
John Avery Lomax was an American teacher, a pioneering musicologist and folklorist who did much for the preservation of American folk songs...
and his son Alan Lomax
Alan Lomax
Alan Lomax was an American folklorist and ethnomusicologist. He was one of the great field collectors of folk music of the 20th century, recording thousands of songs in the United States, Great Britain, Ireland, the Caribbean, Italy, and Spain.In his later career, Lomax advanced his theories of...
, who criss-crossed the Southern US recording music played and sung by ordinary people helping establish the canon of genres we know today as American folk music
American folk music
American folk music is a musical term that encompasses numerous genres, many of which are known as traditional music or roots music. Roots music is a broad category of music including bluegrass, country music, gospel, old time music, jug bands, Appalachian folk, blues, Cajun and Native American...
. Their recordings number in the thousands, and now reside in the Smithsonian Institution
Smithsonian Institution
The Smithsonian Institution is an educational and research institute and associated museum complex, administered and funded by the government of the United States and by funds from its endowment, contributions, and profits from its retail operations, concessions, licensing activities, and magazines...
. According to Dixon & Godrich (1981) and Leadbitter and Slaven (1968), Alan Lomax and the Library of Congress researchers did not record any Delta bluesmen (or women) prior to 1941, when he recorded Son House
Son House
Eddie James "Son" House, Jr. was an American blues singer and guitarist. House pioneered an innovative style featuring strong, repetitive rhythms, often played with the aid of slide guitar, and his singing often incorporated elements of southern gospel and spiritual music...
and Willie Brown
Willie Brown (musician)
Willie Brown was an American delta blues guitarist and singer.- Life and career :Born Willie Lee Brown in Clarksdale, Mississippi, Brown played with such notables as Charley Patton, and Robert Johnson. He was not known to be a self-promoting frontman, preferring to "second" other musicians...
near Lake Cormorant, Mississippi, and Muddy Waters
Muddy Waters
McKinley Morganfield , known as Muddy Waters, was an American blues musician, generally considered the "father of modern Chicago blues"...
at Stovall, Mississippi, however this claim is disputed as John and Alan Lomax did record Bukka White
Bukka White
Booker T. Washington White , better known as Bukka White, was an American Delta blues guitarist and singer. "Bukka" was not a nickname, but a phonetic misspelling of White's given name Booker, by his second record label .-Biography:Born between Aberdeen and Houston, Mississippi, White was the...
in 1939, Lead Belly in 1933 and most likely others.
Style
Scholars in general disagree as to whether there is a substantial, musicological difference between blues that originated in this region and in other parts of the country. The defining characteristic of Delta blues is instrumentation and an emphasis on rhythm and "bottleneck" slide; the basic harmonic structure is not substantially different from that of blues performed elsewhere."Delta blues" is also a style as much as a geographical appellation: Skip James
Skip James
Nehemiah Curtis "Skip" James was an American Delta blues singer, guitarist, pianist and songwriter, born in Bentonia, Mississippi, died in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania....
and Elmore James
Elmore James
Elmore James was an American blues guitarist, singer, songwriter and band leader. He was known as "the King of the Slide Guitar" and had a unique guitar style, noted for his use of loud amplification and his stirring voice.-Biography:James was born Elmore Brooks in the old Richland community in...
, who were not born in the Delta, were considered Delta blues musicians. Performers travelled throughout the Mississippi Delta, Arkansas, Louisiana, Texas, and Tennessee. Eventually, Delta blues spread out across the country, giving rise to a host of regional variations, including Chicago
Chicago blues
The Chicago blues is a form of blues music that developed in Chicago, Illinois, by taking the basic acoustic guitar and harmonica-based Delta blues, making the harmonica louder with a microphone and an instrument amplifier, and adding electrically amplified guitar, amplified bass guitar, drums,...
and Detroit blues
Detroit blues
Detroit blues is blues music played by musicians resident in Detroit, Michigan, particularly that played in the 1940s and 1950s. Detroit blues originated when Delta blues performers migrated north from the Mississippi Delta and Memphis, Tennessee to work in Detroit's industrial plants in the 1920s...
.
Themes
The Mississippi State PenitentiaryMississippi State Penitentiary
Mississippi State Penitentiary , also known as Parchman Farm, is the oldest prison and the only maximum security prison for men in the state of Mississippi, USA....
at Parchman Farm was an important influence on several blues musicians who were imprisoned there, and was referenced in songs such as Bukka White
Bukka White
Booker T. Washington White , better known as Bukka White, was an American Delta blues guitarist and singer. "Bukka" was not a nickname, but a phonetic misspelling of White's given name Booker, by his second record label .-Biography:Born between Aberdeen and Houston, Mississippi, White was the...
's 'Parchman Farm Blues' and the folk song 'Midnight Special
Midnight Special (song)
"Midnight Special" is a traditional folk song thought to have originated among prisoners in the American South. The title comes from the refrain which refers to the Midnight Special and its "ever-loving light" ....
'.
Delta Bluesmen also typically sang songs in the first person about sexuality, the travelling lifestyle and the tribulations resulting from leading this lifestyle.
Women performers in Delta Blues
In big city blues women dominated the musical landscape; i.e. Ma RaineyMa Rainey
Ma Rainey was one of the earliest known American professional blues singers and one of the first generation of such singers to record. She was billed as The Mother of the Blues....
, Bessie Smith
Bessie Smith
Bessie Smith was an American blues singer.Sometimes referred to as The Empress of the Blues, Smith was the most popular female blues singer of the 1920s and 1930s...
and Billie Holiday
Billie Holiday
Billie Holiday was an American jazz singer and songwriter. Nicknamed "Lady Day" by her friend and musical partner Lester Young, Holiday had a seminal influence on jazz and pop singing...
. However, in Delta Blues and other rural or folk style blues women rarely recorded the blues. In Delta Blues often female performers had some romantic connection to more notable male delta blues performers; such as Geeshie Wiley
Geeshie Wiley
Geeshie Wiley was an American female blues singer and guitar player. She recorded three records in the early 1930s...
attached to Papa Charlie McCoy
Papa Charlie McCoy
Charles "Papa Charlie" McCoy was an African American delta blues musician and songwriter.-Career:Born in Jackson, Mississippi, McCoy was best known by the nickname 'Papa Charlie'. He became one of the major blues accompanists of his time...
, McCoy's brother Kansas Joe McCoy
Kansas Joe McCoy
Kansas Joe McCoy was an African American Delta blues musician and songwriter.-Career:McCoy played music under a variety of stage names but is best known as "Kansas Joe McCoy". Born in Raymond, Mississippi, he was the older brother of the blues accompanist Papa Charlie McCoy...
was attached to the arguably more notable Memphis Minnie
Memphis Minnie
Memphis Minnie was an American blues guitarist, vocalist, and songwriter. She was the only female blues artist considered a match to male contemporaries as both a singer and an instrumentalist.-Career:...
and the seminal Charlie Patton
Charlie Patton
Charlie Patton , better known as Charley Patton, was an American Delta blues musician. He is considered by many to be the "Father of the Delta Blues", and is credited with creating an enduring body of American music and personally inspiring just about every Delta blues man...
sometimes played and recorded with his wife Bertha Lee. It was not until late in the 1960s that women began to be heard in recorded performances at the level they had previously enjoyed. It was then that Janis Joplin
Janis Joplin
Janis Lyn Joplin was an American singer, songwriter, painter, dancer and music arranger. She rose to prominence in the late 1960s as the lead singer of Big Brother and the Holding Company and later as a solo artist with her backing groups, The Kozmic Blues Band and The Full Tilt Boogie Band...
arrived as both the first female performer to achieve both accolades from her peers as a blues performer and a "crossover" commercial success who reached diverse audiences with a powerful and emotive vocal delivery. Other women to followed later (among many) were both influenced by Delta blues, and who learned from some of the most notable of the original artists alive include Bonnie Raitt
Bonnie Raitt
Bonnie Lynn Raitt is an American blues singer-songwriter and a renowned slide guitar player. During the 1970s, Raitt released a series of acclaimed roots-influenced albums which incorporated elements of blues, rock, folk and country, but she is perhaps best known for her more commercially...
, and Susan Tedeschi
Susan Tedeschi
Susan Tedeschi is an American blues and soul musician, who has received multiple Grammy Award nominations, and is well-known for her singing voice, guitar playing, stage presence, and marriage to blues guitarist Derek Trucks...
.
Influence
Many Delta Blues artists moved to Detroit and Chicago such as Big Joe WilliamsBig Joe Williams
Joseph Lee Williams , billed throughout his career as Big Joe Williams, was an American Delta blues guitarist, singer and songwriter, notable for the distinctive sound of his nine-string guitar...
creating a pop influenced city blues style, however, this was displaced by the new Chicago blues
Chicago blues
The Chicago blues is a form of blues music that developed in Chicago, Illinois, by taking the basic acoustic guitar and harmonica-based Delta blues, making the harmonica louder with a microphone and an instrument amplifier, and adding electrically amplified guitar, amplified bass guitar, drums,...
sound in the early 1950s pioneered by Delta Bluesmen, Muddy Waters
Muddy Waters
McKinley Morganfield , known as Muddy Waters, was an American blues musician, generally considered the "father of modern Chicago blues"...
, Howlin' Wolf
Howlin' Wolf
Chester Arthur Burnett , known as Howlin' Wolf, was an influential American blues singer, guitarist and harmonica player....
and Little Walter
Little Walter
Little Walter, born Marion Walter Jacobs , was an American blues harmonica player, whose revolutionary approach to his instrument has earned him comparisons to Charlie Parker and Jimi Hendrix, for innovation and impact on succeeding generations...
, harking back to a more delta influenced, yet electrified sound. This Delta style blues folk music also inspired the creation of British Skiffle music, from which eventually came the persons and bands of the British Invasion, while simultaneously influencing British Blues
British blues
British blues is a form of music derived from American blues that originated in the late 1950s and which reached its height of mainstream popularity in the 1960s, when it developed a distinctive and influential style dominated by electric guitar and made international stars of several proponents of...
which led to the birth of early hard rock
Hard rock
Hard rock is a loosely defined genre of rock music which has its earliest roots in mid-1960s garage rock, blues rock and psychedelic rock...
and heavy metal
Heavy metal music
Heavy metal is a genre of rock music that developed in the late 1960s and early 1970s, largely in the Midlands of the United Kingdom and the United States...
.
See also
- BluesBluesBlues is the name given to both a musical form and a music genre that originated in African-American communities of primarily the "Deep South" of the United States at the end of the 19th century from spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts and chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads...
- Country bluesCountry bluesCountry blues is a general term that refers to all the acoustic, mainly guitar-driven forms of the blues. It often incorporated elements of rural gospel, ragtime, hillbilly, and dixieland jazz...
- Delta Blues MuseumDelta Blues MuseumThe Delta Blues Museum in Clarksdale exists to collect, preserve, and provide public access to and awareness of the blues. Along with holdings of significant blues-related memorabilia, the museum also exhibits and collects art portraying the blues tradition, including works by sculptor Floyd...
, in Clarksdale, Mississippi - Delta Cultural CenterDelta Cultural CenterThe Delta Cultural Center in downtown Helena, Arkansas, is a cultural center and museum of the Department of Arkansas Heritage. It is dedicated to preserving and interpreting the culture of the Arkansas Delta.The center consists of three buildings:...
, in Helena, Arkansas - Fife and drum bluesFife and drum bluesFife and drum blues is a rural derivation of traditional country blues. It is performed typically with one lead fife player, often also the band leader and vocalist, and a troop of drummers. Unlike a drum corps, the drum troop is loosely structured. As such, a fife and drum band may have any...
- King of the Delta Blues SingersKing of the Delta Blues SingersKing of the Delta Blues Singers is a compilation album by American blues musician Robert Johnson, released in 1961 on Columbia Records. It is considered one of the greatest and most influential blues releases ever...
, an album by Robert Johnson
External links
- Trail of the Hellhound – Delta Blues in the lower Mississippi Valley
- The Mississippi Delta Blues Society of Indianola
- "The Blues", documentary by Martin ScorseseMartin ScorseseMartin Charles Scorsese is an American film director, screenwriter, producer, actor, and film historian. In 1990 he founded The Film Foundation, a nonprofit organization dedicated to film preservation, and in 2007 he founded the World Cinema Foundation...
, aired on PBSPublic Broadcasting ServiceThe Public Broadcasting Service is an American non-profit public broadcasting television network with 354 member TV stations in the United States which hold collective ownership. Its headquarters is in Arlington, Virginia....
.