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 Blues Music
In the early years of the twenty-first century, the blues music - which, to the best of our knowledge, date from the 1890s-have grown in popularity and influence from a little-known regional style found among African Americans to a worldwide phenomenon. The blues are the heartbeat of rock and roll, and they are still played, albeit in another form, by the most advanced jazz musicians. Blues artists successfully tour the globe, communicating beyond the limitations of the English language. A CD reissue of an obscure Mississippi bluesman named Robert Johnson has sold over a million copies, and contains fervent tributes written by Eric Clapton and Keith Richards. There are blues music museums, magazines, and numerous books devoted to blues singers, movies and documentary films devoted to the blues, and blues societies all over the world.
What is it about the blues music that has taken the idiom from its specialized birthplace to worldwide popularity? There is the fascination of the amazing number of intricate guitar styles that have developed, the soulfulness of the singing that seems to communicate beyond the limitations of a specialized vernacular style, and the expressiveness of the lyrics. The audience for the blues has moved far beyond its original enthusiasts, and the vast number of blues recordings and performances indicate an ongoing and increasing fascination with the music.
The social milieu that surrounded the blues music was one of suffering, privation, and inequality. After the Civil War, the southern United States went through a period known as Reconstruction when Union soldiers occupied the region. During Reconstruction, schools were established for African Americans, churches were built, black men were elected to local, statewide, and even congressional office, and, for the first time, some black farmers were able to purchase land. However, by the mid-1870s, the tide had reverted back to social conditions that were similar to those in place during the slavery era.
It was during this period of maximum oppression that the blues developed and flowered. The logical question, long after social conditions have changed to the point where once again blacks are being elected to local, statewide, and national offices, when segregation, at least in public places, has long been outlawed, is why would the blues be a relevant social and musical form, and to whom and on what basis does this relevance exist?
In examining the blues music repertory, we realize that a wide variety of subjects and musical forms come under the general category of the blues music. Many blues focus on romantic problems between men and women, others are simply exhortations to party and have a good time, and some discuss social and even economic conditions. Others simply discuss cities, railroad trains, magic, or whatever is running through the mind of the singer-composer. But possibly the best way to look at the context of the blues is to see the blues as a music of various complaints-about men, women, social conditions, or anything else-which may account for their continuing appeal.
In the world of the twenty-first century, we are surrounded by a marvelous but dehumanizing technology that brings us amazing things, but cannot provide happiness, or an answer to our individual problems. Although many younger African Americans do not relate closely to the blues, because they have not grown up in the same world that their grandparents experienced, many younger whites (or brown or yellow people) see the blues music as an expressive tool that can detail their feelings about life in general, or about the nature of their own lives. Others relate to the party or dance aspects of the blues, and do not spend a lot of time thinking about the message of the music.
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