Professor J.

Southern (Managing Editor-Publisher)

Blue Roots and Development

Author(s): William Ferris
Source: The Black Perspective in Music, Vol. 2, No. 2 (Autumn, 1974), pp. 122-127
Published by: Professor J. Southern (Managing Editor-Publisher)
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 BLUE ROOTS AND DEVELOPMENT
BY WTTIJAM FERRIS

B LUES ARE perhaps the best known form of American folk music
their origin and development remain largely undocumented. Pri
the past twenty years few serious studies were made of blu
contrast to the extensive research undertaken on spirituals.1 Discuss
the origin of blues in the nineteenth century must therefore be lar
conjectural.
Within Afro-American folk music one of the most important elem
is the "musical spokesman" who voices group feeling through his per
ances. In Africa this role is clearly seen in the griots, traveling mus
who sing songs of praise or derision and highly respected leaders in
communities. Among the Wolof, for example, the griots "are, wi
exception of the chiefs and their families, the wealthiest and best d
persons in the community because their profession is well paid."2
The African griot responds to his audience and whether their mo
sorrow or celebration, he captures it in song. Their music reflec
articulates group feeling in a manner which is often cathartic.
They console the mourner and comfort the downcast with music and
song; they are the family's official boasters, singing their merits,
triumph and wealth on public occasions; they are lower than the
meanest servant and often richer and more powerful than the master.3

The traveling musician who served as a community spokesman is c

an African prototype for the blues musician.
Similar gifted musicians were noted by J. Miller McKim during sl
in Slave Songs of the United States. McKim asked one slave how song
created and received the following reply:
I'll tell you, it's dis way. My master call me up, and order me a short
peck of corn and a hundred lash. My friends see it, and is sorry for
me. When dey come to the praisemeeting dat night dey sing about it.
Some's very good singers and know how; and dey work it in-work
it in, you know, till they get it right; and dat's de way.4

These "very good singers," like the griots, used their music to com
the suffering and voice the feelings of their people. The role of the
and his music is thus primary in both African and Afro-American cu
and it is within this context that the blues emerge. As in the case of
griots and slave musicians, the bluesman is a musical spokesman who a
lates feelings of his audience. This continuum is the musical tradition w
which blues developed.
The blues as a form probably emerged after the Civil War as musi
experienced new mobility and began to travel and learn from other
formers. Prior to this time the major forms of black folk music we
spiritual and work chants, and it is out of these forms that blues eme

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 BLUES ROOTS AND DEVELOPMENT 123

Minstrel shows played an important role in providing jobs fo

and exposed them to a variety of white and black audien
to other musicians. Ma Rainey (1886-1939), for example, bega
about 1901 with the Rabbit Foot Minstrels, whose program i
blues singers.6
According to Big Bill Broonzy the blues were fully develo
as the 1890s when the "Joe Turner Blues" were sung by h
friend named Stonewall Jackson.7 Later in 1903 the blues wer
by W. C. Handy in the small town of Tutwiler, Mississippi. H
A lean, loose-jointed Negro had commenced plunking a guitar b
me while I slept. His clothes were ragged; his feet peeped out o
shoes. His face had on it some of the sadness of the ages. As
played, he pressed a knife on the strings of the guitar . . . the ef
was unforgettable. His song, too, struck me instantly. Goin' wher
Southern cross' the Dog.8

The musician was playing "bottleneck style" which is tradi

Mississippi Delta and used a knife blade rather than a bottlen
the pitch of his strings. (In "bottleneck" performances the m
a glass bottle neck on his little finger and runs it along the st
a sound somewhat like Hawaiian guitar. Strings are adjusted
or "natural" tuning so that a chord is sounded without frettin
change as the musician moves his bottleneck along the string
referred to Moorehead, Mississippi, a small town where the
way crosses the Yozoo Delta Railway. Engines of the latter ha
"Y.D." emblazoned on them and were nicknamed "yellow
blacks.

It is interesting to note that Handy, whose name is so clos

with blues, first encountered the music as an adult. During c
family strictly forbade him from associations with the blue
bought a guitar, and when his father discovered it he cried:
A guitar! One of the devil's playthings. Take it away. Take it awa
tell you. Get it out of your hands. Whatever possessed you to br
sinful thing like that into our Christian home? Take it back w
it came from. You hear? Get!9

Ironically, Handy became one of the most prominent f

popularization of blues. His famous "Yellow Dog Blues" wa
tune overheard in Tutwiler which first exposed him to blues!10
saw the power of blues and developed their music as a popula
As Handy was popularizing blues through his composition
tant series of 78 r.p.m. blues recordings was started that parall
Beginning in 1920 with Mamie Smith's "That Thing Calle
recording industry quickly developed a major series of blues r
were labelled "race" records because they were recorded by b
exclusively black audience."1 As the demand for blues reco

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124 THE BLACK PERSPECTIVE IN MUSIC

units equipped for field recordings were sent into the deep Sout
new material. Traditional country blues were recorded for the fir
these early commercial discs on race issues (such as R.C.A.
series) provide invaluable sources for the blues scholar.
Mississippi Delta Blues
One of the richest areas to produce blues musicians during
was the Mississippi Delta, a rich agricultural area between Mem
nessee and Vicksburg, Mississippi. Large numbers of blacks
farmed the Delta land, and its towns have been immortalized t
blues. It was in the Delta town of Tutwiler that W. C. Handy fi
tered blues being sung about Moorehead, "where the Southern
Dog."12
Sense of place is a dominant theme, and early race recordings have
been termed "county blues" because they were set in a rural context. Cotton
fields and the problems of sharecropping were familiar to the bluesman,
whose music reflected the concerns of his community. Country blues were
usually performed with an unamplified guitar or "box" which was sometimes
accompanied with a harmonica. Their verses stressed hard times and pro-
vided a musical catharsis from the problems of rural life. Verses were
"formulaic" in the sense that verses were shifted at will within a given tune
and a gifted musician with a large repertory of verse formulas could perform
for either three minutes or a half hour, depending on the response of his
audience.13
The Delta blues was characterized by use of a heavy gravelly voice
and the bottleneck style of playing noted earlier by Handy. Probably the
best example of this heavy voice and bottleneck style is in the music of
Charley Patton. Patton's compositions and musical style were a major influ-
ence on other Delta performers, such as Son House, Tommy Johnson,
Howlin' Wolf, and Roebuck Staples.14
Delta blues performers were considered performers of the devil's music,
for blues have always been a secular musical form regarded as distinctly
separate from religious music. The atmosphere of the "jook joints" where
blues are performed also contrasts with the Church where hymns are sung.
In the jook joints, small cafes where liquor and food are served, the blues
singers provide live music for dancers. Chitterlings are a favorite food and
their association with the music is reflected in use of the term "gut bucket"
blues for blues played at weekend dances. It is significant that blues were
often linked with voodoo, both of which were said to give the musician
special power over women. Muddy Waters, for example, declares himself
the "Hootchie Kootchie Man" and invokes voodoo medicine to control his
women:

I got a black cat bone. I got a mo jo too. I got the John the Conqueror
Root. I'm gonner mess with you. I'm gonner make you girls lead me
by the hand then the world will know I'm the Hootchie Kootchie
Man.15

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 BLUES ROOTS AND DEVELOPMENT 125

The bluesman and the preacher are the secular and the sacred
men within the Delta community and consider their roles as opp
singers are often singled out for criticism by churchgoers. For ex
Kizart, a blues piano player from Tutwiler told me "in my day in
munity (Tutwiler, Mississippi) they'd say 'you see that old man t
guitar yonder, he oughta be gwine to church."'16
Urban Blues
During the 1940s large numbers of blacks from the rural South moved
northward and carried the blues with them. Many Delta musicians moved
to Chicago and a style known as "urban blues" developed.17 Most of the
urban blues musicians were Delta-born bluesmen who set about developing
a sound appropriate for their new environment. They spoke to the problems
of the black man's conditions in the ghetto rather than the cottonfield.
When B. B. King, for example, performs "Why I Sing the Blues" he speaks
of rats in ghetto apartments and children with inadequate schools. Both
instruments and the beat were also changed from the country blues which
had featured an unamplified guitar in a slow, bluesy, "down home" beat.
In urban blues the use of electric guitars is standard, often with extensive
instrumental accompaniment patterns. Drums, bass guitar, brass, and ampli-
fied harmonica are common in the urban blues, and are joined in a much
faster beat than in country blues.
Urban blues are recorded much more carefully than were the early
race issues which were made in portable studios. Companies such as Chess
Records study the blues market and arrange performances which will meet
the taste of record buyers. A recent issue by Muddy Waters, for example,
featured Muddy Waters singing with an all-white rock group as his accom-
paniment.'1 The record was designed to sell to white teenagers, and large
record sales showed the marketing was well timed. The influence of white
A. & R. (Artist and Repertoire) men who direct the sound of blues musicians
takes the urban blues a step beyond oral tradition to the controlled media.10
In spite of this influence urban blues still stand firmly in the Mississippi
Delta tradition in which most of the major singers were trained. There is
even at times a note of nostalgia in verses which look back at the southern
experience, as in Sunnyland Slim's "Going Back to Memphis."20 The most
famous urban bluesmen, such as B. B. King, perform regularly in rural Missis-
sippi Delta communities before sell-out audiences. Even Mississippi whites
are beginning to acknowledge the importance of Delta blues, and this past
year Governor William Waller proclaimed "B. B. King Day" to celebrate
the blues and their best-known spokesman.
Urban blues are clearly a step beyond country blues in their sound, but
many verses and themes are common to both, and urban bluesmen are
often associated with performances of themes and verses developed from
traditional country blues. The theme of hard times, for example, was given
its definitive statement by Albert King in "Born Under a Bad Sign."

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126 THE BLACK PERSPECTIVE IN MUSIC

Born under a bad sign, been down since I began to crawl.

If it wasn't for bad luck, you know I wouldn't have no luck at
Hard luck and trouble been my only friend.
I been on my own ever since I was ten.21

The major theme of blues is women and their mistreatmen

The classic description of a "mean" woman is in Howlin' Wo
Her For Water."

I asked her for water, she give me gasoline.

She's the meanest woman I ever seen.22

The tight, hard-hitting statement of feelings "oft thought but n'ere so

well expressed" is one of the major appeals of blues to both black and white
audiences.23 The blues verse has been shaped for years through oral tradi-
tion and fully captures the sense of suffering, betrayal, and love which the
singer feels. Often humor and tragedy are bound together to make a state-
ment unique to blues, as in B. B. King's "Nobody Loves Me but My Mother."
Mmmm.
Nobody loves me but my mother, and she could be jiving too.
Nobody loves me but my mother, and she could be jiving too.
Now you see why I act funny baby when you do the things you do.24

The above verse is a good example of the use of an "unveiling" phrase

or line which introduces humor in a tragic situation. It is this humor
which is perhaps most responsible for the popularity of blues among the
black folk community. The blues sing of tragedy, but within the context of
suffering a level of humor is unveiled which removes its sting.
The above selection by B. B. King is particularly interesting because
it begins in a slow "down home" blues beat with the quoted verse repeated
twice. Then the country blues sound is dropped, and the sound of the
sophisticated urban blues enters to complete the selection. It is a successful
and appropriate combination, for B. B. King was born in Indianola, Missis-
sippi and combines both country and urban blues traditions in his musical
repertory. He can shift them at will or, as in this example, join them in a
unique composition.
King, like the West African griot, is at the same time individual artist
and spokesman for his community. His blues are an integral part of the
Afro-American oral tradition which is nourished by blacks in both the rural
South and the urban North. It is this relation between the black artist and
his community which assures the continued growth and evolution of blues.

Yale University

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 BLUES ROOTS AND DEVELOPMENT 127

NOTES
1 Major books, articles and records on blues are listed in William Ferris, "
Mississippi Black Folklore: A Research Bibliography and Discography, Hattiesb
Mississippi, 1971, pp. 24-32, 49-60.
2 David W. Ames, Wolof Music of Senegal and The Gambia, Ethnic Folkw
Library Album, New York, p. 4. For this and other references to materials on th
I am indebted to Yvonne Lange who discusses the tradition at length in "The G
Senegambia: A Preliminary Survey," an unpublished paper written at the Un
of Pennsylvania in 1968.
3 G. Gorer, African Dances, London, 1935 p. 55. For a recent description of th
Tradition see Thomas A. Johnson, "Gambia Recording Oral Historians' Lore," New
Times, March 19, 1973, p. 10.
4 William Francis Allen, Charles Pickard Ware, and Lucy McKim Garrison
Songs of the United States, New York, 1965, p. 13.
5 For recent recordings of work chants see Alan Lomax, ed., "Eighteen Hamm
Roots of the Blues, Atlantic SD 1348.
6 Derrick Stewart-Baxter, Ma Rainey and the Classic Blues Singers, New
1970, p. 37.
7 Big Bill Broonzy, Big Bill's Blues, New York, 1964, p. 54.
8 W. C. Handy, W. C. Handy, Father of the Blues, New York, 1970, p. 78.
9 Handy, p. 10.
10 Ibid., p. 87.
1 Derrick Stewart-Baxter, Ma Rainey and the Classic Blues Singers, New York,
1970, p. 12. Robert M. W. Dixon and John Godrich, Recording the Blues, New York,
1970, p. 17. A series of white records was issued on 78 r.p.m. records during the same
period and were termed "hillbilly" records. They provide an interesting comparison and
are discussed in Bill C. Malone, Country Music U.S.A., Austin, 1968, pp. 354-356.
12 Handy, p. 78.
13 William Ferris, Blues From the Delta, London, 1970, pp. 34-44.
14 Charley Patton's major recordings and their transcriptions are available on Yazoo
L 1020, Charley Patton: Founder of the Delta Blues. A biography and discussion of
Patton's music is contained in John Fahey, Charley Patton, London, 1970. For a discus-
sion of Patton's influence on Tommy Johnson see David Evans, Tommy Johnson, London,
1971, pp. 23-26.
15 Muddy Waters (McKinley Morganfield), "Hootchie Kootchie Man," Muddy
Waters: Sail On, Chess 1539. See also Mike Leadbitter and Neil Slaven, Blues Records:
1943-1966 (London, 1968), p. 251.
16 William Ferris, "Lee Kizart Recalls the Delta Blues," Blues Unlimited, May 1970
no. 72, p. 9.
17 The most thorough study of urban blues is Charles Keil's Urban Blues, Chicago,
1967.
18 Muddy Waters, Electric Mud, Cadet Concepts LPS 314.
19 A recent album by Elmore James includes the voice of the A. & R. man directing
James in the context of the recording session. Elmore James, "Hand in Hand" and "Dust
My Broom" Elmore James: Blues Masters, Volume 1, Blues Horizon BM 4601.
20 Sunnyland Slim (Albert Luandrew) "Going Back to Memphis," Slim's Got His
Thing Goin' On, World Pacific Records WPS 21890.
21 Albert King, "Born Under A Bad Sign, Albert King: Born Under a Bad Sign,
Stax S723.
22 Howlin' Wolf, "I Asked For Water," Evil, Chess CH1540.
23 Alexander Pope, "Essay On Criticism" in G. B. Harrison, ed., Major British
Writers, vol. I, p. 763. For a listing of major publications on blues and recordings of
Delta blues see William Ferris, Mississippi Black Folklore, Hattiesburg, 1971.
21 B. B. King, "Nobody Loves Me But My Mother," B. B. King: Indianola, Missis-
sippi Seeds, ABD Records ABCS-713.

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