Information on 'the blues'?

Question

Any information at all like where it originated from, what year, how has it developed over the years, famous blues singers or whatever... and other things aswell thanks!

Answer 1

Wikipedia has a couple of excellent pages on The Blues:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blues and
"Origins of the blues" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Origins_of_the_blues

For more on the history try: "The History of Blues Music"
http://afroamhistory.about.com/od/bluesmusic/a/bluesmusic.htm

For information on the technical side (chord progressions, etc.) try: "Blues In Depth" (an interesting a detailed discussion of the technical side of The Blues)
http://ultimate-guitar.com/lessons/music_styles/blues_in_depth.html

I ran a Yahoo! web search with the following query: { "the blues" music }. Here's a link to the results: http://search.yahoo.com/search?p=%22the%20blues%22%20music

A few more pages that look pretty good.

http://www.pbs.org/theblues/

http://blues.about.com/

http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbcfour/music/features/blues.shtml

"The Blues: The following is the Blues Ethnography I wrote for my World Music course."
http://auterrific.mu.nu/2006/03/20/the-blues/
"The technical side of the blues as they are heard today include “a vocal and instrumental form of music based on a pentatonic scale and a characteristic twelve-bar chord progression.” But the blues cannot be discussed without talking about blue notes. These are the flatted third, fifth and seventh scale degrees. They are experienced as the unequal pitches from African origin."

Music Facts Page: "It Is the Blues" by Ray Dessy
http://www.tgscradio.com/it_is_the_blues.htm

NOTE: I also put all of these links under "Sources" below to make sure that they will be clickable.

Have fun!

Answer 2

The blues originated from the songs of Black slaves in America and eventually made it's way into the cities where it was built upon and other formats emerged, i.e Rhythm and Blues.

The Blues tend to form around Chords 1, 4 and 5 of a scale forming 4 bars each and results in a 12 bar pattern (12 Bar Blues).

I had to learn this ages ago but it seems I've forgotten most of it!

Answer 3

or this book: The All Music Guide To The Blues. It lists famous artists, and essential songs and albums and has pages on the different styles of the music from Delta, Piedmont, Country Blues, Jump Blues, electric blues. All the big names in blues, to the lesser known names its all there.

Answer 4

May I suggest renting Martin Scorsese's excellent documentary on "The Blues" , made for PBS. It has an excellent history, going back to its origins in Africa.

http://www.pbs.org/theblues/

Answer 5

Any heel with jeans look good. If you really want to show off the shoe than wear a skinny jean. Bright colour shoes look best.

Answer 6

Start with Robert Johnson, and work forwards

Answer 7

the blues ain't nothing but a good man feeling bad

Answer 8

Try this