Folk Music
Blues
Timeline

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Glossary
 
 
 

1820s
Many slaves converted to Christianity and incorporated religious themes into their music. These songs, called spirituals, influenced blues.

   

From 1619 through the mid-1800s, Africans from different cultures were brought into the United States as slaves. With them they brought their musical traditions. These include the traditions of the groits, new instruments such as the bania and halam (predessors of the banjo), and musical styles including participatory singing and solo singing using a variety of tonal effects. These traditions would go on to influence modern day blues music.

pre-1800s

mid-1880s
In the fields, slaves would communicate using field hollers and a call-and response music pattern. They would also sing work songs to express the harsh condition of their lives. Also during this time, slave orchastras consisting of a banjo, bone clappers, and triangle became a part of plantation life. The style of this music can be heard in blues.
mid-1870s
Following the Civil War, African-American music moves towards blues as songs relate to new experiences in free life. Some musicians, called songsters move from plantation to plantation playing for the Southern African-Americans who remained on the planations. Other perfomers join minstrel shows and travel the country performing popular music of the day, but also working some blues into their acts. These shows helped to popularize African-American songs and rhythms.
1890s
African-Americans travel along the Mississippi River looking for a better life, working as labor on railroads, canals, levees, and riverboats. These travels spread blues along the Mississippi.
1900s
In 1903 while waiting for his train in Tutwiler, Mississippi, W.C. Handy overhears a man playing a guitar pressing a knife against the strings and repeating the lines of his song three times. The song was similiar to a field holler but accompanied by a guitar. It was an early style of blues. Handy proclaims it "the wierdest music hehad ever heard". In 1905, Ma Rainey, a vaudeville entertainer overhears a girl signing the blues and incorporates it into her act effectively spreading blues outside the rural South.
1910s
In 1912, W.C. Handy publishes "Memphis Blues", the first blues song to be published.
1920s
In 1920, Mamie Smith makes the first blues recording, "Crazy Blues". After this recording, blues becomes the craze of the 1920s, opening the door for other artists to record, such as Bessie Smith, whose recordings sold millions. Also during this time, John and Alan Lomax make field recordings of folk and blues music for the Library of Congress, preserving much of early blues on record.
1930s
Blues moves away from rural Southern roots toward the new urban setting as musicians move North to cities. In 1930, Charlie Patton release 13 records, the most for any blues singer that year. In 1932, the electric guitar is invented, an invention that will transform blues in years to come. In 1933, Robert Johnson's guitar skills become the foundation of future blues sounds. In 1936, T-Bone Walker becomes the first blues artist to use the electric guitar.
1940s
"Post-War" or Electric Blues is founded. There is an increase in the migration of musicians North and West. In 1941, blues gains popularity with its first radio show, when KFFA in Arkansas hires blues musicians to promote King Biscuit flour. King Biscuit Time becomes a sensation promoting other radio stations to hire blues singers.
1950s
A steady rise in Chicago blues with performers like Muddy Waters and Howlin' Wolf. T-Bone Walker and B.B. King pioneer a new style of guitar playing during this time.
1960s
Blues revival begins as urban bluesman become popular with young white Americans and Europeans.
1970s
Buddy Guy and Stevie Ray Vaughan draw a new generation of blues listeners.