Blues is a genre and musical form created by African Americans in the far south of the USA around the end of the 19th century. The genre is specific from roots of African musical traditions, African American work songs, spiritual and traditional music.
Blues is the cornerstone of American root music. It is considered a musical genre and folk music. Blue Grass, Country music, Jazz, Jug Band, Rag time, Rhytm and Blues are derivative forms of the Blues.
The Blues in essence is the music of blacks taken from Africa to the US to work as slaves on cotton plantations in the south of the country. With the Blues came the main characteristic of jazz, an improvisation.
The Blues form, ubiquitous in jazz, rhytm and blues, and rock ‘n’ roll, is characterized by call and response pattern, blues scale, and specific chord progressions of which twelve-bar is the most common. Blue Note is a note sung or played with a timbre slightly lower than that of the major scale, which makes the note sound distinctly sad and melancholy. The very word “blues” in English is synonymous with melancholy. Prominent blues figure, Robert Johnson is considered the father of the Blues, and responsible for the beginning of the spread of the genre, traveling from the South to the North of the USA spreading the blues.
Many others continued with this work of spreading the rhythm, the best known being B.B. King (1925-2015). A highlight is the diffusion of rhythm throughout the USA, creating quite expressive strands such as the Chicago Blues, represented by figures such as John Lee Hoocker and Buddy Guy, with a spicier and nastier form of lyrics in the songs.
Riley Ben King, better known as B. B. King, (Itta Bena, September 16, 1925 – Las Vegas, May 14, 2015) was an American blues guitarist, composer and singer. The “B. B.” His name means Blues Boy, his pseudonym as a moderator on W radio. He was considered, alongside Eric Clapton and Jimi Hendrix, one of the best guitarists in the world by the North American magazine Rolling Stone.
Throughout his career, B.B. King was honored with 15 Grammy awards, having been the creator of a unique musical style that would make him one of the most respected and influential blues musicians, earning him the epithet King of the Blues.
