WELCOME TO BLUES CRAZY - CRAZY ABOUT THE BLUES

BLUES ORIGINS

Regrettably there are some folk who want to argue over the origins of the blues and who feel that this is more important than the music. It would be best to say at the start of this section that if you are touched by the emotion of the blues music it is not so important if you think an eskimo invented it in the jaws of a killer whale or a prarie dog hollered the first blues line when bitten by a rattlesnake, the essence of the blues is non-verbal, emotional, and if you got that feelin' you know the blues as well as any man.

That said, there is some relevance in understanding where this emotional feel developed and what makes it so powerful. A chap called W.C.Handy is credited with first naming blues music, and while he was himself a great musician he did not invent the music or the phrase (the blues had been in used to describe melancholy and sad feelings for centuries) he simply brought the two together.

The blues developed from a style of music that is said to have been prevalent in the latter part of the 19th Century in fields of African slaves working in the Southern parts of North America, specifically the Mississippi delta. Native African music involved repetitive chanting and rhythms and the slaves were known to use these uplifting songs to maintain their spirits while at work.

The tonality of traditional African song was similar to what became blues tonality but it is said that due to the fact that the slaves were often exhausted they would be incapable of reaching the desired notes and either hit a flat note or scooped up from a wrong note till the right one was reached, hence bendy blue notes and the typical blues scale with flattened third and seventh notes.

Over time these chants changed from native African music to become original compositions about daily life and hardship in America.

It has been argued that native American Indians had some or even all of the original input into the development of what became blues music. This is not such an incredible claim, but is largely dismissed by the complete lack of evidence and the absence of early American Indian blues singers. However the claim is not concerning the first wave of recorded blues or even the blues that was being played and sung when W.C. Handy first coined the phrase. It is rather from the origins of this music in the decades prior. With a great deal of similarity to the African traditional music, native American music also involved chanting and strong repetitive rhythms.

The similarity extends further however and it is notable that both the native African culture and the native American culture were deeply spiritual and involved a great deal of respect for the earth and natural forces, this spiritual belief pervaded all aspects of daily living. Like the Africans the Native Americans were also oppressed, dehumanised, and enslaved, by the western powers that stole their lands and destroyed their culture.

It is a certainty that some of the early black blues pioneers will have had exposure to native American culture and it would be ignorant to think that this would not have had some influence on developing blues songsmiths.

Most importantly the blues is about the survival both of a spirituality and also of the physical reproductive survival of the oppressed and hard up against all odds. The real essence lies in this almost cynical celebration of life and the continual barrage of suffering and sadness that it has to offer. A useful summary of the blues is the definitive rejection of despair by taking hardship and sadness, adding some soul, and churning out something creative and life giving in reply, or life's a bag of sh@t but I'm gonna keep on rollin' anyway. This is something timeless that can apply to anybody, anywhere, anytime. The blues is with you my friend.