The Blues
The Blues
• Mississippi Delta Blues tradition
• WC Handy
Nobody Knows You When
You’re Down and Out
By Bessie Smith
•Bessie Smith’s autobiographical confession
• sensitive interpretation and broad phrasing
• perfect intonation and blue-note inflections
• wide, expressive range
Come on In My Kitchen
By Robert Johnson
• bottle neck slide technique
• 12 bar structure and I IV V chords
• lyrics have double entendres
Walkin’ Blues
By Robert Johnson
• slide
• striking to keep the beat
• accenting beat 2 or half off beat
• "I got up this morning..." clichéd text
Terraplane Blues
By Robert Johnson
• most famous and influential songs
• more chord changes
• strumming
• car = woman = sexual metaphor?
I Got My Mojo Working
By Muddy Waters
• small band, electric guitar, and harmonica
• small amplifier distorts sound; sometimes
smooth, sometimes raucous
• Muddy’s voice slides up and down notes like
the slide guitar
• very sexual
Smokestack Lightning
By Muddy Waters
• originally by Howlin’ Wolf
• covered by many including: The Rolling
Stones, The Yardbirds, The Animals, The
Grateful Dead, and George Thorgood
• the rhyming scheme is mostly abandoned
• consequently, the lyrics are often re-worked
One Bourbon, One Scotch
and One Beer
By John Lee Hooker
• boogie woogie guitar style
• up-tempo shuffle rhythm
• electric guitar
• classic Chicago style blues
Smokestack Lightning
By The Yardbirds
• recurring riff
• groove on a single rhythm
• declamatory style of singing
• strong bass support
• imitation
• traditional symbols (train, woman, another
man)
Crossroads
By Cream
• Eric Clapton singing; best vocalist of the
group
• the band sounds young and tentative
• slavish but earnest imitation of traditional
blues
• Clapton’s guitar hints at the instrumental
aggressiveness/virtuosity to come
• beginning of “psychedelic blues”