Mississippi History and the Delta Blues Essay

He was only three years-old at the time, and Della was an extremely young grandmother of 32 years of age when he was born. Muddy’s world seemed to revolve around music from a very early age, although he did enjoy fishing and playing down by a nearby creek. He would always get dirt on his clothes and mud on his face, which is how he was nicknamed Muddy Waters.

Originating from the deep south, blues and jazz music is rooted from the African American culture. Blues is a musical genre that has its own musical progressions. There are many types of blues, as times moved ahead it developed more sounds. For example, there is Country blues, Delta blues, Chicago blues, Jazz blues and more. The central idea of blues is that one is able to overcome sadness and personal adversity. Blues originated on southern plantations, creators were slaves in the nineteenth century. These slaves found that this music was not always about their self-pity, but about saying what you feel and “letting your hair down.” It was away to have fun and escape the everyday life that slaves had to endure. Blues originally came upon the Mississippi Delta near New Orleans, but spread to other urban areas. After a while, blues became one of the biggest elements of African Americans well known music. Blues evolved from performances on the streets and juke joints to entertainment in theaters. People like Etta James, B.B. King, Billie Holiday and John Mayer made blues popular among the world.

Blues grew in Mississippi Delta (upriver from New Orleans) and

Muddy Waters in particular, for chronological reasons as well as his formidable talents is uniquely placed to cover the full gamut of how the blues changed everything. He was around to see the early blues musicians ply their trade, he was one of the artists recorded by Alan Lomax for The Library of Congress recordings, he was, along with Willie Dixon and Howlin Wolf, the most important artists at Chess Records, the giant blues record labels and due to the 1960’s blues boom in England his stock grew even further when led to TV appearances and playing concerts to audiences of tens of thousands of people, with the majority of them often being white.

I attended a blues concert in Hayward and it was one of the most culturing experiences of my life. I learned a lot about the culture and context surrounding the blues music. I found the lyrics thought provoking especially, B.B. King’s “Why I Sing the Blues” sung by Billy Dunn. Prior to me attending this concert I hardly knew anything about the blues music or historical roots. I never listened to the blues before, so I am unaware of this type of music, but I learned a lot about this style of music and enjoyed it. I also learned about the impact Hayward had on the blues and blues musicians when African Americans migrated from the deep south to the then unincorporated area of Hayward, known as Russell city. Ethnically, the majority of the attendees were African American, the second highest ethnic group attendees were Caucasian. This makes sense, since the blues and jazz were developed in the south of the U.S. and is associated with Africans. For African Americans, the blues and jazz goes a long way back in history, more specifically their history. It is associated with African American history in America, as well as African oppression and liberation.

In about 1903 the blues were slowly becoming popular in Texas. Blues music came from African American slaves who were trying to escape from slavery (PBS). The music originally came from the Mississippi River. The south was home to many blues-man who helped make the blues become more popular. Today the blues music differs from the music back in the 1800 's, there are many different types of blues today (“A Brief History of the Blues”). The tunes of Robert Johnson carry a familiarity that spans generations with famous rock bands covering his songs. Throughout his life, he faced many trials and tribulations rising to the occasion every time and leaving his mark on the blues family.

Muddy, grew up in Rolling Fork, Mississippi. He was given the name ‘Muddy Waters,’ because when he was a child he would always play in the muddy swamps of the rivers in Mississippi. His Father, Ollie Morganfield worked as a farmer and was also a blues guitar player, however he was separated from the family after Waters was born. His Mother, Bertha Jones died in 1918 and therefore Muddy was raised by his grandmother Delia Jones in Clarksdale. Waters first worked as a sharecropper at a cotton plantation, however he had always found time to entertain people with his music. Waters was always musically talented. He learned how to play the harmonica when he was just five and as a teenager he led a band that played at Mississippi Delta clubs. His singing was influenced by the style of Son House and at 17, Waters self taught himself to play the guitar.

On the other hand, Blues were basically from work songs of African Americans slaves at the time. “It is a native American music, the product of the black man in this country, or, to put it more exactly the way I have come to think about it, blues could not exist if the African captives had not become American captives”(pp.17), said Jones and Baraka. In Jazz – A History, Frank Tirro wisely analyzes and explains the relationship between the unique background and

     The Blues musical move was prominent during the 1920s and '30s, a time known as the Harlem Renaissance. Blues music characteristically told the story of

In the September 14th, 2016 edition of Listening Log, we briefly explored a general overview of the musical style known as the blues. We discovered that, like rock, the blues has many subgenres and influential artists. Last time, we highlighted Mamie Smith (classic blues), Willie Mabon (Chicago blues), and Dr. John (rhythm and blues). This week, we are traveling back in time to the 1980s to explore the subgenre of electric Texas blues.

When you think of the blues, you think about harsh times, speaking your mind, and letting your hair down. The blues had a very big impact in the society of the Americans in the 19th century. African-American slaves that worked on the Southern plantations sang the blues. It is said that this music evolved from African chants and work songs. The blues developed in the Mississippi Delta near New Orleans, this is also the birthplace of jazz.

Eddie James “Son” House, Jr., an American blues singer and guitarist once stated, "People keep asking me where the blues started and all I can say is that when I was a boy we always was singing in the fields. Not real singing, you know, just hollerin', but we made up our songs about things that was happening to us at the time, and I think that's where the blues started (Cohn, 1993).”

Different from other forms of music, blues was only recorded by memory and passed down through generations through live performances. The blues began in the North Mississippi Delta post Civil War times. It was heavily influenced by African roots, field hollers, ballads, church music and rhythmic dance tunes called jump-ups. This eventually developed into music that was set up in a call-and- response way so that the singer would sing a line and he would then respond with his guitar.

The genre of blues originated in the 19th century South America African American Communities. African slaves that were brought during the 17th and 18th centuries, also brought their differing musical traditions with them. After they assimilated, they began to blend the juxtaposing music types of America and Africa. This resulted in blues coming from a mix of European folk music, spirituals, music of Africa, and slave work songs. Work songs were sung in time with the task at hand using “call and response in which phrases from a lead singer were followed by the others” (BBC 2). It uses a specific style of chord progressions, such as the twelve bar blues, blues notes (where one “bends” the note out of tune with the strings), and the AAB pattern in the lyrics of the songs. The AAB pattern is a line sung over the first four bars, repeated over the next four bars, and then concluded with a line over the last bars. This is considered to be a cyclic music form due to the repeating progression of chords. The “simple blues harmonies that are found in the 12 bar blues (I, IV, V) are likely inherited from the hymns which were sung on slave plantations” (Gibson 13).

The Blues is one of the most independent types of black music that has been influenced by the Afro-American traditions. The blues were not completely developed until all the slaves were announce free in 1862. When one listen to blues, one can hear that the genre is very much influences by the slaves` work songs and Negro Spirituals. Even when the slaves finally got their freedom, they were not seen as equals by the environment around them. A large amount of the Africans in America was poor and they lived under difficult circumstances. Most of them could not read and had a lack of education. They were disrespected by the rest of the population. It was through the experiences of pain and strife of being taken from their home and emotions that the slavery brought through, that the term “Being blue” was introduced. This expression expressed the former slaves` feeling of depression and sadness, and most of all loneliness. This is how the blues appeared. The lyrics of the blues is mainly about being lonely, broken hearts, being sick and problems with money. While the Negro spirituals was about the slaves` need for religious or spiritual guidance, the blues was about the struggles the Africans faced every day. The blues was about conveying the `feeling` of suffering and pain that the slaves went through. In