History of Blues (Weekly Blog #9)

Blues music is one of the only true American music forms. Blues has its deepest roots in the work songs of the West African slaves in the South. During their laborious work in the fields of the Southern plantation owners, black slaves developed a "call and response" way of singing to give rhythm to their hard work. These "field hollers" served as a basis of all blues music that was to follow. Following the end of the Civil war, black men could only pursue a few occupations. This included back-breaking manual field labor and becoming a traveling minstrel. Many chose the occupation of traveling minstrel playing raucous, all-night country dances, fish-frys, and jukejoints. These musicians relied on their physical stamina and mental collection of many blues songs. Although the lyrics of many blues songs are soulful and sad, the music as a whole is a powerful, emotive and rhythmic music celebrating the life of black Americans. The lyrics of the songs reflected the themes of their daily lives including sex, drinking, railroads, jail, murder, poverty, hard labor and love lost.

Source: http://academic.scranton.edu/student/pendraks2/page2.html