Chapter 5: The Blues
The blues is one of the most significant and enduring forms of African American musical expression. While the blues would later influence the development of jazz, rock, R&B, and more, it began as a deeply personal and communal response to the hardships of post-slavery life in the American South. Following the Civil War and the ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment in 1865, which abolished slavery, African Americans faced a new set of hardships as the promises of Reconstruction (1865–1877) were quickly undermined by white supremacist backlash. The withdrawal of federal troops from the South in 1877 marked the end of Reconstruction and gave rise to a wave of discriminatory laws and practices known as Jim Crow Laws, which enforced racial segregation and disenfranchised Black citizens across the South.
In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, violence against African Americans intensified, with thousands of lynchings documented between the 1880s and the 1940s. At the same time, economic exploitation took the form of sharecropping, a system in which formerly enslaved people and their descendants farmed land owned by white landlords in exchange for a share of the crop. In practice, sharecropping kept Black families in a state of perpetual debt and dependence akin to a form of slavery. The Supreme Court's ruling in Plessy v. Ferguson (1896), which upheld the constitutionality of "separate but equal" facilities, legally sanctioned segregation and further institutionalized racial inequality.
Amid intense social, political, and economic pressures, the blues emerged as both a deeply personal and communal form of expression. It gave voice to sorrow, endurance, longing, and resilience in the face of systemic injustice and everyday hardship. In the early 20th century, these struggles helped spark one of the largest internal migrations in American history: the Great Migration. Between approximately 1916 and 1970, more than six million African Americans left the rural South and moved to cities in the North and West, seeking better economic opportunities and fleeing racial violence and segregation. As they relocated, they carried their music with them. The blues, rooted in Southern experience, traveled with this movement and evolved into new forms as it reached broader audiences. The Great Migration played a pivotal role in transforming the blues from a regional tradition into a national cultural force, setting the stage for its lasting influence on jazz, gospel, rhythm and blues, and rock and roll.
The term "blues," commonly associated with feelings of sadness or melancholy, entered American usage in the late 19th century. One of the earliest recorded instances appears in the 1862 diary of Charlotte Forten, a young Black teacher working in South Carolina, who wrote, "Nearly everybody was looking gay and happy, and yet I came home with the blues." By the end of the century, the phrase "the blues" had become a common way to describe a heavy emotional state, typically one that defied easy explanation.
The blues also evolved into distinct subgenres, shaped by geography, social context, and technological change. This chapter will focus on two major strains: the rural blues, often associated with acoustic, solo performances rooted in the Mississippi Delta; and the urban blues, which emerged as African Americans migrated to northern cities and adapted the genre for new audiences and amplified settings.
Musically, the blues developed a distinctive and enduring structure. The 12-bar blues form became one of the most influential frameworks in American music, serving as the foundation for countless songs across genres. Early jazz styles, including Dixieland and swing, frequently adopted this same structure. In this chapter, we will explore the key formal elements of the blues, including its harmonic patterns, lyrical content, and vocal techniques.
Studying the blues reveals far more than just its musical mechanics. It offers insight into the lived realities of race, class, and gender in American history. It reflects the voices of those who found strength in expression, dignity amid struggle, and solidarity through shared musical experience.