ABSTRACT
BLUES as a tradition refers to an African American musical form that developed in the rural South at the beginning of the twentieth century. The reference to color, as in “feeling blue,” reflects the dominant emotion and plaintive expression of the music. With roots in traditional forms of African American music, including spirituals, field hollers, and work songs, blues emerged in the early twentieth century in southern African American communities. Local musicians developed the style for community gatherings, roadhouse entertainment, and family events. After blues appeared on commercial recordings known as “race records” during the 1920s, its reach gradually extended into the culture at large. For the first generation of African Americans to be raised free of slavery, blues music served as a secular outlet for social frustration, a reminder of southern black folk traditions and identity, entertainment (and income) for a segregated community outside the church, and a background for various social events. Early blues themes drew on an individual’s direct observations of regional life and human relations, as well as from black oral tradition, reflecting traditional values of southern agricultural life, economic hardship, and social oppression.
