ABSTRACT
The first chapter of Part II tends to define the word “blues” as referring to low spirits and melancholy. It briefly traces the origins of blues and the life history of blues people who have been singing it since the time they set foot on the American soil, from the shouts and field hollers that have accompanied field labor to the blues which bears witness to their social placement and living conditions. As they were deprived of their language and freedom, they constructed a new identity, blues people, and appropriated a new language, English. It will be the language of blues and its rhythm the rhythm of blues.
