ABSTRACT
This chapter shows that blues transformed the music of others well beyond its Mississippi delta origins. Damon's musical ethos theory, manifested in such a vastly different environment, is just preparation for my fundamental question. The chapter intersperses information on ethos theory and downhome blues with modern scientific evidence of the ways shared singing can accomplish this cultural work. To summarize this discussion of blues elements, along with a complex address of rhythm, what are commonly called blue notes create a flexible and colorful vocal style that helped externalize emotions ranging from simple despair, to poetic resignation, to ironic disbelief. By the early years of the twentieth century, the universal human urge to sing out feelings had surfaced in the Mississippi delta region of the American South. Blues is a badge of identity claimed by many groups of people.
