A History of the Blues
By Sebastien Szumilas
Music Appreciation T Th 9:30
December 10, 2013
When people think of American music most will probably have rock and roll in
mind. Truth is that if that if the Blues had never been created the we would never have
rock and roll music as well as much popular music that has come out over the last
century.
Blues originated on Southern Plantations in the 19th century and was created by
African-American slaves and sharecroppers. The blues is what they would sing as they
picked cotton or worked the plantation fields. It is believed that the blues originated from
African spirituals, African Chants, work songs, field hollers, rural fife and drum music,
revivalist hymns, and country dance music (allaboutjazz.com).
The blues matured in the Mississippi Delta, just upriver from New Orleans, where
jazz was created. Jazz and Blues are art forms which have always been closely related
and have influenced each other in countless ways. In 1899 one of the first blues songs,
Scott Joplin’s “Maple Leaf Rag”, was published and became very influential on the
