Summary of Blues Texts

       The reading, International House of Blues Foundation Blues SchoolHouse Timeline Overview, talks about the history and the development of Blues. In the 1500s, Africans who have a lot of musical styles began to be traded as slaves from their countries to the U.S. Their friends and families were separated, and they did not have right of freedom and personal property. The things they had were their traditional culture and musical practices. When they were working, they were not allowed to speak. Therefore, they used songs to be the method of communication. In this method and the oral tradition, they had passed their culture and music to the next generation from the 1600s to the 1865 when they were slavers. Because of the Civil War, Africans began getting more freedom even though they were still discriminated and did not have full equality. Then, from the 1865 to 1900, they could use more musical instruments to create music. In this period, the blues was not set form, but the spirituals which were about their religions were the most characteristic form. They also began to have a folk ballad style. From 1900 to 1930, African Americans gained more freedom, so they could travel, live with family members, have personal lives, and then they could have more freedom to create their music. As the result, the content and the ideas of their songs began having different aspects of life. The blues music was born; one was country blues, another one was classic blues. The characteristics of blues music were their life stories and emotions. The blues music began more and more popular, so it spread throughout the South of the U.S. Because of the great migration from 1910 to 1960, African Americans brought their culture and music from the South to the North. After this movement, the blues music began to spread in the North of the U.S. From the 1940s to the 1960s, the country blues began to update and adapt the performances to the urban surroundings when the musicians arrived in the cities. Therefore, the blues began to have the new forms, such as jazz, boogie-woogie, gospel merged, and rock and roll. Because of the successful mixture of rhythm and blues, both black and white began to be attracted by blues music in the 1960s. From the 1960s to the 1970s, soul music, funk, and rap had appeared because of the combination of different music elements, social environment, and economic climate. In the 1980s, rap music and hip hop became the American cultural form, and R&B and soul music also became stronger and stronger. Then, artists began to create music by mixing the different genres together. In the 1990s and 2000s, the music reflected the social, economic, and political climate of the U.S, and the blues-inspired music has continued to tell life stories, social issues, and musical voice with emotions and humor in the new millennium.