Blind Lemon
is a good example of what is known as the "country blues." There
are some quotes about "country blues" as follows:
| Country
blues is where it all began. Go back to the early days of 78s and you'll
find the countryblues of Blind Lemon Jefferson and Robert Johnson. Nowadays,
Taj Mahal and Keb'Mo' (among others) are playing with the fire, the raw
energy of country blues. Country blues is intimate, poetic, soul-searching
stuff. |
| EARLY
COUNTRY bluesmen were itinerant minstrels playing battered acoustic guitars,
shouting the blues so it could be heard over the din of crowds in saloons,
at parties and noises in the marketplace. Without amplification, these
mens' voices became strong and insistent, their guitars playing dramatic
and punctuated by piercing riffs. Modern guitarists who first hear this
music are usually shocked to learn that the simultaneous playing of complex
rhythmic bass and melodies, accompanied by vocals, is usually the work
of one person playing alone. |
| The
earliest blues, country blues, were a product of the 19th-century black
rural experience, especially after emancipation. Itinerant performers traveled
from one black community to another, playing the guitar while singing about
the loss of love, the pain of poverty, the burden of hard work. Like much
folk expression, many songs spoke of the delights and torments of sex.
Early country blues still may be heard on records made by Leadbelly, Blind
Lemon Jefferson, and others. Jelly Roll Morton wrote his "New Orleans Blues"
in 1902. Among the earliest blues published as sheet music were those of
W. C. Handy. They included "Memphis Blues" (1912) and "The St. Louis Blues"
(1914). |
| Texas
blues tends to be more sophisticated and intricate than those of the deep
south, with longer guitar phrases and greater melodic range than are ordinarily
found in the blues of Mississippi River states, and usually employing a
repetitive bass line. Louisianians are notable chiefly for their nonconformity
with musicians from contiguous states and their use of bottleneck
and open tunings. |
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