Blues is a music genre and musical form which originated in the Deep South of the United States around the 1860s by African-Americans from roots in African-American work songs and spirituals. Blues incorporated spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts, chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads. The blues form, ubiquitous in jazz, rhythm and blues and rock and roll, is characterized by the call-and-response pattern, the blues scale and specific chord progressions, of which the twelve-bar blues is the most common. Blue notes, usually thirds, fifths or sevenths flattened in pitch are also an essential part of the sound. Blues shuffles or walking bass reinforce the trance-like rhythm and form a repetitive effect known as the groove.
Arthur Blake, known as Blind Blake, was an American blues and ragtime singer and guitarist. He is known for recordings he made for Paramount Records between 1926 and 1932.
Piedmont blues refers primarily to a guitar style, which is characterized by a fingerpicking approach in which a regular, alternating thumb bass string rhythmic pattern supports a syncopated melody using the treble strings generally picked with the fore-finger, occasionally others. The result is comparable in sound to ragtime or stride piano styles. Blues researcher Peter B. Lowry coined the term, giving co-credit to fellow folklorist Bruce Bastin. The Piedmont style is differentiated from other styles, particularly the Mississippi Delta blues, by its ragtime-based rhythms.
Blind Willie Johnson was an American gospel blues singer, guitarist and evangelist. His landmark recordings completed between 1927 and 1930—thirty songs in total—display a combination of powerful "chest voice" singing, slide guitar skills, and originality that has influenced generations of musicians. Even though Johnson's records sold well, as a street performer and preacher, he had little wealth in his lifetime. His life was poorly documented, but over time, music historians such as Samuel Charters have uncovered more about Johnson and his five recording sessions.
Reverend Gary Davis, also Blind Gary Davis, was a blues and gospel singer who was also proficient on the banjo, guitar and harmonica. Born in Laurens, South Carolina and blind since infancy, Davis first performed professionally in the Piedmont blues scene of Durham, North Carolina in the 1930s, before converting to Christianity and becoming a minister. After relocating to New York in the 1940s, Davis experienced a career rebirth as part of the American folk music revival that peaked during the 1960s. Davis' most notable recordings include "Samson and Delilah" and "Death Don't Have No Mercy".
The ragtime progression is a chord progression characterized by a chain of secondary dominants following the circle of fifths, named for its popularity in the ragtime genre, despite being much older. Also typical of parlour music, its use originated in classical music and later spread to American folk music. Growing, "by a process of gradual accretion. First the dominant chord acquired its own dominant...This then acquired its dominant, which in turn acquired yet another dominant, giving":
"Cocaine Blues" is a Western swing song written by T. J. "Red" Arnall, a reworking of the traditional song "Little Sadie".
"In My Time of Dying" is a gospel music song by Blind Willie Johnson. The title line, closing each stanza of the song, refers to a deathbed and was inspired by a passage in the Bible from Psalms 41:3 "The Lord will strengthen him upon the bed of languishing, thou wilt make all his bed in his sickness". Numerous artists have recorded variations, including Bob Dylan and Led Zeppelin.
Stefan Grossman is an American acoustic fingerstyle guitarist and singer, music producer and educator, and co-founder of Kicking Mule records. He is known for his instructional videos and Vestapol line of videos and DVDs.
"You Gotta Move" is a traditional African-American spiritual song. Since the 1940s, the song has been recorded by a variety of gospel musicians, usually as "You Got to Move" or "You've Got to Move". It was later popularized with blues and blues rock secular adaptations by Mississippi Fred McDowell and the Rolling Stones.
Ernie Hawkins is an American acoustic blues guitar player, singer, songwriter, recording artist, and educator.
"It's Nobody's Fault but Mine" or "Nobody's Fault but Mine" is a song first recorded by gospel blues artist Blind Willie Johnson in 1927. It is a solo performance with Johnson singing and playing slide guitar. The song has been interpreted and recorded by numerous musicians in a variety of styles, including Led Zeppelin on their 1976 album Presence.
"Dark Was the Night, Cold Was the Ground" is a gospel blues song written and performed by American musician Blind Willie Johnson and recorded in 1927. The song is primarily an instrumental featuring Johnson's self-taught bottleneck slide guitar and picking style accompanied by his vocalizations of humming and moaning. It has the distinction of being one of 27 samples of music included on the Voyager Golden Record, launched into space in 1977 to represent the diversity of life on Earth. The song has been highly praised and covered by numerous musicians and is featured on the soundtracks of several films.
Bull City Red was an American Piedmont blues guitarist, singer, and predominately washboard player, most closely associated with Blind Boy Fuller and the Reverend Gary Davis. Little is known of his life outside of his recording career.
Joel Washington Taggart, usually known as Blind Joe Taggart, was an American country blues and gospel singer and guitarist who recorded in the 1920s and 1930s. Though primarily a performer of evangelistic gospel songs, he also recorded secular music under a number of pseudonyms including Blind Joe Amos, Blind Jeremiah Taylor, Blind Tim Russell, Blind Joe Donnel, and possibly Blind Percy and Six Cylinder Smith.
Blind Willie Walker was an early American blues guitarist and singer, who played the Piedmont blues style. He was described by blues musicians such as Reverend Gary Davis and Pink Anderson as an outstanding guitarist. Josh White called him the best guitarist he had ever heard, even better than Blind Blake: "Blake was quick, but Walker was like Art Tatum." In his performances, he was often accompanied by guitarist Sam Brooks.
"Keep Your Lamp(s) Trimmed and Burning" is a traditional gospel blues song. It alludes to the Parable of the Wise and Foolish Virgins, found in the Gospel of Matthew at 25:1-13, and also to a verse in the Gospel of Luke, at 12:35.
Blind Connie Williams was an American blues guitarist who was a street performer beginning in the early 1930s. Williams was something of a journeyman throughout his busking career, but he lived in Philadelphia for most of his life. Much of his repertoire consisted of sanctified gospel songs and pre-war country blues standards. In 1961, Williams had a recording session with the record producer Pete Welding, the results of which were later released on a compilation album.
American Street Songs, reissued as Gospel, Blues and Street Songs, is a shared album by blues musicians Pink Anderson and Reverend Gary Davis recorded in 1950 and 1956 and released on the Riverside Folklore Series label in August 1956.
"Death Don't Have No Mercy" is a song by the American gospel blues singer-guitarist Blind Gary Davis. It was first recorded on August 24, 1960, for the album Harlem Street Singer (1960), released by Prestige Records' Bluesville label during a career rebirth for Davis in the American folk music revival. The recording was engineered by Rudy Van Gelder at his studio in Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, and produced by Kenneth S. Goldstein, who had pursued Davis in Prestige's effort to capitalize on the revival.
