Blues is a genre and musical form that originated in African-American communities in the "Deep South" of the United States around the end of the 19th century. Blues, omnipresent 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.

Many slaves where transported through the Atlantic slave trade route. Although many died some made it to America where they were sold. Slavery was a nightmare come true. Yet the slaves played and sang music which later influenced music all over the world. From the music of slaves cam blues and jazz.. After the work day was over, slaves would get together and sing out affirmations, pledges and prayers that they eventually lengthened out with repetitive choruses. At first, they accompany their vocals with hand made drums, but slave owners soon grew worrisome that this may be some sort of signal being made from one set of slaves to another that would ultimately lead to a revolt so the use of drums was abolished. The songs, however, remained a reflection of the infinite sadness and despair of oppressed people.

The chords are the following: Each note is played one after the other. The melody line consists of 9 notes: The ‘Twelve Bar Blues Scale’ consists of 7 notes:

He was born in Jacksonville, Florida, United States. Wilson played both piano and organ, whilst Coot Grant strummed guitar as well as sing and dance. The duo's billing also varied between Grant and Wilson, Kid and Coot, and Hunter and Jenkins, as they went on to appear and later record with Fletcher Henderson, Mezz Mezzrow, Sidney Bechet, and Louis Armstrong. Their variety was such that they performed separately and together in vaudeville, musical comedies, revues and travelling shows. This ability to adapt also saw them appear in the 1933 film, The Emperor Jones, alongside Paul Robeson. In addition to this, the twosome wrote in excess of 400 songs over their working lifetime. That list included "Gimme a Pigfoot (And a Bottle of Beer)" (1933) and "Take Me for a Buggy Ride", which were both made famous by Bessie Smith's recording of the songs, plus "Find Me at the Greasy Spoon (If You Miss Me Here)" (1925) and "Prince of Wails" for Fletcher Henderson. Their own renditions included the diverse, "Come on Coot, Do That Thing" (1925), and "Dem Socks Dat My Pappy Wore“.

According to his death certificate, Johnson was born in 1897, in Independence, near Brenham, Texas. (Earlier, Temple, Texas had been suggested as his birthplace.) When he was five, he told his father he wanted to be a preacher and then made a cigar box guitar for himself. His mother died when he was young, and his father remarried soon after her death. Johnson was not born blind. Although it is not certain how he lost his sight, his alleged widow Angeline Johnson told Samuel Charters that when Willie was seven his father beat his stepmother after catching her going out with another man, and that she, out of spite, blinded young Willie by throwing lye in his face. His father would often leave him on street corners to sing for money. Tradition has it that he was arrested for nearly starting a riot at a New Orleans courthouse with a powerful rendition of "If I Had My Way I'd Tear the Building Down", a song about Samson and Delilah. According to Samuel Charters, however, he was simply arrested while singing for tips in front of the Customs House by a police officer who misconstrued the title lyric and mistook it for incitement. Timothy Beal argued that the officer did not, in fact, misconstrue the meaning of the song, but that "the ancient story suddenly sounded dangerously contemporary" to him.