1. Blues The effects and history of an African American pastime…

2. General description American Blues o Originated in colonies of former African American slaves o Based upon spirituals, field hollers and chants often heard on plantations. Characteristics o Used to convey emotions and often used call and response o Often about personal woe, a lost love, the cruelty of police officers, oppression at the hands of white folk. o An early form of blues known as "gut-bucket" blues is named after a homemade bass instrument made from a metal bucket used to clean pig intestines for chitterlings, a dish associated with slavery. Musical Style o 12 bar blues became standard in the 1930s, later 8 and 16 o based the pentatonic scale and a prominent form of the minor penetonic scale

3. Evolution of Blues Busy with ragtime, American sheet music publishers wasted no time in pursuing similar commercial success with the blues … W.C. Handy In 1912 transcribed and then orchestrate blues in a symphonic style, with bands and singers-exposed to a white crowd. Father of the Blues After WWII In the 1950s urbanization and amplification technologies led to new styles and audiences In the 1960s African American music like soul and Rock were exposed to large white audiences and popularized by white performers.

4. Musical Impact From the batman theme song to a beatles tune, blues has affected popular music in a big way… After WWII Blues and Jazz led to Bebop and rock, shaping both white collared music and baby boomer rock. White musicians adopted rock/blues style but with clean lyrics An example is hound dog which adopted both the structure and harmonics of blues.

5. Blues clips Performed by Leadbelly, a folk singer and guitarist; this Southern Appalachian song dates to the 1870s Janis Joplin's try shows the evolution of blues and its changing message