Black Blues & Blues Migration
Blacks created the blues in the Delta during the 1910s (map from National Geographic, April 1999), and it is still played in juke joints like Richard Game Room throughout the Delta. Optional: 1) Read Clyde Woods' Development Arrested: Race, Power, and the Blues in the Mississippi Delta. London: Verso, 1998. 2) Visit John L. Doughty, Jr.'s wonderful Delta juke joints web site. As the blues spread northward and elsewhere in the United States, it influenced subsequent styles of music and many white musical groups, such as the Rolling Stones with Mick Jagger who recycled black music to white audiences. Why did the blues spread where it did?
From the Delta, the Illinois Central was the main railroad
going north: first to Memphis and then on to
Chicago. [See the
The African-American Mosaic: A Library of Congress Resource Guide for the Study of Black
History and Culture.]
The blues spread across the country as blacks migrated to northern cities. Check out the sound of Chicago Blues.
In Memphis, Beale
Street,
the black business and church district until 1950s,
continues the blues tradition with its W. C. Handy
Park and musical "Walk
of Fame"-- even though today only blues bars
(with restaurants) and music stores with a largely white audience
remain! Most nights, especially on weekends, Beale
Street can have as many as 30 music venues in just three blocks!
Follow (including sounds) the Islamic roots of the Blues.
Examine another aspect of southern culture, the literature of William Faulkner.
