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Blues developed in the southern United States after the Civil War. It was influenced by work songs and field hollers, minstrel-show music, ragtime, church music, and the folk and popular music of whites. Blues derived from and was largely played by southern black men, most of whom came from the milieu of agricultural workers. The earliest references to blues date back to the 1890s and early 1900s. In 1912 black bandleader W.C. Handy 's composition “Memphis Blues” was published. It became very popular, and thereafter many other Tin Pan Alley songs entitled blues began to appear. The rural blues developed in three principal regions, Georgia and the Carolinas , Texas , and Mississippi.
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The blues of Georgia and the Carolinas are noted for their clarity of enunciation and regularity of rhythm. Influenced by ragtime and white folk music, they are more melodic than the Texas and Mississippi styles. Blind Willie McTell and Blind Boy Fuller were representative of this style.
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The Texas blues are characterized by high, clear singing accompanied by supple guitar lines that consist typically of single-string picked arpeggios rather than strummed chords. Blind Lemon Jefferson was by far the most influential Texas bluesman.
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Mississippi Delta blues are the most intense of the three styles and have been the most influential. Vocally they are the most speech-like, and the guitar accompaniment is rhythmic and percussive; a slide or bottleneck is often used. The Mississippi style is represented by Charley Patton ,Willie Brown, Eddie “Son” House, Robert Johnson , and Johnny Shines.
The first blues recordings: made in the 1920s by black women such as Mamie Smith, Ma Rainey , Ida Cox, and Bessie Smith. These performers were primarily stage singers backed by jazz bands; their style is known as classic blues.
The urban blues: The Great Depression and the world wars caused the geographic dispersal of the blues as millions of blacks left the South for the cities of the North. The blues became adapted to the more sophisticated urban environment. Lyrics took up urban themes, and the blues ensemble developed as the solo bluesman was joined by a pianist or harmonica player and then by a rhythm section consisting of bass and drums. The electric guitar and the amplified harmonica created a driving sound of great rhythmic and emotional intensity.
Among the cities in which the blues initially took root were Atlanta , Memphis, and St. Louis . In the 1920s and 1930s Memphis Minnie, Tampa Red, Big Bill Broonzy , and John Lee “Sonny Boy” Williamson were popular Chicago performers.
After World War II they were supplanted by a new generation of bluesmen that included Muddy Waters, Chester Arthur Burnett (Howlin' Wolf), Elmore James, Little Walter Jacobs , and Otis Spann.
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