By Roadjunky, Posted Dec 05, 2006
Sections: African Origins of the Blues Early Country Blues The Chicago Sound Can White Men Play the Blues? Blues Culture and Artists Blues and Travel
Got rambling, rambling on my mind,
Hate to leave you, pretty baby, but you treats me so unkind..
The USA was less built upon the shoulders of brave pioneers than on the backs of the millions of slaves imported from Africa. In the 18th century the famous ‘Triangle Trade’ between West Africa, The Southern US States and England planted the seeds of geo-political power as we now know it. Puppet kings in Africa hunted nearby populations and dragged them into slavery.
They were then exported by the British to America and conditions aboard were so miserable that most never died before they even saw the New World. Slaves were exchanged with Southern landowners for cotton and this was taken to England to be made into clothes in the mills of Liverpool and Manchester. These same clothes were then sold in Africa (and the rest of the Empire) for more slaves.
Every effort was made to stamp out any trace of African culture in the slaves that reached America alive. Slaves of the same tribes were divided so that English had to be learnt as a common tongue and any sign of practicing African religion or tradition was punished with the whip or worse. They were all forcibly converted to Christianity and given their own churches to worship in though few were inclined to imagine that God heard their prayers.
If their culture, language and tradition was more or less vanquished there was no denying their spirit. As the slaves worked in the fields they evolved work songs to help them pass the laborious work of picking cotton and harvesting fruit. These field hollers were sung in chorus and the slaves began to put their suffering into verse.
After the American Civil War ended blacks won their freedom in name in 1865 but conditions continued much as before. Now their previous owners were forced to pay them for their work but the wage was pretty miserable and some believe that living conditions initially got worse.
Some have speculated that prejudice and fear of the blacks even increased after Emancipation. With a free black population the white landowners were afraid of losing all they had and waking up with their throats slit. These reactionary bigots undertook to oppress the blacks as much as possible and lynchings, terrorism and arrests became commonplace. No black defendant ever won a court case against a white and the State jail used the prison population to build their roads.
The blacks worked on ‘chain gangs’, so named as all the workers were bound by the ankle on a long, heavy chain so that none could escape. They swung their pick axes at the ground in two facing rows, each side taking it’s turn to swing. They sang a two part chorus to ensure they kept the rhythm and thus made sure that no one lost their head.
This rhythm, combined with the wailing field hollers provided the musical foundation for the blues. The material was to be found in the day to day oppression the blacks faced everywhere. All they needed now was someone to put it to music.
African Origins of the Blues
Early Country Blues
The Chicago Sound
Can White Men Play the Blues?
Blues Culture and Artists
Blues and Travel
