One of
America's few indigenous musical forms, the blues developed
from a polyglot of sources - the African "griot" or storyteller
tradition brought here by black slaves, gospel music, work and
prison songs that often used a "call and response" pattern, and the
rhythms of ragtime piano music. As Alex Gibney puts it, this music
born of slaves and sharecroppers reflects the American paradigm,
"something that has individual power and strength but is able to
allow for and integrate a number of other voices."
The founding voices of American blues, most of them born in
Mississippi, include
Robert Johnson (who, legend has it, struck a
deal with the devil in exchange for his guitar skill), Charley
Patton, Son House, Elmore James, Sonny Boy Williamson II, and
Howlin' Wolf, bluesmen who wrung their art out of poverty,
back-breaking physical work, and discrimination.
"This strange music started coming from the most oppressive, harsh
conditions," says Charles Burnett, who was born in Vicksburg,
Mississippi, and came home to film "Warming by the Devil's Fire,"
his contribution to the PBS series. "In spite of all that, these
talented, expressive people created this poetry and this new
American art form."
For decades, blues was almost exclusively Southern,
African-American music. That began to change just before and during
World War II, when many black musicians made their way north from
the Delta along with thousands of other African-Americans, fleeing
Jim Crow racism and seeking wartime employment. In the bigger,
noisier cities like
Chicago, musicians like
Muddy Waters, Bo
Diddley, and B.B. King shifted to electric guitars and began to
attract a smattering of whites to their shows. AM radio also began
to take the blues to a wider
audience.