African blues

African blues
African blues
Stylistic origins	Music of Africa; Music of West Africa; various blues styles
Cultural origins	Africa blues styles
Typical instruments	Ngoni, guitar, Kora, Calabash, Djembe, Balafon,
Derivative forms	Rock and roll, R&B, swing

African blues is a genre of popular music, primarily from West Africa. The term may also reference a putative journey undertaken by traditional African music from its homeland to the United States and back.^[1] Some^[which?] scholars and ethnomusicologists have speculated that the origins of the blues can be traced to the musical traditions of Africa, as retained by African-Americans during and after slavery.^[2] Even though the blues is a key component of American popular music, its rural, African-American origins are largely undocumented, and its stylistic links with African instrumental traditions are somewhat tenuous.^[3] One musical influence that can be traced back to African sources is that of the plantation work songs with their call-and-response format, and more especially the relatively free-form field hollers of the later sharecroppers, which seem to have been directly responsible for the characteristic vocal style of the blues.^[3]

Albums such as African Blues by Ali Farka Toure have a noticeable African and American Blues influence.^[clarify] The death of Malian guitar legend Ali Farka Touré has inspired a new round of speculation about the roots of the blues in Africa. Touré famously argued that the beloved American genre was "nothing but African", a bold assertion. The question has received extensive scholarly attention in Gerhard Kubik's book Africa and the Blues, and in Paul Oliver's Savannah Syncopators: African Retentions in the Blues.^[2]

Notable artists

References

^ Meyerson-Knox, Saul (2007). "African Blues": the Sound and History of a Transatlantic Discourse (BA). University of Cincinnati. Archived from the original on 4 March 2016. Retrieved 3 October 2015.
^ ^a ^b Komara, Edward; Washburn, Robert (2005). "Africa". In Komara, Edward (ed.). Encyclopedia of the Blues. Psychology Press. pp. 10–13. ISBN 978-0-415-92699-7.
^ ^a ^b Oliver, Paul. "Blues". Grove Music Online. Oxford Music Online. Retrieved 3 October 2015. From obscure and largely undocumented rural American origins, it became the most extensively recorded of all traditional music types... Since the early 1960s blues has been the most important single influence on the development of Western popular music... In its early years the blues was wholly African American... Influential in its development were the collective unaccompanied work-songs of the plantation culture, which followed a responsorial 'leader-and-chorus' form that can be traced not only to pre-Civil War origins but to African sources. Responsorial work-songs diminished when the plantations were broken up, but persisted in the southern penitentiary farms until the 1950s. After the Reconstruction era, black workers either engaged in seasonal collective labour in the South or tended smallholdings leased to them under the system of debt-serfdom known as sharecropping. Work-songs therefore increasingly took the form of solo calls or 'hollers', comparatively free in form but close to blues in feeling. The vocal style of the blues probably derived from the holler... Blues instrumental style shows tenuous links with African music. Drumming was forbidden on slave plantations, but the playing of string instruments was often permitted and even encouraged, so the musicians among slaves from the savanna regions, with their strong traditions of string playing, predominated. The jelli, or griots – professional musicians who also acted as their tribe's historians and social commentators – performed roles not unlike those of the later blues singers, while the banjo is thought to be a direct descendant of their banza or xalam.(subscription required)

External links

Article on African Blues

[Meyerson-Knox-2014-1] Meyerson-Knox, Saul (2007). "African Blues": the Sound and History of a Transatlantic Discourse (BA). University of Cincinnati. Archived from the original on 4 March 2016. Retrieved 3 October 2015.

[Komara-2005-2] Komara, Edward; Washburn, Robert (2005). "Africa". In Komara, Edward (ed.). Encyclopedia of the Blues. Psychology Press. pp. 10–13. ISBN 978-0-415-92699-7.

[Grove-3] Oliver, Paul. "Blues". Grove Music Online. Oxford Music Online. Retrieved 3 October 2015. From obscure and largely undocumented rural American origins, it became the most extensively recorded of all traditional music types... Since the early 1960s blues has been the most important single influence on the development of Western popular music... In its early years the blues was wholly African American... Influential in its development were the collective unaccompanied work-songs of the plantation culture, which followed a responsorial 'leader-and-chorus' form that can be traced not only to pre-Civil War origins but to African sources. Responsorial work-songs diminished when the plantations were broken up, but persisted in the southern penitentiary farms until the 1950s. After the Reconstruction era, black workers either engaged in seasonal collective labour in the South or tended smallholdings leased to them under the system of debt-serfdom known as sharecropping. Work-songs therefore increasingly took the form of solo calls or 'hollers', comparatively free in form but close to blues in feeling. The vocal style of the blues probably derived from the holler... Blues instrumental style shows tenuous links with African music. Drumming was forbidden on slave plantations, but the playing of string instruments was often permitted and even encouraged, so the musicians among slaves from the savanna regions, with their strong traditions of string playing, predominated. The jelli, or griots – professional musicians who also acted as their tribe's historians and social commentators – performed roles not unlike those of the later blues singers, while the banjo is thought to be a direct descendant of their banza or xalam.(subscription required)

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v t e Blues
Musical form	Blue note Blues ballad Blues scale Call and response Eight-bar blues Musical improvisation Shuffles Traditional blues verses Twelve-bar blues Walking bass
Origins	Origins Field hollers Spirituals Work songs American folk music
Regional styles	Africa Desert blues Canada Chicago Delta Hill country Louisiana New Orleans Swamp Memphis New Zealand Piedmont Texas Turkey United Kingdom West Coast
Subgenres	Boogie-woogie Classic female Country Delta Hill country Dirty Electric Fife and drum Hokum Holler Jug band Skiffle
Fusion genres	Rhythm and blues Blues rock Biker metal Boogie rock Punk Southern rock Gospel Jump Soul
Lists	Blues musicians Blues musicians by genre Blues standards Blues festivals
Blues portal Category Blues songs

Notable artists

References

Further reading

External links