A history of the blues
A history of the blues
From field hollers to Chicago, by way of one railway platform in Tutwiler.
It starts in the fields. Work songs, field hollers, call and response — music built to be sung by people whose hands were busy, and to carry across distance. Nobody wrote it down, because writing it down was not the point.
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Tutwiler, 1903
W. C. Handy, a trained bandleader, was waiting for a late train at Tutwiler station, a few miles from here, when a man beside him began playing a guitar with a knife blade pressed to the strings, singing about going where the Southern crosses the Dog. Handy called it « the weirdest music I had ever heard ». He wrote it down, and the blues entered the written record.
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The crossroads
The legend says Robert Johnson met the devil where two highways cross and traded his soul for the guitar. The story attached itself to the junction of 61 and 49 in Clarksdale, and the town has a sign there now.
The legend is a legend. What is documented is the playing: twenty-nine recorded songs, a technique nobody has fully explained, and a death at twenty-seven in 1938 near Greenwood. The photograph here is his grave — the only two authenticated portraits of him are under contested copyright and cannot be shown freely.
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Up the road, then up the country
Charley Patton at Dockery Farms. Son House teaching the slide. Muddy Waters at Stovall Farms, recorded by Alan Lomax in 1941 and gone north soon after. The Illinois Central carried the music to Chicago along with the people, and in Chicago it was plugged in and got louder.
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And then rock'n'roll
In 1951, Ike Turner's Kings of Rhythm drove from Clarksdale to Memphis and recorded « Rocket 88 » at Sam Phillips' studio. It was released under the name of the saxophonist who sang it, Jackie Brenston. The distorted guitar on it came from a damaged amplifier. It is regularly called the first rock'n'roll record.
Turner had bought his first instruments at Levine's Music Center on Sunflower Avenue. That building is now Red's Lounge, and there is still music in it most nights.
A history of the blues
A history of the blues
From field hollers to Chicago, by way of one railway platform in Tutwiler.
It starts in the fields. Work songs, field hollers, call and response — music built to be sung by people whose hands were busy, and to carry across distance. Nobody wrote it down, because writing it down was not the point.
Section
Tutwiler, 1903
W. C. Handy, a trained bandleader, was waiting for a late train at Tutwiler station, a few miles from here, when a man beside him began playing a guitar with a knife blade pressed to the strings, singing about going where the Southern crosses the Dog. Handy called it « the weirdest music I had ever heard ». He wrote it down, and the blues entered the written record.
Section
The crossroads
The legend says Robert Johnson met the devil where two highways cross and traded his soul for the guitar. The story attached itself to the junction of 61 and 49 in Clarksdale, and the town has a sign there now.
The legend is a legend. What is documented is the playing: twenty-nine recorded songs, a technique nobody has fully explained, and a death at twenty-seven in 1938 near Greenwood. The photograph here is his grave — the only two authenticated portraits of him are under contested copyright and cannot be shown freely.
Section
Up the road, then up the country
Charley Patton at Dockery Farms. Son House teaching the slide. Muddy Waters at Stovall Farms, recorded by Alan Lomax in 1941 and gone north soon after. The Illinois Central carried the music to Chicago along with the people, and in Chicago it was plugged in and got louder.
Section
And then rock'n'roll
In 1951, Ike Turner's Kings of Rhythm drove from Clarksdale to Memphis and recorded « Rocket 88 » at Sam Phillips' studio. It was released under the name of the saxophonist who sang it, Jackie Brenston. The distorted guitar on it came from a damaged amplifier. It is regularly called the first rock'n'roll record.
Turner had bought his first instruments at Levine's Music Center on Sunflower Avenue. That building is now Red's Lounge, and there is still music in it most nights.