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List of Delta blues musicians. The Delta blues is one of the earliest styles of blues music. It originated in the Mississippi Delta, a region of the United States that stretches from north to south between Memphis, Tennessee, and Vicksburg, Mississippi, and from east to west between the Yazoo River and the Mississippi River.
- Reference
- Robert Johnson. 125 votes. More Robert Johnson. Dig Deeper... Robert Johnson Is An Early Member Of The 27 Club, And His Death May Be Due To A Deal With The Devil.
- Son House. 85 votes. More Son House. #185 of 532 on The 540+ World's Greatest Guitarists Of All Time, Ranked. #18 of 178 on The Best Blues Artists of All Time.
- Mississippi Fred McDowell. 35 votes. More Mississippi Fred McDowell. #304 of 532 on The 540+ World's Greatest Guitarists Of All Time, Ranked. #40 of 178 on The Best Blues Artists of All Time.
- Muddy Waters. 81 votes. More Muddy Waters. Dig Deeper... The Best Muddy Waters Albums of All Time. #189 of 318 on The 300+ Best Rock Singers Of All Time, Ranked.
- Overview
- The early tradition
Mississippi Delta blues, regional style of early 20th-century American folk music, centred in the Delta region of northwestern Mississippi. The pioneers of the style played a key role in developing the market for traditional blues recordings in the 1920s and ’30s, while the subsequent generation of Delta-born guitarists contributed to the rise of C...
The Mississippi Delta style of blues—or, simply, Delta blues—emphasized solo performances by singers accompanying themselves on guitar and relying on a host of distinctive techniques, such as the sliding of a bottleneck or metal object (such as a knife) along the fingerboard to bend notes, the use of melodic phrases on the guitar to respond to the voice in an improvised call-and-response pattern, and a reliance on vamps (repeated chord progressions that precede the entrance of the voice) and melodic and rhythmic figures that often deviated from the typical chord progressions and formal 12-bar (measure) structure found in most blues performances. Above all, Delta blues music was marked by a particular intensity of vision that was both projected through the lyrics of the songs and underscored by the players’ often aggressive attack on the guitar strings. Song topics encompassed familiar laments of failed romance, stories of sexual escapades (often described in double-entendre references), and tales of rambling and life on the road, as well as apocalyptic musings on salvation and damnation.
Performance venues were often informal and happenstance. W.C. Handy, composer of the classic “St. Louis Blues” (1914), recalled an early encounter with blues music about 1903 at a train station in Tutwiler, Mississippi, where he heard a man dressed in rags singing while playing the guitar with a knife. Performances also took place at juke joints (informal roadside taverns for drinking and dancing) on plantations and street corners. Folk music scholars John and Alan Lomax, meanwhile, documented Delta blues music in field recordings made at the Mississippi State Penitentiary, colloquially known as “Parchman Farm,” in Sunflower county, Mississippi.
Scattered accounts by travelers and researchers indicate the prevalence of blues music in the Delta region since at least the turn of the 20th century, although no commercial recordings were made until the late 1920s. Associated primarily with male singer-guitarists, the Delta sound stood in marked contrast to earlier recordings of the “classic” blues singers, such as Bessie Smith and Ma Rainey, which had emphasized female vocalists working with small combo accompaniment. The Paramount record label enjoyed great success with the Delta blues recordings of Charley Patton, who had been a farmworker on Dockery Farms cotton plantation in Sunflower county, especially his “Pony Blues,” which was released in 1929. The following year, Paramount made a series of recordings by Eddie (“Son”) House, whose music failed to find a large audience at the time but exerted a powerful influence on later blues performers, notably Robert Johnson and Muddy Waters. Tommy Johnson, who recorded for both the Victor and Paramount labels, also contributed to the Delta legacy with his widely emulated guitar style; his “Big Road Blues” (1928) inspired the Mississippi Sheiks’ “Stop and Listen Blues” (1930) as well as the 1968 rock hit “On the Road Again” by the band Canned Heat.
The recording of blues music was sharply curtailed during the Great Depression, yet a few traditional blues musicians from Mississippi continued to find opportunities to record. Skip James developed a deeply personal blues style on guitar—often using an unconventional tuning—as well as on piano. Although his 1931 recordings for Paramount sold poorly at the time, songs such as “Hard Time Killing Floor Blues,” “Devil Got My Woman,” and “I’m So Glad” later gained recognition as blues classics; the latter song was featured on a 1966 hit album by the rock-music trio Cream. Booker (“Bukka”) White, another prominent Mississippi guitarist, enjoyed commercial success with his 1937 recording “Shake ’Em on Down,” and in 1940 he recorded an especially influential group of songs, including “Parchman Farm Blues” and “District Attorney Blues,” both of which addressed issues of social justice that were typically avoided in traditional blues music.
Robert Johnson, born in Hazelhurst, Mississippi, in 1911, was the most important Delta musician of the era, although his recorded legacy is limited to 29 songs—the output of sessions held in Dallas and San Antonio, Texas, during the last few years of his life. Drawing on the work of earlier Mississippi blues artists, notably Son House and Skip James, as well as on techniques learned from various recordings, Johnson crafted a polished, fluid guitar style that was widely emulated by later blues and rock musicians. Only his “Terraplane Blues” sold well during his lifetime, but in later decades, many musicians recorded Johnson’s other compositions, such as “Sweet Home Chicago,” “Love in Vain,” “I Believe I’ll Dust My Broom,” and “Come On in My Kitchen.” Robert Johnson, The Complete Recordings, released by Columbia in 1990, became a surprise crossover hit, ultimately selling more than a million copies and earning a Grammy Award for best historical album.
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Feb 16, 2010 · The blues recordings that came out of the Mississippi Delta from the late 1920s through the late '30s have had an enormous impact on American music, influencing everyone from The Rolling Stones...
- Nick Morrison
Delta blues is one of the earliest-known styles of blues. It originated in the Mississippi Delta and is regarded as a regional variant of country blues . Guitar and harmonica are its dominant instruments; slide guitar is a hallmark of the style.
Feb 17, 2021 · With Mississippi Delta roots, blues music ripples through generations. Hallowed Sound. Raised in the Mississippi Delta, the blues shaped music for generations. Lici Beveridge USA...
Sep 22, 2023 · The Delta blues, born in the fertile soil of the Mississippi Delta in the early 20th century, stands as the foundational bedrock of American blues music. Characterized by its raw emotional power, evocative storytelling, and soul-stirring melodies, Delta blues has had an enduring influence on the entire spectrum of modern music.
