雪在烧 司青:请问什么是Blues音乐?请用英文介绍详细点,谢谢大家了

About Blues

Blues is a vocal and instrumental musical form which evolved from African American spirituals, shouts, work songs and chants and has its earliest stylistic roots in West Africa. Blues has been a major influence on later American and Western popular music, finding expression in ragtime, jazz, big bands, rhythm and blues, rock and roll and country music, as well as conventional pop songs and even modern classical music.

Characteristics and early history

Early forms of the blues evolved in and around the Mississippi Delta in the Southern United States in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, using simple instruments such as acoustic guitar, piano, and harmonica, also known as the "blues harp." Songs had many different forms of structure, although the twelve-, eight-bar, or four-bar structure based on tonic, subdominant and dominant chords became predominant. Melodically, blues music is marked by the use of the lowered third and dominant seventh (so-called blue notes) of the associated major scale. The use of blue notes, as well as the prominence of call-and-response patterns in the music and lyrics, are indicative of the blues' West African pedigree.

The blues scale frequently is found in non-blues musical forms, such as popular songs like Harold Arlen's "Blues in the Night," blues ballads like "Since I Fell for You' and "Please Send Me Someone to Love," and even orchestral works like George Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue and Concerto in F. Indeed, the blues scale is ubiquitous in modern popular music and informs many modal frames, especially the ladder of thirds as in "A Hard Day's Night".

What is now recognizable as the standard 12-bar blues form with A A1 B form is documented from oral history and sheet music as appearing in African-American communities throughout the region along the lower Mississippi River during the decade of 1900s (and performed by white bands in New Orleans at least since 1908). One of these early sites of blues evolution was along Beale Street in Memphis, Tennessee.

Lyrically, verses of early blues songs consist usually of a single line of four-bars repeated twice, with a third rhyming line, such as:

Woke up this morning with the blues all in my bed
Yes, I woke up this morning with the blues all in my bed
Fixed my breakfast, the blues was all in my bread
In addition to the conventional 12-bar blues, there are many blues in 8-bar form, such as "How Long Blues" and even 16-bars, as in Ray Charles's instrumental, "Sweet 16 Bars."

Early blues frequently took the form of a loose narrative, often with the singer reciting his or her many misfortunes. Many of the oldest blues records contain gritty, realistic lyrics, in contrast to much of the music being recorded at the time. One of the more extreme examples, Down In The Alley by Memphis Minnie, is about a prostitute having sex with men in an alley. Music such as this was called "gut-bucket" blues. The term refers to chitterlings, a soul food dish prepared from pig intestines, then associated with slavery, deprivation and hard times. Gut-bucket blues and the rowdy juke-joint venues where it often was played, earned early blues an unsavory reputation. Proper, church-going people shunned it, and preachers railed against it as sinful. And because it often treated the hardships and injustices of life, the blues gained an association in some quarters with misery and oppression, however it was some of America's first socially aware music. But the blues was about more than hard times; it could be humorous and raunchy as well.

Rebecca, Rebecca, get your big legs off of me,
Rebecca, Rebecca, get your big legs off of me,
It may be sending you baby, but it's worrying the hell out of me.
In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, W.C. Handy took blues across the tracks and made it respectable, even "high-toned." The formally trained musician, composer and arranger was a key popularizer of blues. Known as the "Father of the Blues," Handy was one of the first to transcribe and then orchestrate blues in an almost symphonic style, with bands and singers. Extremely prolific over his long life, Handy's signature work was the "St. Louis Blues".

Jazz bands often recorded blues tunes from 1917 on. In the 1920s, the blues became a major element of American popular music. With the rise of the recording industry, there was increased popularity of country blues singers and guitarists like Blind Lemon Jefferson and Blind Blake, who recorded for Paramount Records, and Lonnie Johnson who recorded for OKeh Records. Son House, Robert Johnson, Charley Patton, Mississippi John Hurt are a handful of musicians who greatly influenced the blues and many later "rock" artists. These recordings came to be known as "race" records, since they were targeted almost exclusively to an African-American audience. In addition, women blues singers were extremely popular in the 1920s, among them Mamie Smith, Gertrude "Ma" Rainey, Bessie Smith, and Victoria Spivey.

History of modern blues

In the 1940s and 1950s, increased urbanization and the use of amplification led to electric blues music, popular in cities such as Chicago, Detroit and Kansas City and best exemplified by such artists as Howlin' Wolf, Muddy Waters, Jimmy Reed, Little Walter and John Lee Hooker. Electric blues certainly would give rise to rock and roll.

The appeal of blues remained strong in later decades. The music of the Civil Rights, Black Pride and Free Speech movements in the U.S. prompted a resurgence of interest in American roots music in general and in early African-American music, specifically. Artists such as Eric Clapton, Canned Heat, Janis Joplin and Jimi Hendrix, influenced by both early and electric blues musicians, brought the blues to a new, younger audience. Through these artists and others both earlier and later, blues music has been strongly influential in the development of rock and roll.

As well, blues masters like John Lee Hooker, B.B. King, and Muddy Waters continued to perform to enthusiastic audiences, inspiring new artists steeped in traditional blues, such as New York-born Taj Mahal. Mahal's music was featured prominently in "Sounder," a 1972 Hollywood Oscar-nominated movie set in rural Louisiana in the 1930s, starring Cicely Tyson and Paul Winfield. "Sounder" did much to revive interest in old-school, acoustic blues. Eight years later, the film The Blues Brothers helped increase awareness of mid-20th century-style urban blues among a younger audience.

Since 1980, blues has continued to thrive in both traditional and new forms through the continuing work of Taj Mahal and the music of Robert Cray, Albert Collins, Bonnie Raitt, Keb' Mo' and others. Around this time blues publications such as Living Blues and Blues Review began appearing at newstands, major cities began forming blues societies and outdoor blues festivals became more common. More nightclubs and venues such as Manny's Car Wash, the Slippery Noodle and the Zoo Bar emerged. In the 1990's and today blues performers are found touching elements from almost every musical genre. Young performers such as Alvin Hart, Jonny Lang, Anson Funderburgh, Susan Tedeschi, Corey Harris and Anthony Gomes keep blues alive, fresh and innovative. Please see List of blues musicians for more information.

And blues forms turn up in some surprising places. The theme to the televised Batman was blues, as was teen idol Fabian's first hit, "Turn Me Loose." Likewise, many jazz classics, such as Charlie Parker's "Now's the Time," also use the blues form without lyrics. The first great country music star Jimmie Rodgers was a blues performer.

Blues dancing

Blues
Stylistic origins: African American spirituals and work songs
Cultural origins: Early West African musical and cultural expression, late 19th century Southern United States, especially the Mississippi Delta
Typical instruments: Guitar - Piano - Harmonica - Bass - Drums - Vocals
Mainstream popularity: In its pure form, modest, but strong; also in more rock-based styles
Derivative forms: Jazz, R&B, Rock, Soul
Subgenres
Classic female blues - Country blues - Delta blues - Jazz blues - Jump blues - Piano blues
Fusion genres
Blues-rock - Soul blues
Regional scenes
African blues - British blues - Chicago blues - Detroit blues - European blues - Kansas City blues - Louisiana blues - Memphis blues - Piedmont blues - St. Louis blues - Swamp blues - Texas blues - Western blues
Other topics
Musicians - Blues scale
Blues is a vocal and instrumental musical form which evolved from African American spirituals, shouts, work songs and chants and has its earliest stylistic roots in West Africa. Blues has been a major influence on later American and Western popular music, finding expression in ragtime, jazz, big bands, rhythm and blues, rock and roll and country music, as well as conventional pop songs and even modern classical music.

Contents [showhide]
1 Characteristics and early history

2 History of modern blues

3 Blues dancing

4 See also

5 Samples

6 External links

Characteristics and early history
Early forms of the blues evolved in and around the Mississippi Delta in the Southern United States in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, using simple instruments such as acoustic guitar, piano, and harmonica, also known as the "blues harp." Songs had many different forms of structure, although the twelve-, eight-bar, or four-bar structure based on tonic, subdominant and dominant chords became predominant. Melodically, blues music is marked by the use of the lowered third and dominant seventh (so-called blue notes) of the associated major scale. The use of blue notes, as well as the prominence of call-and-response patterns in the music and lyrics, are indicative of the blues' West African pedigree.

The blues scale frequently is found in non-blues musical forms, such as popular songs like Harold Arlen's "Blues in the Night," blues ballads like "Since I Fell for You' and "Please Send Me Someone to Love," and even orchestral works like George Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue and Concerto in F. Indeed, the blues scale is ubiquitous in modern popular music and informs many modal frames, especially the ladder of thirds as in "A Hard Day's Night".

What is now recognizable as the standard 12-bar blues form with A A1 B form is documented from oral history and sheet music as appearing in African-American communities throughout the region along the lower Mississippi River during the decade of 1900s (and performed by white bands in New Orleans at least since 1908). One of these early sites of blues evolution was along Beale Street in Memphis, Tennessee.

Lyrically, verses of early blues songs consist usually of a single line of four-bars repeated twice, with a third rhyming line, such as:

Woke up this morning with the blues all in my bed
Yes, I woke up this morning with the blues all in my bed
Fixed my breakfast, the blues was all in my bread
In addition to the conventional 12-bar blues, there are many blues in 8-bar form, such as "How Long Blues" and even 16-bars, as in Ray Charles's instrumental, "Sweet 16 Bars."

Early blues frequently took the form of a loose narrative, often with the singer reciting his or her many misfortunes. Many of the oldest blues records contain gritty, realistic lyrics, in contrast to much of the music being recorded at the time. One of the more extreme examples, Down In The Alley by Memphis Minnie, is about a prostitute having sex with men in an alley. Music such as this was called "gut-bucket" blues. The term refers to chitterlings, a soul food dish prepared from pig intestines, then associated with slavery, deprivation and hard times. Gut-bucket blues and the rowdy juke-joint venues where it often was played, earned early blues an unsavory reputation. Proper, church-going people shunned it, and preachers railed against it as sinful. And because it often treated the hardships and injustices of life, the blues gained an association in some quarters with misery and oppression, however it was some of America's first socially aware music. But the blues was about more than hard times; it could be humorous and raunchy as well.

Rebecca, Rebecca, get your big legs off of me,
Rebecca, Rebecca, get your big legs off of me,
It may be sending you baby, but it's worrying the hell out of me.
In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, W.C. Handy took blues across the tracks and made it respectable, even "high-toned." The formally trained musician, composer and arranger was a key popularizer of blues. Known as the "Father of the Blues," Handy was one of the first to transcribe and then orchestrate blues in an almost symphonic style, with bands and singers. Extremely prolific over his long life, Handy's signature work was the "St. Louis Blues".

Jazz bands often recorded blues tunes from 1917 on. In the 1920s, the blues became a major element of American popular music. With the rise of the recording industry, there was increased popularity of country blues singers and guitarists like Blind Lemon Jefferson and Blind Blake, who recorded for Paramount Records, and Lonnie Johnson who recorded for OKeh Records. Son House, Robert Johnson, Charley Patton, Mississippi John Hurt are a handful of musicians who greatly influenced the blues and many later "rock" artists. These recordings came to be known as "race" records, since they were targeted almost exclusively to an African-American audience. In addition, women blues singers were extremely popular in the 1920s, among them Mamie Smith, Gertrude "Ma" Rainey, Bessie Smith, and Victoria Spivey.

History of modern blues
In the 1940s and 1950s, increased urbanization and the use of amplification led to electric blues music, popular in cities such as Chicago, Detroit and Kansas City and best exemplified by such artists as Howlin' Wolf, Muddy Waters, Jimmy Reed, Little Walter and John Lee Hooker. Electric blues certainly would give rise to rock and roll.

The appeal of blues remained strong in later decades. The music of the Civil Rights, Black Pride and Free Speech movements in the U.S. prompted a resurgence of interest in American roots music in general and in early African-American music, specifically. Artists such as Eric Clapton, Canned Heat, Janis Joplin and Jimi Hendrix, influenced by both early and electric blues musicians, brought the blues to a new, younger audience. Through these artists and others both earlier and later, blues music has been strongly influential in the development of rock and roll.

As well, blues masters like John Lee Hooker, B.B. King, and Muddy Waters continued to perform to enthusiastic audiences, inspiring new artists steeped in traditional blues, such as New York-born Taj Mahal. Mahal's music was featured prominently in "Sounder," a 1972 Hollywood Oscar-nominated movie set in rural Louisiana in the 1930s, starring Cicely Tyson and Paul Winfield. "Sounder" did much to revive interest in old-school, acoustic blues. Eight years later, the film The Blues Brothers helped increase awareness of mid-20th century-style urban blues among a younger audience.

Since 1980, blues has continued to thrive in both traditional and new forms through the continuing work of Taj Mahal and the music of Robert Cray, Albert Collins, Bonnie Raitt, Keb' Mo' and others. Around this time blues publications such as Living Blues and Blues Review began appearing at newstands, major cities began forming blues societies and outdoor blues festivals became more common. More nightclubs and venues such as Manny's Car Wash, the Slippery Noodle and the Zoo Bar emerged. In the 1990's and today blues performers are found touching elements from almost every musical genre. Young performers such as Alvin Hart, Jonny Lang, Anson Funderburgh, Susan Tedeschi, Corey Harris and Anthony Gomes keep blues alive, fresh and innovative. Please see List of blues musicians for more information.

And blues forms turn up in some surprising places. The theme to the televised Batman was blues, as was teen idol Fabian's first hit, "Turn Me Loose." Likewise, many jazz classics, such as Charlie Parker's "Now's the Time," also use the blues form without lyrics. The first great country music star Jimmie Rodgers was a blues performer.

Blues dancing
Blues is also the name for an informal type of swing dancing with no fixed patterns and a heavy focus on connection, sensuality and improvisation, often with body contact. Although usually done to blues music, it can be done to any slow tempoed 4/4 music, including rock ballads and "club" music.

List of genres of the blues

African blues
Blues-rock
Blues shouter
British blues
Chicago blues
Classic female blues
Country blues
Delta blues
Detroit blues
Gospel blues
Jazz blues
Jump blues
Kansas City blues
Louisiana blues
Memphis blues
Piano blues
Piedmont blues
Soul blues
St. Louis blues
Swamp blues
Texas blues
Western blues
There are several genres unrelated to the blues in any factual sense but are described as blues-like or bluesy. These are typically urban in origin, simple in instrumentation and featuring plaintive, melancholy vocals that emphasize the singer's poor luck and, often, violent or criminal behavior. Anthropologist Joaquim Reis de Brito describes the phenomenon this way:

Thus, if we take together the Fado of Lisbon, the Tango of Buenos-Aires and the Rembetika of Athens, we will note firstly that all of them emerged a little before or after the middle of the 19th century in poor districts of the big port cities of the nascent industry, attracting people from the country or from abroad, and who were confined to a marginal existence. And if we look for other parallels in the development of these urban popular cultures, we will find them again: first, their obscure and repressed beginnings, then their discovery and appropriation by elements of the higher social classes, later their acceptance and admission by the establishment (often after their success outside of the native land) before ending as a subject of tourist explorations.
Note that not all of the characteristics above are common to all the genres compared to blues, and not all are true of the blues itself.

Bikutsi - Cameroonian music
Bolel - Ethiopian music
Bomba - Puerto Rican music
Bozlak - Turkish music
Calypso - Trinidadian music
Country - American music
Cumbia - Colombian music
Doina - Romanian music
Fado - Portuguese music
Flamenco - Spanish music
Kroncong - Indonesian music
Llanto - Panamanian music
Luk thung - Thai music
Mariachi - Mexican music
Merengue - Dominican music
Morna - Cape Verdean music
Rembetika - Greek music
Rai - Algerian music
Reggae - Jamaican music
Rumba - Cuban music
Samba - Brazilian music
Schrammelmusik - Austrian music
Sevdalinka - Bosnian music
Shaabi - Egyptian music
Sawt - Kuwaiti and Bahraini music
Taarab - Tanzanian music
Cura砚 music
Tango - Argentinian music
Zilin - Beninese music

List of blues musicians

Early Country Blues
Richard "Rabbit" Brown
Blind Lemon Jefferson
Blind Blake
Blind Boy Fuller
Blind Willie Johnson
Blind Willie McTell, (1901-1959)
Mississippi John Hurt
Lonnie Johnson
Robert Johnson, (1911-1939)
Mance Lipscomb, (1895-1976)
Brownie McGhee, (1915-1996)
Big Bill Broonzy, (born 1893)
Reverend Gary Davis, (1896-1972)
Bessie Tucker
Ida Cox
Mississippi Fred McDowell
Memphis Minnie
Frank Stokes
Sippie Wallace
Josh White
Peetie Wheatstraw
Bumble Bee Slim
Charley Patton
Tampa Red
Bo Carter
Sleepy John Estes
Jesse Fuller
Charlie Patton
Son House
Sonny Terry
Lightnin' Hopkins
Leadbelly, (1885-1949)
Skip James, (1902-1969)
Furry Lewis
Mem

No American form of music would be what it is today without blues. The influence is heard not just in rhythm and blues, but also jazz, country and rock and roll. What you just heard was from a song called "Sweet Little Angel," by one of the best-known blues musicians of all, B.B. King.

So where did blues come from? You could say it arrived hundreds of years ago with the ships that brought slaves from Africa. These men and women lost almost everything, but not their music.

They brought it with them. This music was played on simple instruments. And it was sung by both men and women. Much of it also had a beat that people danced to.

If you want to dance, music has to have a tempo that lets you move with the music. Listen for a few moments to the great African recording star Miriam Makeba. This song is called "Kwazulu."

Blues Music: A style of music evolved from southern Black American secular songs and usually distinguished by slow tempo and flatted thirds and sevenths. 中文翻译:蓝调音乐，或者叫布鲁斯音乐，一种源于美国南部黑人通俗歌曲的音乐风格，通常表现为音速低缓，演奏第三和第七音节的降调。