1. This is where is all started.

2. The Blues: Musical Elements This music has a direct connection to the African-American traumas of slavery and post slavery. The purpose of the blues as music is to provide solace, comfort, and entertainment, if not joy.

3. The Blues: Musical Elements The blue note is played or sung at a slightly lower than normal scale and slides up and down along a tiny continuum of pitches. Blues lyrics range from elaborately prepared narratives to discontinuous improvised couplets drawn from a common pool of formulaic lines.

4. The Blues: Musical Elements Blues poetic form: aab - Line b rhymes with line a and resolves with a humorous or ironic twist. The 12-bar-blues progression consists of 3 4-bar phrases: I I I I / IV IV I I / V V I I and can be drawn out. This contrast with the symmetrically phrased 8-, 16-, or 32-bar forms of much popular music.

6. The Blues: Styles Down home (Country Blues) Boogie Woogie and Barrelhouse (Piano) Classic Blues Chicago (Urban) Blues Modern Blues

7. We need to who sang the blues. Bessie Smith (The Empress of the Blues) - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Who6fTHJ34 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Who6fTHJ34 Big Joe Turner - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=20Feq_Nt3nM http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=20Feq_Nt3nM Eric Clapton and Buddy Guy - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BTVUvHiuaGw http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BTVUvHiuaGw Robert Johnson (Father of the Blues) - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O8hqGu-leFc http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O8hqGu-leFc Joe “Pine Top” Perkins http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FHlM2Qr9TZQ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FHlM2Qr9TZQ Big Mama Thornton http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wZRaK0j8DMs

8. More blues legends! Big Bill Broonzy Ruth Brown Ray Charles The Chess brothers (Leonard and Marshall) Willie Dixon Muddy Waters W.C.Handy Howlin’ Wolf Son House Leadbelly Little Richard

9. And more! B.B.King Taj Mahal Bonnie Raitt Gertrude “Ma” Rainey The Rolling Stones Koko Taylor Sister Rosetta Tharpe Big Mama Thornton (the first Hound Dog) And more. http://www.pbs.org/theblues/songsartists/songsbioalpha. html

10. A brilliant documentary A documentary about Robert Johnson: Can You Hear the Wind Howl? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SRKXRdWAeW4 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SRKXRdWAeW4

11. How about a guitar lesson? Delta Blues Guitar Lesson - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v =vc-J_Ew8Jw0 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v =vc-J_Ew8Jw0

12. Question: So, why are the blues so popular in the United States and even in other English-speaking countries?