Chapter 01 of 5
Born in the Delta
How work songs, field hollers and a few bent notes became the blues.
- The Place
The Mississippi Delta
The blues grew up in the Mississippi Delta, a flat, fertile stretch of cotton country in the American South.
- The Time
After slavery
It took shape in the decades after emancipation, among Black communities working the land as sharecroppers and labourers.
- The Roots
Work songs
Its roots lay in work songs, sung to keep time and spirits up during back-breaking labour in fields and on railroads.
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🎸 How the Blues Built Rock
- 01Born in the DeltaHow work songs, field hollers and a few bent notes became the blues.
- 02The Blues QueensThe women who made the first blues records, and sold them by the hundred thousand.
- 03The Crossroads LegendRobert Johnson: 29 songs, a mysterious death and a deal with the devil.
- 04Going Electric in ChicagoThe Great Migration, Muddy Waters and the record label that made the blues loud.
- 05The Blues Comes HomeHow British bands sold the blues back to America, and what they owed.