Around the 19th century the amazing music genre blues was born, some say in the american south. It has a deep and tragic story behind it though. To feel “blue” means that you’re somehow feeling sad and that’s very true. The music genre blues is originated from African musical traditions, African-American work songs, spirituals and folk music.
African-American work songs is a nicer name for slavery work songs. The slavery was very rough, specially in the south of USA.
The music genre blues is something truly amazing though. Some say that the most beautiful and emotionally moving songs are blues.
Mississippi John Hurt was a blues artist who was born in 1893. He was an amazing artist who learned how to play the guitar when he was only 9 years old. It evolved and he started playing guitar and singing in local pubs and parties and he became a great singer. A little down the road he was signed by a music label, then he got a small career that didn’t last very long. Sadly he returned to his home town of Avalon and started working as a farmer. He only released to songs with the music label, one of them was Louis Collins. The song is about a mother, Mrs. Collins, who’s sad that her son is leaving to join the army.
To truly experience the real blues music you should go to the american south and walk the same blocks that these old blues legends used to walk and find inspiration in. You can find cheap and nice flights to your favourite blues-town destinations at http://avionero.com/.
Another great blues musician was also born in Mississippi, Nehemiah Curtis James, also known as “Skip James“. Skip James wasn’t born in Avalon as Mississippi John Hurt, Skip James was born in Bentonia.
Skip James was born in 1902 and passed away in 1969. During his musical career he managed to learn how to play the guitar and the piano. He recorded his very first album with the music label Paramount and it was released in 1931. Due to the economic depression at the time it wasn’t very easy to sell alot of records. The music label didn’t like the fact that so few records were sold and Skip James didn’t record anymore music in over 30 years.
But in the year of 1960 he was rediscovered by three other blues musicians. Their discovery lead to that Skip James played at the Newport Folk Festival in 1964, and he kept on playing at several folk and music festivals until his passing in 1969.
During these years Skip James recorded alot of music and lots of his songs have been interpreted by lots of other musicians.