For over 25 years Chicago has been hosting it’s annual blues festival.  It’s an incredible scene with several stages set up throughout Grant Park.  The admission is free and every year thousands and thousands of blues lovers come together to celebrate this great genre.

The Chicago story came about some 90 years ago as the blacks from the South began moving to the more Northern cities in the early 1900s.  Chicago was a place of promise for them.  It gave them hope for more opportunity and a better life.  Much of what their music was based on.

Many musicians on their journey North stopped at Memphis and spent time there, which is why Memphis today is such an important part of the blues history.  In Chicago, though the players were starting to plug in their guitars, and the blues music became infused with an edgier, more electrified sound.  Roaring vocals and boogie-woogie style became popular across the city’s venues and the Chicago style began to take hold.

The recording industry also made the Chicago scene boom.  Chess Records, Vee-Jay and numerous other small labels were a huge force in this city.  Muddy Waters exemplified the Chicago sound of the 40s and 50s. It was aggressive and electric, and by the late 40s Chicago was a powerhouse for this electric blues.

The blues had it’s own economical and cultural draw.  Blues clubs abounded in the city such as the South Side’s Maxwell Street.  Tourists and locals alike who were huge supporters of the blues, would spend their money in the stores, and on liquor in the clubs.  They would frequent the hairdressers, and clothing stores.  This “heyday” cemented Chicago as the Blues capitol.

In the late 60s and 70s blues began to lose its popularity with black audiences.  Some believe this was due to the increasing popularity of disco, soul and R&B.  Yet the blues did begin to gain more attention from the white audience.  A new collection of clubs began to open on Chicago’s North side because of this interest.

Today, even though Chicago’s South side has drastically changed, the Chicago scene remains alive from the North side’s traditional blues to the south Side’s blues melded with soul.  Chicago’s Blues Fest helps keep this alive.

In the early 1900s is when the Blues as we know it today took shape in this country.  But if you have studied the Blues you know that it’s roots stem back hundreds of years and many miles across the Atlantic Ocean to both Africa and Europe before taking root in the American South.

It was actually the blending and clashing of African and European music where it all started.  Add to that the spice of the American South and you have the Blues as it is today.

The use of flatted notes (the 3^rd, 5^th, and 7^th) come from the indigenous music of West Africa, therefore the Blues have mostly been influenced by African-American culture.  And interestingly enough the lyrics of Blues stem from the “field hollers” of slaves. The instruments most associated with the Blues are guitar, harmonica, and piano, which are not African in origin but they come from Europe.

Then during the Reconstruction Era in America (post Civil War period), proto-blues music began to develop due to dance halls and bars that were frequented by the rural working class.  These “Juke Joints” began to sprout up all over the South.

The music created and listened to in these joints was made for dancing, and in time a shuffling beat similar to the “ragtime beat” became popular.  This rhythm would soon become well known and associated with the Blues.

As the Reconstruction Era ended, African Americans were faced with much racism and poverty.  They were forced to travel from place to place to find work.  Many of them made an attempt to make a living with their music, and so they traveled with guitar in hand via train.  No wonder trains are such a common symbol in Blues music.  As these musicians traveled, the incredible music and lyrics of the Blues was spread and is now a world wide passion.