History of Blues Timeline

Regional styles of country blues varied widely in the early 20th century, developing distinct traditions across the American South including Delta, Piedmont, and Texas blues.

It was only in the first decades of the 20th century that the most common current structure became standard: the AAB pattern, consisting of a line sung over the first four bars, its repetition over the next four, and then a longer concluding line over the last bars.

Image source: Twelve-bar blues

The first non-commercial recordings of blues music, termed proto-blues by Paul Oliver, were made by Odum for research purposes at the beginning of the 20th century, preserving early forms of the genre.

Odum published an anthology of folk songs from Lafayette County, Mississippi, and Newton County, Georgia, between 1905 and 1908, documenting secular songs from circa 1908–1910 featuring freely repeated or extended verses and flexible stanzaic forms.

Image source: Howard W. Odum

The first publication of blues sheet music occurred in 1908, marking the beginning of the blues entering the commercial publishing world.

Though the use of the phrase in African-American music may be older, it has been attested in print since 1912, when Hart Wand's 'Dallas Blues' became the first copyrighted blues composition.

Image source: Dallas Blues

By 1912, the sheet music industry had published three popular blues-like compositions precipitating Tin Pan Alley's adoption of blues elements: 'Baby Seals' Blues' by Baby Franklin Seals, 'Dallas Blues' by Hart Wand, and 'The Memphis Blues' by W.C. Handy.

Image source: Tin Pan Alley

W.C. Handy's 'Saint Louis Blues' was published in 1914 and exemplifies the AAB pattern that can be heard in some of the first published blues songs, alongside 'Dallas Blues'.

Image source: Saint Louis Blues (song)

In the early 20th century, the blues was considered disreputable, especially as white audiences began listening to the blues during the 1920s, reflecting social tensions around the genre.

A record of blues music as it existed before 1920 can also be found in the recordings of artists such as Lead Belly and Henry Thomas, preserving older folk styles of the genre.

Image source: Lead Belly

In 1920, vaudeville singer Lucille Hegamin became the second black woman to record blues when she recorded 'The Jazz Me Blues', expanding the presence of black women in early blues recording.

Mamie Smith, more a vaudeville performer than a blues artist, became the first African American to record a blues song in 1920; her rendition of Perry Bradford's 'Crazy Blues' sold 75,000 copies in its first month.

Image source: Crazy Blues

Kentucky-born Sylvester Weaver was in 1923 the first to record the slide guitar style, in which a guitar is fretted with a knife blade or the sawed-off neck of a bottle, a technique central to country blues.

Image source: Sylvester Weaver (musician)

Other recordings of blues that are still available were made in 1924 by Lawrence Gellert, contributing to the documentary record of early blues music.

Image source: Lawrence Gellert

Victoria Spivey, sometimes called Queen Victoria or Za Zu Girl, had a recording career that began in 1926 and spanned forty years, making her a significant figure in classic female blues.

Image source: Victoria Spivey

Tampa Red and Georgia Tom's 'It's Tight Like That' (1928) is a sly wordplay with the double meaning of being 'tight' with someone, coupled with a more salacious physical familiarity, exemplifying hokum blues.

Chicago became a center for electric blues from 1948 on, when Muddy Waters recorded his first success, 'I Can't Be Satisfied', helping define the electrified urban blues sound.

John Lee Hooker's first hit, 'Boogie Chillen', reached number 1 on the R&B charts in 1949, establishing his distinctive boogie style and national prominence.

Image source: Boogie Chillen'

After Phillips discovered Elvis Presley in 1954, the Sun label turned to the rapidly expanding white audience and started recording mostly rock 'n' roll, shifting away from its blues roster.

Image source: Sun Records

In England, electric blues took root during a much acclaimed Muddy Waters tour in 1958, inspiring a generation of British musicians who would launch the British blues movement.

Image source: British blues

Howlin' Wolf, who had worked alongside B.B. King earlier in his career, moved to Chicago in 1960, becoming one of the towering figures of the city's electric blues scene.

Image source: Howlin' Wolf

In 1963, Amiri Baraka, then known as LeRoi Jones, was the first to write a book on the social history of the blues in Blues People: The Negro Music in White America.

Image source: Blues People

John Lee Hooker blended his blues style with rock elements and playing with younger white musicians, creating a musical style that can be heard on the 1971 album Endless Boogie.

Image source: Endless Boogie

During the blues revival of the 1960s and 1970s, acoustic blues artist Taj Mahal and Texas bluesman Lightnin' Hopkins wrote and performed music that figured prominently in the critically acclaimed film Sounder (1972).

Image source: Sounder (film)

Perhaps the most visible example of the blues style of music in the late 20th century came in 1980, when Dan Aykroyd and John Belushi released the film The Blues Brothers, bringing blues to mass audiences.

Image source: The Blues Brothers (film)

Hill's Down Home Blues (1982) and Little Milton's The Blues is Alright (1984) marked significant successes for soul-blues artists in the early 1980s.

Image source: Z. Z. Hill

The first Stevie Ray Vaughan recording Texas Flood was released in 1983, and the Texas-based guitarist exploded onto the international stage, revitalizing mainstream interest in blues-rock.

Image source: Texas Flood

In 1986, the album Strong Persuader announced Robert Cray as a major blues artist, bringing contemporary blues to a wide audience.

Image source: Strong Persuader

John Lee Hooker's popularity was revived with the album The Healer in 1989, which paired him with younger rock and blues stars and won widespread acclaim.

Image source: The Healer (Sumac album)

1998 brought a sequel, Blues Brothers 2000, that, while not holding as great a critical and financial success as the original, featured a much larger number of blues artists such as B.B. King.

Image source: Blues Brothers 2000

Almost 30 years after Sounder, Taj Mahal wrote blues for, and performed a banjo composition claw-hammer style, in the 2001 movie release Songcatcher, focused on preserving the roots music of Appalachia.

Image source: Songcatcher

In 2003, Martin Scorsese made significant efforts to promote the blues to a larger audience through a major documentary project celebrating the genre.

Blues guitarist and vocalist Keb' Mo' performed his blues rendition of 'America, the Beautiful' in 2006 to close out the final season of the television series The West Wing.

Image source: Keb' Mo'

The blues was highlighted in season 2012, episode 1 of In Performance at the White House, entitled 'Red, White and Blues', celebrating the genre at the highest level of public recognition.

A study of the devil's role in the blues was published in 2017, called Beyond the Crossroads: The Devil & The Blues Tradition, exploring the mythology surrounding blues musicians and the devil.

A Jazzman's Blues by Tyler Perry (2022) is a film that provides a cinematic reflection of the blues, set against the background of the 1940s Deep South.

Image source: A Jazzman's Blues

The 2025 vampire horror film Sinners explores the blues genre through a supernatural narrative placed in the 1930s Mississippi Delta, bringing renewed attention to blues history and culture.

Image source: Sinners (2025 film)