History of blues guitar
The blues guitar evolved partly from folk culture in the Southern United States. Blues guitar formed a foundation for many other musical styles we have today and still remains as a music genre of its own.
You just can't play guitar and have a love of music without having respect for the blues. The Blues era made way for rock ‘n roll, R & B and more.
Early blues can be traced back to the Mississippi Delta and the surrounding area. This acoustic style came to be known as the “Delta blues”. Blues was born in African American culture. A society that was breaking free from its ancestor's chains of slavery and had a long heritage tied to music.
The mass production of guitars led to more people owning them and learning to play them which led to blues guitar music.
Important Figures in Blues Guitar
Some very important blues musicians included Charley Patton, “Bukka” White, “Skip” James, “Mississippi” John Hurt, Blind Lemon Jefferson, Blind Willie Johnson, Robert Johnson and more.
Later on, famous Blues Guitarists included Lonnie Johnson, Big Bill Broonzy, Tampa Red, Scrapper Blackwell and more. After World War 2, Southern guitarists began moving north to cities like Chicago and a new wave of Blues emerged with guitarists like T-Bone Walker, Muddy Waters, B.B. King, Otis Rush and more.
The 1960s brought a new bloom of emerging acoustic blues as well as a new swarm of electric blues players. This surge and popularity has continued today and also influenced many other musicians and musical genres of the 20th Century.
Playing Blues Guitar
If you want to learn to play Blues Guitar, the first thing you need to do is listen to as much as possible. Listen to different types of Blues over the years and see what your favorites are. Most blues songs consist of 12 bars of 4 beats each, called the 12-bar blues. Usually there are 3 sung bars in a 4 bar section. The first line is usually sung twice. When listening to Blues, you will notice this.
If you are looking to play a good blues solo, you can find many types of music. You can find guitar tabs that are pretty basic and easy for you to learn but will sound fantastic when you master them. 12 bar blues are not the only type out there either so you may want to learn other types that were inspired by jazz, country, etc.