Chicago Blues

Chicago Blues

The definition of the Blues by The Random House Dictionary of the English Language is “A song of American Negro origin, that is marked by the frequent occurrence of blue notes and that takes the basic form of a 12-bar chorus consisting of a 3-line stanza, with the second line repeating the first.” In this paper I am going to examine the Chicago Blues. First, I will examine the history of the Blues and where it all started. Second, I will look at the Great Migration and how it affected and impacted the Blues. Third and finally, I will look at the best Chicago blues artist of all time, Muddy Waters and examine his contributions to the Blues. With the examples that I specified before and through my extensive research of the Chicago Blues, I believe that the Great Migration played a pivotal role in popularizing the Blues.

As many blues scholars have noted, no one knows precisely where and when the blues began. Certainly, some elements of African-American...