I Feel Sad Today Trivia Quiz

Answer: Blind Lemon Jefferson

Lemon Henry "Blind Lemon" Jefferson hailed from Texas, and yes, he was actually born blind. He popularized a new style of blues that was associated with rural life and had guitar as the only instrument. He started out as a street corner musician, but his quirky guitar style caught the attention of the right people, and he got the chance to record a number of songs, advertised as 'downhome blues' between 1926 and 1929, the year of his death.

"Black Horse Blues" was a 1926 song that was adapted from an English ballad to his country blues style.

Synonymous with the country blues are the terms folk blues, rural blues, and backwoods blues (plus the previously mentioned downhome blues).

Answer: Gus Cannon

Gus Cannon (AKA Banjo Joe) popularized the Memphis blues style that was grew out of the vaudeville and medicine shows - an upbeat, danceable take on the country (and Delta) blues that included a few new instruments to the genre. Not just guitar and harmonica, but also violins, mandolins, and banjos, backed up with washboards, kazoos and jugs blown to supply the bass.

Cannon started out playing with other musicians in the Memphis area, but eventually started his own Jug Band (Gus Cannon's Jug Stompers), which recorded many traditional blues songs, along with some originals written by himself or other members of the band.

"Madison Street Rag" (1928) specifically featured banjo, guitar, harmonica, jug, and vocals (plus some whistling and talking).

Answer: Robert Johnson

Robert Johnson was born in Hazlehurst, Mississippi and spent most of his musical career close to home in the Mississippi Delta for which the Delta blues style is named. Considered a sub-genre to country blues, the difference is found mostly in the instrumentation, with the inclusion of harmonica and the slide guitar technique (sliding a metal or glass object - like a bottle - up and down the fretboard).

"Traveling Riverside Blues" was recorded by Johnson in 1937, but was not released until the 1961 compilation album "King of the Delta Blues Singers".

Answer: Lil Johnson

Hokum is a style of blues that grew out of minstrel shows and vaudeville, where the performance was a comedic farce, usually providing sexual innuendos through euphemisms and wordplay. This was transferred to the blues genre, and made its first appearances in the jug bands of the Memphis blues style (in Beale Street saloons and bordellos).

Lil Johnson, known for singing Hokum and dirty blues (even more explicit) during the 1920s and '30s, wrote and performed this little ditty that really captured the Hokum style of blues:

"Meat Balls" (1937)
"Got out late last night, in the rain and sleet
Tryin' to find a butcher that grind my meat
Yes I'm lookin' for a butcher
He must be long and tall
If he want to grind my meat
'Cause I'm wild about my meat balls"

Answer: Count Basie

Urban blues transitioned to the traditional big band jazz format with a largely standard instrumentation of saxophones, trumpets and trombones with rhythm section. With a few different prevalent styles to draw from, big band blues would often combine elements. Songs were often pure instrumentals with lots of opportunity for improvisation, but were not shy in including vocals.

"One O'Clock Jump" (1937) is a great example of this where Basie kicks things off with an eight-bar boogie-woogie introduction before moving into two improvised 12-bar blues choruses (by Basie). At this point the rest of the band comes in and different soloists play off of the original 'head' tune using riffs and call-and-response techniques for the rest of the tune.

Answer: Jimmy Yancey

Boogie-woogie is a style of urban blues that put more focus on dancing than on the emotional lyrics that often accompanied blues songs. The earliest boogie-woogie songs were on piano (sometimes with a singer - usually the same person), but this would expand to larger ensembles.

Characterized by a faster eighth-note bass line ('eight to the bar'), the basic form still followed the 12-bar blues, but generally with more energy.

Jimmey Yancey was described as "one of the pioneers of this raucous, rapid-fire, eight-to-the-bar piano style" and even developed a style with his left hand bass line that came to be known as the 'Yancey bass'. "Beezum Blues" was one of his first recordings (after many years of performing without bothering to record anything) in 1939 and is purely instrumental with just the solo piano bouncing along in a style that makes it hard to sit still while listening to it.

Answer: T-Bone Walker

Already known for his mastery of the acoustic West Coast blues and Texas blues styles, T-Bone Walker became a pioneer of the jump blues and the electric blues (the first blues music to transition to using electronic amplification). This was mostly used for the guitar and double bass (which slowly changed to electric bass over time) and harmonicas played at a microphone. Amplification arose (with the technology) out of a need to play loud enough to be heard above the crowd at an event, and without a large complement of instrumentalists (like a big band orchestra).

"Call It Stormy (But Tuesday's Just As Bad)" (1947) is in the West Coast blues style known for its strong piano sounds and jazzy guitar solos (and smooth vocals). But with the electronic amplification to distinguish it from its predecessors. Walker recorded the song prior to the US entry into WWII, but chose to delay its release until after the war.

Answer: Muddy Waters

Muddy Waters became known as the "father of modern Chicago blues" for his impact on the post-war blues scene in Chicago. The style was a direct outgrowth of Delta blues brought up by musicians during the 'Great Migration' of African Americans escaping the harsh Jim Crow laws of the Deep South. This era saw a big move to northern urban areas, including Chicago and St. Louis, that had industrial job opportunities.

"Rollin' Stone" was such a pivotal song of the Chicago blues style that it became the basis for the name of the band The Rolling Stones, as well as one of the contributing factors to the naming of "Rolling Stone Magazine".

Answer: Ray Charles

Rhythm & Blues (R&B) has developed a lot since its beginnings in the 1940s, but the roots of the genre remain surprisingly consistent. R&B rose from what was then referred to as 'race music' and was marketed as music by black musicians for black people. The titles changed to market the catchy tunes to wider audiences, and before too long, Rhythm & Blues sounds were taking the world by storm.

The earliest R&B songs grew out of a combination of blues, gospel music, and jazz with the inclusion of a back beat and afro-cuban rhythms.

"I Got a Woman" (originally "I've Got a Woman") was built on the 1954 song "It Must Be Jesus" by the Southern Tones with the lyrics and R&B stylings co-written between Charles and Renald Richard. They released the song as a single that same year.

Answer: Eric Clapton

Blues rock was born out of rock and roll bands (and solo artists) playing blues songs in their idiom. This was a practice that expanded beyond the borders of North America and reached the shores of the UK with such groups as the Rolling Stones, the Yardbirds, and the Animals. The style expanded on the established Chicago/electric blues by keeping to a (largely) rock band instrumentation and a heavier guitar sound built on riffs and with a (generally) faster tempo.

Of course, Eric Clapton played with the Yardbirds, as well as with Cream, both bands that reveled in the blues rock style. Clapton embraced the style and made it his own. "Layla" (1970) was written by Clapton and Jim Gordon and originally recorded by the band he was in at the time, Derek and the Dominoes. The song was based off a Persian story of a young man who fell in love with a beautiful young lady, but went crazy because of it and could not marry her. Clapton was also inspired by the parallel of his illicit love for George Harrison's wife at the time, Pattie Boyd. Boyd and Clapton would eventually get married (in 1979) after she divorced Harrison in 1977.