KEB' MO': Welcome to The Blues. The history of America’s greatest roots music from PRI, Public Radio International. Major financial support for The Blues is proudly provided by Volkswagen. Since the beginning, the Blues and the open road have gone together, Volkswagen and music do the same. Join Volkswagen in celebrating 100 Years of the Blues.

Hi, I’m Keb’ Mo’ and it’s my pleasure to present to you the rich history of the Blues. Willie Dixon, one of America’s greatest songwriters, put it this way, “The Blues is the roots and the rest are the fruits.” Today the roots have born fruits all over the world. Jazz, rhythm and blues, rock and roll, soul music, even rap all have Blues as a foundation. On the surface Blues is simple, sometimes just three cords, sometimes just one cord with lyrics that repeat themselves. But below the surface there is an emotional sophistication that makes the Blues one of the most intense music forms you’ll ever hear.

Over the course of this radio series, we’ll meet many of the modern musicians who celebrate the Blues, including B.B. King, Buddy Guy, Bonnie Raitt, Eric Clapton, Chuck D, Mick Jagger, Koko Taylor and Taj Mahal. We’ll also hear archival interviews with past masters John Lee Hooker, Muddy Waters, Howlin’ Wolf, Rufus Thomas, Stevie Ray Vaughan, and many more. This is The Blues with “The Birth of the Blues.”

BONNIE RAITT: It didn’t start with Prince, it didn’t start with James Brown, it didn’t even start with Otis Redding, it started at the beginning of the Century. There would be no modern American music without the contribution of Blues, no jazz, no rhythm and blues, no pop music, no Beatles, no Stones.

MICK JAGGER: It’s part of the whole ethos of the band you know.

You know we always played Blues in the studio, you know and we’re never far away from it, That will always be there.

JOHN LEE HOOKER: Rock come from the Blues. Saying everything we saying about woman or a man, and a women, a women and a man. They’re saying the same thing that we are saying in the Blues but it saying in a different way. It’s in the same boat. They’re rocking the same boat. They just call it rock and roll.

CARLOS SANTANA: When I was a kid I used to hear old people say, “Hey, how you doing, man?” And you’d say “Oh, you know, the river just keeps rolling along.” I used to go, “What the hell does that mean?” You know? And now I know it’s like the river means consciousness. Consciousness is like a river. It just keeps flowing along, you know?: The Blues consciousness, I feel like I’ve been rafting ever since I discovered it and uh… to me it’s been a healing force.

GEORGE BENSON: I’ve always said that all of it is related, really. I know it’s easier to put things on the shelf if you can see the line between them. But since they all come from the same source, we’re all playing off the same notes, we all have the basic same experience, you know. People who play jazz don’t live on the other side of the planet, they live next door to a guy who loves classical music and a Blues guy down the street.

CHUCK D.: You know, rap music is pretty much an extension of the Blues, especially at its simplicity in its beginnings. You say what hits you in the head, what hits you in the heart and you let it go and it’s as simple as that. Don’t try to put no science to it. Tell a story over some, you know, tight grooves. It just is what it is. And you’ve got to bring it across like that.

B.B. KING: If I might add, Blues is not beer crying music. Its not always that. If I sing “I’ve got a sweet little angel, I love the way she spreads her wings. When she spread her wings around me, I get joy and everything.” I’m not blue at all. I’m happy, very happy. But, then on the other hand, if I should sing, “Nobody loves me but my mother, and she could be jiving too.,” now that’s the pits.

SONG: B.B. King, “Nobody Loves Me But My Mother”

KEB' MO': What we’re gonna do is take a look at the roots of Blues music. That was B.B. King and “Nobody Loves Me But My Mother.”

We began the program with famous musicians talking about the Blues, but what exactly is the Blues? It is a feeling? Is it a feeling expressed in a musical form?

WILLIAM FERRIS: One could suggest that there’s a whole modern philosophy of Blues that’s been developed within the world of literature, of photography and painting. It’s a, an aesthetic, the Blues aesthetic has been embraced by a worlds far beyond the music itself.

KEB' MO': William Ferris is co-editor of The Encyclopedia of Southern Culture. If Blues is a feeling, then it goes way back. In Olde England, having the Blues meant being bored or uninspired.

WILLIAM FERRIS: Obviously, the word “Blues” has been in the English language for centuries. But the application to the music probably was first used in the latter part of the 19th Century;. There were musics that began to be referred to as Blues and Blues singers.

ELVIN BISHOP: Blues was recycling before recycling was hip.

KEB' MO': Elvin Bishop of the Paul Butterfield Blues Band.

ELVIN BISHOP: Blues takes a bad situation, sings about it, gets it off a person’s chest and if it’s done right, it makes everybody feel better. You know, you can laugh or you can cry and I get tired of hearing people whine.

Blues has got a dignity to it and it’s a strong way of handling a bad situation. And God knows that life is full of bad situations. And Blues, that’s the way to deal with it, that’s cool. Don’t sit and whine. Sing the Blues. Be strong, yeah!

KEB' MO': During the last century Blues music has taken many forms and over the course of this radio series we’ll hear many types of music, all called the Blues. If you happen to be one of those people out there who doesn’t really know what the Blues is, and that’s okay… Here’s one way to spot the Blues: In many Blues tunes, one line if repeated twice and then a third line finishes the thought with a rhyme. This is what scholars call the A-A-B form.

WILLIAM FERRIS: The A-A-B is a very powerful part of African oral tradition.

KEB' MO': Once again, William Ferris.

WILLIAM FERRIS: The Blues echoes the proverbial phrase with a statement and a response: “Nobody loves me but my mama” is the statement and the response is “And she might be jiving, too.” These verses are really floating units. Each performance you may find an individual verse being plugged in to a song. So you rarely hear the Blues sung the same way every time.

KEB' MO': The A-A-B pattern of the Blues repeats in cycles. Here’s Guthrie Ramsey, Associate Professor of Music at the University of Pennsylvania and author of Race Music: Black Cultures from Be Bop to Hip Hop.

GUTHRIE RAMSEY: This cyclic pattern is heard in many of the drum patterns in West and Central Africa. Many scholars point to this cyclic conception of music making to a cyclic conception of time reckoning. Nature is cyclic. You have the seasonal planting and harvesting seasons and all that business. In a typical 12-bar Blues pattern, one would hear a cyclic chord progression that repeats over and over and over again until the tune is completed.

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