# The Blues

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Category: Music
Slides: 30
Updated: 2026-05-15T22:18:42.019Z
Tags: music, blues

## Summary

The blues is a 12-bar form, a flat-third-and-flat-seventh harmonic palette, and a vocal idiom — and also a cultural inheritance carried by African Americans from the post-Reconstruction South into 20th-century American music. Key sections include: The Blues.; Opening What the blues is.; Chapter I Roots.; Chapter II The 12-bar form.; Chapter III Country blues.; Chapter IV Robert Johnson.; Chapter V Texas, Piedmont, the regional styles.; Chapter VI Classic blues — the women.; Chapter VII The Great Migration and electrification.; Chapter VIII Chicago blues..

## Slide Outline

1. The Blues.
2. Opening What the blues is.
3. Chapter I Roots.
4. Chapter II The 12-bar form.
5. Chapter III Country blues.
6. Chapter IV Robert Johnson.
7. Chapter V Texas, Piedmont, the regional styles.
8. Chapter VI Classic blues — the women.
9. Chapter VII The Great Migration and electrification.
10. Chapter VIII Chicago blues.
11. Chapter IX Memphis and rhythm-and-blues.
12. Chapter X The British blues invasion.
13. Chapter XI The folk-blues rediscovery.
14. Chapter XII Soul and the post-blues turn.
15. Chapter XIII Modern blues.
16. Chapter XIV The instruments.
17. Chapter XV What the blues is about.
18. Chapter XVI Race and appropriation.
19. Chapter XVII The essential discography.
20. Chapter XVIII Films and books.
21. Chapter XIX Visiting the blues.
22. Chapter XX If you want to play.
23. Chapter XXI The blues now.
24. Chapter XXII Open questions.
25. Chapter XXIII Twenty-five works.
26. Chapter XXIV Watch & listen.
27. Chapter XXV If you want to learn the music.
28. Chapter XXVI Why the blues matters.
29. Chapter XXVII The next decade.
30. The end of the deck.

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