1920s – 2020sPeak: 1950s
Blues
About Blues
The blues grew out of African American work songs, spirituals, and field hollers in the Mississippi Delta around 1900 and became the root system of American popular music. Its twelve-bar form and bent blue notes passed through Robert Johnson's acoustic recordings and the electric Chicago sound of Muddy Waters and Howlin' Wolf into rock and roll, soul, and jazz. B.B. King carried it to concert halls worldwide.