In the 1920’s and 1930’s blues guitarists like Blind Lemon Jefferson, Are House, Robert Johnson, and Lonnie Johnson were the most influential blues musicians of the time. They used a slide tone bar that changed the sound of the music that came from the guitar. Most of their music was solo improvised guitar music.
In the 1940’s the style of blues changed to more of a bigger band type sound that included a rhythm section. After World War II in the 1950’s the blues guitar became electrified and amplified. This type of music came out of the Chicago area and was characterized by the sounds of Howlin Wolf, Muddy Waters, and Jimmy Reed. All these players grew up in Mississippi, but many migrated to Chicago. The blues bands of this time typically had the main electrical guitar as well as a harmonic and a rhythmic section. Many times the bands would have a saxophone as well which added more dimension to the sound.
BB King and Freddie King were a couple of the most popular names in blues in the 1950’s. They were somewhat unique at the time because they did not make use of the slide tone bar when they played the guitar. BB King has been considered by many to be one of the biggest blues guitarists of all time. Freddie King has been called the king of the guitar of the Boogie Woogie.
Other artists from Chicago such as T-Bone Walker and John Lee Hooker were creating what some called the California Blues. T-Bone Walker was born in Scythes, and Hooker was born in Mississippi. The California Blues was a smoother sound than the Chicago Blues and is something of a melting pot of Chicago blues, jump blues, and some of jazz swing.
In the 1960’s the blues gained much in popularity with the general public thanks partly to Paul Butterfield Band Blues and what later the Movement of British blues would be called. Groups like Fleetwood Mac, Cream, John Mayall and the Bluesbreakers, Rolling Stone, and the Yardbirds released several classic blues songs. Many of these songs inspired American blues artists of rock like Janis Joplin, Jimmy Hendrix, and Johnny Winter.
Meanwhile in Chicago Albert King, Buddy Guy, and Luther Allison created a blues style that became known as West Side Chicago Blues. Their bands were dominated by the amplification of electrical guitar blues and strongly influenced later artists like Stevie Ray Vaughan, Johnny Lang, and Kenny Wayne Shepherd.
In the 1980’s the blues enjoyed a great resurgence in the United States. The Texas Rock Films of Stevie Ray Vaughan and The Fabulous Thunderbirds brought the blues to the radio stations of American rock. Eric Clapton, who originally gained his fame with the band Cream and John Mayall, continued making great classic blues records. Many famous, legendary guitarists of blues such as Buddy Guy and BB King continue sharing the scene with the new generation of guitarists of blues like Robert Cray, Joe Bonamassa, Walter Trout.
