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BLUES. The earliest reference to what might be considered blues in Texas was made in 1890 by collector Gates Thomas, who transcribed a song titled "Nobody There." Thomas doesn't mention whether the singing was accompanied by an instrument, but he does indicate that it was a pentatonic tune containing tonic, minor, third, fourth, fifth, and seventh chords, all of which combined to produce something similar to a blues tune. Later Thomas published other song texts that he had collected from African Americansqv in South Texas. Some of these included verses that had been noted by other writers in different areas of the South. The song "Baby, Take a Look at Me," for example, was transcribed both by Thomas and Charles Peabody in Mississippi. And "Alabama Bound" and "C. C. Rider" are variants of blues songs that Jelly Roll Morton sang in New Orleans. Geographically diffuse sources suggest that blues musicians were itinerant and that blues was part of an oral tradition that developed in different areas of the South. By all accounts, the blues was widespread in the early 1900s. Thousands of blacks during this period were migratory, looking for work and escape from all too prevalent racism. Blues singers were often migrant workers who followed the crop harvests or lived in lumber camps and boom towns. Some settled down and labored as sharecroppers, leasing small tracts of land controlled by white landowners. Others continued roving from town to town, working odd jobs in the growing urban centers–Dallas, Houston, Shreveport, and Atlanta–cities where black migrant populations were crowded into neighborhoods of shotgun shacks and pasteboard houses.

Blues music expresses the hardships of newly freed black slaves. The freedoms offered by Reconstructionqv were hard-won–racism, Jim Crow laws, and the Ku Klux Klanqv were major obstacles to economic independence and self-determination. Still, leisure, even under the most desolate circumstances, was vitally new and served as a catalyst in the development of the blues. Early blues answered the need for a release from everyday life. The blues is an intensely personal music; it identifies itself with the feelings of the audience–suffering and hope, economic failure, the break-up of the family, the desire to escape reality through wandering, love, and sex. In this way, blues is somewhat different from African songs, which usually concern the lives and works of gods, the social unit (tribe and community), and nature. With its emphasis on individual experience blues reflects a Western concept of life. Yet, as a musical form it shows little Western influence. The traditional three-line, twelve-bar, aab verse form of the blues arises from no apparent Western source, although some blues does incorporate Anglo-American ballad forms that have six, ten, or sixteen bar structures. Early blues drew from the music of its time: field hollers and shouts, which it most closely resembles melodically; songster ballads, from which it borrows imagery and guitar patterns; spirituals and Gospel, which trained the voices and ears of black children. These, with exception of the ballad, were the descendants of African percussive rhythms and call-and-response singing. Although blues drew from the religious music of both African and Western cultures, it was often considered sinful. Blues singers were stereotyped as "backsliders" in their own communities. In many areas blues was known as the devil's music. As historian Larry Levine points out, blues blended the sacred and the secular. Like the spirituals and folktales of the nineteenth century, blues was a plea for release, a mix of despair, hope, and humor that had a cathartic effect upon the listener. The blues singer had an expressive role that mirrored the power of the preacher, and because of this power, blues was both embraced and rejected by blacks and their churches. In Texas, blues musician Lil Son Jackson explained to British blues aficionado Paul Oliver that it was, in effect, the spiritual power of the blues that made the music sinful. "If a man hurt within and he sing a church song then he's askin' God for help....if a man sing the blues it's more or less out of himself....He's not askin' no one for help. And he's really not really clingin' to no one. But he's expressin' how he feel. He's expressin' to someone and that fact makes it a sin, you know....you're tryin' to get your feelin's over to the next person through the blues, and that's what make it a sin." Because of the frequent lack of centralized authority in black churches, however, community opposition to the blues varied from place to place. Rarely were blues singers completely ostracized. They lived on the margins of what was acceptable and derived their livelihood from itinerant work at house parties and dances.

With the growth of the recording industry during the 1920s the audience for blues expanded among blacks nationwide. For example, demographic studies indicate that Blind Lemon Jefferson'sqv records sold thousands of copies to blacks in the urban ghettos of the North, but in Dallas Jefferson was recognized primarily as street singer who performed daily with a tin cup at the corner of Elm Street and Central Avenue. Despite his limited commercial success in Dallas, he had a great influence on the development of Texas blues. Huddie (Leadbelly) Ledbetterqv credited him as an inspiration, as did Aaron Thibeaux (T-Bone) Walker.qv What distinguishes Jefferson from the other blues performers of his generation was his singular approach to the guitar, which established the basis of what is today known as the Texas style. He strummed or "hammered" the strings with repetitive bass figures and produced a succession of open and fretted notes, using a quick release and picking single-string, arpeggio runs. T-Bone Walker later applied this technique to the electric guitar and, combined with the influences of the jump and swing blues of the regional or "Territory" jazz bands of the 1920s and 1930s, produced the modern sound.

In the Territory jazz bands of the Southwest, the guitar was used as a rhythm instrument to underlie the voice and horn sections. The introduction of the electric guitar occurred first in these bands and was pioneered by Eddie Durhamqv of San Marcos and Charlie Christianqv of Fort Worth. By using electric amplification jazz guitarists were able to increase the resonance and volume of their sound. Charlie Christian is credited with teaching T-Bone Walker about the electric guitar and its potential as a solo instrument. In the rhythm and blues of T-Bone Walker the electric guitar assumed a role that superseded the saxophone, which had until then been the prominent solo instrument in jazz. The interplay between the saxophone and the guitar remained important in rhythm and blues, but the relationship between the instruments was transformed. The rhythm and blues band sound became tighter and depended more on the interplay of the electric guitar with the horn section, piano, and drums.

In Texas, blues has developed a unique character that results not only from the introduction of the electric guitar, but also from the cross-pollination of musical styles–itself a result of the migratory patterns of blacks–as well as the impact of the recording industry and mass-media commercialization. Not only is the black population of Texas less concentrated than that of other states in the South, but blues music in Texas also evolved in proximity to other important musical traditions: the rural Anglo, the Cajun and Creole, the Hispanic, and the Eastern and Central European. The white crossover to blues in Texas began in the nineteenth century, when black fiddlers and guitar songsters played at white country dances. Eddie Durham recalled in interviews that his father was a fiddler who played jigs and reels as well as blues. Mance Lipscomb'sqv and Gatemouth Brown's fathers were songsters who played fiddle and guitar. White musicians were exposed to blues at country dances and minstrel shows and among black workers in the fields, road gangs, turpentine camps, and railroad yards. Country singer Bill Neelyqv said that he first heard blues when he picked cotton in Collin County north of Dallas in the 1920s, but he learned to play blues by listening to Jimmie (James Charles) Rodgers.qv Though known as a country singer, "Jimmie Rodgers was a bluesman," Neely maintained. "A lot of those songs Jimmie Rodgers didn't write. He got them from the blacks he heard when he was growing up in Mississippi and when he worked as a brakeman on the railroad." The influence of blues and jazz is also apparent in the early western swing bands of Bob (James Robert) Wills and Milton Brown, where the horn sections of the Territory jazz bands were imitated and developed through different instrumentation. In addition, blues and jazz influenced Hispanic as well as Anglo-European popular music.

In the 1920s Dallas became a recording center primarily because it is a geographical hub. The major race labels, those catering to an African-American audience, held regular sessions in Dallas. Okeh, Vocalion, Brunswick Columbia, RCA, and Paramount sent scouts and engineers to record local artists once or twice a year. Engineers came into the city, set up their equipment in a hotel room, and put the word out. Itinerant musicians found their way to Dallas, among them the legendary Delta bluesman Robert Johnson, who recorded there in 1937 (but was also recorded in San Antonio). In part, the intense recording activity in Dallas was spurred by the commercial success of Blind Lemon Jefferson, who was discovered by a Paramount record company executive on a Deep Ellumqv sidewalk and invited to Chicago to make race records. Between 1926 and 1929 Blind Lemon made more than eighty records and proved to be the biggest-selling country bluesman of his generation. As a result of his huge commercial success, blues singers from around the south flocked to Dallas with the hope of being recorded. Generally, these musicians lived and worked in the area around Deep Ellum and Central Tracks. Deep Ellum was the area of Dallas, north and east of downtown, where black newcomers to the city flocked. Branching off from Elm Street was Central Tracks, a stretch of railroad near the Union Depot, where the Texas and Pacific line crossed the Houston and Texas Central line. Lying east of the downtown business district and north of Deep Ellum, Central Tracks was the heart of the black community. In the area were Ella B. Moore's Park Theater, with vaudeville, minstrel, and touring blues and jazz shows, the Tip Top, Hattie Burleson's dance hall, the Green Parrot, and the Pythian Temple, designed by the black architect William Sidney Pittman.qv In addition to Blind Lemon Jefferson, there were other important blues musicians, who recorded in Dallas during the heyday of Deep Ellum and Central Tracks. These included Lonnie Johnson, Lillian Glinn, Little Hat Jones, Alger (Texas) Alexander, Jesse Thomas, Willard (Ramblin) Thomas, Sammy Hill, Otis Harris, Willie Reed, Oscar (Buddy) Woods, Babe Kyro (Black Ace) Turner, and the young T-Bone Walker. With the Great Depressionqv of the 1930s, race recording declined, but the Dallas area remained a center of blues activity. In the 1940s the railroad tracks on Central Avenue were torn up to make room for Central Expressway, which was built in the 1950s, and for R. L. Thornton Freeway in the 1960s. These changes choked Deep Ellum off from downtown and the area became a warehouse district with industrial suppliers and small businesses mixed in. In the 1980s the redevelopment of Deep Ellum stimulated commercial activity, street life, and a club scene that has become an important venue for contemporary blues. Among blacks in Dallas, the locus of blues activity in the 1940s and 1950s shifted from Central Tracks to North and South Dallas. The Rose Ballroom, opened by T. H. Smith in March 1942 and reopened as the Rose Room in April 1943, became a showplace for the best of the local and nationally known blues artists. T-Bone Walker performed there, as did Big Joe Turner, Pee Wee Crayton, Lowell Fulson, Eddie Vinson, Jimmy Nelson, and Henry (Buster) Smith.qv The Rose Room was renamed the Empire Room in 1951 and continued to feature the most popular rhythm and blues of the day: ZuZu Bollin, Lil Son Jackson, Clarence (Nappy Chin) Evans, Mercy Baby, Frankie Lee Sims, and Smoke Hogg. In the 1960s Chris Strachwitz of Arhoolie Records worked in earnest to release contemporary recordings of these and other blues musicians in Dallas and elsewhere in Texas. Since 1985, Documentary Arts, a nonprofit organization in Dallas, has been involved in the documentation and preservation of Texas blues through the production of radio features, films, videos, audio cassettes, and compact discs. The Dallas Blues Society has also worked to heighten public knowledge of the blues through the promotion of concerts and the production of audio recordings. In 1987 Dallas pianist Alex Moore became the first African-American blues musician from Texas to receive a National Heritage Fellowship from the Folk Arts Program National Endowment for the Arts.

African Americans in Houston settled mostly in four segregated wards: the Third, Fourth, Fifth, and Sixth. It was in the Third Ward that Sam (Lightnin) Hopkinsqv accompanied his cousin Alger (Texas) Alexander in the late 1920s, and where Hopkins returned by himself in the 1940s to play on Dowling Street. The Santa Fe Group gathered in the Fourth Ward.qv They were a loosely knit association of itinerant black pianists in the 1920s and 1930s that included Robert Shaw,qv Black Boy Shine, Pinetop Burks, and Rob Cooper, who played in the roadhouses and juke joints along the Santa Fe tracks, playing their distinctive style of piano that combined elements of blues with the syncopation of ragtime. In the Fifth Wardqv also there were black blues pianists, but their style of performance was even more eclectic. Probably the most well-known of these were members of the George W. Thomas family. The eldest, George Thomas, Jr., was born about 1885, followed by his sister, Beulah, better known as the classic blues singer Sippie Wallace, and her brother, Hersal. In Houston there were fewer opportunities for recording than in Dallas until after World War II,qv when several independent labels were started. The earliest to record blues was Gold Star, founded by Bill Quinn in 1946 as a hillbilly label to record Harry H. Choates.qv In 1947 Quinn decided to enter the race market by recording Lightnin' Hopkins. By the early 1950s competition among independent record labels in Houston was intense. Macy's, Freedom, and Peacock (as well as Bob Shad's New York-based Sittin-In-With label) were all involved in recording local and regional blues musicians, including Lightnin' Hopkins, Goree Carter, Lester Williams, Little Willie Littlefield, Peppermint Harris, Grady Gaines, and Big Walter Price. Of the Houston-based independent labels, Peacock emerged as the most prominent. Houston businessman Don Robey founded Peacock Records in 1949 to record Gatemouth Brown, who was the headliner at Robey's Bronze Peacock club. The first rhythm and blues singer with whom Robey made the charts was Marie Adams, whose song "I'm Gonna Play the Honky Tonks" was a hit in 1952. With this success, Robey expanded his recording interests by acquiring the Memphis label Duke Records. Through this acquisition Robey secured the rights to the musicians who were then under contract to Duke. These included Johnny Ace, Junior Parker, and Bobby Blue Bland. In addition to Peacock and Duke, Robey started the Songbird and Back Beat labels, as well as the Buffalo Booking Agency, which was operated by his associate, Evelyn Johnson. Robey's business began to wane in the early 1960s, but benefited greatly from the influx of British rock 'n' roll and the revival of interest in rhythm and blues. In 1973 Robey sold his recording and publishing interests to ABC/Dunhill. Concurrent with the growth of Peacock Records, a new generation of Houston-bred rhythm and blues musicians began their careers, but were not recorded by Don Robey. These musicians included Albert Collins, Johnny Copeland, Joe Hughes, Johnny Watson, Clarence and Cal Green, and Pete Mayes. Playing at the Club Matinee, Shady's Playhouse, the Eldorado Ballroom, and other nightspots around Houston, these musicians emulated the music of T-Bone Walker and eventually developed their own distinctive performance styles.

Austin was slower to develop as a recording center than Dallas or Houston, although there is a long history of blues in Central Texas. The relatively small black population of Austin made the capital unappealing for record producers until the 1960s, when the "Austin Sound" began to attract national attention. With the influx of white musicians, including Jimmie Vaughan, Stevie Ray Vaughan,qv Joe Ely, Angela Strehli, and Kim Wilson, the enthusiasm for blues has grown significantly. The success of these musicians has also benefited many older African-American blues musicians who gained a larger audience outside of their own community and performed at Antone's, the Continental Club, and other venues near the University of Texas campus. In Austin, T-Bone Walker clearly had the biggest influence upon aspiring black blues musicians, including Dooley Jordan, Jewel Simmons, and T. D. Bell. Bell himself has also inspired younger blues artists, such as Herbert (Blues Boy) Hubbard and W. C. Clark. In the 1950s the Victory Grill on East Eleventh Street was an important venue for local musicians as well as for nationally touring acts. In addition to rhythm and blues, Austin has also been the home of barrelhouse blues pianists Grey Ghost, Robert Shaw, and Lavada Durst, and for country blues guitarist Alfred (Snuff) Johnson. In recent years, Texas Folklife Resources in Austin has presented some of these performers in touring programs. John Wheat, of the Center for American History at the University of Texas at Austin, has been building an important sound archive, including the Texas Music Collection, the John A. Lomaxqv Family Papers, the Mance Lipscomb/Glen Alyn Collection, the William A. Owens Collection, and other blues recordings, posters, and memorabilia.

BIBLIOGRAPHY: William Barlow, "Looking Up at Down": The Emergence of Blues Culture (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1989). Lawrence Cohn, Nothing but the Blues: The Music and the Musicians (New York: Abbeville Press, 1993). Francis Davis, The History of the Blues (New York: Hyperion, 1995). Alan B. Govenar, The Early Years of Rhythm and Blues: Focus on Houston (Houston: Rice University Press, 1990). Alan B. Govenar, Meeting the Blues (Dallas: Taylor, 1988). Paul Oliver, The New Grove Gospel, Blues and Jazz: With Spiritual and Ragtime (London: Macmillan, 1986).

Alan Govenar

SOURCE:
"BLUES." The Handbook of Texas Online.