Blues Music Artists & Styles
By Reverend Keith A. Gordon, About.com Guide to Blues
These are the artists and styles that help define blues music as an important genre of American roots music.
Mississippi Delta Blues
Born in the fertile Mississippi Delta where cotton was king, these are the blues artists that helped create the Delta blues sound.
Chicago Blues
Benefiting from the migration of Delta blues musicians to the big city, the Chicago blues were shaped by a mix of rural roots and urban life.
Blues-Rock
Early rock artists grew up on the blues from Chicago and the Mississippi Delta and by incorporating it into their music, created the genre known as blues-rock.
Piedmont Blues
Characterized by a unique fingerpicked guitar style, the Piedmont Blues style was popular in the region of Virginia, the Carolinas, and parts of Georgia and Florida.
Country Blues
Country blues, which is also known as "folk blues," is a primarily an acoustic guitar-oriented type of blues from which many other styles are derived. It often incorporated elements of gospel, ragtime, hillbilly, and Dixieland jazz.
