I love blues because it is the most human, vocally-based music I know of. It tends to be very honest, because it "tells it like it is" rather than posing or pretending that life is "cool", nothing hurts, people always treat other people fairly, etc.. It makes total sense (as we shall see) that blues music came out of the black experience in America.

The orgins of the blues come from Africa and African people. There, few tribes had a written alphabet or way to record and pass information among themselves and their children. The major exception to this would be in wall paintings, carvings and a few other art forms such as dance. Still, the spoken or sung (and often acted-out) story were principal means of communicating past experiences as well as present ethical truths important to the tribe.

All of the human drama of events and subsequent emotions (love, hate, fear, faith, satisfaction, desire) was told or sung, so we have the basic picture of an "oral culture". This scenario continued when the slave trade ripped familes and tribes apart, transporting many Africans to the U.S.A. and the South.

All of this has much to do with blues, for it was first in their own native tongues, then in broken English, then colloquial language that stories and principles were shared within the people groups they found themselves thrust into. The fact that there was much suffering from continual loss of homeland, place, family, hard labor, physical abuse and disease is indisputable. In this crucible, hope largely surfaced only as a result of the Gospel being preached (by slaveholders, their ministers and layworkers or others) and received by some of the most understandably despairing people America had ever known.

In such conditions, fieldhands did as they had ever done in their native land. They sang while they worked, sang at play and continued singing as well as speaking in order to communicate with one another. To make the day go by a little easier. To release some of the emotions of their plight by one of the few avenues left open to them: song.

All who write at length on this subject mention the "field holler" and various other forms of chants, shouts and call-and-response songs permeating the air above Southern cotton (and other) plantations of the era. As time passed and the Good News of salvation was proclaimed, many slaves took heart from one of the few opportunites of independant assembly available to them- the Sunday Service. A good many plantation owners were themselves Christian (or in one degree or another, Christian in philosophy) and would thus grant the privilege once weekly. The basic rule was that such a meeting would be allowed until any sort of slave revolt surfaced as a result. In such cases, such religious gatherings would be terminated.

In some cases, the preaching would be done by the plantation owners themselves. Sometimes a gifted orator among the slaves would be given the "pulpit" chores. But always and always the song was sung. There are records of many of these first black churches being attended if not spiritually directed by slave owners or others in their family or perhaps employ, if for nothing else to keep track of activities and information being passed among the slaves each Sunday. As a believer, I find it most interesting to read accounts by those whites in attendance which mention their amazement at the powerful singing and songs they heard only in such settings. That particular aspect of some of those gatherings caused a stirring of conscience and biblical faith among more than a few of the white masters.

There were those masters who saw to it that certain of their slaves were taught to read and write. To these, the Bible became an available and most respected source of not only spiritual truth, but historical fact as well as textbook from which to practice reading and comprehension.

What does this have to do with the blues? Follow the Son ...