The blues go up the Mississippi to Chicago
From the 1910s onwards, many African-Americans from the Mississippi Delta left the rural South in which they had grown up for the cities of the North. Most of their ancestors had been slaves on cotton plantations. As they toiled, they sang a mixture of traditional African music, work songs and negro spirituals, inventing the blues. With the abolition of slavery, many African-Americans became sharecroppers, cultivating the land of white landowners in exchange for a share of the harvest. Before 1910, 90% of African-Americans still lived in the American South. But segregation, frequent lynchings and lack of opportunity drove many of them to migrate to the North, where cities were urbanizing at phenomenal speed and offering work to anyone who wanted it. It is also said that in the North, once you cross the Mason-Dixon Line that separated the abolitionist states from the others during the Civil War, blacks are no longer considered an inferior caste.
Many Black Americans headed up the Mississippi Valley, passing through Memphis, Tennessee, and St. Louis, Missouri, where some of them left their luggage. Others, more numerous, continued on to Detroit and, above all, Chicago, the promised land. Along the way, they spread the blues, which took on a variety of forms as it made its way up to the industrialized North. From the 1930s onwards, urban culture, including pop music and jazz, had a major influence on blues singers. Blues bands incorporating guitar, piano and drums appeared, without changing the soul of this new musical genre, which marked the beginnings of the Chicago Blues. Tampa Red, Big Bill Broonzy, Little Brother Montgomery, Leon Carr and Memphis Minnie were all bluesmen of this era. The phenomenon of black migration gained even greater momentum from the 1940s onwards. The Second World War led to the development of industries in the cities, creating an even greater need for labor, particularly in the steel, shipbuilding and automotive industries. African-Americans worked in Chicago's factories, and in the evenings, they went to the bars on the city's south side to relax and listen to the music that helped them forget their troubles: the blues. For while Chicago was a better place to make a living than the South, daily life was still difficult and, for many, disillusioning. Slow-paced country blues gradually evolved into a faster, more rhythmic urban style. The electric guitar made its appearance in the songs, while Little Walter, a musician from Louisiana who made the trip to Chicago in 1945, amplified his harmonica to make himself heard under the howling melody of the electric instruments. Thanks to amplification, the sounds became more raw, more dramatic, more sensual too.
The birth of a new genre
The city's jazz and blues clubs, located mainly in the black neighborhoods of the South Side, host concerts every night. Inside, the buzz is so intense that the few musicians who still try to play acoustically soon end up asking for an amplifier to make themselves heard. But before they can claim to play in a reputable club, most musicians start out on the street, where they hope to get noticed. Maxwell Street, on the Near West Side, is the place to be. The street fills with music, people sing, dance and sweat until dawn, without really knowing that they're witnessing the birth of a culture. The greats, from Muddy Waters to Howlin' Wolf and Little Walter, played on Maxwell Street. At the time, the other way to make a name for yourself was to play at rent parties. Although racism was less prevalent than in the South, Chicago's African-Americans were still victims of daily discrimination. Their rent, for example, is higher than that of other Chicagoans, because their arrival in a building often drives away white families. So, to help pay the rent, they throw parties with blues musicians to set the mood, and every guest donates a little something to help out. The most talented musicians make a name for themselves in this way, and are propelled onto the stages of the most popular clubs. Many dream of performing at Ruby Lee Gatewood's Tavern, nicknamed The Gates, which has seen all the greats of the era. In the late 1940s, Theresa's Lounge became the place to be seen and invited to. Theresa Needham, nicknamed The Godmother of the Chicago Blues, is credited with the birth of this club, tucked away in a South Side basement.
Muddy Waters, the King of Chicago Blues
Chicago is a magnet for the many recording studios that sprang up in the post-war years, making musicians fantasize. However, even those who enjoyed a certain level of notoriety often had to continue their day jobs in order to make a decent living. Such was the case with Muddy Waters, who worked as a truck driver after recording with Chess Records, then called Aristocrat Records and soon to become THE reference recording studio. The blues is successful, but it's hard to make a living from it; indeed, Muddy is rumored to sell his records from his truck. Howlin' Wolfe sums it up quite well: " When you ain't got no money to pay your house rent, you still got the blues ". It wasn't until 1948, with the release of the instant hits I Can't Be Satisfied, I Feel Like Going Home and Rolling Stones, that Muddy Waters was able to give up his chauffeur's job and devote himself entirely to his musical career.
Muddy Waters, so nicknamed because he liked to play in the muddy waters of the Mississippi as a child, truly popularized the new electric blues emanating from the clubs of the South Side. He was at the very top of the Chicago Blues pyramid, ahead of Buddy Guy, Bo Diddley and Howlin' Wolf, who also recorded their albums at Chess Studios. Chicago Blues laid the foundations for the emergence of future genres, notably rock'n'roll, which saw the light of day in the 1940s. Artists such as Jimi Hendrix and Eric Clapton recognize the influence of Muddy Waters. In fact, his influence extended beyond the borders of the United States. In 1962, five young men listened to Muddy Waters albums in a small English town and decided to form a band: the Rolling Stones were born. The legendary British band chose their name in reference to Muddy's 1950 hit. Propelled to interplanetary stardom, the Stones toured the U.S. in 1964 and recorded a few songs at Chess Studios. On this occasion, they met some of the musicians who had influenced their music, including Muddy Waters. Together with Muddy Waters, they recorded a live album in 1981, entitled Live at the Checkerboard Lounge, Chicago 1981.
What's left of the blues in Chicago?
Today, thanks to its many clubs, Chicago continues to keep the legend alive. Most of the blues clubs frequented by the musicians who popularized the genre in the first half of the 20th century have disappeared (The Gates and Theresa's Lounge went out of business long ago), but others have taken over. Some of them have become legendary in their own right, and are now a must-see on any visit to Chicago. These include Kingston Mines, which opened in 1968 in the Lincoln Park neighborhood, and Rosa's Lounge, founded in 1978 by an Italian immigrant with a passion for the blues. Buddy Guy even opened his own club, Buddy Guy's Legends, in 1989. The lucky ones will be able to applaud him on stage, as he makes regular appearances, particularly in January. For those who lived through the heyday of the blues, seeing Buddy Guy live is like a Chicago version of Proust's madeleine. Finally, since its opening in 1996, the House of Blues concert hall, located in the Marina City district, has also welcomed the biggest names in the genre.
While the blues still doesn't have its own dedicated museum in Chicago, despite the promise of the Chicago Blues Experience due to open in spring 2019, it can be experienced in a variety of ways during a stay in the windy city. Aside from its many clubs, packed to the rafters every weekend, the city puts on a myriad of things to maintain its status as the land of the blues. Every summer since 1984, the Chicago Blues Festival has paid tribute to the blues with open-air concerts. For three days, Millennium Park becomes a major venue for festivities featuring the greatest blues musicians of both the old and new generations. Muddy Waters, B. B. King, Ray Charles and John Lee Hooker all took part. While there's not much to see on Maxwell Street today, apart from a small market in the summer months, you only have to look at the scene from the film Blues Brothers that takes place there to immerse yourself in a Chicago that no longer exists. Incidentally, 2020 and 2021 have been dedicated to Music in Chicago, with the organization of a series of public programs throughout the city. The idea is to celebrate Chicago's rich musical heritage and the genres that helped build its identity, with blues at the top of the list.
