Editing Blues (section)

==Musical impact==
[[File:Joe_Bonamassa_-_Radio_City_Music_Hall_Jan_2014.jpg|thumb|left|[[Joe Bonamassa]] is a virtuoso blues guitarist who blends traditional blues with rock, bringing the genre to new audiences.]]

Blues musical styles, forms (12-bar blues), melodies, and the blues scale have influenced many other genres of music, such as rock and roll, jazz, and popular music.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.googobits.com/articles/p6-2006-the-blues--the-revolution-of-music.html |title=The Blues: The Revolution of Music |author=Jennifer Nicole |date=August 15, 2005 |access-date=August 17, 2008 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080906220010/http://www.googobits.com/articles/p6-2006-the-blues--the-revolution-of-music.html |archive-date=September 6, 2008}}</ref> Prominent jazz, folk, or rock performers, such as [[Louis Armstrong]], [[Duke Ellington]], [[Miles Davis]], and [[Bob Dylan]], have performed significant blues recordings. The blues scale is often used in [[popular song]]s like [[Harold Arlen]]'s "Blues in the Night", [[blues ballad]]s like "Since I Fell for You" and "Please Send Me Someone to Love", and even in orchestral works such as [[George Gershwin]]'s "[[Rhapsody in Blue]]" and "[[Concerto in F]]". Gershwin's second "Prelude" for solo piano is an interesting example of a classical blues, maintaining the form with academic strictness. The blues scale is ubiquitous in modern popular music and informs many [[modal frame]]s, especially the [[ladder of thirds]] used in rock music (for example, in "[[A Hard Day's Night (song)|A Hard Day's Night]]"). Blues forms are used in the theme to the televised ''[[Batman (TV series)|Batman]]'', [[teen idol]] [[Fabian Forte]]'s hit, "Turn Me Loose", [[country music]] star [[Jimmie Rodgers (country singer)|Jimmie Rodgers]]' music, and guitarist/vocalist [[Tracy Chapman]]'s hit "Give Me One Reason".

{{quote box|quote="Blues singing is about emotion. Its influence on popular singing has been so widespread that, at least among males, singing and emoting have become almost identical—it is a matter of projection rather than hitting the notes."<ref>{{cite news|last=Christgau|first=Robert|author-link=Robert Christgau|date=June 15, 1972|url=https://www.robertchristgau.com/xg/news/nd720615.php|title=A Power Plant|newspaper=[[Newsday]]|access-date=September 10, 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190426105401/https://www.robertchristgau.com/xg/news/nd720615.php|archive-date=April 26, 2019|url-status=dead}}</ref>|source=—[[Robert Christgau]], 1972|width=23%|align=right|style=padding:8px;}}

Early country bluesmen such as [[Skip James]], [[Charley Patton]], and [[Georgia Tom Dorsey]] played country and urban blues and had influences from spiritual singing. Dorsey helped to popularize [[Gospel music]].<ref>{{cite web|url=http://afgen.com/gospel1.html|title=History of gospel music|author=Phil Petrie|website=Afgen.com|access-date=September 8, 2008}}</ref> Gospel music developed in the 1930s, with the [[Golden Gate Quartet]]. In the 1950s, [[soul music]] by [[Sam Cooke]], [[Ray Charles]], and [[James Brown]] used gospel and blues music elements. In the 1960s and 1970s, gospel and blues were merged in [[soul blues]] music. [[Funk]] music of the 1970s was influenced by soul; funk can be seen as an antecedent of hip-hop and contemporary R&B.

[[Rhythm and blues|R&B]] music can be traced back to [[Spiritual (music)|spirituals]] and blues. Musically, spirituals were a descendant of [[New England]] choral traditions, and in particular of [[Isaac Watts]]'s [[hymn]]s, mixed with African rhythms and call-and-response forms. Spirituals or religious chants in the African-American community are much better documented than the "low-down" blues. Spiritual singing developed because African-American communities could gather for mass or worship gatherings, which were called [[camp meeting]]s.

Edward P. Comentale has noted how the blues was often used as a medium for art or self-expression, stating: "As heard from Delta shacks to Chicago tenements to Harlem cabarets, the blues proved—despite its pained origins—a remarkably flexible medium and a new arena for the shaping of identity and community."<ref>{{cite book|last=Comentale|first=Edward|title=Sweet Air|year=2013|publisher=University of Illinois Press|location=Chicago, Illinois|isbn=978-0-252-07892-7|page=31}}</ref>

[[File:Duke Ellington at the Hurricane Club 1943.jpg|thumb|left|[[Duke Ellington]] straddled the [[big band]] and [[bebop]] genres. Ellington extensively used the blues form.<ref name=monk>{{cite web|url=http://www.jazzinamerica.org/pdf/1/Influence%20of%20Jazz%20on%20Blues.pdf |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20221009/http://www.jazzinamerica.org/pdf/1/Influence%20of%20Jazz%20on%20Blues.pdf |archive-date=2022-10-09 |url-status=live|title=The Influence of the Blues on Jazz|publisher=Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz|access-date=August 17, 2008}}</ref>]]

Before [[World War II]], the boundaries between blues and [[jazz]] were less clear. Usually, jazz had harmonic structures stemming from [[brass band]]s, whereas blues had blues forms such as the 12-bar blues. However, the jump blues of the 1940s mixed both styles. After WWII, blues had a substantial influence on jazz. [[Bebop]] classics, such as [[Charlie Parker]]'s "Now's the Time", used the blues form with the pentatonic scale and blue notes.

Bebop marked a major shift in the role of jazz, from a popular style of music for dancing to a "high-art", less accessible, cerebral "musician's music". The audience for both blues and jazz split, and the border between blues and jazz became more defined.<ref name=monk/><ref>{{cite book|title=Roots of the Classical: The Popular Origins of Western Music|author=Peter van der Merwe |author-link=Peter van der Merwe (musicologist) |publisher=Oxford University Press|year=2004|isbn=978-0-19-816647-4|page=461}}</ref>

The blues' 12-bar structure and the blues scale was a major influence on [[rock and roll]] music. Rock and roll has been called "blues with a [[Backbeat (music)|backbeat]]"; [[Carl Perkins]] called [[rockabilly]] "blues with a [[country music|country]] beat". Rockabillies were also said to be 12-bar blues played with a [[bluegrass music|bluegrass]] beat. "[[Hound Dog (song)|Hound Dog]]", with its unmodified 12-bar structure (in both harmony and lyrics) and a melody centered on flatted third of the tonic (and flatted seventh of the subdominant), is a blues song transformed into a rock and roll song. [[Jerry Lee Lewis]]'s style of rock and roll was heavily influenced by the blues and its derivative boogie-woogie. His style of music was not exactly rockabilly but it has been often called real rock and roll (this is a label he shares with several African-American rock and roll performers).<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.lclark.edu/~ria/the_bl~1.htm |title=The Blues Influence On Rock & Roll |access-date=August 17, 2008 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070404040053/http://www.lclark.edu/~ria/the_bl~1.htm |archive-date=April 4, 2007 }}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.zip-country.com/Rock.htm |title=History of Rock and Roll |work=Zip-Country Homepage |access-date=September 2, 2008 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080828232939/http://www.zip-country.com/Rock.htm |archive-date=August 28, 2008 }}</ref>

[[File:Jerry Lee Lewis @ Credicard Hall 01.jpg|thumb|[[Jerry Lee Lewis]] influenced by blues and boogie-woogie, was a key bridge between rock and roll and its blues origins]]

Many early rock and roll songs are based on blues: "[[That's All Right Mama]]", "[[Johnny B. Goode]]", "[[Blue Suede Shoes]]", "[[Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin On]]", "[[Shake, Rattle, and Roll]]", and "[[Long Tall Sally]]". The early African-American rock musicians retained the sexual themes and innuendos of blues music: "Got a gal named Sue, knows just what to do" ("[[Tutti Frutti (song)|Tutti Frutti]]", [[Little Richard]]) or "See the girl with the red dress on, She can do the Birdland all night long" ("[[What'd I Say (song)|What'd I Say]]", [[Ray Charles]]). The 12-bar blues structure can be found even in novelty pop songs, such as [[Bob Dylan]]'s "[[Obviously Five Believers]]" and [[Esther and Abi Ofarim]]'s "[[Cinderella Rockefella]]".

Early [[country music]] was infused with the blues.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.colum.edu/CBMR/Styles_and_Genres/Country_Music.php|title=Country music|publisher=Columbia College Chicago|date=2007–2008|access-date=September 2, 2008|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080602011023/http://www.colum.edu/CBMR/Styles_and_Genres/Country_Music.php|archive-date=June 2, 2008}}</ref> [[Jimmie Rodgers (country singer)|Jimmie Rodgers]], [[Moon Mullican]], [[Bob Wills]], [[Bill Monroe]], and [[Hank Williams]] have all described themselves as blues singers and their music has a blues feel that is different, at first glance at least, from the later country-pop of artists like [[Eddy Arnold]]. Yet, if one looks back further, Arnold also started out singing bluesy songs like 'I'll Hold You in My Heart'. A lot of the 1970s-era "outlaw" country music by [[Willie Nelson]] and [[Waylon Jennings]] also borrowed from the blues. When [[Jerry Lee Lewis]] returned to country music after the decline of 1950s style rock and roll, he sang with a blues feel and often included blues standards on his albums.