Blues
The blues were originated by a man named W. C. Handy, “The Father of the Blues”. During the 1900’s there were already distinctions between different styles such as Mississippi, Memphis, Texas, and Chicago. The origins of the blues came from slavery workers in the field all day. They would write and sing their poems as a way of communication and work songs. The music eventually spawned from Hawwian and European inspired turns. As the writings soon were accompanied by music, the simple repetition and beats took off. A “classic” blues lyric can consist of the scheme AAa. When two lines may repeat and the third rhymes with them. We see this form in “Oakland Blues” by Ishmael Reed. The first stanza is, “Well it’s six o’clock in Oakland / and the sun is full of wine / I say, it’s six o’clock in Oakland / and the sun is red with wine / We buried you this morning, baby / in the shadow of a vine”. “And the sun is full of wine” is repeated in the second and fourth line, then the sixth line says “in the shadow of a vine”. This is the first example in “Oakland Blues” of the AAa pattern and we see it again in all the other stanzas saying “ago, ago, toe”, “trees, trees, me” and “stark, stark, dark”.
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W. C. Handy. “The Father of the Blues”. An Exaltation of Forms: Contemporary Poets Celebrate the Diversity of Their Art, Edited by Annie Finch and Kathrine Varnes, U of Michigan P, 2016, p. 188.
