Blues
The Blues started becoming popular in the early twentieth century during the civil rights movement during the 50' and 60’s. Scholars believed it was derived from the call and response pattern of slave work songs. Blues is derived from American Folk form.
A blues stanza consists of a couplet, where the first line is repeated, which allows the artist time to improvise the third line, which follows the rhyme scheme. Transcript and literary presentation becomes difficult because it falsifie the third line and other lines being improvised. Recordings weren’t started until the 1920’s. This allowed only one version of the artist’s performance to be reproduced, rather than a different version that may have been heard at a live performance.
In a musically format blues are typically three lines in a twelve bar sequence. The form is a type of dialogue between music and voice, making it a lyrical poem. How the artist projects the work plays a very important part of the piece and making it fit in the blue category.
“I’m Kentucky born, / Kentucky bred, / Gonna brag about Kentucky / Till I’m dead” (Brown)
Following the rhyme scheme Brown uses ‘bred’ and ‘dead’ to follow the pattern. The third line “Gonna brag about Kentucky” is the third line that may have been different in a live performance. Typically the third line is usually improvised so just because it is written in the poem, doesn’t mean Brown doesn’t change the line while performing this live.
