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B.B. King playing his guitar "Lucille" in 1970.

Blues

Blues is a type of African-American music that was introduced early in the 1900s. Much like Negro spirituals, it developed from work songs and religious folk songs. The words to blues songs are usually sad. Popular blues song themes include injustice, longing for a better life and lost loves, jobs, and money. But blues is also a kind of dance music whose performance is supposed to help one overcome sadness.

Famous blues performers include Bessie Smith and B.B. King. Bessie Smith is considered the greatest classic blues singer of the 1920s, selling hundreds of thousands of records and influencing just about every female blues singer that followed her.

For the last half of the 1900s, a man named Riley B. King, better known as B.B. King, was called the King of the Blues. Since B.B. King started recording in the late 1940s, he has released over fifty albums, many of them classics. B.B. continues to make music in his late 70s (he recently released his first holiday album) and is an inspiration to blues fans all over the world.









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