Blues Vinyl Records

It's rural America circa 1915. From the Bayous to the Deltas, roaming African-American musicians who were unaware of Folk music, uninterested in Classical and altogether unsatisfied with Gospel music took up stringed instruments to create songs using predominantly 'blue notes' (the lowered third, fifth, and seventh notes of a scale). 

They take their cues from Ragtime Jazz and the elements of Gospel they liked, but their lyrical content becomes the antithesis of Gospel. Fed up with praising God to get them through their struggles, they take a more realistic and far less spiritual approach. As the 1920s emerge, this brand of Country Blues gets appropriated by the upper classes in urban areas and Classic Blues is born. It takes yet another turn in style - toward more risqué lyrics.  

To the men and women who pioneered these genres, we owe a heck of a lot. Almost every kind of popular music to this day can trace its heritage in one way or another back to the Blues. And so we must respect it with a collection of vinyl records that are either from the early days of Blues, or made in that tradition.