Missisiippi Delta Blues

Think about all the emotions expressed in the music you listen to joy, happiness, loneliness, nervousness, and, of course, sadness.

Music with sad themes is often called the “blues.”

Blues music developed in the United States among dark-skinned people in the south after the Civil War. Slaves from Africa brought their own musical traditions. Their kind of music blended in with popular music in America at that time and soon developed into a traditional kind of music that became known as the blues.

The blues is believed to have originated in the Mississippi Delta, an area northern Mississippi between the Mississippi and Yazoo Rivers. The rural area was home to the poor and disadvantaged people who used the blues to express the sadness that enveloped their lives. However, through the songs and the music, they also were able to brighten their lives and let people know about them.

The blues remained and developed in the Mississippi countryside, and in 1978, the Mississippi Delta Blues and Heritage Festival was founded to celebrate and promote the blues and the culture of the Mississippi Delta people. What started out on the back of a flatbed truck is now the oldest and largest blues festival in the South, annually held every September with 20,000 visitors and performances on three festival stages. If you hurry down South this year it will be he held starting on September 19.

And of course, if it wasn’t for such talented musical artists like Muddy Waters we might never have heard about the Mississippi Delta Blues.