Exactly who first sang and played the blues, exactly where and exactly when will probably always be a musical mystery.
The first written references to the blues appeared in the 1890s, and the publication of W. C. Handy's "Memphis Blues" introduced the music to a commercial audience in 1912.
Oral history and the music itself, however, suggest an earlier origin in the African American field hollers, church singing and popular music of the mid-19th-century South. Musicologists point out that several important features of the blues, including its characteristic tonal shadings, call-and-response structure, repeated refrains and use of the falsetto voice, derive from African musical tradition.
Social, economic and cultural factors fostered the development of three regional styles of early blues. Mississippi Delta musicians Robert Johnson, Johnny Shines and others used percussion-like strumming and bottleneck guitar accompaniment with a vocal style that combined singing and speech. In Georgia and the Carolinas, blues artists such as Blind Boy Fuller and Blind Willie McTell drew upon ragtime and popular music to shape a crisp melodic and rhythmic style. The guitar picking and high vocals of Blind Lemon Jefferson are probably the most celebrated example of Texas blues.
From the 1920s, blues recordings brought Black female artists Ma Rainey, Bessie Smith and others to national attention. Around the same time, the migration of African Americans from the rural South to northern cities during the Great Depression gave rise to distinctive urban styles in Memphis, Atlanta, Kansas City, St. Louis and, particularly, Chicago. The best-known Chicago blues artists from this period include Tampa Red, Memphis Minnie and "Sonny Boy" Williamson.
Beginning in the late 1940s, Muddy Waters, Howling Wolf and others took traditional blues to an even wider audience. The jazz, soul, rhythm and blues, and rock music of subsequent eras continue to show the powerful, elemental influence of the blues.