Carolina Music Ways: Music Genres: Blues

MORAVIAN

OLD-TIME
STRINGBAND

Blues has deep roots in the North Carolina Piedmont
because of our tobacco heritage. Bluesmen followed the harvest,
playing outside the tobacco warehouses at tobacco auction
time in the Piedmont urban centers of
Winston-Salem and Durham.

WICKER & JONES

"Hesitation Blues "

CHARLES GREENE

"Easy Breezy Night"

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Bluesmen from all over the South who played outside our tobacco auction houses performed blues & ragtime songs.

Blues in our region continues to produce inspired and talented musicians who perform a variety of blues traditions, including Piedmont blues, Delta blues, Chicago blues, and jazz-blues. Today, blues is performed in clubs, festivals, and downtown street concert series.

The blues-inspired sounds of early rhythm & blues (R&B) can also be heard here. Early R&B, fathered in the 1950s by groups such as Winston-Salem's own Five Royales, combines elements of older music traditions, including African American gospel and blues.

To learn how our region's blues scene fits into the bigger picture, you can go to www.thebluehighway.com/rural.html for information on the roots of the blues in the South. For a broader understanding of early rhythm & blues history, you can go to http://members.aol.com/tuneman56/main.html. Click on "The Journey" and "Vocal Groups"- "The Southern Groups" -The Five Royales.