Texas Blues
The blues originated in the Mississippi Delta and had spread to Texas by the beginning of the 20th century. African American workers at lumber camps, oilfields and other locations loved the music, and avidly attended local performances. When the Great Depression hit, many of these musicians moved to cities like Houston and Galveston, where they created a style known as Texas blues. Blind Lemon Jefferson (in and around Dallas) was the first major artist of the field, and he was followed by legends like Blind Willie Johnson (who was principally a gospel singer) and Big Mama Thornton and Lightnin' Hopkins and Mance Lipscomb. By the 1970s, Texas blues had lost its popularity, but was revived by the blues rock stylings of artists like Johnny Nitzinger, Johnny Winter, Edgar Winter, ZZ Top, Bugs Henderson and The Fabulous Thunderbirds, who set the stage for Stevie Ray Vaughan's blues revival in the 80's.
Read more about this topic: Music Of Texas
Famous quotes containing the words texas and/or blues:
“Worn down by the hoofs of millions of half-wild Texas cattle driven along it to the railheads in Kansas, the trail was a bare, brown, dusty strip hundreds of miles long, lined with the bleaching bones of longhorns and cow ponies. Here and there a broken-down chuck wagon or a small mound marking the grave of some cowhand buried by his partners “on the lone prairie” gave evidence to the hardships of the journey.”
—For the State of Kansas, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)
“Holly Golightly: You know those days when you’ve got the mean reds?
Paul: The mean reds? You mean like the blues?
Holly Golightly: No, the blues are because you’re getting fat or maybe it’s been raining too long. You’re just sad, that’s all. The mean reds are horrible. Suddenly you’re afraid and you don’t know what you’re afraid of.”
—George Axelrod (b. 1922)