Piedmont blues (also known as East Coast blues) refers primarily to a guitar style, the Piedmont fingerstyle, which is characterized by a fingerpicking approach in which a regular, alternating thumb bass string rhythmic pattern supports a syncopated melody using the treble strings generally picked with the fore-finger, occasionally others. The result is comparable in sound to ragtime or stride piano styles.
The term was coined by blues researcher Peter B. Lowry, who in turn gives co-credit to fellow folklorist Bruce Bastin. The Piedmont style is differentiated from other styles, particularly the Mississippi Delta blues, by its ragtime-based rhythms.
Read more about Piedmont Blues: Origins, Geography, Recordings, Post-World War II, Musicians
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“It is from the blues that all that may be called American music derives its most distinctive character.”
—James Weldon Johnson (1871–1938)