Talk:Blues

Redirect unexplained
The term Kansas City blues redirects here - correctly. However, an additional note in the header would be nice for non-native speakers: The homonym Kansas City Blues is a completely different lemma but not everybody is aware of case sensitivity's influence on meaning here. Cheers, --Hodsha (talk) 11:20, 30 May 2021 (UTC)


 * Solved, I think, by new use of the disabiguation page Titusmars (talk) 22:21, 5 May 2022 (UTC)

"Blue laws" and origin of "the blues"
The assertion supported by a Huffington Post blog article that the term "the blues" is connected to blue laws strikes me as absurd. For one, blue laws were not aimed primarily at prohibiting alcohol sales but at banning all secular activities on Sundays: the sales of non-essentials, sporting events, working, etc. Debra Devi, who wrote the HuffPost piece, is also the author of the book Language of the Blues. But an etymologist she is not.

The use of the word "blue" meaning depressed or feeling "low" can be traced as far back as Chaucer, to the 1300's. Devi, on the other hand, settles on a 17th century term "blue devil", which describes severe alcohol withdrawal, also known as delirium tremors. She then goes on to mention an 18th century work where the term "blue laws" was first used, but since nobody knows why "blue" was attached to the laws, it's a stretch - a leap, actually - to use this as an explanation for the term "the blues".

I have no problem mentioning the "theory" set forth in the HuffPost article, ridiculous as it seems, but it should be clearly offset (refuted) by more widely accepted explanations, sources abound, that point to the term's more literal, and therefore more obvious, meaning. Allreet (talk) 21:16, 22 December 2021 (UTC)


 * Rather than placing a large template on the page, why not just amend the text yourself, based on reliable sources? Ghmyrtle (talk) 23:07, 22 December 2021 (UTC)


 * @Ghmyrtle: That's my usual approach, but since Blues is not my area of expertise and the article could have a closer "following", I wanted to get some feedback from editors more knowledgeable on the subject. Regarding the wide interest in the blues, I'm surprised an article of this importance would include such a speculative (and illogical) explanation at its core for such a long time - since 2015. So on that thought, I'll give it another day or so to see who else chimes in, then I'll tackle it myself.Allreet (talk) 15:13, 27 December 2021 (UTC)

Contradictory dates for origin
The top of the article states the blues dates back to the 1860s, and the history section states it dates back to the 1890s. The source used for the 1860s date does not cite any evidence for its claim, but the 1890s date does have supporting evidence. 2601:1C2:C00:CE10:351B:EE7B:F0D8:DA50 (talk) 17:36, 21 February 2022 (UTC)
 * The "Origins" section says: "The first appearance of the blues is usually dated after the Emancipation Act of 1863, between 1860s and 1890s....".  So. it's not inconsistent.   The reliability of the source used for both statements is not something I can easily judge.   Ghmyrtle (talk) 18:30, 21 February 2022 (UTC)
 * "a music genre and musical form which originated in the Deep South of the United States around the 1860s" is contradicted by "But the origins of the blues were some decades earlier, probably around 1890." However, I don't understand why the 1870s as the date when boogie-woogie developed cannot be considered the latest date for the existence of the blues. Consider this passage, from Boogie-woogie:


 * "The earliest documented inquiries into the geographical origin of boogie-woogie occurred in the late 1930s when oral histories from the oldest living Americans of both African and European descent revealed a broad consensus that boogie-woogie piano was first played in Texas in the early 1870s. Additional citations place the origins of boogie-woogie in the Piney Woods of northeast Texas."


 * ''The first Negroes who played what is called boogie-woogie, or house-rent music, and attracted attention in city slums where other Negroes held jam sessions, were from Texas. And all the Old-time Texans, black or white, are agreed that boogie piano players were first heard in the lumber and turpentine camps, where nobody was at home at all. The style dates from the early 1870s.

— Elliot Paul, That Crazy American Music (1957)''


 * If we accept that "Boogie-woogie is a genre of blues music that became popular during the late 1920s, developed in African-American communities in the 1870s," we should note that some sources have given later dates for the origins of the blues, but that those sources are probably incorrect (instead, it's much more likely that the blues had already existed before boogie-woogie, just based on logical deduction, but we can't state that in the article, as it cannot be documented). I seem to remember editing this article accordingly at some point, and I'm not sure why those edits didn't stick (or it's possible that I made the edit in the Jazz article). Ikan Kekek (talk) 10:20, 6 June 2022 (UTC)


 * I guess the only issue is making sure that the style of boogie-woogie as already being a form of the blues in the 1870s is specifically citable. If anyone has the Elliot Paul reference, your mission, if you choose to accept it, is to look for such a passage. -- Ikan Kekek (talk) 10:25, 6 June 2022 (UTC)


 * The source from which the 1860s origin statement derives - here - does not mention boogie-woogie at all. I think the problem is that the various styles developed gradually and, to some extent, separately, before coming together into what we now call "blues".  But different sources probably give different interpretations.  Ghmyrtle (talk) 14:02, 6 June 2022 (UTC)


 * I definitely take your point on the gradual development of musical styles and the question of when they are called by x or y name, but the source I quoted from that's cited in the Boogie-woogie article does mention boogie-woogie. If boogie-woogie was a type of blues in the 1870s, the blues have to date from no later than the 1870s. Ikan Kekek (talk) 21:26, 11 June 2022 (UTC)

Wiki Education assignment: Black American Music 209
— Assignment last updated by Legacyua (talk) 17:03, 9 November 2022 (UTC)