[Ads-l] Origins of the Term "Blues"

[Shapiro, Fred]

I have been intensively studying the origins of the term "blues" and am realizing that some of my previous assertions about the origins are not correct.

The word "blues" is a complicated one.  A song title like "Memphis Blues" could be using "blues" to describe a genre of music or it could be referring to feeling melancholy remembering  Memphis.  The OED divides its entry on "blues" into two subsenses, one for song titles (subsense 2.a.) and one for other references to the musical genre (subsense 2.b.).  I think this subsense bifurcation makes a lot of sense.

In analyzing the earliest uses of these two subsenses, I am looking now to a super-scholarly book, Long Lost Blues, by blues historian Peter C. Muir, for guidance.

Muir points (page 9) to the following source as "the earliest known reference to blues as a genre":

1909 Robert Hoffman  (title page of sheet music) I'm Alabama Bound ... (Also known as the Alabama Blues).

Robert Hoffman was white.  The next development in OED sense 2.a. was the publication in 1912 of several compositions with "Blues" in their title.  Here is the list in chronological order:

(The) Blues
Baby Seals Blues
Dallas Blues
Memphis Blues
Nigger Blues

Muir notes (page 222) that "Of the 1912 batch, three were composed by blacks.  Of the other two ... 'Nigger Blues,' as its name would suggest, was undoubtedly of black origin, and this is also probably true of ... 'Dallas Blues.'"

The earliest citation I know of for OED sense 2.b. seems to be the following:

1910 Freeman (Indianapolis) 16 Apr. 5/3  This is the second week of Prof. Woods, the ventriloquist, with his little doll Henry.  This week he set the Airdome wild by making little Henry drunk.  Did you ever see a ventriloquist's figure get intoxicated?  Well, it's rich; it's great; and Prof. Woods knows how to handle his figure.  He uses the "blues" for little Henry in this drunken act.

Peter Muir (page 10) states that this is "The first known reference to a blues performance in black vaudeville — it is, in fact, the earliest known account of blues singing on a stage of any kind."  Presumably the reference to Black vaudeville in a Black newspaper was written by a Black journalist.

The second oldest citation I have found for OED subsense 2.b. is the following:

1913 Freeman (Indianapolis) 18 Jan. 6/3 (Chronicling America)  He [a visiting musician] sat on the piano stool and began to play the blues on the piano with one finger.

Presumably the visiting musician mentioned in a gossip column about Black entertainment in a Black newspaper was Black.

The citations above are all antedatings of the OED, whose first use for subsense 2.a. is dated 1912 and whose first use for subsense 2.b. is dated 1915.





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