| During
the decades of the thirties and forties, the blues spread northward from
the South and entered into the repertoire of big-band jazz. The blues also
became electrified with the introduction of the amplified guitar. In some
Northern cities like Chicago and Detroit, during the later forties and
early fifties, Muddy Waters, Willie Dixon, John Lee Hooker, Howlin'
Wolf, and Elmore James among others, played what was basically
Mississippi Delta blues, backed by bass, drums, piano and occasionally
harmonica, and began scoring national hits with blues songs. At about
the same time, T-Bone Walker in Houston and B.B. King in
Memphis were pioneering a style of guitar playing that combined jazz
technique with blues tonality and the blues repertoire. |
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