Monday ~ Blue Monday

Before rock and roll. Before country. Before soul. Before any of it — there was the blues.

Not a genre. A confession.

The blues was born in the Mississippi Delta in the late 1800s — in the cotton fields, the juke joints, the chain gangs, and the churches of the Deep South. It was the sound of people who had nothing but their voices and whatever instrument they could get their hands on, turning suffering into something so beautiful it stopped you cold.

It started with a single string. A bent note. A moan that became a melody.

Robert Johnson is the ghost that started everything. In the 1930s he recorded 29 songs that changed the world — scratchy 78rpm recordings that somehow contained the entire future of popular music. Every rock guitarist who ever lived owes Robert Johnson a debt they can never repay. Eric Clapton called him the most important blues musician who ever lived. Keith Richards said listening to Robert Johnson for the first time was like hearing two guitarists playing at once.

Johnson sang about hellhounds on his trail. About love in vain. About standing at the crossroads. He died at 27 — the first member of that infamous club — and left behind a legend so powerful that people still argue about whether he sold his soul to the devil to play that well.

He wasn't alone. Charley Patton stomped and hollered before Johnson was born. Son House played slide guitar like a man possessed. Skip James sang in a high lonesome falsetto that sounded like it came from another world entirely.

After World War II something happened that changed everything. Black Americans moved north by the millions — to Chicago, Detroit, St. Louis, Cleveland. They brought the blues with them. And in the clubs and bars of the South Side of Chicago, the blues plugged in and got loud.

Muddy Waters arrived from Mississippi with the Delta in his blood and electricity in his hands. He picked up an electric guitar and invented a whole new language. His band included Little Walter on harmonica — arguably the greatest harmonica player who ever lived — and together they created the Chicago blues sound that would eventually become rock and roll.

Howlin' Wolf had a voice like a freight train derailing. Sonny Boy Williamson played harmonica like he was having an argument with God. Buddy Guy was so intense and so innovative that he made even the great Jimi Hendrix stop and stare.

Chess Records on 2120 South Michigan Avenue in Chicago was the cathedral. Muddy Waters recorded there. Howlin' Wolf. Little Walter. Chuck Berry. Bo Diddley. Everything that came after started on that street corner.

Meanwhile down in Texas the blues was developing its own personality. Bigger. Louder. More swagger. T-Bone Walker invented the electric guitar solo as we know it — standing in clubs in Dallas and Houston, holding his guitar behind his head, playing with his teeth, decades before anyone had heard of Jimi Hendrix.

Freddie King played with a ferocity that influenced every Texas guitarist who came after him. Albert Collins was so cold and so precise they called him the Master of the Telecaster.

And then — Stevie Ray Vaughan.

In 1983 Stevie walked onto the stage at the Montreux Jazz Festival and played with a fury that made people forget everything they thought they knew about guitar. He brought the blues back to a generation that had forgotten it existed. He played like Robert Johnson and Jimi Hendrix were fighting for control of his hands. He died too young — in a helicopter crash in 1990 — but not before he reminded the world where all the music came from.

Because without the blues there is no rock and roll. No soul. No R&B. No country as we know it. No jazz evolution. No hip hop. No nothing.

The Rolling Stones were a blues band before they were rock stars. Led Zeppelin was a blues band playing at stadium volume. Eric Clapton spent his entire career chasing the ghost of Robert Johnson. Bonnie Raitt devoted her life to keeping the tradition alive. Jack White built a career on the foundation that Muddy Waters laid.

Every note played on every stage in every genre traces back to a bent string on a cheap guitar somewhere in the Mississippi Delta over a hundred years ago.

That's why we start the week here.

That's why Monday belongs to the blues.

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