Chicago blues

It was Chicago, however, that played the greatest role in the development of urban blues. In the 1920s and ’30s Memphis Minnie, Tampa Red, Big Bill Broonzy, and Sonny Boy Williamson were popular Chicago performers. After World War II they were supplanted by a new

…blues bands that emerged in Chicago in the 1940s used amplified electric guitars, often backed with electric bass and drums—the instruments borrowed later by many rock and roll bands.

…electric blues music coming from Chicago and Memphis was now considered rhythm and blues, since it appealed to older buyers. Thus, although they had little to nothing in common with the earlier generation of band-backed blues shouters, performers such as Muddy Waters, Howlin’ Wolf, and B.B. King (who, because he…

…a hit, Burnett moved to Chicago, where he, along with Muddy Waters, made the city a center for the transformation of the (acoustic) Mississippi Delta blues style into an electrically amplified style for urban audiences. His work was known only to blues audiences until the Rolling Stones and other British…

…the major figures in postwar Chicago blues. Influenced by guitarists as well as by senior harmonica players, he brought a singular variety of phrasing to the blues harmonica. His solos were cunningly crafted, alternating riffs and flowing lines. He was a pioneer of playing a harmonica directly into a handheld…