The folk movement's interest in what it considered to be authentic musicians led to the, rehabilitation of careers and the discovery of previously overlooked figures that were given the opportunity to record. Leadbelly (Huddie William Ledbetter, 1885-1949) had moved to New York in 1935. He was elevated to heroic status in the urban folk scene of the 1940s and 1950s and wrote numbers such as "Rock Island Line" and "The Midnight Special." His guitar work was straightforward and concise, and his ability to amalgamate country, gospel, and blues in the New York coffeehouse scene helped to make him appealing to the folk movement. The work of musicologists led to a crusade to research the blues and attempt to revive the traditional music. This was effected by folk-music archivist Alan Lomax and producer John Hammond, and in 1959, the guitarist John Fahey (b. 1939) and writer Sam Charters, who produced an album for Lightnin' Hopkins.

An effort to research the music and seek out players in the South who had been overlooked or lost led to the rediscovery of musicians who were thought to have died, such as Sleepy John Estes (1899-1977). Slide specialist Mississippi Fred McDowell was found by Alan Lomax in 1959, and this eventually paved the way for the recording of his first album, Delta Blues (1963) in his sixtieth year. Players who had been influential and recorded in the prewar era were also unearthed. Bukka White made powerful recordings from 1963 onward, using an open-G tuning to play slide with percussive and complex rhythms. Skip James was rediscovered in 1964. The writer of "Devil Got My Woman" and "I'm So Glad," he had his own type of fingerstyle with nails and used unusual tunings.

Son house

After living in obscurity and only recording in 1930 and 1941, Son House (Eddie James House, Jr.) gave up playing until 1964, when he was tracked down and brought out of retirement. His album The Legendary Son House: Father of the Folk Blues (1965) put him firmly back on the map. He worked consistently once more, displaying the open-tuning slide work that had inspired Robert Johnson and Muddy Waters.

Electric blues

There was a marked separation between the acoustic and electric blues audiences of the early 1960s. After the folk rediscovery of acoustic blues, there was a blues boom, partly due to the effect of British musicians such as the Rolling Stones and Eric Clapton, who drew on a wide range of music but whose work most closely reflected 1950s and 1960s blues. This helped to bring a new interest to the blues as a whole which eventually worked its way through to established black artists who were less in vogue due to the explosion of interest in rock. Consequently their profile was enhanced, which helped their recording careers.

Albert king

Albert King (1923-92) was born in Mississippi and moved to Chicago, making his first recordings in the 1950s, although his recording career did not fulfill its potential until the mid 1960s. King successfully superimposes blues playing over sequences and arrangements that move away from the twelve-bar format. When he started recording for Stax in 1966 using their house musicians including the Memphis Horns, he incorporated elements of soul and other genres, creating a funkier edge to his blues    J Numbers. He had a breakthrough with "Laundromat Blues" (1966), on which his fills have a reedy sustain and a solo builds from repetitive elements to Inventive melodic licks. The instrumental B-side "Overall Junction" features rhythmic riffs over brass backing and a positive solo in which King develops ideas with a sequential clarity. His seminal album Born Under A Bad Sign (1967), with the title track, "Crosscut Saw," and "Oh Pretty Woman," brought electric blues into a well-produced studio context with great arrangements and tempos. The solo on "Personal Manager," with its paced sustained notes against the band, surging string bending, and tension release, is well constructed and holds its appeal through the use of space.

THE 1960s

Howlin' Wolf's band recorded one of the important songs of 1960s blues, "Killing Floor," (1965) with its rocky chordal style and incisive rhythms. During this period, Wolf's band featured the elliptical guitar work of Hubert Sumlin, who had moved away from rhythm to play solos at odd places or in the background throughout a song with an unpredictable course. Many leading blues players evolved and recorded their best work during the 1960s.

B.B. King's Live at the Regal (1965) is one of his most popular albums. "Sweet Little Angel" highlights the kind of exciting fluent playing he was capable of at this time.

Magic Sam (Samuel Maghett, b. 1937) made an album, West Side Soul (1967), that shows him to have been a player who could have broken through to a larger audience, but unfortunately he died in 1969.

Some of the greatest blues was being played by rock figures such as Jimi Hendrix (see pages 1 90-95) and Eric Clapton (see pages 142-45) that were blues-based and recorded blues solos played against heavy rock backgrounds. A younger generation of white American players took to the blues with great fervor in the 960s. Mike Bloomfield was one of the first. Along with Duane Allman, Johnny Winter, and Roy Buchanan, he made a career in both rock and blues genres.

Continuity

The 1970s was a mixed period for many long-established blues musicians. The old-guard acoustic players were passing away and the electric generation had mixed fortunes. Some, such as Johnny Guitar Watson, embraced current rock and pop trends and funk.

In 1978, Albert Collins was able to record the album Ice Pickin' that brought him directly into the mainstream. Emerging from the shadows, Clarence "Gatemouth" Brown enjoyed a breakthrough the following year with Makin' Music (1979). Less successfully, Buddy Guy (see page 5 7) was running a club in Chicago and experienced a difficult time without a record deal during the 1980s until his comeback commercial album Damn Right, I've Got the Blues (1991). The indestructible John Lee Hooker, on the other hand, has enjoyed a long career of continuous popularity.

Texas flood

Recorded in Los Angeles in 1982, Texas Flood (1983), with Stevie Ray Vaughan playing in a trio format, showcased an approach which integrated a raunchy modern sound with blues shuffles without stepping outside the traditional framework. The album immediately made him a major force in blues. Backed by a driving, rootsy rhythm section playing strong grooves and shuffles, and accompanied by his laconic vocals, the guitar shines out with its superb tone and powerful vocal qualities. The title track highlights tremendous soloing, with long sustained notes dropping off into resolution and lurching tremolo-bar chords pulled up and down in pitch. The guitar meshes with the rhythm-section sound to produce a mesmerizing lyricism. Vaughan hangs on to sustained notes and resolves them to release tension. On the exuberant "Pride and Joy," the earthy rhythm sections play great tempos, and Vaughan slides into searing figures.

Electric developments

In the 1980s, electric blues started to borrow sounds from blues rock, with more modern-sounding backing and pop production.

The new star of the 1980s, Stevie Ray Vaughan (1954-90), was brought up in Texas playing blues. He grew up playing guitar with his older brother Jimmie Vaughan (b. 1951), was influenced by Albert King, and absorbed the blues-rock developments of the 1960s. He forged his own rich singing sound and exploited a wide vocabulary of blues licks and melodic chordal riffs in such a way as to create a fresh-sounding synthesis. Vaughan plays with great assurance and has a superb feel and musical taste, all of which can be heard on the album Texas Flood (1983).

Another important figure, Robert Cray (b. 1953), produced strong blues recordings with a soul flavor, such as Bad Influence (1983), and moved to a more modern accessible pop rhythm section sound on Strong Persuader (1986). Tracks such as "Smoking Gun" have background chords with a processed jangly pop sound and Cray plays dry, pithy breaks. "I Guess I Showed Her" has chopped chords, and on "Right Next Door" he plays an expressive solo with notes that have a popping definition. Catchy, repeating riffs characterize "Nothin' but a Woman," and an attractive emotional opening break introduces "I Wonder," on which Cray plays a questioning solo.

Among other figures is Robben Ford, who draws from blues and incorporates the inventiveness of modal jazz fusion. On his album Talk To Your Daughter (1988), he uses a reedy, overdriven sound with long sustain and mixes blues phrasing with sonorous upper register bending and interesting lines. Robben Ford & the Blues Line (1992) moves back toward traditional blues and is infused with a refreshing creativity.