The African-American people who sang and played early blues carried an ancestral heritage and were subject to a wide range of musical idioms. Music functioned directly in almost every facet of life, from work to dances and the church. Blues is a coalescence of indefinable elements. The lack of documented material means that its development has been the source of extensive conjecture. In terms of the guitar, however, the songster tradition may be the core of early styles. Although early blues is often described generally as "country blues," the music was in fact just as closely associated with small towns and cities as with the farms and cotton plantations of rural agricultural areas. Cheap, mass-produced guitars became available throughout the United States in the late 19th century. They were taken up by singers, who used them to accompany their songs, and occasionally they were integrated into small groups. Early guitar styles probably used both standard fretted fingerstyles as well as open tunings based on a chord, with a slide object moved along the strings for basic harmonies, and notes that have an expressive, microtonal nuance. An early reference to a blues guitarist dates from 1902—03, when musician W.C. Handy passed through a southern railroad station and saw a singer playing slide guitar with a knife, producing what he termed "the weirdest music he had ever heard." Sylvester Weaver (1897-1960) from Kentucky is one of the first clearly identifiable guitarists. He was recording backing for singer Sara Martin in October 1923, and the following month, in New York, he recorded two solo instrumental with a smooth, warm sound using slide and an open E-major tuning. "Guitar Blues" is reflective, with simple phrases and chords, and "Guitar Rag" is rhythmic with a jaunty melody.

Charley Patton

Considered to be one of the seminal figures of the genre, Charley Patton (c. 1887-1934) was born in Mississippi. His "Pony Blues" (1929) was the commercial success that made him well known. Patton recorded ragtime, country songs, and spirituals as well as blues. His characteristic fingerstyle and open-tuning slide accompaniment often has a loose, unstructured approach with irregular bars, uneven timing, and unusual accents; and his music conveys a rough, repetitive, basic earthiness with a strong, physical, rhythmic feel. His phrases, played with a lyrical subtlety, often mirror or answer his voice, and he uses slide end to end. Patton's approach incorporates additional sounds and techniques, including snapping strings against the fingerboard and drumming on the instrument. His guitar was tuned higher than normal to give a bright, penetrating sound. Among his well-known compositions are "A Spoonful Blues," showing distinctive melodic slide playing, and "Moon Going Down." By the time he died in 1934, Patton had become a legendary early figure establishing Mississippi Delta blues.

Son House (1902-88), an influential figure, has a rhythmic slide style that can be heard on "Walking Blues."

Other outstanding musicians of the early years included Booker T. Washington "Bukka" White (1906-77), Nehemiah Curtis "Skip" James (1902-69), and "Mississippi" John Hurt (1892—1966), but they languished in relative obscurity. Leadbelly was recorded while in a Louisiana Penitentiary in 1933.

Blind lemon Jefferson

Texas, specifically the great city of Dallas, was one of the major regions in which early guitar-playing developed. It was here that Blind Lemon Jefferson (1897—1929) started recording in 1926. He was one of the first popular blues recording artists and his exceptional technique combines blues with ragtime virtuosity, using harmonic sequences that function as an ingenious counterpart to his vocals.

His exuberant and intricate fingerstyle is full of imaginative lines, with arpeggiation emphasizing melodies, and suggesting countermelodies woven with dancing and infectious rhythmic propulsion. Jefferson also uses the guitar in a call and response style. "Black Snake Moan," for example, mixes single lines, strumming, and independent bass in relation to upper chord voicings. "Rabbit Foot Blues" starts with a boogie and becomes a piece full of unexpected invention. Jefferson was astonishingly versatile, from the slide of "Jack O' Diamond Blues" to the percussive ragtime of "Hot Dog." He showed how the guitar could create a high level of instrumental content and supersede, rather than just accompany, vocals; "Matchbox Blues" became a popular vehicle for musical developments by later generations.

Gospel

From the 1920s, "Gospel" became the term for songs with an overtly religious content. Gospel guitar playing in the early period is essentially similar to blues, with fingerstyle, slide, and a tendency toward occasional pieces with less rhythmic emphasis. One of the greatest individuals to express a feeling of human yearning and salvation was Blind Willie Johnson (1902-49), who began recording in 1927. His melodious, iridescent slide flows seamlessly around his intense voice and has its own peculiar singing quality, with a shaking, fast vibrato at stressed points. There is a brooding presence in "Dark Was The Night, Cold Was The Ground" with its haunting depth and spine-tingling spirituality. Floating in time with searching slide and an eerie, percussive punctuation, the guitar is no longer a familiar instrument but a vehicle for otherworldly transcendent power.

The southeast

The southeast provided a flourishing blues environment. It’s most important areas were Georgia, particularly the city of Atlanta, parts of Florida, and the Carolinas. Some of the music from this region has been described as "Down Home Blues," and music from the area north of Atlanta is termed "Piedmont Blues. This area has its own characteristic mix and shows a closer relation to the roots of European folk, and also ragtime and country music, which affected blues musicians to varying degrees. The area is not unlike Texas and Dallas in its urban sophistication and mixture of cultures, and there is a lighter optimism in some of the music. Atlanta produced early exponents such as Barbecue Bob Hicks and Peg Leg Howell, but the major figure to emerge with strong instrumental skills was Blind Blake (c. 1 890   1933), who rivals Blind Lemon Jefferson in his range and complexity. "West Coast Blues"(1926), a showcase for his playing, is one of the few early recordings to be solely instrumental. "Diddie Wa Diddie" is a virtuosic, ragtime-style twelve-bar piece, and "Police Dog Blues" uses an open tuning and features harmonics. With his advanced and highly organized musicianship and almost pianistic level of controlled technique, Blake's right-hand fingerstyle with rolling bass stands out. He became one of the few players to work as a house session musician for the Paramount label between 1926 and 1932. Blind Willie McTell (1901-59) was another figure with a wonderful voice and a smooth sophistication, playing a wide range of styles on his 1 2-string guitar.

Many early blues musicians were blind, as music was one of the blind's few options for making a living. Both Blind Boy Fuller (Fulton Allen, 1908-41) and Riley Puckett attended Atlanta's school for the blind. Fuller mainly used a resonator guitar, putting down "I'm A Rattlesnakin' Daddy" (1935), with its punchy staccato bass and driving incisive chords, which became popular with blues and country players. Gary Davis (1896-1972) worked with Fuller in the 1930s, switching to Gospel after his ordination in 1937.

Robert Johnson

In a period in which there were many blues guitarists, one of the individuals to stand out was Robert Johnson, born in Mississippi in 1911. His strength lay partly in his ability to draw on prevalent traditional elements and distill them into his own clearly articulate style. Surrounded by myth and legend, Johnson was said to have sold his soul to the devil at a crossroads (the Delta's traditional place to meet the Prince of Darkness) in return for worldly success. This myth was compounded by the fact that he died under suspicious circumstances in 1938 at the very early age of 27.

Johnson grew up in an environment full of musical crosscurrents, listening to musicians of the caliber of Charley Patton and Son House performing locally, and also drew on the sophisticated recordings of Lonnie Johnson (see page 50) and pianist Leroy Carr.

His improvisation is often based closely around chord positions and is characterized by an intense focus, a transparent clarity, surging infectious rhythms, and an uncluttered realization of musical ideas, in which notes and harmonies are telling. Johnson's tight boogie riffs anticipate later developments in the postwar era as he moves through parts gracefully, his guitar supporting his passionate and emotional vocals.