What is the Delta Blues Genre?

Delta Blues comes from a region in Northwestern Mississippi known as “the delta” because of it’s flatlands and fertile soil.

The music was made by poor black sharecroppers & former slaves, and is arguably the most famous subgenre of blues, in part because it was largely responsible for the explosion of Rock n Roll, and the sheer volume of talented artists it produced.

The majority of the Delta Blues contained a single instrument: the guitar, though harmonica and, to an extent, piano were used as well. This is where the Blues as we know it began, and it started with a handful of musicians that are revered among Blues affectionados today. Son House, Charley Patton, Tommy Johnson, Bukka White and perhaps the most famous of them all, Robert Johnson were all massively influential Delta Blues musicians. Delta musicians were the first traditional-style Blues artists to be recorded, and most recorded playing and singing solo. Most of the music was played with fingerpicking techniques or slide, and most of it, with several notable exceptions, was in the traditional “12 bar blues” style. It was from the Delta’s roots that many other styles of the Blues were born, most notably the famous Chicago Blues. Countless artists have been heavily influenced by the music of the delta pioneers, including the likes of Eric Clapton, Jimi Hendrix, The White Stripes, The Rolling Stones, Led Zepplin, and a wide group of others in an array of genres.

The Delta still maintains a rich Blues heritige, with dozens of markers along the Mississippi Blues Trail that commemorate notable events, places and people in Blues history. Excellent Blues museums dot Mississippi, including the Delta Blues Museum and the beautiful newly opened B.B. King Museum and Delta Interpretive Center. Blues clubs, festivals, and artwork continue to thrive and carry the Blues tradition that was essential to and deeply engrained in music as we know it today.