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Chapter 11: Acoustic Roots: Delta Blues and Its Country Cousins
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After you practice Figure 11-5 a few times, throw in some variety and mute
the lower strings to add contrast between the bass and treble voices. This
variation is performed on the accompanying CD.
Figure 11-6 shows a Piedmont style ragtime chord progression. This progression
is typical from the IV chord (F, in the key of C) that acts as the climax to
a song. Note: The walking bass runs seem to line up perfectly with the chord
progression.
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C7
F D 7/F
C
A7
D7
G7
C G 7 C
Figure 11-6:
A ragtime
chord
progression
with bass
runs.
T
A
B
1 0
3
0 2
3
0 1 3
2
3 0
1 2
0 0 3
4 2
3 2 0 4
0 0 3 0
3 0 3
5
5 2
5 3
1 0 1
0 0
3 2
3 3
3
Everything In-Between:
Country and Folk Blues
For acoustic blues that isn’t clearly Delta or Piedmont — or may have elements
of both — you can use the adjectives country and folk. In this case,
country means old-time country, as in non-urban. It has nothing to do with
Nashville, sequins, or Dolly Parton (think mountain hollers and shotgun
shacks). Folk blues is more of a labeling convention, where certain performers,
like Leadbelly, were considered folk musicians because they sang folk
songs. A lot of it is just convention instead of indicating any deeper meaning.
A quick profile of country and folk blues
The repertoire that comprised country and folk blues was often just a loose
mix of folk and popular songs that were given a bluesy treatment by bluesinfluenced
performers. These performers often made no distinction between
what was blues or not; they just played songs from any genre that suited their
performance style. Similarly, audiences didn’t notice, either. For example, no
one could have led a more emblematic blues life than Leadbelly, yet his best
known song was a waltz-time folk ditty called “Irene Goodnight.”
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