Pinning Down Origin Of The Blues Tougher Than Ever

blues musician Muddy Waters performs at New York’s Palladium Theater. The city of Chicago plans to dedicate nine-story mural to the blues legend on Thursday, June 8, 2017, before the city’s annual blues festival this weekend. Waters is known as the father or king of Blues music in Chicago. He died in 1983 outside Chicago at age 70.
Blues musician Muddy Waters performs at New York's Palladium Theater. The city of Chicago plans to dedicate nine-story mural to the blues legend before the city's annual blues festival this weekend. AP Photo
blues musician Muddy Waters performs at New York’s Palladium Theater. The city of Chicago plans to dedicate nine-story mural to the blues legend on Thursday, June 8, 2017, before the city’s annual blues festival this weekend. Waters is known as the father or king of Blues music in Chicago. He died in 1983 outside Chicago at age 70.
Blues musician Muddy Waters performs at New York's Palladium Theater. The city of Chicago plans to dedicate nine-story mural to the blues legend before the city's annual blues festival this weekend. AP Photo

Pinning Down Origin Of The Blues Tougher Than Ever

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For decades, fans of American and music history have been told a specific story about the origins of the blues. The book, The Original Blues: The Emergence of the Blues in African American Vaudeville says the music evolved on stages with piano backing as much or more than it did on front porches with guitars in the Mississippi Delta. George DeStefano, a freelance music journalist, wrote about the book for the website Stereogum, and joins us to give us some insight into some of these new theories and discoveries.