Mississippi River Blues[/caption]Carol Forsloff --The Mississippi River forms the backdrop of much of music history, with Louisiana at the center of the blues. Blues came from those old gospel songs, woven into a new fabric that made musicians sing of hard times. The genre, from the African American community, spread to folk and country, then to contemporary standards. The types of music flowing from the river reveal the intertwining of words and melodies reflecting the history and culture that has moved with those mighty waters.
Mississippi River Blues is one of those songs that was done first by an African American singer Big Bill Broonzy who wrote of that river in bluesy ragtime tones. He introduces it by telling us that old river is "so deep and wide," as one listens to the strings and resonance of ragtime. He put this out in 1934, at a time when the blues had edged itself into the mainstream, having ridden into the world on the voices of Bessie Smith, Ma Rainey, John Lee Hooker and the folks who got down into the depths of human feeling, to pull out those blues from where hurt really came.
Country singers, with their classic three-chord melodies, did not make those complicated blues strings make the same sounds as in New Orleans, but they were able to make the blues authentic as well, because many of the performers of that genre in the early days understood hard times and sang of them. That was true of Hank Snow who composed his own version of Mississippi River Blues, with an almost replica of Boozy's first line, but then lyrics and melody that were different afterward. Jimmie Rodgers came along, recorded Snow's song, and made it his own in his personal style. It was a time of trading, of music crossing the borders of type and style, to be embraced by a growing population of people who love to play and listen to the blues.
The blues is now performed everywhere there is a guitar, piano or some other instrument that can make the sounds so familiar to the fans of the blues. But along the Mississippi the old-time tunes can still be heard, even becoming part of a PBS special on the songs of the Mississippi. That Mississippi River Blues, claimed by male vocal artists, is part of that tradition, but women are making more and more of a claim to the music around the world. Blues is reminiscent of those slow, rhythmic, mysterious and dark currents that make us all sit back and think about how the rivers, like the Mississippi, represent our image of the flow of life as well.
