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The emancipation proclamation in 1863 initiated the start of sharecroppers and 'Juke Joints' which were places where African Americans went to listen to music and gamble. This is the period where Arican spirituals left the group setting and were moved into a more individualized performance. "there was a direct relationship between the national ideological emphasis upon the individual, the popularity of Booker T. Washington's teachings, and the rise of the blues." -Lawrence Levine
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In 1899 Scott Joplin publishes 'Maple Leaf Rag' Joplin's influence in the developement in ragtime greatly influenced early Blues.
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Reporters and Chroniclers in the Deep South reported on Blues music very early on in the 20th century. Jelly Roll Morton says he first heard Blues in New Orleans in 1902.
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In 1902 Victor Records issues the first known recordings of African American field hollers known as "Camp Meeting Shouts"
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The Blues had been evolving in America since the slaves came across the Atlantic with their African spirituals. But in 1903 W.C. Handy insisted that he had had the Blues revealed to him by a guitarist at a train station.
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In 1908 the first peice of Blues music was published. It was Antonio Maggio's 'I got the Blues'
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The first recording of a solo African American was Mamie Smith's 1920 rendition of Perry Bradfords 'Crazy Blues.
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In the 1920's rural AFrican Americans began migrating to the urban centers thus defining Blues as an individual art form. Prior to this Blues had just been seen as the music of the rural Mississippi delta.
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Kentucky born, Sylvester weaver was tyhe first to record the style known as slide guitar using a knife or a broken off bottle top as a slide on the guitar's fret board.
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During the great depression many southern African Americans migrated north to cities such as New York and Chicago.
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Throughout the 1930's Alan Lomax recorded a wide variety of African American singing styles termed proto-blues, including field hollers and ring shouts.
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Huddie Ledbetter aka Leadbelly introduces the Blues to a wider audience. He was the first artist to play Blues to a white audience outside the South.
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Robert Johnson was a very influential musician in his time and influenced the developement of the blues.
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The first recording of an electric guitar was played by Eddie Durnham. The instrument had been developed by George Beauchamp and Adolph Rickenbacher
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Alan Lomax records McKinley Morganfield better known as Muddy Waters in a field in Mississippi for the library of congress musical archive.
