Mississippi

Mississippi

Mississippi is a U.S. state located in the Southern United States. Jackson is the state capital and largest city. The name of the state derives from the Mississippi River, which flows along its western boundary, whose name comes from the Ojibwe word misi-ziibi...

 is best known as the home of the blues

Blues

Blues is the name given to both a musical form and a music genre that originated in African-American communities of primarily the "Deep South" of the United States at the end of the 19th century from spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts and chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads...

, which developed among the freed African American

African American

African Americans are citizens or residents of the United States who have at least partial ancestry from any of the native populations of Sub-Saharan Africa and are the direct descendants of enslaved Africans within the boundaries of the present United States...

s in the latter half of the 19th century. The Delta blues

Delta blues

The Delta blues is one of the earliest styles of blues music. It originated in the Mississippi Delta, a region of the United States that stretches from Memphis, Tennessee in the north to Vicksburg, Mississippi in the south, Helena, Arkansas in the west to the Yazoo River on the east. The...

 is the style most closely associated with the state, and includes performers like Robert Johnson and Mississippi John Hurt

Mississippi John Hurt

John Smith Hurt, better known as Mississippi John Hurt was an American country blues singer and guitarist.Raised in Avalon, Mississippi, Hurt taught himself how to play the guitar around age nine...

.

The fiddle

Fiddle

The term fiddle may refer to any bowed string musical instrument, most often the violin. It is also a colloquial term for the instrument used by players in all genres, including classical music...

 and banjo

Banjo

In the 1830s Sweeney became the first white man to play the banjo on stage. His version of the instrument replaced the gourd with a drum-like sound box and included four full-length strings alongside a short fifth-string. There is no proof, however, that Sweeney invented either innovation. This new...

 are common folk instruments in Mississippi, which has also seen some development as a gospel

Gospel music

Gospel music is music that is written to express either personal, spiritual or a communal belief regarding Christian life, as well as to give a Christian alternative to mainstream secular music....

, country music

Country music

Country music is a popular American musical style that began in the rural Southern United States in the 1920s. It takes its roots from Western cowboy and folk music...

 and Appalachian folk music center. The Leake County Revelers' brand of folk music saw some national popularity late in the 1930s, at around the same time as Mississippi native Jimmie Rodgers

Jimmie Rodgers (country singer)

James Charles Rodgers , known as Jimmie Rodgers, was an American country singer in the early 20th century known most widely for his rhythmic yodeling...

 innovated modern country music. Mississippi was also home to Malaco Records

Malaco Records

Malaco Records is an independent record label based in Jackson, Mississippi. Malaco is and has been the home of various major soul, blues and gospel acts, such as Johnnie Taylor, Bobby Bland, ZZ Hill, Denise LaSalle, Benny Latimore, Dorothy Moore, Little Milton, Shirley Brown, Marvin Sease, and the...

, a well-known indie R&B label.

Singer Jimmy Buffett

Jimmy Buffett

James William "Jimmy" Buffett is a singer-songwriter, author, entrepreneur, and film producer. He is best known for his music, which often portrays an "island escapism" lifestyle. Together with his Coral Reefer Band, Buffett's musical hits include "Margaritaville" , and "Come Monday"...

 was born in Pascagoula

Pascagoula, Mississippi

Pascagoula is a city in Jackson County, Mississippi, United States. It is the principal city of the Pascagoula, Mississippi Metropolitan Statistical Area, as a part of the Gulfport–Biloxi–Pascagoula, Mississippi Combined Statistical Area. The population was 26,200 at the 2000 census...

, Mississippi in 1946.

Delta blues

The Delta blues is often regarded as the most rootsy or traditional style of the blues, or as the ultimate origins of the blues

Origins of the blues

Little is known about the exact origin of the music now known as the blues. No specific year can be cited as the origin of the blues, largely because the style evolved over a long period of time and existed in approaching its modern form before the term blues was introduced, before the...

. The style has also been called the "most influential form of rural blues (with an) eerie, sometimes demonic power that is unmatched by other American acoustic music". Many of these performers recorded in the early 20th century; however, by the 1950s, they were largely forgotten outside of Mississippi. Many moved to Chicago, and became a part of the more mainstream Chicago blues

Chicago blues

The Chicago blues is a form of blues music that developed in Chicago, Illinois, by taking the basic acoustic guitar and harmonica-based Delta blues, making the harmonica louder with a microphone and an instrument amplifier, and adding electrically amplified guitar, amplified bass guitar, drums,...

 scene.

In the 1960s, however, a roots revival

Roots revival

A roots revival is a trend which includes young performers popularizing the traditional musical styles of their ancestors. Often, roots revivals include an addition of newly-composed songs with socially and politically aware lyrics, as well as a general modernization of the folk sound.After an...

began across the United States, and interest in Mississippi's blues musicians increased.

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