Country blues

Country blues (also folk blues, rural blues, or downhome blues) refers to all the acoustic, guitar-driven forms of the blues. After blues' birth in t

Country blues (also folk blues, rural blues, or downhome blues) refers to all the acoustic, guitar-driven forms of the blues. After blues' birth in the southern United States, it quickly spread throughout the country (and elsewhere), giving birth to a host of regional styles. These include Memphis, Detroit, Chicago, Texas, Piedmont, Louisiana, Western, Atlanta, St. Louis, East Coast, Swamp, New Orleans, Delta and Kansas City blues.

According to Richard Middleton (1990, p.142) folk blues "was constructed as a distinct discursive category in the early decades of this century [20th], mostly as the result of the activities of record companies, marketing 'old-fashioned' music to rural Southern 'folk' and newly arrived urban dwellers." Also contributing to the documentation of the genre were John and Alan Lomax, Samuel Charters, Paul Oliver, David Evans, Jeff Todd Titon, and William Ferris (all bourgeois, as pointed out by Middleton).