The Song Planner

Love Blues

tagStarted early blues and popular song overlapPeak 1920s-presentLast big hit ongoing in blues ballads, soul-blues and roots love songs

Located in 1 route

Blues → Vocal / Ballad Blues

Love Blues is blues about desire, devotion, romantic dependence, flirtation and the hope that love can still work. It is not automatically happy; blues love often comes with bargaining, jealousy, distance and risk. The tag is useful for songs where the emotional center is wanting or valuing someone, rather than the collapse after losing them. It can be tender, sensual, comic or pleading.

History

Classic blues singers wrote openly about love and sexuality, while country blues and urban blues turned desire into repeated images of travel, letters, beds, trains and money. Later R&B and soul-blues made love blues smoother without removing the ache. Artists from Ma Rainey and Blind Lemon Jefferson to B.B. King, Etta James, Bobby "Blue" Bland and Susan Tedeschi show how flexible the subject remains.

Defining artists

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Essential listening

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← Explore Blues

Sources

  • blues love-song references
  • artist discographies
  • classic and soul-blues histories
  • streaming/video checks