Memphis Electric Blues
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Memphis Electric Blues is a postwar club and studio style built on amplified guitar, crisp rhythm sections, horn touches, and a cleaner, more melodic lead-guitar attack than raw Chicago blues. It often sits between blues, early R&B, rock and roll, and soul, with B.B. King-style single-note phrasing, urban vocals, and danceable shuffles or slow blues.
History
The style grew around Memphis radio, WDIA, Beale Street clubs, Sam Phillips' recording activity, Duke/Peacock networks, and the city's shift from prewar street music to electric ensemble blues. B.B. King's early hits, Rosco Gordon's loping rhythm, Bobby Bland's blues-soul polish, Little Junior Parker's relaxed phrasing, and later Albert King's Stax-era fire made Memphis a crucial electric blues center. Memphis Electric Blues shaped rock guitar vocabulary, soul-blues singing, Stax sessions, and the smoother side of modern electric blues.
Defining artists
Essential listening
Sources
- Peter Guralnick, Sweet Soul Music
- Robert Gordon, It Came from Memphis
- AllMusic
- The Blues Foundation