St. Louis Blues
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St. Louis Blues blends river-city piano, vaudeville polish, ragtime memory, barrelhouse drive, and urban vocal blues. It often moves with a strong left-hand piano foundation, a relaxed but insistent shuffle or slow drag, witty lyrics, and a slightly more urbane feel than rural country blues.
History
The term is inseparable from W. C. Handy's famous composition, but the local style also grew from St. Louis's saloons, brothels, river traffic, rent parties, and piano rooms. Performers such as Henry Townsend, Roosevelt Sykes, Walter Davis, Peetie Wheatstraw, and St. Louis Jimmy Oden developed a distinctive piano-and-guitar urban blues language during the 1930s and 1940s. The style influenced Chicago piano blues, Kansas City blues, postwar R&B, and the blues revival, with St. Louis artists continuing to represent a polished, narrative-rich Midwestern city blues tradition.
Defining artists
Essential listening
Sources
- Henry Townsend, A Blues Life
- Paul Oliver, The Story of the Blues
- Elijah Wald, Escaping the Delta
- AllMusic