West Coast Blues
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West Coast Blues is polished postwar electric blues with jazz harmony, smooth vocals, horn arrangements, relaxed shuffles, and clean guitar tone. The style is less raw than Chicago blues and less rural than Texas blues, often sounding like a late-night club band that can read charts, swing hard, and still make the guitar sting.
History
The style emerged in Los Angeles and other California centers during and after World War II, when migration brought Texas, Oklahoma, Louisiana, and Mississippi musicians west. T-Bone Walker's urbane guitar and vocals became the model, while Charles Brown, Lowell Fulson, Pee Wee Crayton, Johnny Otis, Roy Milton, and Jimmy McCracklin built a blues-R&B scene through labels such as Modern, Aladdin, Specialty, Swing Time, and Imperial. West Coast Blues influenced electric guitar phrasing, jump blues, soul-blues, blues revival bands, and the smooth modern blues of Robert Cray and others.
Defining artists
Essential listening
Sources
- Charles Keil, Urban Blues
- Arnold Shaw, Honkers and Shouters
- AllMusic
- The Blues Foundation