Blues

An early published blues composition was redefined by Bessie Smith and Louis Armstrong into an immortal jazz-blues standard.

Overdriven amp distortion and repeating riffs became the American source side of the blues-rock merge.

Transformed a stark, solo electric country-blues lament into the standardized ensemble foundation of British blues-rock.

City-club boogie-woogie supplied the backbeat matrix of early R&B.

The 1928 landmark that first put “boogie woogie” in a title — saloon piano turned percussion.

Secular blues shuffle supplied the bodily groove for the modern gospel merge.

An urban dancehall blues joined the gospel secularization as the bridge that helped birth soul.

A dancehall jump blues was transformed into the driving engine of rock and roll.

The Black R&B original "Hound Dog" became, through Elvis’ rock and roll, the social phenomenon that put the teenage market at the center of popular music.

The physicality of Black jump blues reached the pop market as a rock and roll beat through a white band’s cover.

From the Delta to Chicago. The prototype for urban blues and a globally beloved blues standard.

A legendary track where the zenith of acoustic blues profoundly influenced later rock generations.

A folk-blues masterpiece memorializing the 1927 disaster and recording the community's suffering.

A primal Delta blues is carried into postwar Chicago blues when Patton's student Howlin' Wolf sings it as "Saddle My Pony."

The "first blues recording" of 1920 is sung again from the streets of New Orleans in 2014, ninety-four years later.

Blind Lemon Jefferson's country blues was decisively redefined into Carl Perkins' rockabilly anthem 'Matchbox'.

A Memphis street blues formalized into twelve bars — one of the first million-selling records of the blues.

A twelve-bar blues skeleton fused with a yodeling chorus — country music's first commercial hit.