No one would have guessed back in 1912, when it first made its presence known on vaudeville stages, that the blues would become one of the defining sounds of the twentieth century

No one would have guessed back in 1912, when it first made its presence known on vaudeville stages, that the blues would become one of the defining sounds of the twentieth century. No one in the nascent music industry thought of it then as anything more than a fad, a subset of ragtime even, only with a bunch of guitar or banjo notes played together and a vocal style that hovered around a tune, occasionally hitting the note, but more commonly sounding like a moan.

B. Stanley, Let's do it: the birth of pop (2022), 139

Dem lawdy-lawdy blues, all about those cottonfields back home: the Dagenham Delta.

Like you'd expect, most of our home-grown bluesmen were lousy. They'd come out of Surbiton, their hair down in their eyes and their Mick Jagger maracas up by their ears, and they'd sing their blues, dem lawdy-lawdy blues, all about those cottonfields back home: the Dagenham Delta.

N. Cohn, Awopbopaloobop Awopbamboom (1969), 162