As far as male players, country blues, or rural blues, flourished in the southern part of the United States. It's a simple form of blues, with acoustic guitar and vocals. Here a couple of examples, both of them coincidentally blind. Lemon Jefferson was from Texas and Willie McTell From Georgia. Here's Matchbox. [MUSIC] Now you may very well have recognized that song, because it's been covered by a lot of other artists. Carl Perkins covered it in 1956, and you'll notice, incidentally, on the record label, he was credited as the writer of the song. [MUSIC] And you will certainly, probably recognize this version from the Beatles in 1964. [MUSIC] Blind Willie McTell, as I mentioned, was from Georgia. And he played 12 string slide guitar, which was not all that unusual. It was I'm sorry, was very unusual in this time period. He wrote a song called Statesboro Blues in 1928. [MUSIC] Statesboro, of course, is a town in Georgia. And that song was made even more popular by the Allman Brothers Band, in 1971. [MUSIC] Jazz carried much of the feeling of the blues, but with instruments rather than voices mostly. So it was more about playing than about singing. So far as the music played by black people, ragtime, blues and jazz would become part of the sound of rock and roll, although in different styles. This took place in New Orleans, and moved on to other places. And branched out in later years to other subgenres. Such as Boogie Woogie and Jump Blues. Here are some big names in the early years of jazz, from the New Orleans area. King Oliver's Creole Jazz band, was an amazing group, 1923 they did Dippermouth Blues. [MUSIC] Jelly Roll Morton took those ragtime components into jazz structure with piano. And he was a pivotal figure in early jazz, and arguably rock and roll, making piano one of rock and roll's instruments. Here's Black Bottom Stomp, 1926. [MUSIC] Louis Armstrong was one of the first widely popular African American entertainers and one of the best known jazz musicians. He did this song called Saint James Infirmary, in 1928, and it's a very sad song. [MUSIC] When we come back, we'll talk about hillbilly music from the white side.
