Front Porch Blues

Chicago is synonymous with the blues. The style derives its name from a "blue note" - a flat third or seventh of the major scale deliberately played out of tune. The blues is an offshoot of the work and sorrow songs of blacks during the period before the Civil War. After the war, new sorrow songs were improvised, lamenting lost loves or disappointments in life. In the early 1900's, Southerners followed the Illinois Central Railroad from New Orleans to Chicago in search of opportunity, and brought their music with them. Today, Chicago bursts with the blues; it can be heard everywhere from enormous concert halls to impromptu gatherings on a front porch.