Impact of Blues on Modern American Culture

[Lost Legends Documentary]

Greetings Blues Lovers! We are doing research for a feature length documentary on how Blues has impacted Modern American Culture. How do YOU think it has molded our society?

[TheBig3]

Outside of music? It probably didn't that much. Unless you're talking degree seperations. E.g. Blues influences Hard Rock bands in the 60's & 70's, and then those bands influenced X.

Most people today think Robert Johnson is a professional athlete.

[Lisnaholic]

in the late 1940`s, saxophonist sidney bechet chose to live in paris because he was given more respect there than in his american homeland.
although he`s a jazz player, he illustrates one influence that blues has had; through their music, afro-american musicians won the respect of a european audience at a time when they were perhaps undervalued in the usa. when popular rock stars like the stones and clapton made clear their reverence for the old american blues guys, this was a small but definite contribution towards a growing appreciation of afro-american culture and hence, indirectly, racial integration in america. anyway, that`s how things looked from the brit side of the atlantic; i`m sure something similar was happening inside the usa itself; that blues was an early bridge between white and black communities.

also, of its very nature, blues tells about the plight of the common man. in the 1950`s, in an atmosphere of optimistic post-war consumerism, the blues was a small subversive voice stripping away the sugar coating from what was still a bitter pill for many. i suppose blues provided a rallying call for the disaffected, and later, a template, a precedent for the protests of the 1960`s.

but you`re the researcher, lld - maybe you should be telling us !