Impact of Blues on Modern American Culture
 

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?

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.

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 !