The Chicago Blues
What happened when the Delta Blues — and Robert Johnson’s influence — traveled north to Chicago
Lantern Theater Company’s world premiere digital production of Me and the Devil — directed and co-written by Steve H. Broadnax III and extended through February 27, 2022 — focuses on Robert Johnson, an influential figure in his short lifetime. When he synthesized the influences of his past, including Memphis Blues and the many Delta Blues musicians he encountered and admired, he created many of the foundations of rock and roll and changed the course of the blues. Johnson’s beloved Delta Blues traveled north to Chicago, where it became the biggest influence on the music that came to be Chicago Blues.
In the mid-20th century, Chicago was one of the largest and fastest growing cities in the United States, and it held the promise of opportunity to people in need of it. During the Great Migration, Black Americans looking to escape the sharecropping system and Jim Crow laws migrated north. Among them were Delta Blues musicians, who found that Chicago could offer a home base, enabling them to stay mostly in one place rather than living the traveling lives of itinerant Delta Blues musicians like Robert Johnson. They could make recordings in Chicago, and make a living playing gigs in the many Chicago clubs without wondering where they would lay their heads from night to night.
The Chicago Blues scene was populated by crowded and noisy city streets and clubs — a far cry from the juke joints of the Delta. The increased noise and bustle needed to be met with amplification, leading to one of the key evolutions from Delta Blues to Chicago Blues. The basic tenets of Delta Blues remained — a focus on harmonica and slide guitar, alongside passionate and personal lyrics and singing — but they were now augmented with electric guitars rather than acoustic and full bands rather than single players or trios.
The tropes and licks of Delta Blues that Johnson mastered, developed, and expanded can be heard throughout Chicago Blues, newly electrified and amplified. Delta Blues luminaries — including Robert Johnson’s contemporaries Sonny Boy Williamson II and Honeyboy Edwards — were among the thousands that arrived in Chicago from Mississippi for recording and performing opportunities, bringing the foundations of Delta Blues with them. They also brought with them the knowledge and memory of Robert Johnson’s revolutionary use of these tropes and licks, expanding what was possible with a clear and well-defined form.
Though he never lived there, one of Robert Johnson’s most enduring songs is “Sweet Home Chicago,” featuring many of the sound tropes that recur again and again in both Delta and Chicago Blues, including the defining sound of the slide guitar. Chicago Blues musicians would take these sounds into the next generation, whether they knew Robert Johnson or not.
A family tree of the American blues
Through Delta Blues musicians who were directly influenced by Robert Johnson (and, by extension, his mentors in Mississippi), Chicago Blues becomes a way to trace the lineage of rock and roll all the way back to the Delta. Here are just a few of the prominent Chicago Blues players who are part of that family tree.
Howlin’ Wolf
Though most famous as a Chicago Blues artist, Howlin’ Wolf (born Chester Arthur Burnett) was born and learned the blues in Mississippi alongside many formative Delta Blues artists. He learned guitar from Charley Patton, practiced harmonica with Sonny Boy Williamson II, and played gigs with Willie Brown, Honeyboy Edwards, Son House, and Robert Johnson himself. He was an early adopter of the electric guitar, and upon relocating to Chicago in 1952, became a staple of the Chicago Blues scene. His career was defined by his powerful singing voice and his backing band, which he was able to populate with the best area musicians by paying them well and offering benefits like insurance.
Muddy Waters
Howlin’ Wolf’s major rival in Chicago was Muddy Waters (born McKinley Morganfield), another Delta Blues transplant from Mississippi who is often called the Father of Modern Chicago Blues. In the Delta, he emulated Robert Johnson and became one of the earliest pioneers in transforming the Delta Blues to the Chicago Blues. Waters arrived in the city in the early 1940s and immediately traded acoustic guitar for electric and put a band behind his music. Noted for his slide guitar, powerful singing, and band-leading, Waters’ guitar and harmonica playing were deeply influenced by hearing Robert Johnson and Son House back home in Mississippi. After bringing Delta Blues to Chicago, Waters also helped to bring Chicago Blues to Great Britain, traveling and playing there in 1958, just a few years before the British Blues explosion. His influence on those primarily white British artists was so great that The Rolling Stones named themselves after one of his songs.
Buddy Guy
George “Buddy” Guy was an electric guitar player at the vanguard of a new generation of Chicago Blues musicians. When he moved to the city from Louisiana in 1957, he immediately gravitated to Muddy Waters. Much of his early career was spent as a session musician for Waters, Howlin’ Wolf, Sonny Boy Williamson, and other Chicago Blues artists, because his record label did not support the innovations Guy included in his live shows and wanted to record. His guitar playing and songwriting were grounded in the blues but heavily influenced by the soul and jazz movements in Chicago, creating a distinct take on the ever-evolving blues genre.
Chuck Berry
Hailed as the Father of Rock and Roll, Chuck Berry can trace his influences back to the Chicago Blues — and by extension, Robert Johnson and the Delta Blues. Berry began his musical training by playing blues music as a teenager, and was especially interested in the guitar riffs and showmanship of his favorite blues musicians. He traveled to Chicago in 1955 and met Muddy Waters, who was impressed with Berry’s blues playing and got him in touch with Chess Records. In working with Chess, Berry refined his particular style, foregrounding guitar riffs as foundational to a songs melody, and became one of the primary creators of modern rock and roll.
Robert Johnson did indeed stand at a crossroads, but not the supernatural one of myth. He was at the crossroads of the blues, at the intersection of the Delta Blues and Chicago Blues, helping to bridge the traditions of the former with the innovations of the latter. The pioneers of Chicago Blues were the followers of him and his contemporaries, and the innovations he made possible paved the way for a new form of blues and for rock and roll.
Related reading: Robert Johnson: The Man and the Myth — The legendary bluesman at the center of Me and the Devil
Me and the Devil was filmed at St. Stephen’s Theater in Center City Philadelphia in June 2021 with strict adherence to all CDC, state, and local health and safety guidelines, and is streaming on demand and extended through February 27, 2022. Visit our website for tickets and information.
