Louisiana blues is a genre of

blues Blues is a music genre and musical form which originated in the Deep South of the United States around the 1860s. Blues incorporated spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts, chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads from the Afr ...

music that developed in the period after World War II in the state of Louisiana. It is generally divided into two major subgenres, with the

jazz Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with its roots in blues and ragtime. Since the 1920s Jazz Age, it has been recognized as a major ...

-influenced

New Orleans blues New Orleans blues is a subgenre of blues that developed in and around the city of New Orleans, influenced by jazz and Caribbean music. It is dominated by piano and saxophone, but also produced guitar bluesmen. Characteristics As a style, New O ...

based on the musical traditions of that city and the slower tempo

swamp blues Swamp blues is a type of Louisiana blues that developed in the Black communities of Southwest Louisiana in the 1950s.Malone, Evelyn Levingston, "Swamp Blues: Race And Vinyl From Southwest Louisiana" (2016). Publicly Accessible Penn Dissertation ...

incorporating influences from

zydeco Zydeco ( or , french: Zarico) is a music genre that evolved in southwest Louisiana by French Creole speakers which blends blues, rhythm and blues, and music indigenous to the Louisiana Creoles and the Native American people of Louisiana. Al ...

and

Cajun music Cajun music (french: Musique cadienne), an emblematic music of Louisiana played by the Cajuns, is rooted in the ballads of the French-speaking Acadians of Canada. Although they are two separate genres, Cajun music is often mentioned in tandem w ...

from around

Baton Rouge Baton Rouge ( ; ) is a city in and the capital of the U.S. state of Louisiana Louisiana , group=pronunciation (French: ''La Louisiane'') is a state in the Deep South and South Central regions of the United States. It is the 20th-sma ...

. Major artists in the New Orleans tradition include Professor Longhair and

Guitar Slim Eddie Jones (December 10, 1926 – February 7, 1959), better known as Guitar Slim, was an American guitarist in the 1940s and 1950s, best known for the million-selling song "The Things That I Used to Do", for Specialty Records. It is listed in th ...

and for swamp blues

Slim Harpo Slim Harpo (born James Isaac Moore; January 11, 1924 – January 31, 1970) was an American blues musician, a leading exponent of the swamp blues style, and "one of the most commercially successful blues artists of his day". He played guitar and w ...

and

Lightnin' Slim Otis Verries Hicks, known as Lightnin' Slim (March 13, 1913 – July 27, 1974), was an American blues musician who played Louisiana blues and swamp blues for Excello Records. The blues critic ED Denson ranked him as one of the five great blu ...

. Both genres peaked in popularity in the 1960s; interest declined in the later 1960s, but there have been occasional revivals since the 1970s.

New Orleans blues

The blues that developed in the 1940s and 1950s in and around the city of

New Orleans New Orleans ( , ,New Orleans
Merriam-Webster. ; french: La Nouvelle-Orléans , es, Nuev ...

was strongly influenced by jazz and incorporated Caribbean influences, it is dominated by piano and saxophone but has also produced major guitar bluesmen. Major figures in the genre include Professor Longhair and

, who both produced major regional, national R&B chart and even mainstream hits.Unterberger, R. (2003). "Louisiana blues", in V. Bogdanov, C. Woodstra, S. T. Erlewine, eds., ''All Music Guide to the Blues: The Definitive Guide to the Blues''. 3rd ed. Milwaukee: Backbeat Books. pp. 687–688. .

Swamp blues

Swamp blues developed around

in the 1950s and which reached a peak of popularity in the 1960s. It generally has a slow tempo and incorporates influences from other genres of music, particularly the regional styles of

and

.. Its most successful proponents included

and

, who enjoyed a number of

rhythm and blues Rhythm and blues, frequently abbreviated as R&B or R'n'B, is a genre of popular music that originated in African-American communities in the 1940s. The term was originally used by record companies to describe recordings marketed predominantly ...

and national hits and whose work was frequently covered by bands of the

British Invasion The British Invasion was a cultural phenomenon of the mid-1960s, when rock and pop music acts from the United Kingdom and other aspects of British culture became popular in the United States and significant to the rising "counterculture" on b ...

References

{{Louisianarootsmusic Blues music genres Music of Louisiana