Blues and technology have been closely linked since the music's inception. Indeed, it was the increasing mechanization of agriculture and improved communications that set off the black migration from the rural cotton belt North to Memphis and Chicago where blues first developed as a commercially successful genre.
The relationship between blues and technology, however, has always been an uneasy alliance. At their best, the blues represent a primal force. When one listens to Howling Wolf or Charley Patton, their music transcends technology and speaks to something far more urgent and universal than mere instruments and recording equipment can capture. And yet a Little Walter harmonica solo or Pat Hare's distorted guitar serve as ample reminders that technology has its own voice.
Today, while blues instrumentation remains essentially similar to that of the 1950s, cutting edge technology is insinuating itself as an essential tool for musicians, promoters, researchers, and fans alike. The affordable personal computer and the internet are rapidly creating on-line resources and communities that defy geographic boundaries. Originally the exclusive domain of defense contractors and research scientists, the internet has in recent years been co-opted by blues aficionados (among others) and is now a integral part of the blues experience for thousands of blues fans.
Writers and editors have long used the internet to exchange copy, and university researchers were able to communicate directly with their colleagues at other universities via e-mail. However, the past 3 years have seen explosive growth in the internet, and far more sophisticated tools are now available to the blues fan.
For many users, the front door to the internet is a commercial service, such as Compuserve or America Online. These services offer blues "forums" for discussion on a huge variety of blues topics. Discussions range from fairly cerebral discussions of the evolution of blues harmonica playing to the omnipresent debate over Stevie Ray Vaughan's status as a bluesman. Commercial services also offer libraries of pictures, biographies, discographies, and sound bytes from various blues artists. Commercial services also offer "chats" with artists. John Lee Hooker recently hosted a live forum session on compuserve where hundreds (thousands?) of users could hold a live discussion with the artist via keyboard. Chris Cain is a frequent presence on America Online, answering questions and offering advice to budding players.
Commercial services, however, offer only a portion of the internet's resources. many users opt to access the internet directly through their local university, their employer, or the hundreds of internet access providers that provide access via phone. One of the cornerstones of the internet is the sub-network of "newsgroups" and "mailing lists" available through most internet access providers. These areas can best be visualized as a letters to the editor section in your favorite blues publication that is constantly updated. At any given time, somewhere between 10,000 and 20,000 newsgroups and mailing lists are active, with users sharing information and views on a virtual plethora of subjects ranging from international trade to gardening to sex to, of course, blues. Although the internet tends to be a bit wilder and woolier than the commercial services (there are entire libraries devoted to subjects that would make Bo Carter blush), the internet also tends to draw a number of fairly high-powered users, with answers to questions likely to come from published authors and noted critics.
Two newsgroups that stand out as resources for blues discussion are rec.music.bluenote.blues and bit.listserv.blues-l. Both groups maintain a high level of activity, and draw participation from most areas of the English-speaking world. Blues-L has a fairly active core groups of participants, with several nationally known musicians and blues historians active on a daily basis. Discussion ranges from daily tributes to musicians' birthdays and tour dates to cerebral discussions about the role of ethnicity in the blues, and the definition of the genre. Bluenote.blues tends to attract fans and beginning musicians eager to share fairly basic information. "Which harmonica should I use" is a common topic of discussion, as are requests for lists of the top 10 acoustic blues albums, etc.
The internet has also opened a new genre for publishers. The World Wide Web (WWW) is a collection of well over 100,000 publications (pages) that contain pictures, sound, and links to other computer resources. These pages may best be thought of as a cross between newspapers and television. On arrival at a WWW page, the viewer is usually greeted with a screen of material that resembles a well-designed newspaper: Pictures and headlines direct the reader to stories and "pointers" to other web pages. By clicking on a picture, highlighted text, or a pointer, the user can access other related resources and articles that may be on any of thousands of computers around the world.
Two WWW sites offer a tremendous resource for blues fans, not only for their own content, but for their links to other blues-related services on the internet. The Bluesnet Home Page and The Blue Highway each offer several pages worth of biographical information and pictures of great bluesmen and women from Blind Lemon Jefferson to Stevie Ray Vaughan. The Blue Highway also offers maps of the Delta and sound clips of great blues songs. Another service both sites offer is a tremendous number of links to other blues sources. After accessing either of these WWW sites, the user can, with a few clicks of the mouse, download files from the library of congress, subscribe to a mailing list for harmonica players, look at the latest issue of Blues Access, or even order blues CDs and merchandise from on-line vendors. Either site would be a recommended first stop for blues fans on the internet.
The effect of the internet on blues is almost unquestionably positive. Just as increased distribution and black radio took blues to a national audience in the 1950s, the internet today is attracting new fans, drawn in by information gleaned online. In an informal survey conducted among blues-l and bluenote.blues participants, a sizable number of respondents said the internet was directly responsible for their interest in blues, and nearly all respondents said that the internet was a primary resource for discovering new artists and historical recordings. Additionally, bands and promoters are using the internet to conduct business and promote themselves to each other and the online audience.
Perhaps most interesting for the Blues Foundation is the growing sense of community among blues fans online. At at least one recent blues society "summit," the blues-l newsgroup was recognized as a valid blues society. Indeed, while the newsgroup has yet to produce its own festival or blues talent showcase, the level of discourse and sheer volume of information shared qualify it as a major force on the organized blues scene.
The internet has the potential to have a tremendous impact on blues. Just as improved technology in the post-war era served as a catalyst for blues to make the transition from race music to one of the primary musical forces in Western culture, the internet may well play a role in determining blues' place in 21st century culture. Check blues-l for regular updates.