Activities Involving the Blues

The blues today is widely available on popular websites, iTunes, and commercially available for purchase.  Blues originally, like ancient Greek storytelling, was only shared through oral performance.  Similarly, blues used to be sung and performed by day laborers either during work in order to make it through the deplorable work conditions that many faced or after work as a community activity.  Today though, most blues performers use music as their career.  All of the performers that I saw at the House of Blues were either professional musicians or aspiring musicians.  Blues has also been traditionally an African American music genre, but in more recent years, white music artists such as Eric Clapton and Stevie Ray Vaughan have become famous for their blues style, although the genre is still dominated by African Americans.  The roots of blues includes spirituals, so much of blues even today contains Christian elements, but is not as prominent as it used to be.  At the Dallas House of Blues, food is a very common activity shared by people listening to the blues.  In most cultures, partaking of a meal with others is a sign of friendship and fellowship.  And this holds especially true at the House of Blues and Dallas blues culture.  Since the blues is so strongly tied to Southern culture, and food plays an integral part of Southern style, a meal and music are commonly put together.  The food at the House of Blues greatly enhances the total experience there.  For instance, at my second visit to the House of Blues Dallas, I had dinner at the restaurant before the show.  I ate chicken fried steak and mashed potatoes and green beans- an iconic Southern classic.  I also have had fish and chips and an all-you-can-eat crawfish boil, which I will tell y’all about in a later post.

Ideas about the Blues

Dallas blues culture believes in “racial and spiritual harmony through love, peace, truth, righteousness and non-violence”, according to the House of Blues Dallas, which is the hub of blues in the metroplex.  The blues originated from spirituals and work chants of southern African American communities in the late 1800’s.  Therefore, blues can be defined as a form of expression during times of sorrow.  The blues provided a rhythmic encouragement to persevere and helped to develop unity between fellow laborers.  In today’s Dallas blues scene, the music still retains these roots of companionship through music, but has developed more into the entertainment industry’s idea of music- a more mainstream, marketable form of the blues that is seen more as a show than a way of life.  The style of dress is very casual and unpretentious, much like the music itself.  Today, Dallas blues culture prefers artists to have a proficiency in guitar, with similar skills to that of Muddy Waters, Howlin’ Wolf, and B.B. King. The blues can be performed anytime.  At the House of Blues, there are performances almost every night.  Even on some Sundays, the House of Blues hosts a Gospel Brunch, where an African American choir performs the spiritual blues accompanied by instrumentalists and comfort-food breakfast and lunch are served.  

Many ethnomusicologists agree that the first blues song ever published is a song titled “Dallas Blues” by Hart Wand.  The blues originated in Texas, Louisiana, and the Mississippi Delta and was pioneered by singers such as Ma Rainey and Bessie Smith.  As African American communities began migrating from the south to the north in cities like Chicago and Detroit, transplanted blues artists such as Muddy Waters became very popular, since they sang about their humble urban setting as opposed to their old, rural setting.  These artists began using electric guitars and a band, including standup bass, drums, and a harmonica.  Willie Dixon, a Grammy Award winning Blues Musician once said, “the blues are the roots; everything else is the fruits.”  This style of music helped foster new music genres such as rock n roll and R&B.  These genres became popular with white Americans as well as Europeans, leading to its musical prominence today.  Blues music appeal transcends social class and position, and is appreciated by a wide variety of music aficionados. 

About the House of Blues Dallas

The House of Blues Dallas, established in 2007, is a recent addition to Dallas’ West End. It is in the heart of the entertainment district of Dallas, being near the American Airlines Center and Victory Plaza.   The mission statement of the House of Blues is to create “a profitable, principled global entertainment company, to celebrate the diversity and brotherhood of world culture, [and] to promote racial and spiritual harmony through love, peace, truth, righteousness and non-violence.”  It was opened in the newly renovated White Swan Building, where the historic White Swan Coffee Processing Plant had been since the 1920’s.  The House of Blues Dallas carries similar themes as the other twelve House of Blues around the country: live southern music, folk art, and delta inspired food.  The House of Blues Dallas celebrates folk art with Alan Sainte James Boudrot's "A Dream Come True" and S. Guion's painting of Blues great Robert Johnson, as well as others.  The House of Blues Dallas, as well as the other locations have a “crazy quilt” on display, symbolizing the patchwork culture of southern music, and a metal box full of mud from the Mississippi Delta under the main stage.  

The House of Blues has four separate event spaces.  The Cambridge Room is used for smaller concerts and can hold around 250, which also makes this room ideal for renting for special events.  The Foundation room is used for House of Blues VIP Members and has a fireside lounge with room for less than 200 and small stage, making it a very intimate setting for concerts.  This allows the performers and audience to be much more connected during the performance.  The Restaurant at the House of Blues has a very large collection of folk art.  The Restaurant features a large dining area and stage as well as an outdoor patio and serves southern-style comfort food.  The Music Hall, where the main stage is located, is where most of the concerts at the House of Blues take place.  The hall features a upper level balcony with seating, a standing area in front of the stage, and a small dining area behind, that, when filled, can hold around 1,600, making it a fairly large area.  The House of Blues frequently uses multiple rooms a night to accommodate the many events and performances that take place there.  The House of Blues is Dallas’ premiere venue for big-name, well-known artists looking for an intimate setting to display their talents, along with lots of audience interaction.

This picture, as well as the next one, was taken inside the Music Hall

This is the main stage before the Yonder concert