1920-1923Southern United States

Folk-Blues

Also known as Country blues

A loose, acoustic-minded blues umbrella with deep roots in Southern U.S. performance culture and later importance in folk revival listening.

Origins and context

Documented in early 20th-century Southern U.S. blues and folk traditions, especially acoustic rural performance and field-recording contexts.

Southern United States

The sound

Characteristics

Acoustic guitar
12-string guitar
Harmonica
Banjo
Mandolin
Jug band

How to listen

Start here

Lead Belly
Blind Lemon Jefferson
Mississippi John Hurt

Mood

Earthy
Intimate
Plainspoken
Weathered

Best for

Acoustic blues listening
Folk revival context
Early rural blues history

History

AllMusic describes folk-blues as a broad blues style usually played on non-electric instruments, with room for guitar, banjo, mandolin, harmonica, and jug-band textures. It is less a single school than a useful umbrella for several regional sounds that grew in the South and spread through rural performance traditions. Its documented history runs through early recorded blues and later folk revival circles. Lead Belly is a central figure here: AllMusic places him among folk-blues artists and notes that his music drew from oral tradition as well as blues, while Smithsonian reporting and the Library of Congress material on Blind Lemon Jefferson place key early blues recordings in the 1920s, when the style was taking shape on record.