Add other pivotal Mississippi blues players into the mix such as Tommy Johnson and Skip James, and it is easy to see that what’s come to be known as “Delta blues guitar” incorporates a wide spectrum of styles that are a bit hard to pin down into one solid definition. The interesting thing is that these three legendary Mississippi bluesmen don’t really sound very much alike at all, both their guitar and vocal styles were considerably different. Johnson followed in the gargantuan footsteps of older musicians such as Charlie Patton and Son House-and if you were to make an early Mississippi blues Mt Rushmore, these would be three pretty good fellows to start with. At the time of his death in 1938, however, Johnson was only one of numerous excellent blues guitar players making a name for themselves down in the Mississippi Delta. Robert Johnson is the most well-known musician from the Mississippi Delta-you know, the fella who sold his soul to the devil. While this is not really accurate-the blues also developed in the Southeastern United States, Louisiana and Texas-it does point to an interesting fact: Mississippi produced a unique style and sound that had an enormous impact on modern music.
The hot, humid Mississippi Delta is often credited as the birthplace of the blues. So if you want to get to the roots of the guitar’s lineage, you’ve got to start down in the Mississipi swamps. The energy and raw intensity of the Mississippi Delta blues made a deep impression on young British musicians like Eric Clapton and the Rolling Stones, who themselves helped turn the guitar into the iconic instrument of popular music. The acoustic-based Delta blues guitar of Mississippi formed the foundation for the electric guitar of Chicago blues-what most people think of when they think of blues guitar today. The guitar didn’t play a big role in the urban blues of singers such as Ma Rainey and Bessie Smith, but when it comes to Mississippi blues, the style that has come to be known as Delta blues guitar is the focal point.
While the first blues recordings featured female singers and sophisticated musical arrangements, the blues that came out of the Mississippi Delta were more primitive in nature, rougher around the edges. Unquestionably, the acoustic blues guitar of the Mississippi Delta played a huge role in the development of modern popular music-in fact, there just might not be any rock and roll to speak of without it.