Category:African Roots and the Delta Blues

In the Mississippi Delta and other rural southern areas, African and African American slaves and workers preserved many African musical traditions, transplanting them into an American context and modifying them accordingly. These traditions were retained by individual, traveling guitar players and singers who pioneered and championed the earliest blues styles. Nonetheless, this early style did not reach far beyond the Delta until "Classic" blues singers and the Great Migration brought it into a much broader audience.