Although it's almost certainly not true, a legend about Bessie Smith, the Empress of the Blues, bears repeating if only for the very remarkable fact that it achieved wide currency in the first plac...

"People keep asking me where the blues started and all I can say is that when I was a boy we always was singing in the fields. Not real singing, you know, just hollerin', but we made up our songs a...

Southern Black Population ChangesEstimated rate of lynchings in the South between 1883 and 1905: about one per weekNumber of Black registered voters in Louisiana in 1894: 130,000Number of Black reg...

bones A folk music instrument fashioned from the rib bones or lower leg bones of an animal, though also commonly made of wood. The clicking sound characteristic of the instrument is produced by cla...